Maureen Blundell
ABOUT ME
Although I've had short stories published in Bella, Robinson Books and My Weekly, my first love is the novel. I've published a trilogy consisting of Riding the Wheel, Wheels and Circles and Full Circle, under the pseudonym of Roz Colyer. These are available in paperback from me or on Amazon. I also try my hand at poetry and playwriting, not very successfully. I've been a member of Braintree Writers from its inception and thoroughly enjoy our fortnightly meetings.
WAITING FOR INSPIRATION
Here I sit beneath the trees
With scent of jasmine on the breeze
And Rodin's Eve for company.
In the distance, songs of birds -
But I am stumped and lost for words
Muse! Have you forsaken me?
My pen is poised, my mind is willing
My pad with poems should be filling
Sainsbury's is forgotten quite.
Imagination should be fired
And others seem to be inspired -
Oh Muse! Why aren't you taking flight?
But wait! A line is being written
My poor old brain, it seems, is smitten
By something, thought, idea or hunch?
Must get it down before it fades
Like shafts of light in forest glades.....
Oh bugger! Now it's time for lunch.
©Maureen Blundell
A GULL'S-EYE VIEW
A windswept, deserted beach on the east coast of England. Mid-March. A grey sea, an even greyer sky filled with dirty piles of cloud like unlaundered washing. On the shingle, seaweed and other detritus both natural and man-made clog the rotting foundations of sea-breaks, built in a more optimistic age. Everywhere, desolation.
From its perch on a telegraph pole, a seagull watched the slow progress of two elderly ladies along the coast road, followed by a middle-aged man bowed beneath various unwieldy objects. The women were unburdened, except by each other.
The gull rose, wheeled overhead, screeched and alighted ahead of them on the pebbles.
'Dreadful noisy things.' Margaret Pugh watched her son guide her sister down the steps to the beach, Edith trying to cling to her hat with its brave little flower tossed by the wind. Her own hat, serviceable felt, was clamped to her head with numerous hatpins. 'Oh dear me!' Yes, there it went, bowling down the beach, red flower flickering among the stones like a stuck-out tongue, mocking her. 'Quick, Arthur, before it reached the sea!'
The seagull sidestepped briskly as Arthur shed his burdens and chased after the hat, catching it just by the water's edge. He arrived back breathless, to Edith's over-effusive gratitude.
'Where did you put my scarf?' Margaret grumbled, more to silence Edith than to upbraid Arthur. 'I don't want to take a chill on the back of my neck.' The scarf duly found, she wound it round her throat; not her favourite soft cashmere, but it wasn't worth making a fuss about.
'Look at that gull,' Edith said, while Arthur wrestled with the folding chairs. 'Looks like it can understand every word we say.'
Soon there was a little encampment on the otherwise empty stretch of shingle, encircled by gaily striped, flapping windbreaks. Arthur burned his fingers pouring tea into plastic cups while his mother and Aunt Edith settled into their chairs, tucking blankets beneath their bosoms. 'Sandwiches, Arthur,' Margaret ordered. The seagull hopped closer.
'There, you see! It understands!' Edith was triumphant.
'It's only after the bread. We'll have hundreds of them round us soon. They ought to be done away with.'
to be cont...
© Maureen Blundell 2016
