Charlie's birthday and a story about a froglet.
First things first, Charlie’s fourth birthday! We had a 10 minute train trip to Pevensey and Westham, with Charlie’s pal Tucker. They were both scared of the train, but we managed to get them on when they realised that being left behind was worse than being scared! Then we had a short road walk to the church. There’s a path behind it, leading to fields and a stream by Pevensey Castle. Charlie and Tucker had a fantastic time running around and throwing themselves into the water. Miraculously they had dried off by the time we got to the pub. The Royal Oak and Castle is a dog-friendly pub with lovely food. The picnic tables have a hook at the end for dog leads! I had one of the best vegan burgers I’ve ever had, in a locally-made bread bun, with lovely mayonnaise, onion rings and thick, twisty fries. Charlie and Tucker were happy to help with any leftovers.
Aside from jaunts out with my dog, you may be wondering where I am at with my writing? I’ve just sent an entry into a competition I mentioned in previous newsletters. The deadline was midnight on Sunday 1st June (yikes!) and I just made it. The brief was to write a ten-minute play, and the theme had to be ‘Angels’, which we could interpret however we liked. They wanted few characters and a sparse set, so there are two characters and the set is a couple of rooms in their flat. I won’t hear anything until November so I shall put this out of my mind and move on to the next project. This will probably be to write a 2,000 word story for the Globe Soup online writing course I am taking. They give good feedback so I’m learning a lot.
Sadly I wasn’t successful with my playlet for the little writing job in Hastings so I am including it here to see what you make of it. The brief was muddled, with a lot of elements to get into a 300-word story. I had to write a story, for a five-year-old, about a mammal or amphibian who lived in a place called ‘Pebble road’ and explain the folklore of the ‘Pond people’ who had to be fairies. The organisers gave the option of writing from the creature’s perspective, or that of a child, and of writing in prose or in dialogue. I tried to incorporate all of these things into my story, which I ended up writing the evening before the deadline. This is not a recommended strategy, but here is what I came up with:
Freya the froglet
Freya was a froglet, halfway between a tadpole and a frog.
Her pond was by the side of Pebble Road, halfway between the Pebble Road Primary School and Pebble Wood.
Freya was learning how to live on land. Her body had grown lungs, in place of gills, so that she could breathe in oxygen. Her Mum, June, was teaching her how to hide from predators, and how to jump safely, but Freya was more interested to know why there were little people living in the pond.
Her Mum told her that they were the fairy folk, guardians of the pond.
‘Each one has a crown on her head, and woven round the crown is the flower they are named after. Daisy has a chain of daisies winding through her crown, and Rose has some beautiful pink roses in hers. Jasmine’s crown smells the best. Then there is Lily, Hyacinth, Poppy and Dahlia. The crowns on their heads are tambourines. One tap of the tambourine starts a bit of magic. With their special powers they can stop bad things happening in our pond.’
Freya asked how they did that, and her Mum gave her an example:
‘One day a man came over to the pond to cut down our reeds. Lily fairy knew that many creatures needed the reeds to hide in. She saw Veronika the hornet at the water’s edge, sipping some water. ‘Bang’ went Lily’s tambourine, right next to Veronika’s ear. Veronika shot up in the air, making a terrifyingly loud buzzing sound. The man took one look at Veronika, dropped his gardening tools and started running away. He never came back to work at the pond.’
Freya thought that was very funny. She realised how lucky they were having the pond people protecting their environment.
The End
Next time…. Discover Bexhill’s connection to the painter L.S. Lowry