Tag: creative non-fiction

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‘Heels’

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Heels Yesterday, on the way to the fields and anticipating not just an encounter with Donovan the Lonely Horse but also a soaking due to the gathering gloom above, I came across a double decker bus.  Not too unusual you might think, but in this part of the world we’ve only just stopped pointing at cars and describing them as horseless carriages, so the arrival of a bus is quite an event[1], especially when apparently stranded at the end of a lane it should never have been able to get up and only has steps, a field and a river … Continue reading ‘Heels’

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The Hills Are Alive …

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

…with the sound of feline yodelling. In the manner of one’s elderly granny upping sticks in the middle of the night to go shopping, wearing only carpet slippers and a hat she bought for a wedding in 1946 and kept because it would ‘come in’, Pickle is beginning to take leave of whatever senses Persians start out with. This has never been much to write home about as anyone living with a Persian will testify. That blank look, reminiscent of an iDog[1] that just drained its battery, is what Persians do between thoughts, and since thoughts are about as frequent … Continue reading The Hills Are Alive …

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Chips and Hips

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Thought I’d try walking like those women in American crime dramas. You’ve seen them, sweeping down long corridors having important conversations and not looking where they’re going: Hips, Hips, Hips, Hips; like Kate Moss except the dope’s in the evidence bag not back home unconscious on the sofa.  I get as far as Hips #1 and skid on the kitchen lino, scattering a number of cats and sending the dogs into a frenzy of territorial barking. That kind of behaviour being, quite obviously, the signature move of the dangerous intruder. It takes half an hour to calm everyone down and … Continue reading Chips and Hips

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“Aliens on Your Sofa”

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

Today, we’re off to the Vet’s and it’s the turn of Ms Muppet and General Montgomery … Aiming for nonchalance, I set out the two carriers in a separate room.  These are minutely explored, inspected and then inhabited by every cat except my two targets so that guerrilla tactics have finally to be employed. Nabbing Ms Muppet, who is essentially a two-cat-cat-in-a-one-cat-pack, I go for the cooperative approach, pointing her at the entrance to the carrier and shoving gently from behind. So she does what cats uniquely do under those circumstances and morphs into a star shape, grabs the sides … Continue reading “Aliens on Your Sofa”

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“Lawn Dogs & Budgerigars in the Cress”

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

For us, High Tea was a Highly Mannered ritual to be performed for the purposes of demonstrating one’s capacity to set out the cutlery in the right order and on this one particular occasion we were being visited by some rather puffed up relatives who, at their own home, had a front room into which riff raff like us were never invited, but from whom my parents hoped to cop the odd bob or two when they passed on. When the time came we only got a pair of curtains from the rellies and I buried a cat in one of … Continue reading “Lawn Dogs & Budgerigars in the Cress”

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‘Not Being First Fish – and other diary dramas’

Suzanne Conboy-Hill

The truth, the half truth, or nothing like the truth? It depends, says the pseudonymous author, on whether you recognise yourself. But if you didn’t leave the gate open to cavorting cattle on a rural bridge, or become unsettlingly aroused at the sight of a Saab, you’re probably ok. You can find it on Amazon (UK and US) Barnes and Noble, and also eBay. Childishly grown up. Continue reading ‘Not Being First Fish – and other diary dramas’

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