Covid seems to hit busy people. On the morning of our community choir concert, George rang to say he’d gone down with Covid and couldn’t work the microphones for us that afternoon. Consternation! Nobody touches the microphones in our church except him. What to do? A friend offered to see what he could do and he duly prodded and poked and measured out the wiring . . . but nothing worked. Oh dear. So the choir had to sing out, and the people who were reading a poem of short story had to PROJECT! I did the cat story from last month’s newsletter and got a lot of smiles in return.

Then Elsa in her nineties stood up, not without difficulty. She was given an arm by our music director to get to centre stage and faced the audience with one of her wonderful, mischievous smiles; and everyone smiled back. She launched into an old music hall song and we all – audience included – sang the choruses with gusto.             Everybody sang as loudly as they could! Everybody smiled. Forget the mikes; remember the fun! I am convinced that the more community events there are, the better for all of us.

I’ve been getting heavy breathing/groaning phone calls. At first I didn’t take them seriously. ‘Oh, you again! Get lost!’ But I did panic the night he rang at 2am. Sharing my problem with friends in the café I was given lots of good advice. ‘Use a whistle!’ ‘He’ll get bored if you don’t pick up,’ and ‘Ring the police.’ I did ring the police and they told me what to do if he rang again and I did it, and he stopped. I’m almost, but not quite, feeling sorry for the man.

You may remember that my publishers didn’t like the suggested title of the book I’d just delivered: MURDER BY ESTATE AGENT. Instead they took another suggestion and have renamed it MURDER FOR PROFIT. The cover has been designed and publication date set for lst November 2022. The copy edit is in the post and I shall now have to abandon everything else and set myself a target of correcting so many pages each day. Eeeek!             Copy editing is NOT one of my favourite pastimes.

The next short story is: Love in Lockdown

This is no young lover’s tale, but it does hark back to the Covid lockdown and what happened to our friends at that time. You can access it here. Incidentally, if ever you would like to browse through some of my early short stories, you can find them in e-book form under the title ‘Unsung Heroes.’                            

Parsley & Posy

. . . like this dwarf bearded iris (actual variety unknown) which I was given by a gardener in Sussex many years ago. In between the irises are some lilies of the valley which were here when we arrived fifty odd years ago. Like Parsley & Posy, the lilies of the valley wander at will and turn up where they feel like it. See them here.

A blessing on all those who find time to listen to other people’s troubles.  

Veronica Heley