Hello everyone,

Challenges:
As I sat and read the ‘terror’ challenges, my concentration was disturbed on several occasions. Phone calls, food, all the usual stuff. In the end, I guess I must have taken about two hours to have my first read through! Then I shortlisted before going back and doing the detailed read and making decisions about ‘best’. From start to finish, most of a day. I wondered how long each of us take to read and consider; and what frame of mind we need to be in to do so properly. Anyone care to share that one? (subject strip – short list)

Challenge Nine is one that Patrick and I discussed before he decided to leave us. What I am circulating is his. But I thought it such an interesting challenge with such a broad range of possibilities, that using it made sense. I hope you agree with me. Again, sad to say, domestics are a barrier to doing everything as I would want it. Let’s hope it’s a weed in the footpath that we can walk round and not Beecher’s Brook at the Grand national! So Challenge Nine will follow asap.

Log:
I know I’m repeating myself but it does give me quite a kick to see just how prolific we are as a group. I know some of you don’t have LOG entries each time because you have other lives beyond alpha. I’m also aware that many of you have writing, in some form or other, as your day to day work. However, well done to all for this continued output.

Group Story:
Somewhere in the chaos of this winter, the group story has sunk without trace. I think I know where it is and will try to track it down. But I shan’t pursue it any further this season – mainly because of my inability to keep up with it. If you are the one with the group story sitting on your computer with half the next chapter written, please send me a mail, so at least I’ll know where it is!

Finally...:
No new episode in the house saga. You’re bored with it and, frankly, so am I! And when you put it in the context of the Australian bush fires and the floods that some parts of the UK experienced over recent years, it pales into nothing. But it continues to be a pain for me! Maybe our parents had the right idea: buy a house and live in it; die; let someone else tidy up!

However (north of the equator) the signs are that spring may have arrived and soon we’ll be out ensuring we have enough to eat by transforming the front lawn into a potato patch! The whole business of self-sufficiency is part of the stories I’m writing in my ‘post global warming flooded’ world. Perhaps I should do as I write and get that lawn turned over…

best wishes all

- David