Though the biggers never see it, there is much going on in their own backyard where the ‘nomes make their home…

There was panic in the garden. Granny had lost a knitting needle. Nomes scuttled in every direction hunting high and low.

“We gotta find it or the ole bat’ll make our lives a misery.”

“We have but it’s a puzzle to me how it got lost. Her don’t hardly move from that bliddy tidstool.”

Brenda stopped dead. “Her don’t, do her.”

She strode back to where Granny sat, rigid and complaining.

“Stand up.” 

Even Granny obeyed when Brenda used that voice.

The needle fell from the mouldering haystack of Granny’s clothing. She grabbed it and life went back to normal.

Jane Jago

A dictionary for the bemused by Jane Jago…

azamon (noun) – unfriendly elf, purveyor of all the things you never know you needed 

delte (adjective) – geographical, of rivers, having a small muddy estuary but big aspirations

dismissibve (adverb) – of mansplaining the action of flapping a hand at any raised objections

flestive (adjective) – of Christmas decorations being old and mildly mouldy

moced (verb) – past  participle of the verb to moce – to move slightly awkwardly as if one has a stone in one’s left shoe

mucter (noun) – small Caledonian gentleman with a large ginger moustache and galloping halitosis

out to fo (compound idea) – of hen parties looking for fast food, a fight or a f***

relaly 1. (noun) – special race for clumsy people who keep dropping the baton.
2. (adverb) – of relationships, describes the moment in an argument when you want to poke his eyes out with a knitting needle

suoth (adjective) – directionally challenged

Ther Elet (proper noun) – Miss Universe contestant from the planet Thrab, notable for her rendition of Mull of Kintyre on the Appalachian Nose Flute

trpuble (adjective) – of pubic hair being inexpertly barbered

virhin (noun) – female who last had sex a very long time ago

Disclaimer: all these words are genuine typos defined by Jane Jago. The source of each is withheld to protect the guilty.

Because life happens…

Exploring the mysteries of life through the versatile medium of limerick poetry.

Growing older is not such a curse
The alternative’s certainly worse
So do all you might
To take some delight
Afore you get to ride in a hearse

E.M. Swift-Hook

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV takes time from his immensely important life to proffer profound advice to those who still struggle on the aspirational slopes of authorhood…

Dear Reader Who Writes,

One somehow cannot bring oneself to address you as ‘Dear RWW’. Mummy has always insisted that one should be punctiliously polite (a skill she herself was taught by the nuns at a frightfully expensive Swiss Finishing School). Thus such a contraction of the words feels too informal for a budding relationship, although please know that is how one thinks of you, one’s little chums, since we have become so much better acquainted. I shall, however, make free use of that reduction in the main body of my text. You will have heard I am known as ‘Ivy’ to those whom I allow close familiarity – but you may call me Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV.

As the author of science fiction and fantasy – “Fatswhistle and Buchtooth” – Amazon’s one millionth on the bestseller charts and a masterclass in ‘how to’ in its own right – I feel I have the perfect credentials to offer you the highest of heuristic insights to release your own inner writer.

For those of you who have been following one’s bon mots, one will continue to offer you the benefit of one’s deep and sympathetic wisdom. And to those who have only just had the inestimable good fortune to discover my erudition and brilliance, I bid you welcome.

Pre-Writing Ritual

Tuneful tintinnabulation: Summoning the muse with music has its antecedents in acts of sympathetic magic from across our spinning globe. Like summons like. So with the aid of Eurtepe and Aoede we may bring forth Erato and Calliope. One’s musical accompaniment should be reproduced in the most audiologically pleasing manner that one’s pecuniary resources may obtain.

Oh how one longs for a full orchestra, seated in the shrubbery and serenading as one captures the essence of the Muse! But that is not to be, and, as Mummy genteelly opined when I requested this: ‘Don’t be such a twat, Moony, the bastards would only trample the euphorbia’.

Therefore one has had the inestimable good fortune to become acquainted with a young lady named Alexa, who responds to one’s every whim and command. Sympatico….

Before I even think of adding a single word to my new magnum opus ‘Fatswhistle and Buchtooth Go Forth’, I must first suffuse the atmosphere with my own especially blended symphony of scent (see the last lesson) and listen to the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth exactly eight times. I follow this with the closing sequence of the 1812 Overture – ensuring that it is a recording with real cannon – to awaken my inner author from his sophoric slumbers deep within. Then either ‘Eine Kleine Nachtmusik’ or Handel’s ‘Music for the Royal Fireworks’, so as to appease the higher cognitive aspects of my psyche. I am then ready to soothe the sybaritic segregations of my soul with something profound and sensitive and will put on Pure Peruvian Flutes, Whale Songs or Perry Como.

Please, gentle RWW, do not be fooled into thinking I actually write to any of this. No – this is all about preparing the psyche from heights to depths in order that the eventual overlay of choice melodies, selected to match the mood and theme of one’s authorial flow, can wash deeper into the creative mind. It is indeed a ritual akin to religious profundity and it is worth the hour and a half which one gives over to it before one begins to write. Without it, one could not unlock the core of one’s essence and allow the riches within to leach from one’s tender soul onto the polished whiteness of the page.

You are welcome to adopt my musical rites of pre-writing within your own sanctuary to the muses, or develop your own as mine are intended only for a higher mind which is capable of scaling the peaks of literary prowess.

Until next. Adieu estudas. Bon Ecrit!

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound advice in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

The ivy once was lush and green
Until men came along
They wore big boots, their eyes were mean
Their hands were big and strong
They chopped as if their hearts were mad
As if the ivy sinned
So now the post in rags is clad
And shivers in the wind

©️ jj 2024

Since Ben and Joss Beckett took over The Fair Maid and Falcon, they have had to deal with ghosts, gangsters and well dodgy goings-on. Despite that they have their own family of twin daughters and dogs, and a fabulous ‘found family’ of friends. Life seems to be going well when…

It was all Ben’s fault. If he hadn’t suggested we buy two overgrown paddocks, and a small orchard that backs onto the pub garden, none of this would have happened. But he did, and it did. And at least it’ll make a good story for our grandchildren – if he lives long enough to tell it.
But to begin at the beginning.
Ben returned from a meeting of the Parish Council wearing his thoughtful face.
“You got a minute chooch?”
I nodded and he more or less dragged me out of the office and across the garden to our private patio. He sat down on our favourite bench and I cuddled in beside him.
“What’s got you so excited?”
“It’s about the orchard. The one that Jed is dying to get his hands on.”
Jed being the young giant who runs our thriving market garden for us, I nodded encouragingly.
“I’ve just found out that it’s up for sale. The only downside is it comes with the two paddocks on the other side of the lane.”
“I take it the paddocks are of no interest.”
“Not any use for growing stuff, Jed says. But he’d rather like to keep a couple of goats.”
“And we know this because?”
He blushed and shuffled his feet a bit. “I might have been to see him and asked what he thought.”
I couldn’t help laughing at six feet of handsome hunk squirming under my gaze. Sensing that he was off the hook, Ben laughed too.
“Yeah. I know. I was thinking we might get the twins a pony.”
“No. We will not.” I snapped my teeth together. “Nobody has the first idea how to look after a pony, or the time to do it.”
His grin was entirely unapologetic. “I know that now. Jed called me a bliddy fule and Finoula went so far as to bet me a tenner you’d veto the idea straight off.”
I shook my head helplessly. “You owe her a tenner, and you should be feeling grateful that I don’t have the energy to box your ears.”
“What has eaten up your energy, love?”
“We had a mega-madam in at lunchtime. She was rude to just about everyone who dealt with her. Then, after eating all her meal, she decided it wasn’t what she ordered and announced that she wasn’t going to pay for it. She elected to storm off in well-rehearsed indignation. Morgan was managing food service, so she went after her, and the bitch managed to ‘slip’ on a nonexistent damp patch on the floor and whilst ‘saving herself’ backhanded Morg across the face. Hard. I happened to be passing through and I caught that. The ‘lady’ in question found herself in the car park so fast her feet didn’t touch ground. There were a couple of off-duty cops in for tapas and they came out to see the fun. Stupid woman almost got herself arrested for trying to slap one of them, but at least she fecked off. Even so, we’re out the price of her lunch.”
“Oh dear. But we’ve had worse.”
“We have, and we have a video of her getting in my face and swearing, if she chooses to go on social media with her version of events. But she gave me a headache. And poor little Morgan has a nasty cut on her face from madam’s cheap jewellery.”
Morgan is my young assistant and the stepdaughter of our long-term family friend Mark Brown, the managing director of Brown Brothers Security (a very profitable concern that walks a thin line between legitimate security and less legal enforcement). Ben and I love her like she is one of our own tribe and he immediately understood my disquiet. He pulled me into his lap and we cuddled for a minute or two.
“It’s Morgan’s face that upset you isn’t it?”
“Course it is. Far more than it upset her.”
“Where’s Morgan now?”
“She insisted on finishing her shift, but when she was finished, I gave Stella an hour off to take her to see her mum. Stella’s back in the kitchen, baking bread, and she said Debs will bring Morgan home in the morning and that I was specifically ordered not to worry.”
“Maybe try not to worry then.”
“I’m better now I’ve told you.”
“I wonder if I could think of something to make you even more better.” He leered theatrically. “If I remember rightly the gruesome twosome are off to a birthday bash straight from school.”
“I keep telling you not to refer to our charming daughters as gruesome.” I poked him in the ribs, but couldn’t help giggling at the most doting daddy in the land pretending not to be besotted by his daughters. “However. They are indeed out enjoying the fleshpots. We have to pick them up from Maccy D’s at seven o’clock.”
He stood up with me in his arms.
“Plenty of time then.”
A good while later, smoothed and with my headache quite gone, I leaned my elbows on Ben’s chest.
“Tell me about this land.”
“You know about the orchard, and the two scruffy paddocks. Plus there’s a bit of a field that Jed is itching to incorporate into the market garden. It’s about six acres in all.”
“I’m assuming it’s covenanted.”
“Yes. As it falls within the purlieu of the forest it’s not building land, so pasture or market garden.”
“How much are we going to be needing to pay? If it’s full value for agricultural land that might even be ten grand an acre. Which I’m not sure we can justify.”
“That was what I thought. But the present owner wants rid of it as simply and quickly as possible. Offered it to the Parish Council for 25k. The council has no use for the land and no money to buy it. That’s how come it’s been offered to us at the same price.”
“And what do your council chums get in return?”
His grin nearly split his face. “Jack Ellis said we’d not get that past you. I absolutely agreed, but the rest of the dinosaurs were convinced they could outsmart a mere woman. The buggers are after someone to cut the grass in the churchyard. They’re willing to pay, just not what the local contractors want.”
Jack and Brenda Ellis farm the land that borders on the pub, and they have become good friends in the time we have been here, even if Jack is a bit of a rogue. I was pretty sure he’d have been right with Ben, so I drew a bolt at venture.
“What did Jed say about grass cutting? I’m darned sure you and Jack asked him.”
“Said it’s fine by him. So long as it’s cash in hand. Which, I think, was only to discomfit the dinosaurs. Jack went off laughing. Wished me luck.”
I sniggered and polished my fingernails against the front of a shirt I wasn’t wearing before I spoke.
“Twenty-five thousand is eminently find-able.” I thought a bit more. “Even though I don’t see how we can charge anything to the Fair Maid, I’m pretty sure the orchard and the small field can be set against the market garden. And as they will both count as arable land there should be a substantial write-off.”
Ben shook his head admiringly. “Your business brain never fails to amaze me. Now I even begin to see why you insisted on keeping the two businesses separate.”
“That’s only part of the reason. There’s people’s homes at stake too. The way things stand, Jed and Finoula are secure even if the Fair Maid goes tits up. Not that there’s any chance of that while I have breath in my body.”
“Speaking of bodies…”

There will be more from Joss, Ben and their friends, courtesy of Jane Jago, next week, or you can catch up with their earlier adventures in Who Put Her In and Who Pulled Her Out.

Because life can be interesting when you are a non-player character in an online video game…

Milla felt as if she had become suddenly invisible as the two talked in an indecipherable code.
“Is there anything I can do?” she asked as a translucent ring of shields appeared around Pigsy.
Pew shook his head. “Unless… Is your pendant recharged?”
She glanced down and saw it was once again glowing with brilliant light.
“It seems to be.”
He gripped her arm briefly. “When I ask for manapower, do what you did before.”
Then Pigsy was bounding at the figure on the throne and for the next few moments Milla was blinded by dazzling spell effects. In the midst of it all she heard String shout “Out!” and she had to step back against the wall as the two Visitors nearly crushed her.
“It’s self healing,” Pew said, a real hint of desperation in his tone, “and I’ll be out of manapower soon.”
Beneath the throne Ruffkin was scrabbling at the back of his cage and as she watched him, her heart aching, Milla realised that there was a simple sliding bolt holding it shut. The two men had moved in again and Milla made up her mind. Even if they couldn’t defeat this lich lord, maybe she could rescue Ruffkin whilst it was distracted by having to defend itself. She reached out her hand and sent the manapower from her pendant to Pew, then slipped around the walls, careful to avoid the combat zone. The Visitors and their foe were so focused on the fight none of them noticed her as she left the safety of the wall and ran quickly in and up the steps to the throne from behind.
Ruffkin saw her and redoubled his efforts to escape, scabbling desperately. She reached the cage just as String shouted “Out!” again. But she ignored him. The boney bolt slipped as she tried to grip it, and then jammed solid. She drew the knife Pew had given her, hoping she could prize the bolt open with the point of it. Instead, the cage burst apart as soon as the tip of the blade touched it. Ruffkin shot out and pausing only to lick at her face, scurried to the back wall where Milla could now see there was a small hole in the shadows.
From the doorway she heard a shout.
“No! Pew!”
She looked back in time to see a bolt of black lightning piece through Pew’s chest, lifting him off the ground before he collapsed unmoving.
“Nooo!” Her own anguished shout echoed back String’s words and without thinking of the danger she leapt onto the rear of the throne and stabbed down with the dagger into the back of the lich lord. The force of the explosion threw her against the wall and the world dissolved into sparks and shards.
When things came back into focus she opened her eyes to see Pew crouched beside her, his snout wrinkled with worry.
“Pew? I saw you…”
“String rezzed me. But you, you dispelled the lich lord. String was on his last hit point. You saved us from wiping.” He sounded almost in awe.
“I was just rescuing Ruffkin,” she murmured and slipped back into unconsciousness.

Some days later Milla was sitting on the beach with Ruffkin and Pew, enjoying a picnic of fruit tea and flyberry cookies from One Eye’s shop. She was thinking that maybe ventures weren’t quite what she had believed them to be and that perhaps she preferred her life beachcombing after all.
“String is still convinced it was a glitch in the game and reported it,” Pew was saying. “He claimed that as I wasn’t given the quest reward it needed fixing. He just didn’t get that I’d refused to accept your pendant. Anyway, the devs said they never even put the quest he’s complaining about into the game. They said it doesn’t exist. So he rage quit.”
“Rage quit?”
“Deleted all his characters and left the game.”
“That sounds a bit drastic.” Milla shivered even though the day was as hot as it always was in Wrathburnt Sands. Something about the word ‘deleting’ seemed so terribly final.
Pew picked up a stick and threw it for Ruffkin who bounded happily after it.
“It is. But I know String. He’ll come back sooner or later. And meanwhile, I don’t care if you’re a glitch or not. To me you are just my amazing Milla.”
His hand found hers and held it tight.

Log on to Wrathburnt Sands by E.M. Swift-Hook for the 11th Quest next week.

‘Wrathburnt Sands’ and ‘Return to Wrathburnt Sands’ were first published in Rise and Rescue: A GameLit Anthology and in Rise and Rescue Volume 2: Protect and Recover.

Though the biggers never see it, there is much going on in their own backyard where the ‘nomes make their home…

It was a sad fact that being called Graham didn’t go with being a nome. And neither did a penchant for long words, a leaning towards political leftism, and a plant based diet.

All of which meant Graham took an awful lot of bullying, thinly disguised as ‘banter’ from a section of the garden community. Until one night, under a gibbous moon, his patience snapped.

Next morning, the croquet lawn resembled a war zone, with disembodied bits of nome broadcast like discarded toys.

Bertha smiled grimly. “If they gets reassembled, maybe them buggers’ll learn when a joke stops being funny.”

Jane Jago

A dictionary for the bemused by Jane Jago…

anythign (adjective) – of or pertaining to thighs

bluche (verb) – to walk as if constipated

celebreate (noun) – a celibate who has weekends off

dup of tes (noun geographic) – a group of islands in the south seas notable for bad dentistry and useless morality tales

effiencent (adjective) – of beer, bubbly but clouded and very yeasty

eriting (verb) – the peculiar practice of placing a peanut up one nostril and whistling Dixie

graet (verb) of authors to proclaim one’s own small talent a lot louder than it deserves

nekkis (adjective) – wearing oddly mismatched clothing at least two sizes too small

nlog (noun) – particularly hard fecal matter of an unfeasibly large circumference

overwhenling (adverb) – of locomotion unbearably slow and accompanied by rusty creaks

pricry (verb) – to sob uncontrollably when you can not afford something

siempunk (noun ) – tramp with good hair

usignt eh (noun) – a genus of small mammals famous for their short memories and large ears

wetaher (noun) – lachrymose woman

wodner (noun) one who is perpetually half sexually aroused. Hence the phrase ‘to walk like a wodner’

Disclaimer: all these words are genuine typos defined by Jane Jago. The source of each is withheld to protect the guilty.

Because life happens…

Exploring the mysteries of life through the versatile medium of limerick poetry.

You know you are old when you say
Things were never like that in my day
And you no longer care
To spend hours on your hair
Cos you’d much rather go out and play

E.M. Swift-Hook