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Archives for July, 2018
Real Family Holidays – Slapton [Review]
The back garden in the real family holidays centre in Slapton, Devon (photo: James Kemp) The Field Studies Council (FSC) run what they call Real Family Holidays in their centres across Britain. The idea behind real family holidays is to get back to enjoying nature and being outdoors. It certainly works for our family. There are several FSC centres that offer real family holidays around Britain. We went to Slapton in Devon, where they have two locations in close proximity. There are some in Wales, the Lake District and in Scotland. Real Family Holidays Real Family Holidays have a back to nature, organic recycling feel to it, although no hand knitted cardigans or sandals. The idea is very much around sustainability and people interacting with each other and with nature. Real Family Activities Low ropes at the Real Family Holidays…
Sticky End [Flash Fiction] [WW2 SOE]
Sticky End is my flash fiction for the first round of the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge this year. The first round was last weekend and the group I'm in were assigned a spy genre story to be set in a prison cell and featuring glue. The story had to be under one thousand words and written within 48 hours. (Last year I wrote Down the Harbour and Burning to Leave for the 2017 flash fiction challenge). I spent a bit of Saturday thinking about it, the hard bit for me was trying to work in the glue naturally and believably. Some help from Google showed me that the WW2 Special Operations Executive (SOE) used to include tubes of bostik adhesive in the containers that they dropped to the Jedburgh teams. The bostik was used to camouflage improved explosive devices…
Old Manchester, New Manchester – A Work in Progress
Manchester has a modern tram network running through the city centre (photo: James Kemp) Last week I spent three days in Manchester for work reasons. This involved one overnight stay where I had some time to go for a walk and take a look at some of the city centre and take pictures. The reason that I started to take the pictures of Manchester was because of the remarkable contrasts that I found there. I'm no stranger to cities, I've spent 23 years living and working in London, and grew up on the western edge of Glasgow's urban sprawl. I've also visited most of the other major cities in the UK for both work and pleasure. Manchester - First Impressions Manchester Town Hall, St Peter's Square. (photo: James Kemp) At first sight Manchester is no different from other older cities…