August 20, 2025 · 1:23 pm

FF – Second Sight

Thanks to Lisa Fox for the photo

Second Sight

I took mushrooms once. Everything swam. Colours wandered away from things, words floated in my vision like bubbles and roared at me for not reading them aloud, so I called their names as they grew starker, more vivid across my mind.

My vision is blurred now, the only things floating across it the clumps of vitreous my brain perceives as the view. And I wonder, sometimes, what would happen if I took mushrooms again. Would things get brighter? Would words and colours return to my sight? Or would the floaters rise up against me and demand to be spoken aloud?

Extro

Not a true story, on either end, so my apologies for inaccuracies on the experience!

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August 13, 2025 · 10:52 am

FF Rerun – 13 November 2015

Once again, Rochelle has gifted us a summer rerun on a day I need it! Apologies to all those who read / commented last week to whom I haven’t responded yet. I appreciate you all!

This week we’re back with Melanie, and a rerun from ten years ago when she was… exactly the same age because she’s a fictional character. Only the rest of us grow older!

FF – 13 November 2015

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August 6, 2025 · 8:39 am

FF – Greener Grass

Photo credit – Me!

Greener Grass

The new one is so exciting! Hard to read, and opaque. But mysterious is not necessarily a bad thing, right? Hidden depths and all that. Most important, it gets hot and steamy every time I turn it on. And I do, daily.

But the old one was faithful for so long. There’s something deeply intimate about being able to see right through and know exactly what’s going on inside. It’s not always pretty, but if there’s something dark and dead within, I think I’d rather know.

So the question, as always, is what do you do with an old kettle?

Extroduction

Having taken the rerun last week, I’ve followed a similar theme with this week’s photo – one of my own. We had to replace our kettle recently, the old one was struggling with basic functions like switching on and boiling water. But last week’s story put me in mind of another point of replacement in a person’s life and the muse ran with the analogy. I hope it works for you!

A bonus note – an ant fell into the old kettle shortly before it died (the kettle. Well, and the ant). As it was see-through, I could see the body and remove it. With the new kettle, I’d have been drinking ant water for a while!

Jon and Dorothea Bon Jovi have been together longer than I’ve been alive. He’s seen plenty of shiny new kettles (I hope she has too), but perhaps the old ones really are the best!

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July 30, 2025 · 8:27 am

FF – Sparks Fly

This week, Rochelle has gifted us a rerun when I needed it most. Check out my story from 2015 here!

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July 23, 2025 · 9:09 am

FF – Forest of dreams

Thanks for the picture, Dale

Forest of Dreams

We used to run in and out of the trees, build forts and play hide and seek or Poddy 1,2,3. It was a forest fit for kids to build dreams and independence. If someone fell, nobody ran home for parents or plasters, we washed it with brook water and dock leaves and kept playing, muddy and bloody until the call for dinner.

The farmer’s cutting it down now, Dad says. Valuable farmland ‘going to waste’.

I went back to see it before it’s gone. Seventeen trees in a huddle between fields. How big they were then, and how small now.

Extroduction

The copse in this story really did exist, a wonderful place my brother and I used to play with friends. I loved it as much as any place in my childhood. I went back as an adult and was shocked at how small it was. Had it shrunk? I’m not sure; I suspect I, and my horizons, had grown. But the places of our childhood are allowed to loom large, like the ‘ancient’ teachers who were probably 30 and the enormous walls we can now rest cups of tea on.

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July 18, 2025 · 2:18 pm

FF – By Any Other Name

Photo credit Sandra Crook – thanks Sandra.

By Any Other Name

Lettuce.

Other Princesses get great names. Grace and Truth, Beautiful, Goddess, Fairy Queen.

And I clearly had the worst childhood. I mean, let’s call it what it is – kidnapped, imprisoned and abused for eighteen years.

But your hair is so beautiful.

Are you surprised I cut it off? Glad to be rid of it, honestly. Took forever to brush. Literally Tangled. And do you really think hair grows that long without some drama? I mean, save Flynn’s life, happily ever after, yadda yadda yadda. Sometimes a girl just needs a change of do.

But lettuce? Honestly? I should chop that.

Extroduction

If you have watched the Disney movie Tangled, you probably got this immediately, but for those who didn’t… Rapunzel, in German, means a lettuce or corn head plant. So while most Disney Princesses’ names strong inspiring things (Anna and Elsa, Belle, Ariel and Tiana are the other examples above), Rapunzel, who also has a really horrible childhood, doesn’t have an inspiring name. Still, she’s one of the most badass of the Disney Princesses, and demonstrates the true value of a good frying pan. (SPOILER ALERT – at the end of the movie she cuts her magic hair, losing its magic but saving the life of her love interest, Flynn Rider.)

But I bet she’d change that name if she could 😉

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July 9, 2025 · 8:06 am

FF – The Heist

Photo credit Roger Bultot

The Heist

We squeeze through the fence, then sprint to the warehouse door.

“Put that out,” I mutter to Joey. “Someone will see it glowing.”

He shrugs, takes another puff and blows smoke in my face.

“Idiot,” I say.

“Prig,” he says, laughing.

The door rattles as I prise it open, but it’s easy enough to get inside. Boxes are stacked neatly labelled AstroBlast, Blast Party, BoomBox. And, of course, Danger. Fireworks.

We grab some and head for the exit.

“Shit!”

I turn to see Joey’s cigarette bounce onto a box. We stare for a second as it smoulders.

Then we run.

Don’t try this at home, kids

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July 3, 2025 · 7:51 am

FF – Now In Glorious Technicolor

Photo credit: David Stewart

Ms Mwanna grew up before colour. Everything was black and white.  Imagine eating a banana and it suddenly turns yellow!

Did they have a meeting to decide what to name the colours? I asked her once if the colour orange was named after oranges, why don’t we call yellow lemon and green cucumber? She laughed. I reckon maybe she’d forgotten. Old people forget stuff. Like where they left their glasses or how to change their voicemail.

Those old movies are a lot less fun than colour ones and nobody smiles in old photographs.

I sometimes wonder if the colours might disappear again.

Extroduction

I decided at the last minute that this could be a Melanie story. Melanie is a favourite character, a young girl with a lot to think about and a lot of thoughts about it. She’d have to be younger here than in most of my stories about her, but there’s no harm going back in time. Unless it’s greyscale, that sounds scary!

If you’d like to read more Melanie stories, click here. They are some of my proudest work.

I think I’ve used this before, but it’s good. Bears playing again. (N.B. It bears playing again, not Pooh and Yogi having a chess rematch!)

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June 25, 2025 · 10:25 am

FF – Wake Up Time

Photo credit Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

Wake Up Time

“Raaaah… bash!” a fluffy tail bounces off Dominic’s chest and onto the floor next to him.

No response.

“Raah… bash! Bash! Bash!”  

A wriggle under the duvet signifies consciousness.

“Rominic hug?” The baby ankylosaurus burrows under the duvet where he’s scooped into a tight embrace.

“Heeeheeeeheeee,” Amaro, the hyena, snuffles onto the duvet mound. “What’s the difference between a piano, tuna and glue?”

No response.

“You can tune a piano but you can’t piano a tuna! Hahahahaha!” Amaro squeals in delight at his own joke.

The play continues for 15 minutes until finally one eye opens. “What about the glue?”

Extroduction

This is a true story of the wake up routine that takes place with Dominic any morning his mother has the time, voice and patience to do it. The exact routine varies, as new favourites come and go, but me playing with his toys is Dominic’s preferred alarm.

What about the glue? Everyone gets stuck on that one.

What other song?!

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June 18, 2025 · 8:58 am

FF – Self-image

Photo credit Ted Strutz

TW: Self-image, Body dysmorphia, eating disorders

Self-Image

Gracie looked over her shoulder into the mirror. The dress had a large scoop back, showing off her skin. The ‘mermaid waist’ hugged her hips and butt, the bodice glittered up to a halter neck tie behind her neck.  

“Stunning,” the shop lady had called it.

Her Mum had cried from smiling too much.

Gracie tugged the fabric and spun around to look at the front. How had she let them talk her into this?

Two images merged in the mirror. One, elegant and stunning, the other a whale sucked into too-tight clothing. She couldn’t be sure which was real.

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