Le Carrot Salon

In a large garden, on a farm, grew a patch of carrots, but unbeknownst to Mr. Gardner, his carrot seeds had sprouted into something more than just the average plant. One day his daughter parked her lawn mower by the patch and sat down with her iced water to weed the onions nearby. To her astonishment she heard the carrots whispering among themselves.
“Uh, Mr. Carrot, welcome to the ‘Le Carrot Salon’. Please be seated, and what can I do for your leafy stalks today?”
“Just a trim if you please. I hear that it is not so fashionable this year to expose the stalk but rather just a little trim to fluff the leaves.”
“So, so. Indeed that is true.”
“I have just now heard something terrible that could indeed damage our style to the highest degree,” a little ladylike carrot piped up.
“What might that be?”
“Our stylish salon is in danger. I have heard of the Human, who in one foul snap destroys our weeks of work and style. This snap leaves the head bare and disgraceful.”
“Uh, what disgusting manners; to leave this master of the salon with no stalks to snip and style?”
“I’ve heard that it is true. Why only last week one of our dear maidens was dealt with in such a manner and none have seen her since.”
“Terrible! Who might this maiden be?”
“Carotee.”
“But no! I spent hours last week styling her most fragile stalks. A snip here and there, a little curl and how the tiny sprouts on her leaves did blossom at my touch.”
“It was a terrible thing, but will it happen again? It is damaging to our entire patch to lose such beauty.”
“What could the Humans want with such cruelty to damage our best vanity?”
“I have heard an even darker secret yet.”
“What might that be?”
“That they take our stalks and feed them to the chickens. The chickens I tell you! The lowly scratching animals who destroy our fragile work in moments.”
“Carotee must have died of a broken heart with such a disgrace. Every young man would turn from her in shame.”
“It is the Humans that should be ashamed of their vile manners and disgusting practices to destroy our future in such a manner.”
Mr. Gardner’s daughter shook her head in amusement. Was she suffering from heat stroke to imagine such nonsense? With a decisive move she reached across to the carrot patch and tore a carrot from the ground, snapped the stalk and threw it over the fence to the chickens.
Yum, fresh carrots tasted so good.

Christmas Craft

Are you tired, tired, tired of typical tags at Christmas? The ones on your gift that portray a sleigh, reindeer and Santa?
I am. So this year although I may not have slightly more interesting tags on my gifts, I can assure you others in my family will!
It is very simply really. Do an internet search for Christmas colouring in pictures. There will probably be candles, Bibles, holly, snow come up along with others. Copy these and create a document where you can space them and then print them out, either as they are to glue to colourful paper or to turn straight into labels.
These pictures can also be used on Christmas cards, and the year I did this it was very popular. They look especially good glued to home made paper and people love these hand coloured authentic cards and tags.
If you have any trouble finding pictures or paper please let me know. Here is a picture from

www.uncommoncourtesy.com/ChristmasColoring6.htm to start you off.

Yellow Frustration

Although yellow is all around
No inspiration can be found
I stared at the yellow plank wall
Until I was interrupted by a call
When I came back to the blank page
I still had not got past the first stage
The right words seem to forever elude
Making me think that yellow is quite rude
Nothing lends itself to a story
Not torch, banana, duck or baby
I have tried starting so many sentences
But all have collapsed without repentance
There was a bowl and a girl called Eden
In a family of four little children
Always her cup and bowl were bold
Bright yellow that was not gold
It was her very favourite colour
She really would have no other
Yet one night setting the table for tea
She saw I had none and said to me
“Miss, please may you have mine instead?”
“Thank you, Edie. You keep yours.” I calmly said
Under the sink I found another and all were fed
The table cleared, the children put to bed
It set my mind to thinking and writing
Of the little yellow box that is sitting
Near my bed on a wooden shelf
Dad helped me to buy for myself
My eyes were opened wide in awe
As I slowly lifted the lid and saw
A tiny little doll in her gauzy tutu
Twirling to the twinkly wind up tune
It held all my pretty pink girly treasures
But before long it gave me another pleasure
In it my little Kelly dolls would lie
When I thought that they would die
It was the hospital intensive care bed
Where Mummy dolly came to shed
Tears for her pale imaginary child
Whose illness really was quite mild
The doll soon recovered but another came
Till I tired as a teen of that young game
Now the box sits holding only a few
Of my various strands of jewels
Its history so very interesting
It inspired quite a lot of writing
About the frustrating colour yellow
Towards which I am starting to mellow
THE END

Poor Mr. Period

Mr. Period lived right at the end of Sentence Street. He was very small in stature and rather portly and round in appearance. As such, and with important Susanna, big House, busy Run and our colourful Attractive living nearby he thought rather poorly of himself. Being a quiet fellow he rarely ever said anything but when he did he never quite realised that he was the end word on the subject.
He often imagined that people were staring at him, even laughing at him because of his smallness but really they never were. He kept his eyes planted on the ground and spoke with a mumble, but this caused everyone to listen all the harder to his words which were usually quite profound.
Would he ever look back over his life and see his importance? Or would he always keep small, weak and tired, never truly realising his power?

The Annoying Adjective

Across the street from Susanna and house lived a very vivacious adjective by the name of Attractive. Her life was bright and illustrative and she was never quiet, always having something to accentuate with her personality.
Although in the right circumstances she complimented Susanna, house and run, she often rubbed them up the wrong way too. While run was busy living and often forgetting to be, house and Susanna were so busy being they often forgot to live and then Attractive got right in the middle with her bright and fluffy ways with seemingly no purpose other than to add colour to their lives.
People looking into Sentence Street would have seen how Attractive the place was with all the colour and brightness being added by our little adjective friend but stuck in the middle of the street run, house and Susanna simply could not see what Attractive qualities were added. They could only see an annoying adjective who never seemed to do or be anything other than attractive and annoying.

The Nonsensical Nouns

In the story of life lived two friends called nouns. Their names were Susanna and house and they lived on Sentence Street. Now Susanna thought rather highly of herself, having after all, a name that began with a capital letter and owning the title of a proper noun. House, however, thought quite lowly of herself being a rather simple thing. Why Susanna and house were friends was quite a mystery to behold other than the reason that they lived side by side.
Susanna seemed important and was quite proud of her station as the Proper Noun in Sentence Street. She spent quite a bit of time with house talking about her goals and vision in life. House simply listened and really thought very little of life other than simply living.
Perhaps the joining factor between these two unlikely friends was that though one was quite proud of her position and the other thought rather lowly of herself, neither ever moved beyond talking about their goals, one thinking she was too lowly to have any and the other always planning about her life but rarely doing.
Neither really realised their purpose in the sentence, in the paragraph, in the chapter, in the story and both spent their lives simply being rather than ever doing.

The Doing Verb

Once upon a page, in Sentence Street, lived a little verb called run. He tried so hard to do all the time that he really forgot how to be.
He lived on a page full of other words, but he tried so hard all the time just to run, that he never really got anywhere.
One day a hand picked up the book he was living in and leafed through the pages until a finger paused on his page and he watched as the tip of the finger crept closer to him and finally came to rest. The pressure of the finger caused the little running verb to stay still and as he stopped doing, he was able to be and look around and see all the other words in his sentence. He realised he was part of something bigger than just running. As he rested further he discovered that he was part of a paragraph and as that thought hit him, he looked further and saw that he was part of a page, part of a chapter and finally part of a whole book.
The little verb realised that next time he started running, he could be part of being too instead of just doing. He was finally running with a purpose to help complete his sentence.