Monthly Archives: January 2017

January 26, 2017 · 1:19 PM

25. Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck (100 book challenge)

I had a gift voucher to spend at the local book shop and was excited to buy a few from the 100 book challenge list. The Penguin and Vintage classics were selling for $14 each so I began searching the shelves for familiar titles.

At one stage I had War and Peace in one hand and Of Mice and Men in the other. The former is a whopping 580,000 words and the latter a mere 30,000. Being part of the classics range, they were both $14. It seemed a no-brainer: War and Peace was much more value for money. Just 2.4 cents per 1000 words.

I had my 6 month old daughter in the pram, and she had started to fidget. She wanted out. I put the books down to lift her out of the pram. Baby on hip, I then decided which of the two books I would add to my collection.

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January 26, 2017 · 9:24 AM

Way too serious (Friday Fictioneers)

Image by Al Forbes

Back in the car, Eloise was smirking. From under her shirt she pulled a vintage brass car horn.

“I snapped it off that old-timey car back there. It’s for our long drives.”

Jay’s jaw dropped.

She continued. “I’ll honk it if I think you’re getting too up tight.”

He frowned. “You can’t go around stealing!”

She laughed. “See? You’re way too serious… all the time.”

“This isn’t funny!”

She held the horn up to his face.

“Eloise!”

HEEEE-HONK!

He stopped talking. And the hint of a smile crept into the corners of his mouth.

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I recently finished Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland as part of my 100 book reading challenge. See what I thought of it by clicking here.

Friday Fictioneers is a challenge set by Rochelle each week where writers from around the world post 100 word stories based on a common photo prompt. For more information, and to read other stories, visit Rochelle’s page here.

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January 24, 2017 · 2:23 PM

24. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll (100 book challenge)

I’d seen the movie a hundred times as a kid, but I don’t know if I’d ever read the book. I think I’d tried a few times (the first few pages seemed very familiar) but never made it all the way through.

Ahhh, but as I’m quickly learning with this 100 book challenge, sometimes one needs to have a bit of maturity behind them to truly appreciate what an author is trying to get across (I discovered this recently when I read To Kill a Mockingbird).

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January 18, 2017 · 9:18 PM

Tunnel vision (Friday Fictioneers)

Image by Dale Rogerson at https://adelectablelife.com

Not one of the photos Jay took with his new camera at Tunnel View turned out.

Eloise flicked through the photos on her phone.

‘Here’s the one I took.’

Jay scoffed at the photo she’d taken from the road. ‘Those crowds of people in your photo ruin it.’

She shrugged. ‘It shows what happened. It’s not pretending to be something it’s not.’

In the photo was Jay. Arms stretched high trying to get a perfect shot of the valley with no one else in it.

And attached securely to the end of his Canon EF 16-35mm was the lens cap.

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January 11, 2017 · 8:47 PM

A bridge is a bridge (Friday Fictioneers)

Image by CE Ayr at https://ceayr.com/

‘Breathtaking.’

Jay was a statue as he stared at the rust red structure in front of them.

‘Incredible. A hundred times better in real life.’

Eloise shrugged her shoulders. ‘Bit of a let down, I reckon.’

Jay glared at her. ‘A let down?!’

‘One thing, it’s not even-’

Jay interrupted. ‘Gold. Everyone says that.’

Eloise bit her lip. ‘But not just that. It’s… I was expecting arches and pylons and suspension cables. Not this one metal beam across a railway line and a few roads.’

She paused, then asked earnestly, ‘Are you sure this is actually the Golden Gate Bridge?’

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January 4, 2017 · 8:54 PM

Braking point (Friday Fictioneers)

Image by Sandra Crook at https://castelsarrasin.wordpress.com

‘You moronic piece of @#$%! My beautiful bike. She’s ruined forever!’

‘Ummm…’

‘It’s like you were trying to run me over!’

‘Ummm… Maybe I was driving a tad fast.’

‘A tad? A tad! Idiot!’

‘Ummm… sorry?’

‘The brakes are completely messed up! The gears are everywhere. That chain’ll never go back on. How the hell am I getting to Vegas now?’

Windows down, they sped along the I-15 towards Nevada. Eloise let her hair blow wildly across her face as she struggled to hide her smile. She’d never liked that rusty old thing and the brakes hadn’t worked for years.