The mist crept into the valley. But not like it usually did. A young woman was sitting in her favourite tree house, looking out down the valley, into the gorge and across the escarpment. She usually felt like she was in the clouds, but not today. The mist was there. It usually felt ethereal, and she usually felt like she had summoned it, and that she was the Enchanter. But not today. Today it was a dark green mist and that wasn’t normal she thought to herself. Parts of th

Since crashing on this planet, Mother has designed and implemented regulated daily resistive strength-based training to ward off atrophy. Since space-travel began, off-homeworld muscles shift from slow-twitch to fast-twitch reducing overall endurance and causing weakness. The ‘soft-suit’ has been used for centuries to help simulate homeworld gravity and Mother has been designing nutritional supplements to help reduce the catabolic processes that degrade muscle mass. By usi

Listed by closing date. 1 April: The Nature And Place Poetry Competition 2026 UK based competition. Poems that deal with any aspect of nature and place, up to 40 lines. Blind judging. Entry fees start at £7. Prizes £1,000, £500, and £250. 3 April: Allen & Unwin Crime Fiction Prize Open residents of Australia and New Zealand. Unpublished full-length crime or thriller manuscripts, 70,000 - 100,000 words. Prize: publishing contract with an advance against royalties of $25

Welcome back! We’ve been quiet in the public eye but much has been happening. The February meeting effectively became an AGM, where we focused on the following key issues: Funding for the website We don’t charge membership fees, and this year our web hosting costs reached prohibitive levels. An initial decision was made to retire our current website and move to a free platform. Options explored included Google Sites and Blogger, but the results proved…underwhelming. Fin

‘Are you losing it?’ ‘Excuse me?’ ‘We had a whole conversation about this last night.’ ‘DID we?’ ‘Yes, you had this whole thing about how you really don’t like trifle, and you’ve been eating it just to keep me company, and truth be told you’d rather never see another bowl of trifle as long as you live.’ ‘DID I?’ Her eyes pop wide. She silently considers that the truth of this statement is undeniable. ‘I have absolutely no recollection.’ ‘Anyway, that’s fine. Never mind about

Look out the window, no focus….just fog. Brain wonders, drifts. Memories, pictures, dance across, twist into one another. The carpet blends swayingly. “Oh, a button. How did it get there? What did it fall off?” Turning it over in his hand. The colour, the shape, but not what it fell off. “I wonder, know this button, it's off??….Ohhh, I can see it, I know this, I know its feel. Where from? I’ll have to check all my shirts and jumpers and, you know, stuff that has b

I’m bored. I’m bored. Ohhhh. What can I do now? I’m so bored I could mow the lawns. No I could clean the bins out. No. I could go through my mail. No. God, what can I do? I’ve got so much that I could be doing, but none of it really inspires me. Ooo. I could write a story. Nah. Bloody hell, I’m just so bored. Oh my god...I have some chocolate slice in the fridge. I could eat that. Yayyyy! How could I be so forgetful?

It was by way of return that I stumbled on my old school enemy at the train station. I had been travelling and working for 10yrs. It was time to come home and settle in to running my parent’s cattle station. They had been so kind to allow me the freedom to have a life of my own and now that they were getting on I wanted to be there for them. They had never implied that I had to run the station but I wanted to do it and do it well. There she was Karen What’s Her Name. I coul

I decided to switch my style and write nice happy pieces. I thought about kittens and puppies and sunshine and roses. They just didn’t do it for me. That’s not to say I don’t like them…I just couldn’t get inspired. Hmmmm. Hmmmm some more. Difficult. I thought about the old lady who lived next door. Maybe I’ll get some inspiration. I didn’t know much about her and hardly saw her. I decided to find out more, but it wasn’t the sort of thing you look up on LinkedIn…well I

I have a cold, and I’m coughing. The apothecary’s daughter suggested her father’s syrup, but I’ve had too close a view of his workshop to take that up. Meanwhile the weeks go past and Mary complains she can’t sleep for the noise I make. Harry from the blacksmith’s, little Harry with the smutty nose, says his uncle in the country swears by a pickled pigeon’s egg, mashed with honey and ash. Where does one find a pigeon egg in November, let alone a pickled one? And why am I pa

‘Waiter!’ ‘Yes sir.’ ‘Bring me a large cold coffee please… my taste-buds are on fire… Wicked.’ The waiter left…with the name bored look on his face that he wore all evening. ‘That usually gets a laugh or two…’ spoke this young man… who was actually chuckling… . Chuckling for three really, as his companion simply looked embarrassed. For a first date, this was starting off ‘not good’. She sighed inwardly, considered her predicament. ‘How do I get out of this evening wit

“Whatcha mean cold coffee?? My mother and great grandmother, and her girlfriend (yes, she finally came out), hate cold coffee. Personally, I’ll drink coffee through a shitty rag. We useta have races at the factory on who could leave their coffee the longest to see who’s was the coldest. One bloke left his coffee for 3 weeks. – We then found out he’d died 2 weeks before from bad coffee. Supposedly he won.” “But I’ll drink coffee at any temperature. Even make coffee ice cubes

Snow Snow slush Snow slush plus coffee Cold coffee Mit milch und sucre It’s winter in the lands of the midnight sun and it is what we drink after a robust cross-country ski to the outdoor sauna – in the dark… The coffee hardens us for the plunge. Toby would dunk himself in the Bondi Ice Bergs annual ice float, ‘just to keep his toes’ in he said. But, truly, his spirit missed the Northern Lights and those never-ending days. He claimed it gave him back all the hours he’d slep

‘What the fuck.’ ‘What?’ ‘Every time.’ ‘What?’ ‘This fucking coffee is cold.’ ‘Oh dear.’ ‘I'm going to tell them.’ ‘Ohhhh.’ ‘Excuse me girly.’ ‘Oh no.’ ‘Yes.’ says the eighteen-year-old, astounded at the address. ‘My fucking coffee is cold AGAIN,’ says my 89 year old mother. To say the girlie was astounded is an understatement. ‘Go to get the manager!’ With this girlie slinks off and talks to the manager. A very well dressed lady strides over, jaw set, looking more like she h

Living on a planet in the habitable zone of a three-sun system creates sunsets that blend different colours across the horizon. The suns are Bright Yellow, Red Dwarf and distant Blue Sun. They appear to be dancing, switching around each other in the sky, rarely standing in the same relative position and creating a perpetually shifting and switching dramatic sky. The planet acts as a buffered world where the large inertia of the oceans keep the climate safe and suitable for

Mother is concerned about Bonn’s aloneness. He is acting like Mother’s son with Puter, as Mother’s mobile presence. Puter’s ambiance and ready assistance transfers to Bonn as a big brother; an assistant, perhaps even a mentor. But, when Bonn needs to discuss hard concepts, he sits in the Pod and speaks directly with Mother’s screens. Puter assists with concepts but Mother keeps Puter silent if Bonn speaks directly to the screens. Mother understands the nuances between Mot

‘You’re with Daddy today at work?’ ‘Yes.’ ‘How are you enjoying it?’ ‘Very well thank you.’ ‘Oh, what beautiful manners. Who’s your favourite, Daddy or Mummy?’ ‘Daddy today but Mummy tomorrow.’ She always liked to be fair and not have just one favourite. ‘Oh, how sweet. What do you want to be when you grow up Kiki?’ ‘An architect’, Kiki said casually. ‘Wow, ok that will be terrific.’ She smiled and nodded at the man. ‘Can I play in the sand please Daddy?’ ‘Y

Someone once said 'It’s all about the dash'. Where or when you start is not important, ‘starting’ is. You wonder at tombstones of who you loved or knew or never heard of as you wander through a graveyard interested and ghoulish. You compare their time with your inevitability and are silently grateful that you’re still above ground. You imagine what their life was like; if/how they loved, laughed, soared, sunk or hated. But a part is NOT written in stone? Their story, the

Mother’s Pod Replicator produces most fruits, vegetables and living matter like Homeworld. But Mother is well aware Bonn needs indefinables only nature can produce for his DNA. So, it is with spices. She, by extension Puter, seeks planetary substances that very closely match her compounds. The tiny red berries contain a black stone that, when dried and crushed, have a spicy pungency that made Bonn sneeze but, more importantly, added to the flavour of the many foodstuffs s

‘QUICK! Get the Pepper spray!’ ‘What? Why?’ ‘It’s that kid from down the street.’ ‘WHAT? You can’t use Pepper spray on a child. ‘Yes you can.’ ‘NO YOU CAN’T!’ ‘Ah yes you can. It says so on the tin?’ ‘Where?’ ‘THERE! Are you blind Mr Bull?’ ‘MISS RABBIT, just because the kids name is Peppa, doesn’t mean you can use Pepper Spray on her. Now put it away!’ ‘Oh.’