Free Write - Besotted

 

The Tuesday Free Write with three writers living in Switzerland and/or France find a prompt and write ten minutes. The three efforts had very little similarity this time, although sometimes, there's lots of overlap. We find this is a great way to stimulate our creativity. Free writes can be done alone, but it is fun with other writers.This week we tried something new as a prompt -- a single word -- Besotted.

D-L's Free Write

Gina walked by the twins' bedrooms. Their doors were closed. Had she not given birth to them, she would swear they were foundlings.

Merry was bent over a new scrapbook and was pasting something from the printer into it. She was totally besotted with the British Royal Family going back to Queen Elizabeth II. Merry had cried for days when Elizabeth had died.

Fifteen large scrapbooks lined her shelves and were filled with stories from newspapers and magazine she'd found on the net from the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Her other 13-year old twin daughter was equally besotted, but with math taking after her mathematics professor father. At nine she had read about slide rules and asked for one for her birthday. She used the gift constantly along with her computer to play with math problems.

She and her father talked formulas. Gina thought they might as well be speaking Swahili for all she could understand.

Long ago, Gina had thought her girls would be talking about makeup, boys and clothes. No, at least not yet. Maybe later or not.

At least the Royal Family and math were safer than drugs and sex that her friends were worrying about with their daughters.

Visit D-L's website at https://dlnelsonwriter.com

Rick's Free Write

This is one of my favorite true stories. About two of my favorite beings.

We had talked on and off about getting a dog. For years. And especially after house-sitting Ruby, a half-Bernese, in Westport, Ireland for three weeks.

In our French village, there was a semi-homeless man, Phillip, who would beg on market days, Wednesdays and Saturdays, in high-traffic areas, and aside the church door on Sunday mornings.

He often had a small, scraggly brown mongrel with him, whom he clearly cherished. We had been in the habit of giving Phillip a coin or two, sometimes a 5- or 10-euro bill. Then we started giving biscuits to the dog – bought a box of them even though we did not have a dog.

One day in early December, Phillip had been displaced by street construction and he had no dog with him. He was difficult to understand, being Catalan and missing a few teeth, but we thought he said his dog had died.

We got the idea to give Phillip a replacement dog, and if he rejected it we would keep the pup ourselves.

But when we saw Phillip later that day, he had the dog with him!

I had already done the research of the rescue center in Perpignan and fixated on an 8-year-old female named Mila. So on Sunday 10 December we journeyed to the SPA, which was in a no-man’s land between the airport and the autoroute.

“We don’t have any dog named Mila,” the young lady at the counter told me when I showed her the website printout. “You might mean the other rescue center down the road.” Same no-man’s land.

But like a good salesperson, she offered, “We have other small dogs” and mentioned a Jack Russell Terrier. “No Jack. Trop energie,” I reacted.

Meantime, Donna-Lane was at the other end of the counter, and they were putting a tiny, 12-week-old half-Yorkie, half-Jack pup in her arms.

Sherlock immediately began licking her face all over. He knew she was besotted.  

Rick is an aviation journalist and publisher of www.aviationvoices. com 

Julia's Free Write

 And so it started, their story.

When she fell pregnant it wasn’t totally planned, but then they hadn’t really been taking precautions either.

They had met late in life so although the question of marriage hadn’t really been settled, they were in an exclusive and committed relationship.

I, the mother and mother-n-law to be, was overjoyed and when they did decide to “tie the knot” (oh dear now I am wondering why that expression – another day, another log) I quickly threw together with their help a small ceremony and lunch in honor of the day.  It was wonderful and they were surrounded in love.

When, two months later, my fist grandson made his entry into the family, there is no other word for it. I was besotted – and still am to this day.

Julia has written and taken photos all her life and loves syncing up with friends. Her blog can be found: https://viewsfromeverywhere.blogspot.com/