Lance Greenfield's Blog, page 12

Esther’s and Lance’s Laugh-along-a-Limerick

It’s Monday and limerick time.

Esther is still travelling the road to recovery with lots of excruciating pain at the hands of her physio. We wish her well and we look forward to her return to blogging.

In the meantime, she has kindly allowed me to act as her (rather inferior!) substitute in posting this weekly challenge.

We each have a one-word prompt for you. Please respond in the Comments with your limerick(s) based on these words, or make up your own to suit your mood in the moment.

Esther’s word: RAGE

Lance’s word: RUST

Can you tell a story in . . .

It’s Thursday and, with kind permission from Esther Chilton, your new five-word challenge is here. This week, your prompt is CURVE. So can you tell a story in five words, using the word CURVE in it somewhere?

Newsflash!

Although Esther is still in too much pain to type full blogs, she dropped me a quick message to add three words of her own as prompts for your five-word stories. She has also promised to provide us with a prompt for the regular Limericks challenge on Monday.

Here are Esther’s three words for today.

HAIR

COLD

BAR

And you can still use CURVE if you wish.

Esther will be posting your contributions to last week’s challenge (KISS, SANDWICH, DEODORANT) on her own blog when she has recovered enough to start blogging again.

Please re-blog for maximum participation.

Have a go! It’s just for fun.

Lance’s Laugh-along-a-Limerick

I am REALLY missing Esther Chilton’s weekly Monday and Thursday challenges while she recuperates from her painful surgery. They have become part of my life in recent months. I am sure that some of her regulars, listed below, must be missing her as much as I do.

Esther: we all wish you a speedy recovery.

While she is away, she has kindly granted me permission to replicate her Limerick and Five Word Stories, although I admit that I am a poor substitute!

So, a few days late, I give you three words that reflect the nature of the weather, in UK anyway, for the recent May Day Bank Holiday, and look forward to enjoying your limericks if you care to share.

MOIST

DAMP

WET

Regular contributors on Esther’s Blog: Keith Channing, Ritu, Kim Smyth, Christine Mallaband-Brown, Trent’s World, The Hidden Edge, Ruth Scribbles, Tessa, EDC Writing.

Apologies to those for whom I could find no link. Please feel free to forward to everyone you know who might enjoy some fun participation.

Or RE-BLOG if you think that your friends and follower might enjoy the fun.

Why do pheasants WALK across the road?

As I drive along, I wonder why;
Why pheasants walk when they can fly.
Just saw one die.
Oh why? Oh why?
I must confess. I’m sad. I often cry.

Book Review: Sweetpea by CJ Skuse

Rating: 5 out of 5. Sweetpea by C.J. Skuse
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book deserves my five star rating because it is genuinely unputdownable. I have it loaded on my Kindle and found myself reading it on my phone app as I walked with my dog. I just could not stop reading this compelling story.

It is hilarious. It is a diary in the style of Bridget Jones but, the diarist is a serial killer. How can that be humorous? Trust me. It is.

Everybody has had at least one moment in their life where they say to themselves, or even out loud, “I could kill him (or her)!”

The difference is that Rhiannon actually follows through and kills those people whom she wishes to be dead. My worry is that I felt myself empathising with her. I agreed with her that most of her victims deserved to die. I say “most” because there were a couple who definitely did not deserve their fate.

Each chapter commences with Rhiannon’s latest list of those who deserve to die. The people on her list range from paedophiles and supermarket checkout operators who squeeze her bread.

Although it is implausible that a serial killer like Rhiannon could avoid detection and capture, it is just almost possible that luck could be on her side. She makes mistakes. It seems that those who are trying to capture the killer make even bigger mistakes.

The ending is an almost criminal cliff-hanger which compels you to read the next instalment without delay.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough and I guarantee that the dark antics of Rhiannon will make you chuckle out loud.


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Book Review: The Memory Tin by Sally Trueman Dicken

Rating: 4 out of 5.

The Memory Tin by Sally Trueman Dicken

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Lizzy is a depressed widow. She needs some new interest to drag her away from her natural misery. That could be her late husband’s allotment but something even more interesting falls into her path, quite literally.

A muddy, rusty and battered old tin box falls off the back of a lorry as she walks her dog. It is part of a load of debris that is being transported from the demolition site of the old workhouse and wartime military hospital.

A friend of her husband, who has been maintaining the allotment, helps her to solve the mysteries contained within the box. Together, they uncover connections between the current inhabitants of their village and the people who roamed the same streets and buildings a century in the past.

Surprise follows surprise and the whole story unravels into something that you would never suspect in the opening chapters.

The pace is leisurely, but that seems appropriate. There is a lot of emotion involved but nothing too shocking. The writing is elegant and the story is beautiful. This book is well-researched historical fiction with a strong overlay of romance.

I would recommend this to all of my friends, especially those with an interest in World War One military history.



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Dad’s Ninetieth Birthday

Happy Birthday Bony Tony,
Always straight and never phoney.
Two years departed,
Still never outsmarted.
Let’s party with pizza calzone.

On my father’s shoulders

Book Review: The Conjuror by Luanne G Smith

Rating: 5 out of 5. The Conjurer by Luanne G. Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the third, and in my opinion, the best of The Vine Witch trilogy.

Who would have thought that there were so many differing talents amongst witches, fairies and jinnis? There is as much variety in the worlds of magic as there is in the world of mortals. There are also as many conflicts.

The worry is that powers of magic make those conflicts even more dangerous and devastating than wars and battles in the mortal world of man-made armaments.

In this final book of the series, Sidra is being pursued by her brother-in-law, Jamra, who is out for more than revenge for the murder of his brother. He believes that Sidra murdered her husband. He knows that she has, in her possession, an ancient relic that holds a very powerful and destructive magic.

Sidra is supported by her friends, Elena the vine witch and Yvette the fairy. A dog and another being are also lurking on the periphery and you always feel that this pair are also there to ensure that Sidra prevails over Jamra, but there are seeds of doubt which add to the tension.

The writing is superb. The pace picks up as the story races towards its conclusion and the uncertainty about how events will turn out keeps the reader’s attention throughout.

I am left wondering if Luanne Smith is a witch or a fairy or a jinni. She certainly has great knowledge of those magical worlds, which she imparts with great integrity. I hope that she will be on my side if I ever run into a battle with supernatural beings.

I recommend this book and the whole trilogy. It kept me gripped from beginning to end and was thoroughly entertaining.

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A Poem For Friday – Wearing Silk

I am so thrilled and honoured to have one of my poems featured in the blog of esteemed writer and blogger, Esther Chilton.

My hope for this poem, when I wrote it in my head as I ran along the roads around Swanwick, Derbyshire, was that people would read it aloud. They can read it as from themselves to their true love or from their true love to themselves. Or, dear reader, from me to you.

Either way, I hope that you enjoy it.

estherchiltonblog

Many of you know Lance Greenfield and I’m delighted to welcome him to my ‘A Poem for Friday’ slot. Before you read his sensual poem, here’s a little bit about him:

Lance is the author of two self-published novels in the ‘inspirational fiction’ genre. He got into writing by submitting reviews as part of the BBC RAW (Read and Write) campaign a few years ago. There was huge enthusiasm for his reviews, so he resolved to post reviews for every book that he reads on his personal blog, Write to Inspire. He now just loves to write anything from flash fiction to poetry to short stories.

Although he has been writing poetry all of his life, he never shared any of his poems from the time that his English teacher told him that his poetry was rubbish when he was only eight years old until he was encouraged by a…

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Thursday Topical Verse Day

Thursdays bring you the chance to share a short verse on a topical subject. It could be a haiku or a limerick or a sonnet or a free form of your own choosing. Your aim is to entertain those who follow this thread.

Keep it short and light. Good humour and even a little naughtiness are encouraged.

There has been a lot in the news this week, so you are spoilt for choice.

Death of HRH The Prince PhilipMore Tory SleazeUS and UK troops leaving AfghanistanRacism in NeighboursMoving Egyptian mummiesFemale jockey wins Grand NationalAnd so much more!

Post your efforts in the comments on this post and please feel free to comment on and appreciate the contributions of others.

Have a go!