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‘Yesterday was the best day ever’ – #nffd

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Yesterday was the best day ever It was the day mum and me had just been to the big shop in town to get my senior school uniform and even the smell of it was thrilling. I couldn’t wait to wear the dark green winter skirt, scratchy or not; and the satchel – well that was glorious! All shiny leather with new, stiff straps and brass buckles. We hurried off down the high street towards the bus stop, mum putting her purse away and me thinking about the bubblegum in one pocket and the thirteenth birthday lipstick Gillian had given … Continue reading ‘Yesterday was the best day ever’ – #nffd

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‘Kitchen Forensics’ #nffd

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Kitchen forensics Her resolve faltered as she reached the kitchen door. It would be huge and offensive. It would require a delicate touch. It would be hers to deal with – yuk! As she approached, an advance scouting party of flies lifted off and dispersed itself across less appetising surfaces to wait, she imagined, for the all-clear. Well, not for a while and not here she told them. She regarded the agglutinated mass forensically, put on gloves and aimed a squirt of surfactant at the festering heap. Then, dissecting out two small bones and a piece of cartilage, she wondered for … Continue reading ‘Kitchen Forensics’ #nffd

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Migrating Windows

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

It will happen to you. Sooner or later, the call will come and you will find yourself teetering on the edge of a new computer because your old one has slowed to a creak. I’ve been there a few times, and latterly twice. In the old days, unless you had endless CDs, more cables than Soft Mick, and complete faith in your dial-up connection, you were going to be leaving your old home with all its familiar furniture, and starting afresh with an orange box and two sundae glasses. Remember floppies? You weren’t going to get much on those. And what about your favourite programmes? … Continue reading Migrating Windows

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Ollie, The Doctor, and The Dead Banana

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Ollie is the ten year old son of a friend. He’s a massive Dr Who fan, and this story was a very risky Christmas present. He’s letting me post it here so presumably it didn’t embarrass the socks off him, even though I’m pretty sure his mother really IS River Song. You never see the two of them in the same room together anyway, and that’s proof, right? Bad Apple Ollie was sitting on the sofa, watching TV, when he first noticed his hand disappear. He was about to scratch his nose when there it was. Or rather, there it wasn’t. Right up to his elbow, … Continue reading Ollie, The Doctor, and The Dead Banana

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Blue Bell Hotel: I’m not Alex Polizzi but …

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Let me say right off that the staff of the Blue Bell Hotel in Burton Agnes are as warm, friendly and accommodating as anyone could wish, and the rooms are very well appointed. For family reasons, I’ve had cause to stay there on several occasions over the last couple of years and so comparative standards have been easy to generate. The last time, earlier this month, we hit a drop in the usual quality of service, and all of it due to lack of attention to detail. The big things were right, as always, but the little things – not so much. I’m going to list … Continue reading Blue Bell Hotel: I’m not Alex Polizzi but …

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I Don’t Like Mondays

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

I Don’t Like Mondays I was reminded of this by Sabrina Ogden’s piece ‘Excuse me, have you seen my shirt?‘ in Pure Slush this week. What our minds get up to when we’re not fully a-hold of the reins! I’d gone to work as usual but changed my route slightly with a view to using the outdoor parking area. So, tootling gently along and preparing to turn right at the appointed moment, I was mildly irritated to find that there was an obstruction accompanied by a degree of ill-disciplined vehicular negotiation (bad tempered spat) which conspired to prevent my egress onto the … Continue reading I Don’t Like Mondays

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Walking down the glass corridor

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

At the moment, I am existing in a kind of limbo; a word I take to mean a sort of ‘purgatory lite’, because I don’t imagine purgatory would allow for the fabulous or hilarious or enervating ups that keep bouncing exuberantly over the plummeting lows, without thought for their feelings. Last week, ‘Lovely Girls’ was published. It’s my first literary piece; it’s based on some truths that many of us who have worked in mental health or learning disability institutions recognise, and I’m inordinately pleased with it. Last week also, we were told, my sister and me, that Dad is terminally ill. He is 86, an RAF veteran of the Second World War, and a victim of prostate cancer. He is 300 miles away. Fortunately, he is … Continue reading Walking down the glass corridor

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‘No Arrests in 2039’

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Good old Every Day Fiction, they’re taking a chance with another of my tales. ‘No Arrests in 2039’, in which a local council gets inventive about its crime stats, will be unleashed on August 9th. Disclaimer: Dear Elected Representatives – No, this is not a way forward, you hear me? Update: EDF is offline at the moment while they move house to new servers. EDF reports progress, and will be back on August 15th. Affected stories will transfer to September. 09/08/11 Continue reading ‘No Arrests in 2039’

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Psychoanalyzing fictional characters (via Linda Cassidy Lewis)

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

I have to say more about this, and so I will shortly. Linda is right, the psychologist’s hat is as difficult to remove as the headgear of the internal editor. More so, possibly, as most of us start out as uninformed nosey parkers and graduate (literally and severally) to become professional ones. When fictional characters are properly filled out, we are satisfied by them because, flaws and all, they are authentic. The trick is to allow them to be idiosyncratic, unpredictable, and downright annoying within that consistent authenticity. That’s what Linda has done with her characters, and why it became … Continue reading Psychoanalyzing fictional characters (via Linda Cassidy Lewis)

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