Saturday 19 July 2014

Time to say goodbye

This morning I had someone round to look at the house. It's too early to tell if they will be my eventual buyers, it's a huge decision to make and somethng I wouldn't want anyone to get wrong. Time will tell and once more I can do nothing but WAIT!

Then I spent the afternoon watching Back to the Future 2 with youngest son, a great thing to do on a wet Saturday afternoon.

Because it is a film I have seen countless times I decided to "do" something constructive while half watching.

It was perhaps an unlikely choice of occupation but I decided to read through the sympathy cards sent to me when Andrew died.

There are two shoe boxes full, not all sympathy ones, some from the first Christmas and birthdays without him.

I have read the tender words bequethed to me and been filled with an overwhelming sense of love that people care so deeply but without exception I have thrown each one away.

It is time to move on, the kind words will live on in my heart.

Unlike Marty McFly in Back to the Futiure I don't have a time machine, I have no way back to the past to fix things there.

But I can change the future.

And on that note I have decided this will be my final re-ravelling blog post.

For a while it has lost direction and focus as have I.

I have unravelled, re-ravelled as best as I can but now it it time for the next stage of my journey and I have set up a new blog called in search of lost glitter...

I explain my title in the very first post but otherwise it will be a blog of just stories and poems, or at least that is my intention.

I hope you will follow me there, re-ravelling has been fun but it's time to move on continuing my search for sparkle and lost glitter that I began here...

Wednesday 9 July 2014

A new Twitter writing dare...

Oh dear I've found some new writing challenges on Twitter from @storybandit, including this one 

We dare you to write a 199-word story that includes the following words: scream toddler metallic glazed failure

well obviously now I am back in a writing mood I can't resist, so here's what I came up with. It didn't quite go the way I thought it would but it was interesting to write ...


There was a time she would have screamed in outrage, thrown herself on the floor and had a full toddler tantrum fit.

But now the medication gave her face a glazed countenance. 

She was revered as one of the success stories here at Sunny Brooke. An oh so cheery establishment where problems were dismissed and swept away by the popping of pills that kept the residents numb.

Her eyes unfocussed and the world passed by. It was easier that way.

Only she’d been getting restless for a little while, surreptitiously hiding the metallic tasting tablets in the pot plant behind where she sat for dinner.

With fascination she monitored her own little science experiment. For weeks the plant showed little ill effect.  However there was a renewed spark growing within her, a sense of something stirring. 

Then one day she discovered a dead leaf lying like crumpled brown paper by her chair. Stooping she bent down to retrieve it, turning it casually to dust between her quivering fingers.

It was time once again to embrace the idea of being a failure. It was time to see if she could still scream and put a voice to her growing disenchantment.

Monday 7 July 2014

#VisDare - Precarious



Recently I’ve been writing Twitter poems, mostly inspired by some excellent poetry prompts. A mere 140 characters – give or take – I’ve found there are many ways to stretch your word limit when a single tweet is not quite enough!

However today I have returned to a more substantial writing prompt and I have up to 150 words to play with thanks to Angela Goff’s surreal #visdare picture prompt with the optional title Precarious…



When my world turned upside down I felt as if the “game” was being played without me.
It continued and I watched as if in a dream unsure of what my “moves” should be.
I no longer knew the rules but as time passed I realised I could make up my own this side.
Forwards, backwards, sideways, jumping - I concocted my own intricate dance steps.

But there is no one to watch, no challenge playing on my own, I have to find my way home.
This means taking a leap of faith, over the edge, into the abyss, hoping gravity will pull my back to earth and return my feet to solid ground.

Now here I stand finally ready to jump.
Unclenching my fingers from all I hold onto here in my upside down world, I let go.
I tumble, wondering what I will meet on the other side!


I don’t know if my words make any sense but I throw them out there hoping they reach someone who understands or someone who needs to hear them.

For me “letting go” always means giving everything back to God.

Once again on my own I have constructed a tangled knotted mess. It is such a jumble I’m not sure any more what I was trying to create in the first place.

But once more I drag the tattered unravelled and reravelled remnants to the cross and offer a heartfelt apology knowing that God will graciously smooth out each tangled thread. He will give me back what I need piece by piece, if I let Him and don’t snatch everything back!

It’s precarious standing on the edge when you know that’s the only way down but this morning I found this on Twitter…

“Sometimes you have to jump first,
and build your wings on the way down”

I guess that’s a good description of faith.

God’s never really let me down; I think it might just be time to trust Him once more…