Sunday funnies

Some hilarious thoughts on biblical personnel, courtesy of Bluebird of Bitterness.

bluebird of bitterness

Pastoral Search Committee Report

The committee thanks everyone who suggested candidates for this position. We have followed up on each one. Here is our report: 

Adam: Good man but has problems with his wife.

Noah: Prone to unrealistic building projects.

Joseph: Obnoxious braggart with a prison record.

Moses: Has a speech impediment and a bad temper. Rumored to have left an earlier position over a murder charge.

David: Had an affair with a married woman, then had her husband bumped off and used the power of his office to avoid charges.

Solomon: Good preacher, but our parsonage would never hold all those wives.

Elijah: Bad temper, prone to depression and occasional suicidal tendencies.

Hosea: Good man, but our people could never handle his wife’s profession.

Jeremiah: Emotionally unstable, alarmist, negative, always lamenting things.

Isaiah: Claims to have seen angels in church. 

Jonah: Refused God’s call until after he’d been swallowed…

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Pettic. A poem

This is not a poem that appears in a book, but it’s about a character in the Elemental Worlds duo.

Pettic

Pettic was a farmer’s son who loved to plough the land

Until one day his life did change in a dramatic way.

He was chosen from many lads to obey Prince’s command

And go to live in the palace, far, far away.

He was to be companion, confidant and friend

To Prince Torren, the Crown Prince, the king’s son and heir.

And with the Prince, his lessons he also would attend.

But then the Prince disappeared, nobody knew where.

So Pettic chose to go in search of his dear friend.

He visited strange worlds like nothing he had seen

And faced great dangers, helped the folk, their lives he did defend.

And found what he was looking for when he did intervene.

For in four lands he had to find four gems that were the key.

Will young Pettic find all that is required 

To find Prince Torren and set him free? 

If you wish to know the answer to the last question, you can find out by reading The Stones of Earth and Air, which is free as an ebook on Amazon, and The Stones of Fire and Water. Follow these links to buy at your favourite store.

St Patrick’s Day

Image by Jill Wellington from Pixabay

Today is St Patrick’s Day. Here’s a poem in tribute to him. I’m a bit late posting, I know, but I had to write it first! Of course, he didn’t really banish the snakes from Ireland, but it’s a good story.

St Patrick 

A boy was captured and taken for a slave

Across the sea, but he remained brave.

A shepherd in Ireland for six long years

He escaped and ran home to family cheers.

A Christian he was, and hearing God’s call

Was ordained as a priest to the joy of all.

God called once again that he should go

Back to Ireland to preach, and so

He sailed once more across the sea.

And converted many to Christianity 

And with his staff he gave a command

And all the snakes left that land.

On March seventeenth, in the year four sixty

He passed into Heaven on that isle so misty.

He’s remembered still by the Irish folk

On the isle  of Ireland where he spoke

And all round the world where Irish dwell

They still remember, and his story they tell.

All in a day’s work

A hilarious video from Bluebird of Bitterness. Watch the baby elephant completely ruin the reporter’s pitch.

I couldn’t stop laughing.

Watch the video here.

Painting The Sky #writephoto

Why didn’t Michelangelo paint the Last Supper? And what problems did he encounter when he painted the Sistine Chapel?

Find out in this hilarious story by Geoff Le Pard.

Painting By Heavens

‘Mr Angelo?”

‘Please, call me Mike. And you are?’

‘Ann Officious-Bastard.’

‘Of course. How can I help?’ Mike looked over his shoulder at the gods, some of whom were firing balls of fire at the curtains. ‘Take five, people. I need to deal with Ann. Yes, Zeus?’

‘Can I have a discomfort break?’

‘You had one an hour ago.’

‘That was a gratuitous volcano. I’ve a tsunami building pressure in my Azores and if I don’t let it go soon….’

‘Yes, alright. Just don’t lose the toga.’

Zeus exploded up and out of the ceiling in a shower of sparks and sprinkles.

Mike turned back to Ann. ‘Gods, eh? Can’t live with them, can’t… well, anyway. What can I do you for?’

Continue Reading

If you would like to receive an exclusive, free short story by me, called The Haunted Table, simply click the link. This will take you to the page where you can download it.

Maria and Tom have bought an antique table for the old cottage they have just moved in to. When they hear strange noises in the night that sound like crying, they worry their house is haunted, but the sounds seem to come from the table.

They set about trying to find what is causing the disturbances. The answer is stranger than either of them had thought.

(Clicking the link will add your email address to my email list, but don’t worry, you can unsubscribe immediately if you wish. Nor will you get any spam. I only send out an email each quarter, or if I have any exciting news–like a new release.)

The Battle of Hastings.

Image by Gioele Fazzeri from Pixabay

I am now King of England. King William I. Doesn’t that sound great? However it wasn’t such an easy position to gain. Let me go back to the beginning.

Edward, my second cousin, was in exile in Normandy after Cnut had taken the English throne. I decided to go and see him as he was family, after all, and had no heirs.

While I was there, I played on the family connection, and reminded him that, although he might eventually get an heir with his wife, Emma of Normandy, if he should die suddenly, there would be no obvious claimant to the English throne.

Well, he hummed and hawed and didn’t make a decision then. I’m not surprised, really, because his mother had married Cnut and had a son by him. She supported her son, Harthacnut, and eventually he became king of England.

Edward was lucky. Harthacnut died, and Edward sailed unopposed into England to take the throne. Not long after, he sent his son-in-law, Harald Godwinson to tell me that he had decided to make me his heir. King William sounded good, I thought, but I didn’t trust Harald, so I had him imprisoned. Eventually, in order to regain his freedom, he swore an oath of fealty to me, the rat!

In the year of our Lord, 1066, King Edward, who had become to be know as The Confessor, due to his religious conviction, died. Harald, the rat, took the throne and was crowned the day after Edward’s death. He said that Edward had made him his heir on his deathbed. A likely story!

It was then I decided that I needed to go to England and sort this man out. He had broken a holy oath, and I was the rightful king. But it seemed I wasn’t the only one to want the crown of England. Harald’s own brother, Tostig, joined forces with the Norwegian king, Harald Hardrada, and launced an invasion.

They met initially at a place called Fulford, in the north of England, not far from the city of York. This was 0n September 20^th 1066. It seems the invaders won, but Harald was not to be defeated so easily. He fought another battle five days later at a place called Stamford Bridge where both Tostig and Harald Hardrada were killed.

Well, this was too good an opportunity to miss. I had set sail, knowing that Harald would be occupied, and we landed at a place called Pevensey. There had been a Roman castle there, and we made use of that. I ordered a wooden fort to be built inside the Roman walls. It was a good defesive position.

The whole area was marshland, and the sea came up to the fort walls. I ordered the troops to begin marching over the marshes, heading towards the town of Hastings. Once we got there, I ordered a fort to be built, and we raided the land for supplies.

We waited for Harald to arrive from his battle at Stamford Bridge. We knew they would be tired after a forced march. I set a watch the night before the battle. I would not have put it past Harald to make a surprise attack, but he didn’t, and so on 14^th October, at dawn, the battle began.

I won’t go into details here. Suffice it to say that it was hard fought and lasted all day. In the end, though, we won, and Harald was dead. I was now King of England.

I have begun the research for the next book in the series, A Family Through the Ages. This one will start in 1066 with the Battle of Hastings.

If you would like to catch up on the series, the first book, Vengeance of a Slave, is free as an ebook. Alternatively, you can get it from your favourite store, here.

Jealousy of a Viking, the second book, can be got from your favourite store, here.

Or click on the images in the side bar.

Both books are also available as audio books.

My publisher has released merchandise with the book covers on. These include: t-shirts, mugs, drinking glasses, jigsaw puzzles, tote bags and many more.

Why not go and take a look at what’s on offer? Click here to go to the Next Chapter store.

Please let me know what you think about the story and the books and merchandise in the comments.

Feel free to share this, and any other posts. Just link back to this blog. I will be ever so grateful!

A Message About Human Effects on the Earth.

Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

I have just watched this video (click on the link to view) and decided to share it with you all.

I have been thinking things along these lines for a long time now. We have treated our planet very badly since the Industrial Revolution, exploiting its riches for financial gain.

For thousands of years, people worked with the natural world. They might not have had loads of concrete goods, but they respected nature. Animals were not considered to be something inferior to be exploited, or destroyed if they came into conflict with us. Nor considered expendable if we needed their land.

The message given in the Old Testament from the story of the Creation has helped to create this situation. There, we are told that humanity was given dominion over the other animals. This has led us to believe that we are something other than those animals; separate and special.

We are NOT.

The way we are going on, and exploiting everything on the planet, will bring about not only the demise of other living things, but also our own. Yes, Climate Change is something we need to sort out. It is dangerous to life on the planet, but it’s not the only thing. The entire way we live is the danger, and I don’t see how we can sort that.

The only way is to change our whole idea of economics. Can you see that happening? I can’t.

Please type your thoughts in the comments box. It will give me great pleasure to hear what you have to say.

WAR. A Poem.

It is a year since Russia invaded Ukraine. Can’t understand it. Here’s a poem. !

WAR

Why must humans go to war?

What do they hope to gain?

I think that most of us deplore

That it started again.

Why do the leaders think it’s right

For many folk to die?

And make people resort to flight

And bid their homes goodby?

Two world wars in years long past

Brought much pain and grief.

The numbers dead were so vast

It is beyond belief

That it could all begin again

With Russia entering Ukraine

Memories 1. Early Schooldays

They say you always remember your first day art school. Well I must be strange as I don’t specifically remember that day.

My first school was nearly a mile from my home. I don’t remember being taken by an adult at all, although I must have been for the first few days at least. What I do remember is walking with a girl a few years older than me. I can’t see this happening now: a slightly older child being allowed to take a 5-year-old to school for nearly a mile!

I remember my first teacher. Her name was Mrs Rose, and she was lovely. She had white hair and was rather plump. At least, that’s the picture I have of her all these decades ago. We all thought she was as old as the hills. She loved her ‘babies’ as she called us.

Then I went up to Mrs Buckley’s class. She was as different as you could imagine from Mrs Rose. She was very strict and ruled her class with a rod of iron (almost literally.) If you got your sums wrong, you got rapped across the knuckles with a ruler.

The desks were double desks with an inkwell in the right hand corner of each half. We weren’t allowed to use ink, though, as we were only just learning to write and would have made a mess. Pencil was the rule. By the way, we were taught how to hold a pencil. I wonder if children are taught to do so today as many of the young people I see hold their pens in a most peculiar way. Not a way where you can have fine control. I’ve tried it.

I don’t think that there was a fixed timetable. It seemed that the teachers taught what they wanted whenever the fancy took them. I say this, because we never knew when we were going to have what was called ‘painting’. It was always in the afternoon. Sometimes we’d go in after lunch and find the desks pushed together so four could sit facing each other. When this happened, we went into the classroom and said ‘Oh good! It’s painting.’ We never knew when this treat was going to happen.

Another thing that we enjoyed, but only happened from time to time, as I remember it was ‘drill’. This would now be called P.E. Drill consisted of going out into the school yard and lining up in rows. It was a bit like you see on films of the 2^nd world war when soldiers are training. Marching on the spot, star jumps, arms up, out, forward and back. Things like that. We never played any team games. But we enjoyed our drill. It was outdoors, at least.

Strangely, I don’t remember having any friends at this school, but I did have an enemy. One girl bullied me. She used to hit me if I didn’t do what she said. Some of the other children were sympathetic, but no one would even consider going to a teacher about it.

I will continue with my early school memories in another post.

Do you have any early school memories? Let us know in the comments box.

If you would like to receive an exclusive, free short story by me, called The Haunted Table, simply click the link. This will take you to the page where you can download it. This story cannot be accessed by any other means.

Maria and Tom have bought an antique table for the old cottage they have bought. When they hear strange noises in the night that sound like crying, they worry their house is haunted, but the sounds seem to come from the table.

They set about trying to find what is causing the disturbances. The answer is stranger than either of them had thought.

(Clicking the link will add your email address to my email list, but don’t worry, you can unsubscribe immediately if you wish. Nor will you get any spam. I only send out an email each quarter, or if I have any exciting news–like a new release.)

A Book – A Dream – A Reality?

Some thoughts from Aurora Jane Alexander.
The quote applies to everything, though, not just writing, although Aurora talks specifically about writing.

Writer's Treasure Chest

Picture courtesy of Google.com

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When I read this quote, I remembered all these people telling me about their plans and dreams to become an author ‘one day’.

When they find out I’m an author, I suddenly hear: “Oh, I ALWAYS wanted to write a book if I only had more time!” My reply usually is: “Well, it needs a bit more than only time to write a book… like a plan, a plot, an outline, character sheets, character voices, character development, knowing the craft, editing, an editor, a cover designer, a publisher, networking… AND TALENT!” The regular reaction to this bravery is generally a more or less polite excuse and the welcome departure of my conversation partner.

But there are a few people I met who dream of becoming an author and have the time but not the courage to write that book. and to them, I’d like to show…

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