crispina kemp

Marilyn prided herself on her swimming abilities – twice she had swum St George’s Channel – so when Daphne down at the White Swan challenged her to swim Dickerson’s pond she treated it as a bit of a joke. “You can’t be serious!”

But Daphne was serious, and Marilyn accepted – though with a haughty flourish.

“What’s that disgusting smell and that scum?” Marilyn asked on the day.

“Oh, that?” Daphne made a gesture of irrelevance. “That’s just leakage from Dickerson’s piggery.”

The photos taken of the… non-event, along with a report, now grace the walls of the White Swan bar.

Note: The featured pond is at Brooke, in Norfolk, UK; the film on the water is only pollen

Freddy opened the small canvas-seated fishing stool his grandson had bought him five Christmases back and set it firmly on the woodland floor. From his satchel he pulled out his props – a sketch pad and pencil. The fabric creaked beneath his weight as he settled, but he was used to that now. He opened the pad at the part-drawn tree. And as he had done every day since Poppy ran away, he waited. Some days it seemed to him she did speak. But most days her head and her voice remained hidden in the tree that had taken his beloved away.