What’s the most important (or interesting, or unexpected) thing about blogging you know today that you didn’t know a month ago?

A new fiction contest, 225 words within the day. It’s a good creative exercise and it really makes my Friday.  There are prizes to be won! It’s from Faber’s, a famous name in publishing.  I love challenges and this contest really involves writing to a deadline. If you want some writing practice, add this to your calendar!

I submitted this piece to the Faber Academy  Quickfic challenge this week.

  I need to include the original prompt photo so that the piece makes sense. In line with the Ambitious Drifter’s house rules, I’ve also included one of my own photos.

 The Family Album

 Do you remember this one? It was Florence, one of those weekends away. You  always were a different child, always the centre of attention, always with a crowd  around you. Showing off mainly, even at that age.  Mugging the pigeons for seed, I  think you thought they were getting peanuts or sweets. The talk! ‘Don’t they feed  that child?’ You know the kind of thing. Your poor Mum didn’t know where to put  her face. I suppose there’s always one, you were ours. No wonder Terry wouldn’t  come on holiday with us after that!

Getting you back wasn’t easy either. That bloody dog didn’t help one bit. I wasn’t surprised, but plenty were. Flying off like that. Couldn’t you have a been a normal kid and just run away with the circus?

If your Mum hadn’t had that Mars bar in her handbag I don’t know what we would have done. I’m sure there’s a photo of it somewhere, though I was too busy to take one myself. There you were, sitting on top of that frightful Neptune statue. Thank God it wasn’t the ‘David’ but that had netting around it. It’s lucky that the Carabinerie have a sense of humour, I suppose it’s the comic opera uniforms. Florentines are so laid back, ‘Bambini eh?’ a shrug, a smile. Perhaps they’d seen it all before.

Well, you grew out of it in the end, luckily. You probably don’t remember the seagulls at Whitby either. What a day that was!

From my lounge window, Figeac, France.

More Fiction

 Mr Faraday’s Cage & Other Tales of Obscure Science. 

Mostly Frank

 Copyright notice.