tirsdag den 2. juli 2024

Words for Wednesday :: July 3 :: The Words

PLEASE NOTE - Comments are regularly not posted, they are put in "Spam jail". I try my best to free them as soon as possible and to notify Blogger each and every time. But I have to eat, sleep and in general do other things. sorry.

--  💣 ๑ ✳ ⚔  --

This meme was started by Delores a long time ago.  Troubles led her to bow out, but the meme was too much fun to let go, and now Words for Wednesday is provided by a number of people and has become a movable feast with
Elephant's Child as our coordinator.

  Essentially the aim of this meme is to encourage us to write.  Each week we are given some prompts. These prompts can be words, phrases, music or images.

  Some of us put our creation in comments on the post, and others post on their own blog. This fun meme includes cheering on the other participants.

  And the more the merrier goes here as well, so if you are posting on your own blog then please tell us in the comments, so that all other participants, can come along and applaud.

This post goes live at 16.01 Tuesday my time. I have found out - hopefully now correct - that this is when Wednesday begins in Canberra.

For today the prompt are:
Fish
Kettle
Black
Human
Cloister
Serene
     And/or
Flagstone
Quarry
Bush
Rowan
Finnish
Mango

68 kommentarer:

  1. Thank you for providing the prompts this month.

    SvarSlet
    Svar
    1. Thanks - I made these prompts back in December last yar, when accepting to provide them, so they are as new for me as for anybody else.
      I hope you can use them.

      Slet
  2. Here's mine and thanks for hosting Charlotte. I honour my daughter's late great Mango with this story. All prompts and colour used.
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Mango was a cat of uncertain heritage, an extraordinary shade of caramel with delicate pale ivory stripes and a jet black tail.He was serene of character and treated his human with respect as his affinity for fresh fish was acknowledged frequently.

    His human had a large black old cast iron kettle at the corner of her flagstoned cloister under the Finnish rowan tree with the intention of using it as a planter but Mango made his intentions clear. This would be where he would catch his daytime naps.

    He would keep his eye on the bush above the neighbouring quarry where a bluebird mocked him every morning. One day, he would show that bird a thing or two but now? There was a fully bellyful of fish to snore off.
    -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    XO
    WWW

    SvarSlet
    Svar
    1. A nice tribute to a sweet feline. Thank you.

      Slet
    2. Wisewebwoman: I love this. What a beautiful tribute to a cat shoe I suspect was a much loved boy.

      Slet
    3. WWW; this is lovely, thank you.

      Slet
    4. I love cat stories like yours!!

      Slet
    5. Well done WWW - loved it ... I also love cat stories - cheers Hilary

      Slet
    6. A cat named Mango...and a mocking blue bird. Great Wisewebwoman

      Slet
    7. Nicely done! A full cat usually won't bother hunting.

      Slet
    8. Ha ha, Mary! Did I ever tell you are glorious?

      Slet
  3. Hi Charlotte - here are mine ... one for each set of words ...

    Why on earth the kettle ever called the pot black is buried in ancient history … humans when they came out of their cloisters were peaceful and so forever after called the kettle pale ivory pot serene! I don't think this brilliant idiom has entered into folklore ... ?!


    The rowan trees and bushes, ubiquitously known in Finnish literature, could always been seen above the mango coloured quarry, especially when the berries were bright red – and then when they fell onto the pale ivory flagstones stained them bloody red.

    Cheers - and I'll be back to read soon - Hilary

    SvarSlet
    Svar
    1. Thank you for these takes on the words, I enjoyed them.

      Slet
    2. Hilary Melton-Butcher: And now my mind is wondering... Thank you.

      Slet
    3. Well done Hilary, intriguing.
      XO
      WWW

      Slet
    4. Rowan trees are Finnish? I did not know that.

      Slet
    5. Interesting story Hillary. Thank you very much!

      Slet
    6. You always do it well, Hilary.

      Slet
    7. Good job with the prompts Hilary. I can just picture those stained flagstones.

      Slet
    8. Hi River - thankfully I am right (almost!) ... they are found in Scandinavia, Northern Europe and mountain regions ... cheers Hilary.

      Thanks everyone ...

      Slet
    9. Well, you did it! nd with Rowan trees included. I'm impressed.

      Slet
    10. Very good take on the prompts.

      Slet
  4. Humans are a weird lot. We focus on our differences, forgetting that we have many more similarities. We all need to eat, but our preferences vary. I love a mango, and my partner says they remind him of furry tennis balls. I suspect that the Finnish people have elegant pale ivory skin in winter (and I hope summer). The people of my country often choose to bake themselves in the sun until they turn not black, but certainly the dark brown of leather (with much the same texture).
    The serenity of a cloister appeals to me with flagstone walks, smoothed and polished by gentle footsteps across the ages. I can see myself there, admiring the rowan tree and sniffing at the scent of bushes as I wander by.
    And yet I know that for some that would be a foretaste of hell and their ideal is a very different kettle of fish. Their quarry is not peace, but excitement and they cannot wait to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.
    To each their own.

    SvarSlet
    Svar
    1. Nicely done EC and I do wish people would focus more on similarities instead of differences. I brown up every summer even without the baking, just walking to and from the shops is enough.

      Slet
    2. I loved your story Elephant Child so much.
      Especially the principle that we should focus on our similarities.
      Thank you very much!

      Slet
    3. Wonderful, Sue. Now if only we can all learn to celebrate diversity and not see it as a source of animosity we’ll be a whole sight better off.

      Slet
    4. Hi EC - well done ... I can certainly see your story as it might have happened ... if only we could be peaceful and serene - cheers Hilary

      Slet
    5. Great job EC. Wow you made excellent use of the prompts.

      Slet
    6. "A furry tennis ball" Hehe, I love mangoes and like you I find people to be more alike than different.

      Slet
    7. Yes - I should have mentioned the mango 'note' ... not furry and I love them!! Cheers H

      Slet
    8. You hit this one out of the ballpark, Sue! Great job.

      Slet
    9. Good story, Sue. Agreed!
      The last four words ... hm ... surprised / irritated me, though.
      " The common German translation of the phrase – Jedem das Seine – was written on the main gate of Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald [...]".

      Slet
    10. Like you, I'd want the quiet of a cloister, at least part of the time. You really nailed this one.

      Slet
    11. Sean Jeating: I did not know that and would not have used that phrase if I had.

      Slet
    12. Sean Jeating: I am not offended but horrified (given that my father was a German Jew) to use a phrase appropriated by the Nazis.

      Slet
    13. Please, do not feel offended, Sue. I am not attacking Platon, but the Nazis!!!

      Slet
  5. A lovely take EC, I do love mangoes as well. And the sun can have devastating effects on our bodies.
    XO
    WWW

    SvarSlet
  6. Interesting mix of words, I'll have to do some thinking. I like your new header picture.

    SvarSlet
    Svar
    1. Thank you on both accounts. Normally I change my header more often, but I forgot.

      Slet
  7. Interesting words Charlotte,
    as well as color.
    I'll try to write a story as well and come back with links!
    Thanks a lot, you really provide us with nice stimuli to write about!

    SvarSlet
    Svar
    1. Thank you, I look forward to seeing where the words will take you.

      Slet
  8. Ingrid was a novitiate and wondered what KETTLE of FISH she had landed herself in. A couple of bad FINNISH winters with failed romance hardly seemed to justify this extreme. Her BLACK robes mirrored her depression. She was HUMAN, clearly unsuited for life in these CLOISTERS, and however much she was supposed to feel SERENE she didn’t. The Mother Superior, with a face like a ripe MANGO, told her that she was having normal doubts, but that God would show her the way along the FLAGSTONES of virtue, devotion and chastity. Chastity! She longed for the company of a man. Even the thrushes in the ROWAN feeding on berries didn’t lack for the opposite sex, and flaunted it vigorously. Ingrid had picked up a lucky stone in the QUARRY this morning. Imagine that! A would-be nun carrying a lucky stone, when the rock in the sky was supposed to tell all. She scurried out of the dining hall before anyone noticed and went outside behind a BUSH to plan her departure. She clutched her lucky stone and simply walked out the gates. That seemed to be the easiest way out, with no explanations necessary. She was sure to be able to get a ride to her mom’s place. After all, who wouldn’t pick up a nun? And maybe Olaf was ready to make up after all. Life was looking better already.

    SvarSlet
    Svar
    1. David M. Gascoigne: I really like this - and love that she found a lift home so easily...

      Slet
    2. I should give up blogging in English.
      Excellent, David.

      Slet
    3. They should not have taken her, fresh from a heartbreak, and they're not supposed to. I'm glad she left. Nicely told!

      Slet
    4. Running away form something is always a bad reason to enter a religious life - I'm happy she realised so soon.

      Slet
    5. Great fun David - excellent tale relative to the words provided ... you certainly brought to life where the poor novitiate had landed herself ... I sure hope Olaf will help her return to life outside the cloisters. Cheers Hilary

      Slet
  9. Terrific take on the words, intereringly enough I am editing another writer's nun's story at the moment. Not as dramatic as yours but fraught as these events. I love how she "went pagan" as we say back home.
    XO
    WWW

    SvarSlet
  10. Imagine a serene Finnish man in a flagstoned quarry discovering a manga (not a mango!) showing a kettle of fish flying over a rowan bush near a monastery.

    SvarSlet
    Svar
    1. You did this very well! Please do not give up blogging in English, you do a fabulous job, much better than I would do with Spanish (the language I've studied).

      Slet
    2. Sean Jeating: I prefer mangoes to manga - but can see the one you have described - and it would make me smile. Broadly.

      Slet
    3. Hehe, this made me see some funny pictures for my inner eye!

      Slet
    4. Fun Sean ... no worries re the monastery, or a cloister within said monastery ... cheers Hilary

      Slet
  11. Fish Kettle Black
    I want to go back!
    To being Human and
    Serene in my private Cloister

    SvarSlet
    Svar
    1. Cloudia: I am not always sure that I want to be human - but a private cloister sounds good.

      Slet
    2. I'd like to be serene in my private cloister as well - but I think I'd miss my family, so maybe not. Being Human - we can't avoid.

      Slet
    3. I hope wishing on a fish kettle works for you. That's a fun use of the prompts.

      Slet
    4. I sure hope there are wishes within your Fish Kettle Black ... cheers Hilary

      Slet
  12. My story is on my blog tomorrow.

    SvarSlet
  13. As the human sat in the serene cloister cooking their fish in a black kettle, it started to rain.

    SvarSlet
    Svar
    1. Mike: Hopefully not before the fish was cooked.

      Slet
    2. Well done, nice shortie. I hope the fish was cooked anyway.

      Slet
    3. Inside with your cooked fish supper is a good place to be during rain.

      Slet
  14. I'm a little late but here's my take on the prompts: Fiction: The Girl in the Closet.

    Your choice of prompts is unusual and challenging but it's good, helps the wheels in my brain turn a bit more. Thanks for providing the prompts.

    Have a lovely day

    SvarSlet
    Svar
    1. Better late than never - I find my own words challenging and inspiring, but never get to writing because life happens.
      Thanks for writing and wisiting!

      Slet

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