by Steve Tanham
I’ve always loved piers… Most partly grown-up small boys do. It’s that sheer expanse of linear possibility… Breathtaking. Piers are usually associated with railway towns. In many ways the railway town was the forerunner of modern urban development. The ‘seaside’ was invented by railway companies who provided the means to get there – in three graduations of ‘wealth: third class; second class and first. … Read More That ‘end of the pier’ feeling
by Steve Tanham
We’ve got to approach this, carefully… Or you won’t have as much fun as I did. Badacro Creek… I’m not sure there’s a ‘creek’ in there, but if there’s not, there should be. Badacro is well known in these parts as a safe anchorage for boats, particularly sailing boats. It lies at the heart of a ‘jigsaw’ of inlets and creeks just south of … Read More A Poolewe diary (4) : Once upon a time in the far north-west
by Steve Tanham
The man was speaking: “Let’s meet back here at the end of time… That’s what you said…” It had seemed a fantasy; a delight; a thing that would never happen. Impossibly long ago, but meant – clear and sincere. Yet, here they were, with separate lives behind them, trudging on old legs across the wet sand. “I’m amazed you remembered the date… you seldom … Read More #WantonWhimsy: The end of time…
+ #Silenti, #wantonwhimsy, Love, Memories, Travel
by Steve Tanham
You can see the moment they get it… When their tone changes: “Must be just for show; the whole thing – car, suitcase left casually on the luggage rack…” “What makes you think that?” the woman asks. “Just look at the number plate!” The man adds, cocky…but sensing fragility. It’s usually one of the women who sees it first. “It’s not STAG, Ken, it’s … Read More Wanton Whimsy: 5TAG
by Steve Tanham
It wasn’t his dream, but he was in it… But someone else was, too. He knew the other as ‘Kitten’: marked in the sky by the two eyes. Kitten watched all the time; she – how did he know it was she? – presided over this place. That much he knew… but nothing else. As long as he followed the furrows in the landscape, … Read More Wanton Whimsy: Test Pilot
by Steve Tanham
The driver’s window was open. So open she wasn’t sure it had one. Parked in the sunshine at the end of a line of antique shops, it looked…alien. The message had been precise: she was to meet him here. The ‘small square’ turned out to be a parking space; almost exactly sized to fit the strangely exotic car. She felt a slight shiver. She … Read More Wanton Whimsy: Interview
by Steve Tanham
He had lost count of the number of years they had been doing this… The envelope, marked with a promo sticker from a fictitious low-budget garden show, had arrived a month ago. It contained exactly seven clues. And then the words ‘Dress to Kill’. The rules were simple. Dinner would be served in the most unlikely location, chosen by the person whose turn it … Read More Wanton Whimsy: Find me!
by Steve Tanham
A monster beyond cool… I muttered the words into the sweet, black liquid which, four times a day, had become my substitute for life, and gazed out of Cafe Giacomo’s window and across one of the city’s busiest side streets. The bike snaking in and out of Rome’s afternoon traffic was huge…so big that I had to look twice at the slight body of … Read More Wanton Whimsy: Monster
by Steve Tanham
I had not expected to see him, again. After all these years, I would have settled for a postcard or a mention in a dusty scrap of newspaper… Hell, after so many decades of best-friend-neglect, I would have settled for an invite to his funeral. But there he was, like some ghost emerging from the other side of an improbability wormhole. A dusty tableau … Read More Wanton Whimsy: Reunion
by Steve Tanham
They’ve just run past – sweating a little more this time, and down to two; the other two Carabinieri are lying behind that wall in ecstasy. One of the survivors shouted that this smelled fishy as they flashed past in their lovely blue uniforms… If only they knew! Not fishy, exactly. Picture essence of midsummer cherries, the smell of new-mown grass, your favourite bubble-gum … Read More Wanton Whimsy: Twizy
by Steve Tanham
I knew there was something odd about the strange bike in the glossy picture; something different – attractive yet on the edge of gloriously wrong… Also, there was an eerie familiarity about the curves. Not just the fulsome orbs of the 1930 Henderson motorcycle, itself. Something even darker… Binky said it had arrived as a postcard. With only the word ‘reunion’ written on the … Read More Wanton Whimsy: Henderson, 1930
by Steve Tanham
And on summer evenings, rich with sun absorbed, We will slip through the CV gate, the two of us, and with a ripple of space-time, find ourselves in Burgundy, where, in a small cafe, hidden from the unworthy, Nicole pretends to be married to a burly chef, though she, too, is chef, and also front of house. And after water iced with lemon as … Read More Wanton Whimsy: 2CV
Sun in Gemini 