The Hare That Started It All.

This hare was created by a local artist, Jan Miller, whose work has featured in this journal before. I was attracted to it by the effect of the back-lighting which I have, somehow, completely failed to capture, but the sculpture is a feature of today’s activities.

The second Thursday of the month is now the designated meeting day for our U3A Writing Group. It was started three or four years ago although I only joined it last year; at the first meeting, to start the ball rolling, the writers' eyes fell on this hare and that was to be the topic of their first forays into the literary world. It happens that one of our members is, at present, writing a saga about a boy call "Hair," because of the strange nature of his Barnet, she is very creative, coming up with the most bizarre, but delightful stories.

While others are writing their life stories or letting their imagination run riot I, generally, take along a few of my blip entries, although there have been exceptions. I find it very difficult to write fiction in the general sense - I can embellish the truth a little to improve a story, but that is the extent of my talent. Mrs TD says that I am prone to exaggerate but, when she makes such a claim, it is often because I have taken the trouble to quantify the phenomenon that I am reporting where-as she has not; my embellishments take the form of invented details that I wish were true: the idea of having meat-balls for dinner the day the dog visited the vet comes to mind.

When the group began, I did toy with the idea of joining; I managed to resist the temptation for a few years but did write a short essay at the time, it was based on an incident that had been lurking in the deep recesses of my mind for well over fifty years. For a few years I did take a casual interest in the literary goings on while steadfastly defying the urge to join in; it was curiosity that finally brought about my downfall. So it was that, today, I took in that short story from my youth, it was quite well received; no doubt Jnr would say that my friends just pretended in order to avoid causing disappointment. However, as I write this it occurs to me that, with a suitable picture, the tale would be suitable for a blip.