‘Much Dithering in Little Botheringham’ is an everyday tale of village life and vampires, from Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook.

“Okay. So we need a plan.”
Em was thinking at her usual pace, and when Agnes opened her mouth she silenced her with an upraised hand.
“Very well. This is what we do…”
Ginny looked as if she might have been about to argue, but Agnes elbowed her sharply and hissed.
“When the Queen tells us what to do we at least listen before we argue.”
“Ginny. You accept the parish council gig, and if you could remember to appear wispy and ineffectual it would be helpful. Agnes. You set your family mafia on planning applications. Once we find out what they are after we can spike their guns. In the meantime I’m about to sink my principles and make friends with the television bloke who left me his card after the vicar went batshit about the bats. Any questions?”
“Hundreds,” Agnes said cheerfully, “but until we find out what the heck is toward nobody can answer any of them. Ginny, you better come home with me now, and I’ll give you some reading material. Normally you’d be living in my house for a month or so while you learn. But I don’t think we want old Harmless-Peashooter to know you are one of us just yet.”
Em frowned. “Agnes. Less of the Harmless-Peashooter if you please. With money behind him the gormless bastard could be dangerous.”
Agnes sighed. “I know. It just helps to think of him by his nickname. Otherwise he’s….”
She stopped in the middle of what she was saying and stared into the middle distance.
Em looked at Ginny and mouthed ‘thinking’.
Agnes showed her teeth in a feral grimace. “Now perhaps we can begin to understand why the housing association is bullying its tenants.”
“Explain yourself Agnes.”
“Well. If you think back twenty years. When Harmsley-Gunn sold the building land to the council we all thought he rather shot himself in the foot.”
“Of course we did. And now he needs to sort it. Yes. I cede you that point Agnes.”
Ginny made a noise like a confused sheep. “Can someone please explain.”
“Yes. Sorry. Harmsley-Gunn owns a rather large tract of land running from the middle of the village down to the river. It’s no use agriculturally, and there is supposed to be some sort of a covenant preventing it from being built on.”
Agnes took over. “And even if the rotten little chiseller thinks he has found a way around the covenant there’s no practicable access. Except through the little housing estate.”
Ginny narrowed her eyes and Em thought how un-sheeplike she was when aroused to anger.
“We’re saying, then, that the housing association is trying to get rid of its tenants and make a killing selling its land?”
“Looks mighty like. Either that or they are being pressured to do so by an irresistible force and an offer they literally can’t refuse.”
“And I assume we are not going to let them get away with it?”
“No. Not if we can stop it and we can try very hard to do that. I will have a high-powered solicitor here tomorrow. The tenants association just gots itself a fighting fund.”
“Tenants association? Since when has there been one of them?”
“Since about a couple of hour’s time, when Jamelia rounds up a couple of the residents to form one.”
Agnes snorted. “I do wonder if HG realises he has a tiger by the tail.”
Em shrugged. “I doubt he will notice until I bite his face off.” She noticed Ginny’s horrified expression. “Metaphorically, sister.”

Part 23 of Much Dithering in Little Botheringham by Jane Jago and E.M. Swift-Hook, will be here next week.

If I ruled the world,
Though I’d never wish to,
With banners unfurled
I’d gift it to you-
To you who are poor,
Who are lowly and weak,
To you who have nothing
And never dare speak
To you who have knowledge
Who’ve seen what’s been done
Who study this world
And know how it’s run
To you who ask little
And suffer so deep
Who’d care for this world
and it safely keep
Then maybe I’d sit back
And know that these lands
Were shared and protected
And in very good hands
But for now is this world
Torn by folly and greed
And lusting for power
Trumps all our need.

E.M. Swift-Hook

Dai watched the familiar countryside roll by and tried to forget, rather than obsess about, the fact that he was lying to his bride of less than a month – and on two issues. Well, lying by omission. He had promised himself he was not going to keep anything from her about his working life. She had lived it herself and her security clearance had been higher than his until his sudden promotion.
Even his friend, and newly appointed Senior Investigator, Bryn Cartivel had warned him. Slapping him on the back the day before Dai’s wedding as they were taking a final drink in the Londinium taberna that had seen so much of their custom over the previous eight years.
“Two bits of advice from a long-married man to one about to take the plunge. One is never forget she is always right, even when you think you are and two – never – and I mean never – keep secrets from her.” Bryn burped loudly and adopted a fatherly look. “You see, if you get to the day you think you’re always right and she’s wrong or start finding there are things you can’t tell her – well, that’s the day your marriage hits the rocks.”
“You can’t tell your wife everything,” Dai protested. “I mean half the stuff from work is -”
“Everything she wants to know,” Bryn cut over his protest, then dropped a heavy wink. “But then my Gwen she’d know if I was keeping things from her. She’s descended from a long line of Druids on her mother’s side.”
The trouble was Bryn was right and these were things Julia would want to know – things Dai wanted to tell her. But it was not in his hands. These were secrets he had been ordered to keep from her.

The first had arisen in a conversation with the Tribune in charge of the praetorians in Britannia – Decimus Lucius Didero, foster-brother to Julia. He had summoned Dai on the pretext of a meeting about some legality around the marriage and had not been at all repentant about his duplicity.
“This is serious, Llewellyn and is a big part of how I swung this post your way. Our intelligence people are saying that a lot of dangerous contraband is getting in through the coast there and Viriconium is the hub of it. We need someone who is accepted by the British community and who we can trust. You fit the bill.”
“And here I was thinking I got the job on my merits as an Investigator alone.” Dai made no attempt to keep the cynicism from his tone. He had been wondering why this had come his way and was not too surprised to find it had been for reasons other than those put out for public consumption.
Decimus grinned at him.
“Well my sister falling for your baby-blue eyes helped as well,” he admitted, then he switched back to the clipped tones of before. “As if the smuggling isn’t enough we are talking a major anti-Roman group somewhere in the area and they have their fingers deep in our pies. We need to know who they are and how they are being financed and supplied before they start out on a major terrorist campaign. I’m sending you out with twenty of my lads under their own decanus, a good man Brutus Gaius Gallus. You may need them. We have no idea how high or deep this thing goes – even the Magistratus is not in the clear. So trust no one there and I mean no one.”
Dai took a moment to digest the implications. He had known it was going to be hard enough taking on a post he had been over-promoted to fill. But he had been looking forward to learning his way in and doing so with Julia’s sharp insight and wisdom to help. But Decimus had just taken that fond daydream of a bucolic honeymoon easing into things and blown it away. He realised now why, when he had asked for permission to relocate with some of his old team he had not met with more resistance.
“Julia will need…”
“Julia will not be told anything about it, Llewellyn.” Decimus sounded almost ferocious. Then he drew a breath and sighed. “She has been through too much, I am not having her dragged into this. She needs a chance to have some simple happiness with no more to worry about than what colour she wants to paint the guest bedroom.”
Which, Dai reflected rather grimly, probably showed more of wishful thinking on Decimus’ part than any true understanding of what Julia would want or need.
“I think she might notice Brutus Gaius Gallus and his men hanging around,” Dai said pointedly. “My wife is many things, but she is neither unintelligent nor unobservant.” And you of all people should know that, he added in the privacy of his own mind.
“Relax, Llewellyn. They have an official reason for being there and wandering around wherever. Amongst his other talents, Gallus once served as a bandmaster and all the men with him can play instruments. They are going to be there to learn some traditional British music as part of a ‘Hearts and Minds’ Arts initiative – a real one, believe it or not, from those effete, money-wasting idiots in Rome. But it gives them the cover we need for this, so some good comes out of it.”
It was sounding more and more complex and Dai’s heart plummeted.
“So you are pitching me in against smugglers, terrorists, corrupt Roman administrators, and whoever is behind them?”
Decimus pulled a face.
“You about have the size of it. But you are not exactly going in alone. You’ll have my praetorians and your own people and as soon as you have anything solid we can act on I’ll bring half a legion in to clean up if need be. But we can’t pounce until we have a target.”
“Don’t you have undercover people doing that kind of stuff? I don’t see how I’m going to succeed where they have failed.”
“This is deep Britannia, Llewellyn,” the Tribune reminded him. “The arse end of the Empire, hanging over the edge half the time. Hell man, you should know you grew up there. These are people who only trust someone they have known from birth and who has a British pedigree you could unroll from there to Londinium. We don’t have that many such people just lying around – in fact we have one. You.”

From Dying for a Poppy, one of the Dai and Julia Mysteries by E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

I am not looking
For a new home
I’m in the place
I call my own
I am not seeking
A younger spouse
To make a mess
About the house
I am not hunting
Enlightenment
I’m old enough now
To be content
I am not looking
To change my lot
I’m rather pleased with
What I’ve got
I have no interest
In improving me
Just fuck off now
And let me be

©️jj 2020

An extract from  How To Start Writing A Book brought to you courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

To whoever is deluded enough to read this crap.

This is Jacintha Farquhar, woman of a certain age, and distaff parent of the delusional and currently incapacitated Moons. I never thought I’d feel sorry for the poor self-centred little twat. But I do. I actually hurt for him. He’s so bruised and battered that I have sent him away to lick his wounds in the fleshpots of Mykonos. I packed him off with a bag of clothes, a few smutty novels, and an introduction to a couple of gay friends who run a very popular bar there. As to what precisely happened to the sad little bugger, that’s his business. I’m not about to discuss it with a bunch of prurient wannabes. If he wants to tell you when he gets back into the saddle that’s his affair. But for now, mind your own…
If it was up to me, I’d stop this crap too. However, it means a lot to my battered son, so I have promised to keep it going until he returns from his sabbatical.
I have decided to write about life lessons, because if you lot really want to write anything decent you’ve got to live it first.

Life Lessons for Writers – One: Alcohol.

In almost every piece of adult literature you will find booze, and as a general rule boozing falls into one of half a dozen categories:

Polite drinking.
Social drinking.
Party drinking.
Getting pissed drinking.
Drowning the sorrows drinking.
Alcoholism.

So then, where are you on the scale? A sherry on the third Thursday of every month? Prosecco hangovers on Sunday mornings? A bottle of vodka in every cupboard in the house?

Whatever your own consumption, consider that as the strongest use of alcohol you should ever write about. Of course, many of you will be timid shits like my poor little bastard of a son, and will consider a glass of Fernet Branca on a sunny afternoon to be the height of decadence. But on the other side of your shiny little threepenny bit you will be wanting to write about drinking and roistering. Well. You bloody can’t….
If you want to write about a drunken orgy, bloody well find one (effing Google it) and go and get completely off your face.
In the same vein, if you really want to write about the miseries of a hangover, or the utter awfulness of drinking so much you vomit what feels like your toenails into the gutter, then at least have the frigging courage to try it out and see what it really feels like. My recipe for the first: a bottle of good red wine with your dinner, followed by at least a dozen cocktails, and four large brandies. To achieve the second, take recipe one and add a kebab and half a bottle of Bucky at the end.
When you’ve done that. And taken a week to recover. Then you can write something that will be at least recognisable as real.

Now piss off and get on with it, because, to be brutally honest, you lot are getting on my tits right now and I’ve a hot date with a half-bottle of calvados.

Next week: Hair pulling and brawls.

Jacintha Farquar, unfortunate mother of Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

Allfather decided that criminal proclivities were predetermined and could be discovered in the face, and imperfect babies were to be strangled at birth.

It would have been nice to say that criminality declined in line with the policy, but it wasn’t so. Ugliness, on the other hand, dropped dramatically. But even with this obvious failure of the programme, the process became so ingrained in the psyche of the people that conformity became the only criterion for survival.

It’s a shame then, that those who confirmed came from only one family. Criminality finally declined when the young became too stupid to steal…

©️jj 2020

Leonore went on with her day with a lightness of heart that had been a rare thing of late. Time flew by, and it wasn’t until the sun was setting that she had leisure to think about her draconic visitor. She sat on her bed and considered the events of the last night. They made no sense, and she had just about convinced herself that he was a figment of her imagination created by tiredness and stress, when a familiar chuckle sounded inside her head.
“Where are you?”
He laughed.
“I’m on the roof. Waiting for you to call. And you didn’t imagine me, although it was your sadness that allowed me to find you.”
“How so?”
“Sometimes when a person feels their spirit has been all but overwhelmed, a spark within them calls to their soulmate and, if the portents are correct, that soulmate can come to them.”
“Are you saying that you are my soulmate?”
“I’m saying that I must be. Because you are mine.”
“I am?”
“Yes. Of course you are. I’m a dragon. If I didn’t feel like that I wouldn’t have watched over your rest.”
“You weren’t just being kind?”
“L’e’onore. Dragons are never kind. I came to you because your soul called to mine.”
She sighed.
“Why a dragon?”
“I might as well say why a human?”
Leonore sat down plump on the floor not sure whether to laugh or cry.
“Come down to the garden, let’s talk.”
She didn’t move, and the dragon’s voice grew plaintive.
“Please come down L’e’onore.”
“I don’t understand. Am I going mad?”
“No. You are not. Just come down here. Please.”
She got up and went downstairs to where R’u’uth awaited her with the rays of the setting sun turning his scales blood red.
Leonore caught her breath.
“You are so beautiful,” she breathed and R’u’uth smiled.
“We might want to talk about that later” he said and the warmth in his voice had her feeling a tingle in the pit of her stomach but she pushed it away as perverse. Even so, she couldn’t prevent herself walking to his side and resting the palms of her hands on his sun-warmed flanks.
He turned his head and nipped her wrist with his needle-sharp teeth. She was surprised by how pleasurable the small pain felt and a blush mantled her cheeks.
R’u’uth laughed at her discomfiture but his laughter was kindly.
“Never mind lovely,” his voice was full of affection. “Come for a fly.”
Leonore looked into his eyes and felt her own excitement rise.
“A fly? Can I?”
The dragon bent the knee and she scrambled onto his back where she found a spot between his wings.
He threw her a smile over his shoulder before taking a few running steps and spreading his wings with a snap.
“We are together L’e’onore. Together. And we will fly high.”

©️jane jago

Pearls of wisdom from an octogenarian who’s seen it all…

Afternoon Tea

I’m ambivalent about the concept, but if we have to do the thing I am very firm in my ideas of what the food should be.

Sandwiches. Tiny. Just acceptable. Cucumber – okay. Cheese – okay. Ham – okay. Not okay: peanut butter, any sort of fish.

Small cakes. Okay.

Scones featherlight. Absolutely essential. Cheese ones with chilli jam. Fruit ones with butter. Sweet ones with jam and clotted cream. In fact, just do the scones. The rest is shite….

Unless. Doughnuts. Never underestimate the joy of a doughnut.

And to drink?

Cappuccino. I fucking hate tea.

Or. Of course champagne. Pink champagne.

It was her ninety-fifth birthday and Cara was up and about at her usual time getting ready to go to work. She shared toast and marmalade and a nice cup of tea with her husband, who treated her to a birthday kiss before they went their separate ways – he to his home office where he was a remote pilot of a drone service and she to her work in a local school.
It was a bracing morning and Cara wondered how it must have been back in the days before they developed the techniques that prevented the decline and muscle-loss of ageing. Of course, it was fifty years ago now, prompted by fears of population collapse and a massive rise in an elderly population unable to care for themselves, governments had finally put the required investment into the research that was even then back in the 2020s, producing remarkable results in mice. Within ten years ‘age-related illness’ had become largely a thing of the past and soon after that, decades were added to human life by the same simple techniques.
As she greeted the handful of children in her class, Cara reflected that she probably had another fifty or even eighty years she could now look forward to and all lived as a productive member of society.
Life was good!

E.M. Swift-Hook

Miranda was delighted that fashion had changed.

Not so long ago she had needed to ask her friends, regarding every new item of clothing she got:

“Does my bum look big in this?”

She knew their polite denials were from kindness and she spent many years wearing nothing but baggy joggers or long tunic tops to cover that unfortunate derriere.

Then things suddenly changed.

Big bottoms had somehow become all the rage. She was not sure how, or why, but she was utterly thrilled.

Miranda put on her shorts and went out in the street, brimming with new found confidence.

E.M. Swift-Hook