Need a new writing challenge? Here are three for you:
OPTION ONE: Write a six-word story with the word CARAVAN in it somewhere.
OPTION TWO: Write a poem or limerick on the theme of the FUTURE.
OPTION THREE: Your word is RIVALRY. What does that mean to you? Sibling rivalry? Perhaps you’ve had a rival in your line of work, or in love. Your entry can be fiction or truth, or a mixture of the two; it’s up to you.
Now for last week’s challenges:
OPTION ONE from last week was to write a six-word story with the word BINGO in it somewhere. You all came up with some fantastic stories:
Up in arms her bingo wings.
Two fat ladies? No, just bingo.
B-I-N-G-O, an annoying song, but catchy.
Bindu:
Ninety.Top of the house. Bingo.
Bingo! Go for it! Do it!
Bingo! I unlocked the casino safe.
Al Lane: Love’s Winner and Love’s Loser:
https://altheauthor.wordpress.com/2016/07/25/limerick-infatuation/
Bingo! Security staff protect crooked politicians!
‘Bingo!’ yelled Ethel. ‘Balls,’ sighed Deirdre.
OPTION TWO was to write a poem or limerick on the theme of INFATUATION.
Bindu:
Fondness, adoration, passion or feelings,
Extreme interest, fixation or crazy about one,
Foolish attachment, puppy love or crush,
Calf love, a thing for or object of love!
Call it what you may; infatuation
A short lived romance adds spice; so a must.
There was a young man who adored
A beauty whose name was Maud.
For hours at the station,
Rapt with infatuation,
He would await her and never feel bored.
OPTION THREE: Your word was HOLIDAY. Here’s what it meant to you:
Bindu:
Just ‘being’ is HOLIDAY to me! A day of colours of a different sort. No early wake up, no pre- dawn chores, just lie placid and still, staring at the ceiling or out of my high rise window. Reminiscing nothing in particular, rising at will to potter around the house without a care or thought of a pending task. Another word that expresses my thought on holiday – BE.
HOLIDAY
Samantha and Joe pitched their tent at the foot of a steeply inclining bank on which a couple of large bushes provided shade from the still bright early evening sun. It was a decent spot and Joe said how well they had done to possess it in time: a few other tents were going up now, but not one had as good a location as theirs. Joe rummaged through his rucksack and took out a camping stove, a tin of beans and sausages, a small pan and a can opener.
He pierced the tin and started twisting. “I fancy a beer with this,” he said to Samantha. “Are they still in the car?” With a final turn of his wrist he sheared the top off the beans and sausages before tipping them into the pan.
Samantha nodded. “I think they’re still in the carrier bag in the boot.”
“Okay, you get the food cooking and I’ll get the beers.”
Samantha watched Joe weave between the cars and vans, wondering if any of this really counted as a holiday. She admired Joe’s spirit, his determination to get on with things no matter what, but at that moment she wanted to cry. No, she cajoled herself, I’m going to hold it together, I’m going to light this stove and we’re going to enjoy our meal. She opened the side pocket of the rucksack, the one where the matches would be. But they were not there. She pulled out a penknife, aspirin and paracetemol, plasters, some string and some tape—but no box of matches.
Joe returned clasping two bottles of beer. “I can’t find the matches,” Samantha said to him. “Are you sure you packed them?” He put the beer down and systematically searched every pocket of the rucksack. “You know,” he replied after a few minutes, “I think we may have forgotten them.”
Samantha put her head in hands. “Christ,” she muttered, “this is a disaster. A complete and utter…” But Joe had stood up and walked off in the direction of a group of men who were playing cards and smoking beside a lorry. She watched him shake their hands; perhaps, she thought, he would rather their company than hers. A couple of moments later he returned, triumphantly brandishing a book of matches.
“There you go, problem solved,” he announced cheerfully. He lit the gas and gently stirred the beans and sausages. “Not that I want to alarm you,” he continued after a pause, “but those lorry drivers reckon we might be here for at least a week.”
A wave of despair crashed over her. She looked to the left then to the right: stretched out along the motorway was a mass of cars and caravans all hemmed in by the hideous lorries. Then she looked ahead at their own little car stuck in the middle of this ugly gridlock. No, she urged herself, I am not going to cry. She picked up her bottle of beer, raised it in the air, and said to Joe: “To our first holiday together—the first of many!”
***
Esther Chilton 
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