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I am starting again with simcity4, with NAM lite and the most basic crash saver mods. This is really helping me not get overwhelmed. Now I would really love to add more variety to my cities without having to manually 'plop' buildings. This looks like it could be possible, but I am getting bewildered trying to work out what the simplest route is to achieving this. I prefer mods which match the aesthetic of the original game rather than having super realistic builds, and my cities spend a lot of time as low wealth starter areas, as I like the look of that. I realise that not all mods will grow on the map naturally, but that you can force some to do so with mods etc, but this is the point at which I get confused and not sure what to do next. I can't work out how to search the database for low wealth growable buildings, or those which would be compatible with a mod to make them grow. Also I am not sure which mod I might need, is it 'growify?'.

Thank you @SIM-ple Jack I really appreciate the feedback!

Letty Albin, Mayor of Burton A massive unlit bonfire towered at the end of a processional path of cardboard Llamas. A rowdy gaggle of students were heaving a massive wicker hoop upright, while another excited group steered an unstable wheelbarrow full of waste wood towards the ceremonial pyre. Myrtle and I were squirty lemony fresh Bleacho into the dubious looking camper toilet inside Lowell Cree’s vintage motorhome, also known, by my friend at least, as ‘the rust bucket’. I really wasn’t sure if festivals were ‘my thing’. An occasional venture into an easy going rock and roll radio station would be enough to keep me entertained for a year. The idea of being blasted by enormous speakers, and wading around in mud had not appealed in the slightest. ‘Will you STOP moaning,’ Myrtle moaned, ‘The Burton festival isn’t really about music anyway.’ I couldn’t disagree with her. Hairy Pete’s Experimental Electric Banjo Tunes, which were floating towards us from the folk stage really didn’t qualify as a recognisable melody. Lack of sleep was a factor in our quarrelling. I had been claustrophobic lying in the overcab bed, and my friend had been unable to organise the dinette cushions in a way that didn’t involve zips, gaps and lumps sticking into parts of her that preferred a proper mattress. I slapped a pair of enormous headphones onto my ears, to block out any obnoxious noises, and we went in search of a hot drink, hopefully somewhere more civilised. ‘What’s a Legbut Rainbow beer Tent?’ Myrtle enquired. I didn’t care, it looked quiet and out of the wind. We sulked at a wooden table, staring at our soy based vegan Ovaltine. ‘As soon as Stacy and Thea do the hoop thing we’re gone,’ my friend decided. I agreed wholeheartedly. Mayor Albin floated past wearing an enormous grin and a ‘Rainbow Ally’ t-shirt. A group of people were gathering at one end of the tent. ‘Please no more singing,’ I whispered to myself, hiding my head under an organic embroidered cushion. ‘I am honoured to welcome to the stage,’ announced Letty Albin, ‘two well known faces who will appreciate your support this evening at the bonding ceremony.’ A small ripple of applause followed. ‘We’re being haunted,’ exclaimed Myrtle, wrenching me out of my upholstery nest. Neil Fairbanks and Augustine Osbourne stood awkwardly holding hands on the raised platform, acknowledging a somewhat muted cheer from the audience. ‘Well that’s a surprise,’ cackled Myrtle, ‘I was convinced that Augustine bloke was a vampire, hanging round tombs and disappearing at night like he did, when he was actually just slipping away to bed down wherever that slimeball Fairbanks hangs out.’ I was too exhausted to comment. Fairbanks was holding a sheaf of papers, and looking towards the rear of the tent. ‘I rather thought that my father might be.. well never mind..’. He donned a pair of half-moon spectacles and opened his mouth to begin. Whatever speech the chief government advisor had prepared, however, was drowned out by a hysterical flurry of barking and minor explosions just outside the tent’s canvas wall. ‘Fluffy McD!,’ we both shouted in unison, leaping to our feet, and racing outside, followed by a relieved crowd of Legbut patrons, who seemed glad not to have their supportive instincts tested to the limit by the reading out of twenty pages of closely typed text. Our furry friend, towing a desperate Lowell Cree behind him, like a water-skier on mud, was throwing himself alternately at the a platoon of FemLegUh Feminine Fitness Role Models, in their pink knee-length modesty bloomers, and the Church Ladies’ tambourine chorus, all of whom were ducking and diving to avoid mini fire-crackers which were spraying out of a rotating tin box. Myrtle threw herself on top of FluffyMcD like a mother hen protecting her chick, and the resulting change of momentum sent Mayor Cree cannoning into a large plastic recycling bin which overturned to reveal Bob ‘the grease’ Pit clutching at his electric organ, and a quivering Stanley Green, financial advisor for Magnasanti, shaking his head and saying ‘I never touched it, I only looked at it! Over and over again. We finally regained some sense of order, and retreated to the Rust Bucket. Cree, who was obviously in the process of trying to win back his estranged wife, had offered to see if anything could be done with the dinette cushions. This was a doubly generous gesture, as he himself had spent the night in a leaky old army tent, on my second best air mattress, with the agitated dog tied to his leg. ‘There’s no point, we’re going straight home after the heathen weddings.’ Myrtle objected, but still she went inside the van to supervise his efforts. I decided to take FMcD for a very long walk, well away from the maddening crowds, to see if fresh air, exercise and some peace and quiet would calm him down, and me too if I was being honest. It didn’t take long to leave the smoky campfires, ‘perineal boosting’ chanting, and ill disciplined tambourines behind. I found a narrow muddy path into a small wooded valley. My furry friend and I followed the track along a tumbling stream, until the way was blocked by a delightful waterfall. It was the perfect place to sit and relax, and let the soothing sounds of nature take away the corrugations of stress that had gathered in my neck and shoulders. I squeezed through bushes to get to a comfortable looking fallen tree, and was anticipating a nice sit down when FMcD startled and tugged on the lead. I slid sideways down the bank, and landed full square on top of the Vicar. Miss Polanski’s guide to social etiquette, which had been such a reliable source of support in my uncertain teenage years, had much to say about the proper management of relationships with religious officials. She did not however anticipate the situation I had been currently thrown into, merely suggesting that unexpected and awkward encounters could be made more palatable by neutral references to the weather. I decided that commenting on the likelihood of rain was not an appropriate reaction to being dragged through mud towards the edge of a water course whilst tied to a churchman by an extendable dog lead. It was obvious that the Rev Cotterall was having similar social difficulties, but one of us had to crack first. ‘I’m sorry about the dog,’ I gabbled, ‘ He hates being left alone, but isn’t good around people either.’ Cotterall nodded and smiled, ‘Well I know how that feels!’. ‘He just needs a proper home, sensible meals, and someone to take him round the park at midnight after everyone has gone home and the ducks have gone to sleep. He would settle down a treat then!.’ Cotterall disentangled himself from the lead and tickled McD under the chin. To my amazement, the dog seemed quite happy with the gesture. ‘Those park ducks can be quite a pain in the neck.’ The Rev laughed,and Fluffy, delighted with the sympathy, rolled over and begged for a tummy rub. ‘You like dogs?,’ I asked. ‘Some of them, yes, some people too,’ he answered, causing me to blush unexpectedly. Having run out of conversation, we walked back towards the festival site together, somewhat awkwardly avoiding eye contact. A huge crowd had gathered to watch couples leap through the wicker hoop, and I was right at the back unable to see anything. ‘I’m meant to be watching Stacy and Thea,’ I panicked. ‘This is my fault entirely,’ the Rev apologised, ‘please could I?’ He was offering to give me a leg up onto a nearby wall. I decided to ignore my inhibitions and allow the Vicar to help. I was just able to see the top of the hoop, but not the couples passing through it, I needed to push to the front of the crowd somehow. Getting down was not nearly so simple as climbing up. The muddy ground looked a long way off now I looked at it, and I half fell and wound up clutching onto the Vicar’s head with one leg wrapped around his shoulder. The churchman staggered this way and that. Even the most distracted of festival goers could sense the danger of staying within the range of potential disaster, and a path magically opened up, just as Fairbanks and Augustine jumped timidly through the wickerwork to a round of polite applause. As our unintentional acrobatic act tottered ever closer towards the hoop, a queue of romantic couples featuring all kinds of gender combinations suddenly lost their sense of commitment and scattered in various directions. Upset by the excitement of the crowd, the howling Fluffy McD wrapped his lead like a maypole dancer tightly around the churchmans’ legs. I clutched desperately onto what remained of Cotterall’s hair, dreading the inevitable contact with the ground which must follow. I think I shouted ‘Don’t let Parry Marcelyn operate on me if I break a hip!’ but it was all a blur really. I’m sure the spiritual leader of Saint Muldyke’s, one Geoffery Cotterall, has in one of his many sermons, reached out and affected the odd parishioner here and there, but he could not possibly have, in whole career, experienced the effect that he would have on the youthful crowd, of suddenly appearing in his muddied up Church of Ballina regalia illuminated by the ring of torch-light behind the bonding hoop, with a purple haired woman wearing tartan bondage trousers, and effecting a kind of flying parachute roll through the bedecked mystic circle, accompanied by a baying, one and a quarter eared hound. The scream of delight that went up from the assembled throng was electrifying. Camera flashes blinded us, roaring students competed with the outraged ranks of church women. Through it all I could hear Myrtle, screaming at the top of her voice. ‘You upstaged Fairbanks!’ Lying in the wet grass, part dazzled by camera flashes, I made out the blurry figures of two gentlemen in brown GUM overalls, wearing dark glasses. They made towards us, but hesitated, realising that their only free path lay through the bonding circle. An uncomfortable pause followed when they avoided looking at each other while weighing up the strength of their loyalty to whatever dark forces employed them. A simultaneous collective decision was made to run off in opposite directions. Having completed a survey of my fallen body, and concluded that nothing had been too far damaged, my brain allowed me to realise that I had, somehow managed, to accidentally marry the Vicar. Glancing sideways, I noted that Geoff had reached the same startling conclusion. Thankfully a new incident arose as a welcome distraction from our predicament. Sally, the most civilised of the helpers at the Boll Road Sheltered Housing Centre, was shouting for assistance. ‘Somebody help, Mrs Rorshach is being crushed by a boa constrictor!’. A rush of onlookers hurried towards the overflowing car park. I noticed Alice, with an unusually empty carrier bag, exchanging a thumbs up with a top-hatted stilt walker. A group of Firefighters were prising a window out of the excursion coach and directing their hoses at the site of the reptilian attack. It seemed that this was their stock response to any emergency. I thought I could hear the distant panicked voice of Roy, Fairbank’s brother, trying to rescue his pet from the torrent of water. ‘Some days I think Alice goes too far,’ Myrtle had appeared behind me. ‘Mind you, that Rorshach woman sulking in the bus when there’s all this fun going on, it probably serves her right!’. ‘Ooh I forgot to say, Thea and Stacy aren’t coming, she’s got morning sickness and didn’t want to travel.’ This last piece of information, with Myrtle’s trademark inclusion of previously undisclosed information was so infuriating that I stormed off, without really knowing where I was going, hopefully somewhere that made more sense. What I found was the small sad looking Neil Fairbanks with his father Mortimer Green, at the quiet end of the Legbut tent. ‘I was hoping she might come after all, Mother you know,’ said Neil. Dr Green patted his son on the shoulder. ‘Hilda can be difficult, when she doesn't get her own way. She never has accepted your divorce from Pamela.’ The Mayor of Deighton Augustine Osbourne, Neil’s newly wed partner, returned to their table. ‘They don’t sell alcohol I'm afraid. It is only a beer tent in the metaphorical sense, apparently.’ He sat down heavily on a flimsy folding chair, and stared at the tray of bamboo beakers he had balanced on his knee, each filled with floating vegetable matter. The family group suddenly noticed me hovering, mouth hanging open, so I took off my scarf, and acted waitressy by wiping their table with it. ‘I’m sorry your Mother didn’t come to your wedding,’ I blurted out, to my own surprise as much as anyone. Neil grabbed both my hands and said ‘thank you’ a little tearily. Little brother Roy arrived just then, and pushed past me carrying a writhing rainbow sack while complaining about ‘yet more vet bills’, so I took the chance to escape. I had no idea what to do next, so I went outside and sat down beside the fireworks controller. A little light on the side was flashing and I spotted what looked like a tiny camera lens and leaned down to investigate. I was startled when an electronic voice activated. ‘Welcome O-Val-Tine Family Member Two, thank you for purchasing a quality product from Magnaprime software, how can I assist you today?’ Magnaprime was owned by Neil’s Mother, Hilda Fairbanks wasn’t it? Suddenly a lot of things started slotting into place and I wondered if the electronic assistant really could help me. So I started asking questions. It was completely dark by the time I had finished. FluffyMcD spotted me first, and jumped up and down at the end of his long lead, which had been tied to the Motorhome. ‘I told you she would be back,’ Myrtle’s voice floated through the surrounding haze of burning campfires and other substances I tried not to think about. Geoff hovered uncertainly. ‘I’m so sorry, it was all my fault, I’ll ask the Bishop for an annulment as soon as his office opens tomorrow.’ he blurted out. ‘No you won’t,’ I said, more calmly than I felt, and then I reached up on my tiptoes and kissed him.’ It was hard to say who was most astonished, though I would argue myself to the top of the list given a chance. ‘Fluffy and I are going to come and live at the Vicarage, and I will cook you some proper dinners, and we are going to stop Ballina turning into a district of Hilda Fairbank’s Magnasanti together.’ Myrtle handed me a steaming mug of our favourite drink. ‘With Myrtle’s help of course,’ I added, diplomatically. ‘Sounds like a good idea,’ my friend replied, ‘I was thinking it couldn’t be Neil doing all this, he is as much of a bumbling fool as the rest of the males in his family, he just hides it better under that veneer of smarm.’ Talk about Mortimer Green becoming the default pattern for Magnaprime’s facial recognition system, or how the liquidated stock from Hilda Fairbank’s previous novelties and garden statuary business had been sold off illegally to Gustav’s after the fuss about psychotropic substances in novelty biscuits, and conversations about the secret spies that were sent out to protect her favourite son, all these topics could wait for a suitable rainy day. Bob ‘the Grease’ Pit was playing a tango rhythm arrangement of the Nutcracker suite, and a hearty band of students were busy tossing cardboard Llamas onto their huge bonfire down in the wedding field. It would be a shame to miss any of it. Later, while trying to digest Lowell’s blackened bbq meats, my new husband turned to me thoughtfully. ‘Vicar’s wife, are you absolutely sure this is what you want?’ he asked, ‘It’s,’ he hesitated, ‘a lot of being polite and refereeing between warring parties, it might drive you barmy.’ ‘Well,’ I answered,’you can do it that way, or you can follow my Mother’s plan, which was to be equally rude to everyone except the Bishop, it was a very efficient system.’ Geoff looked at me for a few seconds before bursting into laughter. I squeezed his hand, and FluffyMcD barked and jumped up and down for joy, or possibly in an attempt to get more cindered sausages off the charcoal grill. Myrtle slid beside me, passing out steaming mugs of her favourite brew. ‘I might have been wrong about the Vicar.’ she said neutrally, as if admitting to being wrong was something she did everyday, ‘You should have heard what he said to that FemLegUH lot when they came complaining about his lack of moral example!’ She fished into her capacious handbag and brought out a promotional leaflet about dog flea treatments, which had been covered in any unprinted areas by her scrawling handwriting. ‘I wrote it down,’ she said, propping her rarely seen reading glasses on the end of her nose, ‘He said, I am proud to get married in this company, what I am embarrassed about, is when committed couples ask to be joined in my church, and I have to say no because of outdated rules based on the small minded prejudices of higher officials.’ Lowell leaned over conspiratorially, ‘Then Fluffy McD took a fancy to chewing on those stupid athletic bloomers and they positive role modelled away at high speed. It was a shame you missed it really.’ he chuckled. ‘I might have to forgive Cotterall for the mix up with the bingo calling. I do hold a grudge sometimes, and I’m not one to ignore my own faults,’ said Myrtle, adopting a holy expression and looking upwards for a moment, ‘and at least he has civilised tastes in hot drinks’ she smiled, tilting her head towards the unexpected bridegroom, who was now sipping Ovaltine out of a plastic camping beaker and reading the bits of the Simnation Times that FMcD had not already chewed over. I just nodded happily in response, because I know that she likes to have the last word. ‘

I look forward to viewing your posts, this is magnificent work, and would be fun to do some of these images as jigsaw puzzles!

This is the map of my region currently, with a population of 155,412, and steam tells me I have played for 163 hours, so my population growth per hour is around 953. I suspect that this is very slow compared to most players of the game!! The last* episode of the Ballina Files is scheduled for release on Saturday, the penultiate episode is available as I am writing this now. I asterisked the 'last' as I am already having withdrawal symptoms...but I must...(speaks with determination) do something about the weeds in the garden before spring takes over and things get once more out of control, so this is it for now (listen how determined I sound!) Thank you everyone who chose to come along for the ride, and for those who were kind enough to click the like button.

Stella Kenelm, Mayor of Boll I was waiting for Myrtle outside the Boll Road Sheltered housing unit, poking at a bit of loose plastic which kept popping up on the dashboard when I noticed my old apartment block neighbour, Mrs Rorshach, glaring at me out of Doris’s old bedroom window. ‘Don’t encourage that tedious old witch,’ instructed Myrtle, as she landed rather heavily into the passenger seat. ‘I had to have a shower at the Fire Station this morning because she ran off all the hot water in the building trying to flush an imaginary spider out of her shower tray.’ I nodded sympathetically, but I was fully occupied trying to find 359 Harbour Road, Boll, in my spiral bound street gazetteer of Ballina. This was the address of our portacabin neighbour Clinton. After struggling to control the hound at work, Bill had been experimenting with leaving FluffyMcD at home during the day, but complaints about noise had flooded in from the neighbours, so we had offered to visit the poor dog to give him some company, and a break from being locked inside. We had reached the centre of Boll, and I was trying to work out the next move before the lights changed, but I couldn’t concentrate because Myrtle was still muttering on about Mrs Rorschach, so I interrupted her by bashing hard on the dashboard with my road map. This had the additional effect of snapping off the rogue loose plastic piece from the dashboard. However, now the car’s hazard warning lights were flashing on and off, and we had to park up in front of Blinky Sloane’s Discount Opticians to stick a bit of one of Myrtle’s toffee’s into the hole left by the broken trim to fix the problem. I decided that I wasn’t in a good mood. Fluffy McD was waiting in the bungalow’s front room window. He had already clawed down the curtains, and our arrival excited him further. I began to think that the double glazing would give way before we managed to get the door open. ‘He doesn’t like being left on his own,’ said Myrtle, stating the obvious. The lounge door had sustained deep grooves where the poor hound had tried to escape. We made a huge fuss of the beast, and he responded with a body whirling, tail wagging dance. ‘I wish I could take you home, yes I do,’ my friend pulled a coochy coo face and was rewarded by having her face coated in dog saliva. ‘I don’t know why Clinton bought a pet if he doesn’t have time to look after him, ' I objected,’ opening the fridge, and sliding a plate of salmon odds and ends into a pet bowl. ‘He didn’t buy FluffyMcD,’ my friend replied, ‘ Clinton found the dog chained up when he took over the lease for the breaker’s yard on the industrial estate.’ ‘How could anyone abandon an animal like that?’ I said angrily, trying to put the bowl on the floor through a barrier of swirling dog. FMcD didn’t so much eat the snack, as run at it with so much momentum that it was absorbed internally as he passed through it. ‘Ugh, salmon,’ Myrtle pulled a face, ‘it isn’t the taste, it’s the price.’ I looked at her , but not encouragingly. ‘Cost me four thousand dollars, all my savings, stupid Fairbanks was at the bottom of it, but he got away with it like he always does.’ My attention shifted to this surprising information. ‘What are you on about now?’ ‘That salmon farm nonsense, I told you about it before,’. ‘No you didn’t..’ ‘I did, it was when I was living up in Bachrein, with Lowell. This big scheme, american backers, couldn’t fail, fresh mountain salmon, they dug a huge hole in a mountainside, then the so called company director vanished with all the funds, and I was left chasing after nothing. I’d invested all my money. How do you think I ended up living in the Sheltered Housing?’ I shook my head. ‘It was an offer I couldn’t refuse,’ that’s what they call it when you poke about somewhere you shouldn’t for too long. I didn’t have the state of mind to fight back anymore, and it was all finished with Lowell. I had nowhere else to go.’ I shook my head again, some days new facts just get filed away in an overflowing part of my brain to be dealt with later. A walk on the beach had been refreshing, if a little stressful at times, FMcD is very fussy about strange people, or animals, who get in his way, or look like they might get in the way, or who might be flying overhead, making remarks in gull language which contradicted his world view. He also had contentious opinions about the best location for discarded ice-cream wrappers. We believed that these were better left in the litter bins that lined the beach side path, FMcD disagreed, sometimes extremely vocally and fighting with all his strength at the end of the extendable lead. My ears were ringing by the time we returned to Clinton’s home. Once back at the bungalow, things settled down at last, and we were able to relax in the delightful back garden. At least, the parts of the plot which hadn’t been subjected to McD’s recent mining activity were still delightful. A sea breeze wafted through the loose fencing, and the weather was unusually hot for February. The dog had finally dozed off on a warm patch of patio slabs which had caught the low sun. Myrtle was stretched out on a sun lounger, wrapped up in her coat, scarf and hat, and reading a lurid medical romance she had borrowed from Alice. That is, she had the book propped up by her side and occasionally glanced at a page between longer patches of closing her eyes and snoring. Though this can’t be regarded as sleeping, because she never does that in an afternoon, apparently. I was much more agitated and sitting bolt upright on a dining chair at the garden table, working out my financial budget for the following month. If it hadn’t been for Clinton filling up my car with the truck diesel he’d recovered from the fuel tanks of wrecks, I would be reduced to sneaking into Myrtle’s sheltered housing dining room again, to tolerate those bright green peas that the centre manager, Evadne Blackheart, buys in huge cans from a catering wholesaler on the ring road. As it was, my calculations still kept ending with displeasing minus signs around the third week. I was uncomfortably aware that it was mainly my legal representative who was benefiting from my penny pinching, and the insurance appeal was, frustratingly, still getting nowhere. I tried to work out at what point I would have paid more in profesional fees than I had any chance of getting back in compensation, but the wind kept blowing the pages of my notebook over, and I gave up in frustration. A group of boys were playing on the beach with some sort of flying toys that looked like mini drones. Their happy laughter distracted me for a while, until I heard the unwelcome loud conversation of an approaching couple of beach walkers. ‘I’ve read your book ‘Tightening The Belt’ ten times now,’ an eager young voice rang out ‘it is such a thrill to actually meet you in person Dr Green!’ An older man replied with unconvincing modesty, 'Just glad if it could be of some use.’ ‘You inspired me to go into politics,’ the keen fan continued. ‘Of course I am here in Ballina on a family matter, but I am always glad to spread the word about frugal financial management, especially to those eager to learn.’ ‘What are the Mayor of Boll and Magnasanti’s chief financial advisor having a cosy chat about now?’ Myrtle had popped up behind me like a stealthy galleon. We both sneaked closer to the fence. She crouched under a juniper bush and I continued to hide behind an unused laundry whirligig. Whatever wisdom Green was planning to impart was never to be heard though, as he suddenly started yelping, and hitting at his own face as if stung by bees. ‘It’s doing it by itself, the controls aren’t working any more,’ a panicked child’s voice floated up the beach. Soon a small crowd of boys surrounded the political pair, trying to stop their drones pelting Mortimer Green. The situation had finally caught the attention of our lazily relaxing hound. He stared for a moment, through a gap in the fence, then leapt completely over it from a standing start, nipping one of the flying toys out of the air as he landed neatly on the other side. Presently the sand was littered with crunched up electronics and crying boys trying to retrieve their gadgets. Once FMcD had established that the drones were inedible, he lost interest, and shot off down the beach to investigate the intriguing patch of rotting seaweed and decomposing jellyfish that he’d remembered from our walk earlier, and I ended up screaming ‘come back Fluffy’ over the fence until my throat was sore. It took us half an hour to capture the dog, but we could not persuade him to enter the hated front room, so we left him to roam free in the bungalow. ‘Bill will have no furniture left by the time he gets home,’ commented Myrtle dryly, and some mean part of me hoped it would be true. Later that evening, while I was experimenting once again with adjusting the air mattress, it occurred to me that Mortimer Green, when seen in real life, rather than his obviously touched up press shots, seemed oddly familiar. It wasn’t a resemblance to Neil Fairbanks, who must have taken after his mother, and had to be admitted, was quite handsome, if in an oily way. Roy Fairbanks, the younger child, had the same stocky build as his father, but again that wasn’t what was eating at the edge of my consciousness. The realisation finally came to me in the middle of the night, while fighting to switch off Fur Elise, belting out from the toilet roll holder in our small portacabin bathroom. Gnomes!!! Those ugly faced gnomes could have been moulded from a full body cast of Green, and their faces, if I took away the mispainted stoniness, were an exact match. What could this mean?

On multiple occasions (in different city tiles) I have reached the stage of being offered a city or desert mosque. This notification pops up with a picture of Neil Fairbanks. I have tried accepting both kinds on different occasions, and have never been able to to find out how to access the new building. Is this a glitch or am I just not looking in the right place?

I started out this story with the plan to write about all the tiles in my region, and their respective Mayors., thinking it would be a good way of keeping motivated while I built up the population. Little did I realise how much doing this would become something of an obsession! I have posted the twentieth episode today, and this leaves just two more entries to go. I would like to thank again all those who have read along so far, and hope you will stay until the finish. Is this the end? At the moment I don't know, but I will certainly take a break from writing for a while, and catch up on other things that have been somewhat neglected (garden weeds I'm looking at you!!) I would also like to catch up on reading many of your journals, and learn some more advanced techniques within the game, which I was concerned about trying in case I broke things mid-journal!!

Isabella Braeden, Mayor of Feilubin Urban legend suggests that the price charged per hour goes up a hundred dollars per floor in the Eagle Corp Business Services Tower. Horatio Chiseler, declared by Myrtle to be decent for a legal type, rented offices in the lower levels, so my elevator trip was short, and his fees were simply unaffordable, rather than astronomical. Even so, I had signed up for the ‘thirty minutes focused sessions’ rather than a more luxurious hour, to discuss the finer details of my insurance dispute. This brevity caused problems in itself, as the advisor made up for lack of time with rapid delivery. More than once I had found my mind rebounding from the dense jargon, and caught myself immersed instead in envious desire for the simple, yet pampered, life of Chiseler’s pot plants. I managed to pull myself away from the polished green shininess of a particularly fine specimen and forced my brain to focus on the anxiety provoking information being presented. ‘Their accusations against you are obviously ridiculous, but all they have to do is spin this out and bammo, you are out of funds.’ my advisor stated, as kindly as possibly. The current topic of conversation revolved around a spurious claim that I had left a clockwork timing device in my apartment, and therefore I was clearly a terrorist who had blown up the building myself. A few scorched fragments of gear wheels, and gaffer taped components were enough to support this fantasy. The previous incendiary incident at Dudley Sewage works was also brought up. It was a wonder that I survived the drive to Boll Road Sheltered Housing Complex, my mind was whirling. ‘They think I blew up the building with that cuckoo clock Arnold sent me!’ I yelled furiously, as my friend climbed into the passenger seat. Myrtle’s burgundy hat turned towards me sympathetically, but her actual head seemed less interested in my revelation than I had anticipated. ‘It’s blackmail, pure and simple.’ I spluttered on, unregarded. Maybe her feet were hurting. I reminded myself to be understanding just in case. ‘The choice is to be penniless, or a criminal or..’ but my angry outburst seemed to freewheel to a stand-still, pitted against this unexpected lack of comment. I watched as my friend’s coat sleeve reached for the seat belt, but I was unconvinced by the slim, pale hand which accompanied it. If it were not for the usual difficulty my passenger had stretching the safety device across her ample torso I might have suspected another one of her silly crash diets, like the time she fainted in a swan pedalo on the park boating lake, and the medics had to paddle out in a plastic pirate galleon to see to her. We reached the traffic queue for the Foulden Road Junction, and Myrtle did not relate the anecdote about her Mother ripping up the first set of traffic lights that appeared here, because they were ‘flashing on and off through her bedroom window’. This was really worrying. Some days I drove the long way round just to avoid hearing this tale one more time. I glanced sideways, but my friend was staring out of the passenger window, so I was unable to read her expression. I spent the next few miles reviewing my memories of the last few days. Could I have offended her in some way, or was she ill with some awful disease and was working herself up to telling me about it? I slammed my foot on the brakes in frustration, and also to avoid a Government Utilities Maintenance van which had made a reckless U-Turn right across my path. ‘Did you see that, I ought to report it, driver wearing dark glasses in this weather?’ The vow of silence by the occupant of the passenger seat remained intact. I ground my teeth and decided she could be like that, and see if I cared, I was quite able to be just as awkward if I put my mind to it, and decided to ignore Myrtle, and anything she did for the rest of the journey. We got as far as the Deighton by-pass before my resolution was tested past the limit. I could see in my rear mirror that some sort of van was dangerously hopping forward through the fast moving traffic. I managed to keep my mutterings about unsafe commercial drivers under my breath, but when the vehicle cut right across my path and caused me to swerve violently off the road into a lay-by I shouted a few things out loud that would have had me confined to Miss Simmons detention room in my high school years. My friend, however, seemed wholly unconcerned about our near miss, and was more occupied retrieving something from the footwell, and then with stuffing the found items down the front of her bulging Houndstooth Macintosh. Toilet rolls? I looked more carefully. The clip on earrings, the inevitable blue beads, all these were present and correct, but …? “Alice!! What on earth is going on??.’ Some sort of bewildering body swap appeared to have happened. Myrtle’s pal passed me a note. ‘Dear (the name was illegible due to the missive being written with a failing biro, I assumed the note was addressed to myself) (There followed a heavily embossed scrawl which had apparently revived the pen, but my correspondent kept the rest brief, obviously in case her writing implement let her down again) Alice=Me today M’ The rest of the drive to Feilubin passed in silence, with me nervously looking in the rear-view mirror in case any more white GUM vans were thinking of doing something unpredictable near-by. The turn off to Feilubin seemed to take us back in time, the roads were surrounded by fields, and even the farmers seemed ancient, but not quite as old as their outdated agricultural equipment. A few gulls squawked miserably around a rubbish tip, and then we dipped down into the tiny town. Mayor Braeden’s Mayoral mansion had a definite colour scheme. It was as if an explosion had occurred in a paint factory which confined its range to shades of the colour pink. In case the effect lacked enough punch, a range of pink hued wallpapers and matching curtains had been applied to complete the look. Myrtle had obviously coached Alice into looking like a sound recordist. She held the microphone out at the correct angle, and tapped at buttons convincingly. Her expression of polite interest was maintained at all times, unlike Myrtle’s tendency to lapse into irritated boredom at the slightest provocation. The Mayor seemed unconcerned at any rate. We were at least three chapters into ‘Isabella My Life and Works’, while sitting on a frilly pink sofa, drinking Ovaltine out of dainty pink china cups. ‘Spoils the taste,’ I imagined my friend saying, and her ghostly intervention was correct, it did. At least the extended tedium of the Braeden’s recollections had calmed my nerves and I could now sip the drink without rattling it against the saucer. ‘So moving on from my early childhood achievements, I was sent to Dr Swaroffski’s residential school for gifted children. That is where I met the young Neil Fairbanks you understand,’ Amidst a vast ocean of droning on, Mayor Braeden had suddenly produced a wavelet of interest. ‘He was totally in awe of his Mother, and hid under the bed when she visited. We had to tempt him out with a tin of sardines. Of course Hilda Fairbanks practically runs Magnasanti now, she is the power behind the throne, as it were. Her software business bankrolls the whole economy as far as I understand. I think it says a lot that Neil took his Mother’s name, rather than that deadweight father, Mortimer Green, what a total klutz that man is, and so much shorter than he appears in the newspapers. I suspect they stand him on a box for the photo ops.’ Mortimer Green, the photo which appears regularly in the Simnation Times. Mortimer Green, as snapped by a Magnasanti Citizen. The rest of the self aggrandising speech, promoting the expanding remit of FemLegUH, her single handed heroic rescue of Feilubin from the horrors of a progressive school system, all passed me by. Fairbanks had parents, and what a pair they sounded! I couldn’t wait to get back home, and find the frustratingly absent Myrtle to give her the news. Saying Alice was quiet on the way home is as redundant as saying the wind in Ballina is a bit windy today, but there was an intense quality to the quiet which differed from the trip out. Apart from an occasional glance over her shoulder at the road behind she was very still and seemingly thoughtful. I was tempted to turn on the radio to interrupt the silence, but something held me back. Eventually a fresh idea seemed to occur to her, as she sat up straight and tapped my knee for attention. We were approaching the Deighton roundabout but she pointed determinedly at the side turn to a 24/7 petrol station and convenience store. My puzzlement was abated when she hopped out of the car and headed towards the customer comfort facilities. I could see the shop manager glaring at me through the glass window from behind her counter, so I decided to enter the convenience store and buy the smallest price item available, so as to qualify as a genuine patron. While I was queuing with the heavily discounted tiling grout, I saw a familiar white van slide into an empty space next to the tyre pressure checking facility. It could have been my imagination, but both the occupants seemed to be staring at my car through their inappropriately dark sunglasses. I could hardly concentrate enough to pay for my shopping. With Alice back in the passenger seat, I made to rejoin the road, but she indicated that we should drive round the back of the shop. As soon as we were out of sight of the van, she hopped back out of the car, after grabbing a large handful from the foreign coin collection that had been skidding around in a recess on the dashboard. Why was she fiddling with the payment tower on the car wash? Acting like a character from a spy novel, Alice then bobbed up and down trying to peep through the gap in the buildings, eventually she was satisfied, and waved me into the empty bay. I wasn’t happy at this development as I hated these noisy machines with their semi-violent brushes and gushing water, but my collaborator had not yet confirmed the wash program. Then a great many things happened at once. The nose of the white van poked around the corner, Alice hit a big green button, then flapped her arms frantically for me to drive straight through before the program started. She squeezed down the side of the monstrosity and leapt back in the passenger seat. The pair of government maintenance engineers saw their quarry escaping and accelerated into the path of the oncoming brushes. Realising their mistake they tried to back out, but the hinge of the emergency exit gate was trapped shut by a fat pink quilted toilet roll, identical to those last seen in the chintzy visitor’s cloakroom at the official mansion in Feilubin. An error siren blared out as foam, water and brushes swirled in a maelstrom of misused programming. Wax, water and a tidal wave of suds flowed from the machine. The last we saw of the suspicious occupants was two pairs of sunglasses pressed up against their windscreen, which was rapidly disappearing under a blanket of foam. Alice calmly smiled and clutched her carrier bag of toilet rolls in triumph as we cruised back to Ballina Central. When I dropped my substitute partner off at Boll Road, Myrtle was just arriving back at the Centre, wearing her best coat. She claimed that she had been to get her ears dewaxed and was therefore unavailable for the trip, but she wouldn’t look me in the eye. In any case, Sally has one of those electric things that pumps warm water out, and she does all the Boll Road residents for free. I couldn’t see Myrtle throwing away good money just for a bit of soft carpeting and a string quartet playing over the speakers at the private centre. I was really cross, if she hadn’t wanted to go she could have just told me surely? However things fell into place that evening, when Lowell Cree rang me in the portacabin. He wanted to know in detail what Myrtle had thought of their day out together, specifically had she said anything good about him? Hesitating, I managed to come up with ‘well she didn’t say anything bad,’ which was sort of honest, and seemed to reassure him at least. I wondered how this attempted reconciliation might work out, it was certainly food for thought. It seemed a little selfish, but if my friend upped and moved to Bachrein I would actually miss her very much. Maybe she was, as she had said before, simply keeping her options open? There was nothing to do but wait and see.

Lynda Cheryl, Mayor of Cuinchy Myrtle had finally worked herself up to visiting the chiropodist, so I had a little time to myself. After reading ten times through a letter from my legal representative, which explained the difference between subsidence caused by a gas explosion, as opposed to a gas explosion set off by subsidence, I decided to sort out my hair instead. Edna the hairdresser had been quite cutting when I met her coming out of the post office. Ok, it could be seen as a generous offer to do a ‘touch up’ on my mis-matched roots for free, due to my circumstances, but up until then the state of my appearance had not felt an issue. Now I was staring in every reflective surface and feeling self conscious in the street. I thumped my newly purchased packet of hair dye onto the tiny counter by our portacabin sink. An old army blanket was the only original content of the portacabin when I signed my first rental cheque, and had served various functions over the years, today it was a hairdressing cape. I imagined that it would transition back into being a draft excluder in the near future. Guinee Laboratories Apricot Splendour had served me well for decades, it was the same powder that Edna mixed up in her stained plastic beaker, while she probed me for details about my love life, or lack thereof. The label on the packet was twisted around, and it was hard to read the instructions. Still, at 49p from the bargain bucket of Roger’s Rejects Stall at the Flea market, I shouldn’t grumble. I had worked up sachet one into a decent froth when the first knock of the day landed on the portacabin door. Dripping small staining puddles as I went, I leaned outside the window to see who was calling. It looked like a small woman waving a placard which read ‘Adulterer’s Repent’, but as I had removed my glasses I couldn’t be sure. ‘We don’t want any,’ I shouted, before closing the window. My visitor had greater lung power than I might have imagined, considering her diminutive stature. ‘I’ve brought you some turkey,’ she yelled, holding up a covered plate to the window, and pointing to it encouragingly. Some of the mystery of this situation dissipated when I spotted a pink minivan parked outside our plot. The signage on the vehicle read ‘FemLegUH Mission For The Homeless’, with a smiling cartoon style woman holding up a plate of food. ‘Right,’ I said, to myself mostly. I might have said more, but for the hurtling rocket which was Clinton’s new guard dog, having smelt something tasty from its distant abode, and appearing airborne as it leapt from a handy pile of tyres. If it hadn’t been for the chain attached to the dog’s collar it might have reached the object of its desire. As it was, the creature spun around in mid air, and just missed hitting my small visitor in the face with its hind quarters. The previously keen FemLegUH agent was discouraged enough to speed climb a six foot fence in a way that would have impressed an army recruitment officer looking out for talent on an assault course. She had left behind her plate of turkey dinner, but not close enough for the dog to reach. I sped wetly outside to see if the poor hound had injured itself, and looking around to make sure I wasn’t observed, pushed the plate nearer to the dog’s nose. He swallowed three yorkshire puddings and the rest of a roast dinner, then looked at me with something approaching love in his eyes. Fluffy McDougal, for that was his name, then whined for thirty minutes until I detached his collar, and let him into the office. My hair dying schedule had been thrown off, and having missed the deadline for adding lotion two, and cream three, I decided to mix the two together into a paste and restart the clock. It was at this point that Myrtle's nephew Arnold rang, to ask me why his Aunty Myrtle wasn’t answering her phone, I simply said ‘Chiropodist’, and he said ‘Oh God,’ and hung up. The paste had hardened into a dried out lump, so I held it like a large piece of chalk, and scraped the concoction onto the relevant areas. Fluffy McD then jumped up to try and kiss my nose, and in the process knocked down the toilet roll holder. What with Fur Elise belting out, and me chasing around after the dog to get the paper back, I missed the predetermined slot for applying conditioning solution four. I had the plastic vial in my hand, when the second visitor appeared on the step. Deciding to squirt and run maybe wasn’t the best plan, as most of it went in my eye, and rest onto F McD, who was utterly delighted to answer the door in my stead, throwing himself at the flimsy panel boarding so hard that the lock flipped open, revealing the Mayor of Cuinchy, Lynda Cheryl. She started talking as soon as I appeared, turbanned up in my army blanket. Chapter one of her monologue centred around the topic of Mayors being recognised for their achievements rather than dubious rumours that might be floating around. About two paragraphs in, my knee based friction hold on Fluffy McD gave way, and he launched himself past the babbling politician, and towards the approaching Ken, the owner of a catering trolley selling weak tea and horrible sandwiches. This was the same nuisance who had fallen down a pothole many weeks ago, and who had now branched out into selling hotdogs, amongst his other revolting comestibles. The unwelcome snack vendor was in the process of pursuing a negligence claim with the Ballina Central Roads and Highways department, so was sporting an unconvincing plaster cast, and when he remembered, limping in a photogenic fashion. FMcD loved Ken, or rather he loved hotdogs, and the annoying purveyor of those goods was now so steeped in their aroma from daily contact that FMcD could barely tell the difference. Bus stop in Cuinchy. So far as we can see, the paintwork looks in good order. It would be long winded to give all the details of the chase, so I’ll jump ahead. Mayor Cheryl has moved on to detailing how many bus stops she has had repainted this year and is petitioning me for recognition of her achievements, and Ken is hanging from a telegraph pole, with a rapscallion mixed breed Alsatian dangling from his plaster cast. Meanwhile, I am attempting to lasso the dog with a hosepipe Clinton’s lads use for washing down their tyres. Unseen by me, a platoon of FemLegUH reinforcements have arrived, in an attempt to retrieve their van and the swiftly cooling turkey dinners contained within. Into this scene arrives Clinton himself, wondering what all the noise is about, just as I am successful in making a cunning rubber harness and enclosing his new pet. At this point there was definite potential for a de-escalation, but then one of Clinton’s lads turned off a second unseen hosepipe, in the next yard, and the water pressure shot up. Let’s cut ahead to the point where all the FemLegUH acolytes are inside the van with FluffyMcD circling the wagon, Lynda Cheryl is denying ever having an affair with the chief government advisor, despite the fact that nobody was accusing her of doing so, Ken the snack man, who had lost his grip in more ways than one, is sitting in the hotdogs on top of his cart, and I, having realised that ‘now rinse’ was an instruction I was meant to carry out half an hour ago, am standing with my head under the hosepipe. Tyre chief Bill trying to gain some control, slides in the wet mud created by the hosepipe, then trips over the placard, previously dropped by the original FemLegUh visitor, and has landed on one knee at my feet. Myrtle then rounds the corner, in a fine temper, and slightly unbalanced from wearing foot bandages and beach sandals in a wet environment, she takes in the chaotic scene at one glance, and in a burst of bad temper yells at Clinton. ‘‘If you are going to ask her you’d better get on with it, because if I don’t get my Ovaltine right away I won’t answer for the consequences!!’ The moment of awkward silence that followed was broken when the Mayor of Cuinchy spotted the contentious placard, grabbed it by the handle, and started smashing it to pieces on the bonnet of the pink van. ‘I don’t think that ego crazed megalomaniac Fairbanks bash bash even likes women, all those boring meetings I went to, bash bash, listening to him rabbit on, and if there’s one thing I hate more than Neil ‘ooh look at me how great I am’ Fairbanks, it’s bash bash bash splinter a misplaced apostrophe.’ The group within the van had shrunk away in fear as Cheryl glared through the windscreen. ‘It’s Adulterers Repent, verb, not the Repent, noun, belonging to the Adulterer.’ Then she said a rude word that I won't repeat, pushed Ken plus cart out of the way, and stomped off up the badly tarmaced road. I had heard a rumour that the Mayor of Cuinchy used to be a school teacher, I decided at that point to believe it. Retreating into the portacabin to find the mugs I found Myrtle hanging over the table, seething about cheapskate government funded so called professionals who wouldn’t know a toenail from a corn plaster. ‘You know how I feel in that poxy Chiropodist’s waiting room?’ she asked, and then jumped back in, before I could think up an answer, ‘Old is how I feel, and I’m looking at the old dears parked up on the plastic chairs around me, and I think that’s going to be me, sooner than that!’ she clicked her fingers. I nodded as I swirled the teaspoon around each Ovaltine exactly ten times each. ‘That’s if I can still drag these feet up those stairs to his office after that lousy, incompetent..’ Myrtle paused mid rant to stare at my head. ‘You dyed it purple?’. The Guinee Laboratories’ label peeled off quite easily, and under the smiling photo of a woman wearing an obvious wig, was another image, of exactly the same woman, just as happy as before, but now with a more modern looking hairpiece, coloured in a vivid shade called ‘Purple Haze.’ Roger, the stall holder of Roger’s Rejects, Wednesdays and Fridays, Boll Road Flea Market would be getting some very stiff feedback about his retail practices. Myrtle meanwhile, had cheered up to the point of chuckling to herself while wiping the condensation off the portacabin windows with the old army blanket. ‘You want to encourage that Clinton you know,’ she commented mid wipe, ’you’re not getting any younger, and he’s obviously loaded with money, you could do a lot worse.’ Fluffy McDougal, after a good rummage through my donated clothes bag, carried over a vivid cerise crop top, which appeared to be held together with safety pins, and had ‘ ‘Rude word’ the government printed across the chest’. Edna’s daughter Julie must have flirted with anarchic punk fashion at one time. ‘He’s a clever dog,’ murmured Myrtle, tickling the hound behind the more complete of his two ears, ‘if you’re not wearing it I am!,’ she laughed. We spent the next hour trying to prise the dog’s mouth open to check he wasn’t still chewing any of the pins.

Parry Marcelyn, senior orthopaedic surgeon and Mayor of Dallas (when he has the time) Ward twenty-seven, of the Ball memorial Hospital in Dallas was run by a very efficient sergeant major type Matron. Hildebrande Fassbinder had Les so tightly tucked into his bed that he could hardly move. As non-combatants we were considered too untidy to stay for the ward round, so we hid behind a pillar in the corridor and peeped through the squares of safety glass to watch as Chief Surgeon Marcelyn toured the beds, followed by a gaggle of awe-struck medical students. When he had nodded, and prodded his way around the whole room, the great man swished back out of the doors with a dramatic flourish, and strode off in a cloud of medical admiration. We rushed back inside to hear the verdict. ‘Have you found out why you are here yet?’ Myrtle asked anxiously. ‘It’s great news, they’re not chopping anything off this time!,’ Les looked delighted. ‘I’m getting a new knee instead!’ ‘What?’ I didn’t have medical training of course, but it seemed to me that in order to add a new knee, the surgeon would need something to attach it to. I saw Les’s lack of legs as a barrier to the planned procedure. My friend told me to stop being so pernickety, because I was ‘spoiling it for him’, so I decided I would take a break and go and check the vending machines to see if any of them served something other than gritty coffee, or tea with an unwelcome scum floating on the surface. My optimism levels were not high. I left the loving couple organising Les’s bedside cabinet, so he could reach his sweeties, sci-fi novel and bottle of Lucozade more conveniently, but the pre-op tranquilising dose he had been given to ‘calm his nerves’ was already kicking in. Myrtle joined me in the hospital atrium. A sickly looking tree was bedecked with thank-you notes, written in childish handwriting. Even at this distance I could tell who they were addressed to. I searched through a pile of magazines on the architectural coffee table, and found an unfinished crossword in one of them to keep our minds occupied. S blank A blank S and then two blanks, the clue is immortal glory shines at the end of a french street. ‘I hate cryptic clues, what time is it?’ Myrtle jumped up to stare alternately at the two clocks which flanked the large reception hall, each one displayed a different opinion. We were meant to wait a further hour and a half before an official came to tell us how Les had done on the operating table, but were concerned to be called instead into Marcelyn’s office. Looking out over neatly tended flower borders, and encrusted with awards and certificates, I had cause to wonder how the good doctor could possibly have time to fit a bit of ‘Mayoring’ in between the other duties and achievements displayed within his office. Despite my overwhelming conviction that even the least competent of surgeons would eventually notice that he had made a mistake, and give up on pursuing the impossible surgery, I found myself oddly worried. ‘Mrs Scambetter,’ Marcelyn began, erroneously, and the conversation didn’t improve from there on. ‘It’s got to be a mistake,’ said Myrtle, glugging at the half empty bottle of Lucozade, as we drove back to Ballina Central, ‘Les was alive and happy this morning, it was only a knee, people have them all the time.’ I nodded in sympathy, and we entered the city limits in a sombre state. For some reason the answer to the cryptic crossword clue came to me suddenly, in St Muldyke’s Cemetery later that week. ‘It was Swanson,’ I said, 'Gloria, she starred in Sunset Boulevard, Boulevard is a French street.' It was probably a good thing that nobody heard me. The hearse had arrived, and brought a fair sprinkling of onlookers in its wake. Organising the funeral seemed to have helped Myrtle, and she was busy thanking everyone for attending. A short coffin was lifted reverently out of the smart black vehicle. Reverend Cotterall turned to greet the arrival, service book in hand, then stopped in his tracks nervously. As the casket turned we saw that the other side was oddly truncated. Instead of the polished walnut and brass handles which featured elsewhere, the foot end was a criss-crossed mass of sticky tape. ‘A forklift ran over it in the funeral parlour,’ confided my friend, ‘I got it cheap on account of the damage. ’ then she sniffed elegantly into a lace handkerchief. ‘He didn’t need the full length so there was no point paying for it’. ‘That’s my gaffer tape, ‘ I remarked tactlessly, suddenly remembering lending the product to my friend to fix her glasses, several weeks before the apartment explosion obliterated the rest of my possessions.’ The service was quite moving, but ended rather abruptly half way through a prayer, when The Rev vaulted over the grave and sped off in the direction of the Vicarage. The assembled throng broke up, and started heading back to the Church Hall, where corned beef sandwiches and hot beverages were on offer. Myrtle dallied by the graveside, staring down the hole at the tiny coffin. ‘Well I suppose that’s it then,’ she said, removing her engagement ring, and putting it in the breast pocket of her black blazer. I wasn’t sure what to do and was feeling rather tearful myself, so I backed away to give my friend some space. Standing half in an evergreen bush, it seemed like a trivial concern in the circumstances, but my outfit was causing me discomfort. Edna, the hairdresser, had given me a large carrier bag full of clothing that her daughter would never fit into again after three babies. My current attire featured elements from Julie’s Goth period, including some high heel burgundy and black suede boots, which laced up the front to the knees, and had dangly decorative elements which kept getting stuck to my tights. I was trying to discreetly free up a cluster of skulls when I saw a most peculiar thing, a single eye, disconnected from any kind of face, was staring up at me from the grass. The eye then looked side to side and vanished. A familiar giggling noise seeped into my brain, and I spun round on one heel, grabbing hold of the shrubbery to stop me collapsing in a dizzy heap. Les rolled out of the laurel bush in a fountain of leaves and ended up on the gravel path, unable to breathe from laughing so much. ‘It was ..a..great funeral service..’ he panted, ‘I loved the vicar hurdling over the coffin at the end, very scandinavian!’ ‘Leslie Scambetter, I knew you wasn’t dead!!!’, Myrtle rushed towards us, her face going through a series of mood induced transformations which ended up in a mix of outrage and relief. ‘Knee replacement for a legless man,’ he gasped in delight, ’I thought, here’s a chance for another go at the old medical negligence fraud. They wouldn’t dare challenge it, with the mess the admin is in at that hospital.’ I looked this way and that, trying to update my thought processes with the confusing incoming data, eventually I tottered over to the grave. ‘Who’s in the box?’ I asked, hoping to sound like an Agatha Christie sleuth spotting the flaw in the murderer’s cunning argument, though I suspected that ‘game show host’ was nearer the mark. ‘Ohh that’s the hairdresser's Flemish rabbit, Mr Snuffles. He got run over chasing the greengrocer’s bicycle. The thing was surprisingly heavy so the swap worked a treat, and saved the expense of a pet cremation as well.’ ‘I thought that Edna was crying too much! muttered Myrtle, ‘I suspected some sort of …well it doesn’t matter now,’ she corrected herself. ‘So the hairdresser knew?’ I asked, attempting to get my facts straight. ‘Ho yes, it was partly her idea. Young Julie, her daughter, works in Dallas General as a filing clerk, she was our inside man.’ We retrieved Les’s latest ride from behind a tomb. ‘Triple lithium batteries and tungsten gearing, check out the glow in the dark decals, it’s a superb machine and will be perfect for Kingston.’ ‘Jamaica?’ I questioned. ‘No she went of her own accord, boom boom,’ Les chuckled. Myrtle’s face dropped, ‘you’ll have to leave the country.’ ‘Yup, don’t fancy jail. Doris is going out there to help look after her fancy man’s Mother, said I could tag along.’ Seeing our faces drop he chirped up, ‘Don’t worry, you two will have no problem keeping yourselves busy, cleaning up corrupt governments and the like.’ Out of the corner of my eye I saw Cotterall returning, rubbing his guts and looking downfaced. I decided to head him off, so my friends could say their goodbyes in peace. The Rev and I walked together towards the wake chatting about this and that, until Myrtle caught us up. ‘Was it the medlar jam?’ she asked the reverend. ‘Perils of the job,’ bewailed the churchman. I learned a new vocabulary word from the church ladies in the hall, a loupe. This is the small magnifying glass that jeweller’s use to peer at pieces of jewellery before they click their tongues and offer you five quid for it. The collective verdict, after some period of study, was that Myrtle should get more for her ring than she paid out for the funeral, so all was fair enough. Later, washing up in the church kitchen, I realised that something had been puzzling me. ‘How does Les get the money?’ I asked, waving a tea-towel printed with an infomap detailing beetles of the Patagonian jungle. ‘I mean you can hardly get compensation for death under the scalpel paid to the corpse, that would give the whole game away.’ ‘Oh he thought ahead’ explained Myrtle, ‘It’s all going to his brother in Jamaica.’ Seeing my frown she continued, ‘He is his own brother,’ and raised her eyebrows to make it all clearer. ‘I see,’ I said, not very convincingly. ‘Never mind,’ said my friend, ‘I think it’s time for a brew anyway.’ She found some mugs and I pulled the Ovaltine out of my borrowed black fringed handbag with zebra skin handles. It had been a long day. ‘ You know, that crossword answer, I thought she was called Gloria Swansong, with a G, funny how your mind plays tricks,’ burbled Myrtle, before dozing off into a snoring heap on a stackable chair. Everyone else had gone, so the Rev stayed behind to help me finish tidying up the kitchen. It turned out that he knew a remarkable amount about insects living in the rainforest. He was quite a different man when not being hounded by massed troupes of Church ladies. Eventually, when every pot and fork had been neatly stacked, Cotterall coughed awkwardly, and apologised again for his sudden departure from duty in the graveyard earlier. I don’t know why, maybe it seemed such a shame that he was blaming himself, but I found myself telling the Rev the whole story, up to and including Les being replaced by a deceased rabbit. I could see that the churchman was struggling to inhibit a reaction, what if he became angry and informed the authorities? My anxiety was unnecessary, Cotteral gave up the struggle to hide his emotions, and roared with laughter, wiping tears from his eyes with the squeezed out dishcloth. The row woke up my friend, and we were led out of the hall so the Rev could lock up. He patted each of us on the back as we squeezed through the broken front door, then signalled we should wait a moment. The churchman returned swiftly and pushed a cassette tape into my hand. ‘Something for the car ride,’ he explained. We rode off towards the high street with Pink Floyd’s ‘Shine on You Crazy Diamond’ blasting out of the speakers. ‘Tribute to Les,’ I explained, a little doubtfully. ‘He’s very weird that vicar,’ said Myrtle sleepily, ‘nobody even knows his first name.’ ‘I think he’s called Geoff,’ I said, smiling to myself. ‘Oh,’ replied my friend.

It is a real joy to look at your work @Mitsos . The amount of work and knowledge required to produce this realistic looking, and beautiful city, is astonishing. I wish I could ride on that train!

Janis Douglass, Mayor of Harden Clinton, or Bill as he asked me to call him, turned out to be quite an interesting man. In the occasional breaks that he got between shouting at the young ‘uns’ for putting the tyres in the wrong pile, he would come around to the portacabin for a quick chat and a nice brew up. His time in the army was a rich source of stories, and he had me laughing or in one case weeping, as he shared his experiences, and tales about the characters he’d known. One name that cropped up regularly was that of a Sergeant Dorks, obviously a great friend, the two had kept in touch. Bill kept promising himself he would go and visit Dorks as he only lived over in Harden, but he was finding it hard to find a whole day free to drive over there. So when it came up that Dorks needed a bigger car, to fit his wife’s new walking aid, and Clinton knew someone who had just the thing, I volunteered Myrtle and I to drive it over. After all, we could interview Janis Douglass, the Mayor, and make the most of the trip. The promised motor was to be picked up from behind the Foamy Fun bathroom emporium, with the key left in the ignition, and I would then collect Myrtle at 9:30am, after her weekly appointment at Edna’s Hairdressing Emporium. Better still we discovered that Frank Highnote and his Fabulous Falsetto Five were due to perform at the Harden Hippodrome, and tickets were still available. Clinton insisted on paying for our concert tickets, and return rail fare, so we were getting a free day out for our trouble! The young Frank Highnote, surrounded by his Falsetto Five in their glory days. Myrtle was particularly excited, because as a teenager she had been forbidden from going to watch the group, in case their ‘tight trousers’ turned her head. She was almost hopping up and down on the pavement when I collected her from the kerb outside Edna’s. Several of the salon customers stared out of the window, in envy of Myrtle’s ride. The vehicle had been somewhat bigger than I had imagined. ‘Are you sure this is the right car?’ my friend asked, poking at the touch screen of the fancy audio system. I consulted Bill’s note once more. ‘Is it blue?,’ it was, ‘was the key in the ignition?’ Well yes, complete with fancy keyring.’Did I find the car behind the bathroom showroom?’ That was a little trickier, as I’m not good at recognising shops from the back and it was a long row of buildings, but surely it must be correct? Even the door had been left open for me. We soon left Ballina Central behind, and it was a real pleasure cruising along in our plush cocoon. Myrtle discovered that the fancy radio could respond to voice commands, and she had great fun requesting tunes, or thinking up questions for the ‘posh lady’ to answer. Eventually though, she reached the limits of the system’s entertainment potential. ‘O-val-tine, the best drink is Ovaltine. Tell me now, what is the best drink?’ she asked sternly. ‘Beer is very popular, especially in the northern part of….’ *click* Our synthetic friend’s opinion met the barrier of the off switch. I decided that it might be a good strategic moment to make a comfort stop. Randy’s All Chicken Sandwich Ranch would not have been my first choice, but the parking lot was fairly empty, and I was keen not to damage the lovely paintwork on our wide berth vehicle. We both agreed though, that Randy kept his toilet facilities in a very hygienic condition, and that this outweighed the disadvantages of his limited menu options. On returning to the vehicle we were concerned to hear a knocking sound, coming from the rear end. I suggested it might air in the ‘pipes’. Myrtle looked uncertain, ‘does it have pipes?’. We looked under the car, and up into the exhaust, but nothing struck us as strange. ‘The tyres have air, maybe it keeps going round for a while, after the wheels stop?’ I’d seen a science program about conservation of momentum on the small tv in the dentist’s waiting room the week before, and had been waiting to use the knowledge. Crouching down by the hubcaps didn’t solve anything, and the noise had stopped anyway, so we set off towards Harden, chewing on chalk tablets to stop Randy’s paprika wraps from repeating on us. The concert was as good as I expected, which was not really that good at all but with moments of enough interest to salvage the situation. The Falsetto Five were hampered by their trademark trousers, which impaired the dance routines. Frank Highnote seemed to be suffering from a bad cold, and had several coughing fits while cycling through their greatest hits. Most of the sound was pre-recorded, and the lead singer’s vocals carried on, even when he left the stage to fetch a glass of water. The crowd were enthusiastic nonetheless. The group in more recent years. ‘He is nearly eighty now,’ Myrtle concluded, so you can’t expect much. We saw the troupe later, as they attempted to enter a minivan in the Hippodrome car park. Eventually someone brought a safety step and they were able to make their exit, still waving to the fans. Clinton’s notes were not that explicit when it came to finding his old army friend’s bungalow. ‘White, with a blue door, next to a post box. Might have a tree in the garden.’ ‘I can’t read his handwriting, what street is this?’ Myrtle donned her seldom worn glasses and pronounced ‘Cockwilton Road’. My interpretation tended more towards Bob Newton Road, as he was a footballer that my Dad was fond of. We decided that there couldn’t be many Dorks in Harden, we should just ask some passers-by if they knew the family. Unfortunately, this didn’t go well. Maybe it was my accent. Myrtle decided to tackle the in car infotainment unit once more, but it wouldn’t switch on. ‘That robot woman could be angry about the beer,’ suggested my friend. She leaned in to see if there was a ‘stop sulking button’. At this the unit burst back into life. ‘Facial recognition engaged,’ the posh voice intoned, mechanically,’Thank you O-val-teen, for using Magnaprime software, your region is set as,’ a slight pause followed,’Afghanistan, the date is the first of January 1999, time one minute after midnight, is this correct?’ ‘Don’t argue with it, I hissed urgently, we just need Dork’s address, then we can,’ I mimed hitting the off button. ‘Bernard Dorks, where does he live?’ Myrtle asked, emphasising each syllable. ‘There is no..Bernard Forks…registered as living in Kabul at this time, glad to be of service!’ It was probably of benefit to our collective sanity that a dog walker chose that moment to pass by, and leaned towards us to ask if we knew that there was a knocking noise coming out of the boot of our car. We reassured the good samaritan that we were aware, and discovered that he lived quite close to our intended destination, so we gave him and his little dog a lift. I think it is quicker just to say that the Dorks family home wasn’t even a bungalow, and leave any comments about trees, nearness of post-boxes or deviations in described colour schemes for another occasion. The ex sergeant waved out of an open window, ‘We’re watching the news, have you seen it?’ he called, beckoning us inside. The small lounge was made even tinier by the hanging of an enormous television set, which took up most of one wall. ‘It’s new, I won it at bingo,’ explained Mrs Dorks, triumphantly. ‘Really, I never win anything,’ said Myrtle, unnoticed. We were all glued to helicopter camera shots of the Ballina Central, a small family car was speeding along the emptied road, followed by a platoon of police vehicles. My friend pursed her lips, and picked up a local freebie paper from the overcrowded coffee table in front of her. It was the kind of publication that is ninety percent advertising with the occasional article about how to clean your patio and so on. Nevertheless, she made sure we knew the content was much more fascinating than anything being broadcast by the mega television set. The camera shots switched to an interview clip. A tanned man in a large cowboy hat was gesticulating angrily. ‘They said don’t call the police, well nobody tells JD Berkhamsted what to do so, I rang the police, hell I rang everyone. If that kidnapper wants to shoot my sisters he’d better get on with it, ‘aint nobody calling my bluff, not JD Berk…’ ‘According to this feature in the Harden Gazette, Mayor Douglass’s favourite colour is yellow, and she wants to encourage music venues to open in Harden,’ said Myrtle reading quite loudly, then making vigorous page turning sounds. When my friend saw her diversionary tactic wasn’t working added, ‘I never watch these HUGE tvs, I wouldn’t want one myself, they are bad for your eyes!’. The fascinating footage changed again to a wobbly close up of the alleged criminal hanging out of the car window, waving a sawn off shotgun. A pale looking Sam Worthington, government advisor for public safety, was inset into the live video stream, advising all citizens to stay indoors. In the background we could see a hot-dog wagon being hauled off the highway by a group of officers, followed reluctantly by a long queue of hungry onlookers. Myrtle, was now so enraged by being ignored that she jumped up and stood in front of the enormous entertainment screen gesticulating like an angry windmill. ‘I could have won one of these big tvs if Reverend Cotterall hadn’t got his sixes and nines upside down. He’s a rotten bingo caller!!.’ Ex sergeant Dorks leaned around my animated friend to view a wide shot of the runaway vehicle careering over a grass embankment to land upside down in an office car park. Onlookers were cheering as armed officers surrounded the smoking car like a swarm of bees. Bernard whooped as the miscreant was dragged away by the tiny looking officers. ‘You can see every detail, the picture clarity is amazing!’ he thrilled. ‘I’ll have a cup of tea love, if you’re not watching it,’ the brave man suggested to Myrtle, twisting this way and that to see around her. ‘Ooh yes, and the sound quality, it’s like you are actually there in real life, two sugars for me if you’re brewing up pet,’ piped up Mrs D, ‘The funny thing is that’s the kind of car we thought we were getting, same colour ‘an all.’ She continued to laugh in delight as the fire crews doused the flames of the crashed vehicle. Myrtle erupted like a floral patterned polyester volcano. ‘TEA!!! We drove all the way here with a lovely car that anyone would be grateful to have and you’re not even interested in it.’ Something about my friend’s tone broke through the Dorks’ fixation with the news channel, and they reluctantly agreed to find the record button on the remote so as not to miss the inevitable follow up and speculation. They then followed us outside, though it was obviously a wrench to do so. ‘A bit posher than I thought,’ said Bernard, ‘but the boot looks small, bring your walker Jean, we’ll see if it fits ok.’ ‘What’s that noise?’ Mr Dorks asked, as we attempted to open the back hatch. Myrtle folded her arms in annoyance, ‘Air, in the pipes,’ she menaced. ‘Push both buttons together,’ Jean Dorks suggested. ‘On the keyfob’. ‘You can do it if you like,’ my friend rankled, followed by, ‘as if we hadn’t tried that a hundred times already.’ under her breath. A luxurious popping sound announced unexpected success, and the boot lid swung slowly open. Mrs Dorks was unable to try out the fit of her walker however, because the luggage space was already occupied by a pair of glowering Berkhamsted sisters, tied up with waterproof plumber’s tape. The local police force in Harden were delighted to be invited to take part in the media frenzy of the month, but we slipped away to the train station as soon as we could, and skipped our planned Mayoral interview altogether. We refused to appear in the evening news bulletin, so the news channel used my old college photo with an unfortunate hair-cut, and Myrtle suffered by being represented by a twenty year old wedding shot, with the veil edited out. Marlon Tapp, would be kidnapper, and owner of the Foamy Fun bathroom company had apparently ‘cracked’ due to the stress of trying to extract payment for plumbing work done on the Berkhamsted mansion, and had masqueraded as an agency chauffeur when the family’s original driver had walked out due to unreasonable working conditions, such as not being paid. Tapp had planned to drive the sisters to a remote farmhouse, but I must have come along just as he nipped back inside his shop to get some extra tape due to the elderly female Berkhamsteds being more feisty than he anticipated. Street cameras showed the culprit running around Ballina Central’s back-streets, before ‘stealing’ the unlocked small blue family car, which had been located behind a gas fitter’s workshop three streets away. It was widely anticipated that attempting to get money out of JD Berkhamsted would be considered extenuating circumstances in any court of law. Myrtle was still muttering outraged phrases such as ‘Tea!!’ and ‘75 inch set!!’ for up to a week afterwards, whereas I focused on complaining about our neighbour Clinton’s appalling lack of attention to detail when it came to directions.

Isabel Todd, Mayor of Douglas Sleeping in the portacabin was not easy. Our used tyre dealing neighbour, Clinton, had translated his newly refound enthusiasm into buying up the expired leases from the abandoned plots around our small industrial estate. From six in the morning until past ten at night, I could hear endless activity. Great pyramids of quality used radials and cross-plies surrounded the office on all sides. Still it was better than the war of nerves trying to avoid being found out for squatting in the sheltered housing complex. I was still muttering about the noise and trying to deflate my air mattress when Myrtle arrived. ‘Reverend Cotterall said he’ll let you use his address for your personal post,’. This news was a relief as I didn’t want to get caught violating the non residential rental contract for our office, but my face did not project gratitude. Grumpiness would be a closer match. Myrtle made a big show of flashing her left hand around, while handing me a mug of Ovaltine. Something seemed different but I couldn’t quite pin it down. Having tried the subtle approach my friend then switched up a gear, and pushed her paw under my nose. ‘Do you like my ring?’ A flashy sparkle caught my eye. ‘That’s nice, where did you find it?’ I asked, though by her expression it was obviously the wrong question. My friend was unusually quiet as we walked towards the church hall. I had previously agreed to help out at the upcoming jumble sale, a fundraiser to replace the bent hinges on the main hall doors. I really had thought that being suddenly homeless was enough to get me out of the commitment, apparently not. Mayor Todd nodded a greeting as she turned the corner, her arms were occupied carrying a tray of jam jars, each one with a handwritten label ‘Homemade Medlar Jelly’. I stared at the gloop, trying to work out what a medlar might be. Whatever it was, I didn’t fancy it. Myrtle waved her hand significantly. ‘Ooh, who’s the lucky man?’ the politician asked, while struggling to balance the heavy load and open the church hall door with a large set of keys. By my friend’s smile I assumed that this was exactly the response she’d been hoping for. After an unsuccessful fight with the lock, the portal opened by itself, and revealed Les, wearing a bow tie, and sitting in a very swanky sports model wheelchair. ‘The bodywork is manufactured from graphene,’ the ex solicitor stroked the material reverently, ‘super light and would have cost a fortune. We claimed it at the lost property office in the bus station, didn’t we, my sweet’? A certain amount of embarrassing affection followed, and I realised at once who the mystery fiance was. The Mayor threw down her donation to the jumble sale, on a table which was already piled up with incomplete tea-sets, twenty year old obscure board games and some indecent jig-saw puzzles. I had trouble knowing what to do with myself. Les and Myrtle’s unexpected loving couple routine made me feel excess to requirements, so I slid into the kitchen to see if I could contribute there. A group of Church ladies were attempting to lever open a cupboard using a plastic fork. I stood and watched for a while then retreated to poke through a pile of used clothing on a nearby table. Seven days wearing the same badly fitting dress was enough for anyone. ‘Strictly no browsing before opening time,’ a curly haired woman snapped at me, after emerging from rummaging through a bin bag full of grubby looking soft toys. A loud argument had broken out in the kitchen. Mayor Todd leaned through the hatch and offered up her bunch of keys, but none would fit the mug cupboard. To deflect the talk of crowbars and blunt screwdrivers the Mayor suggested she pop round to see if the Reverend might have the correct key, or failing that, some spare cups and plates. I offered to walk with her, having nothing better to do, and I could take the chance to thank Cotterall for agreeing to take in my mail. We squeezed through the unruly mob that had gathered outside the church hall. With ten minutes to opening time there were already disputes breaking out, as eager bargain hunters jostled for prime position. I had become used to Myrtle leaping in and keeping conversations going, so it felt awkward trotting along attempting to appear sociable with someone I hardly knew. It was almost a relief to reach the smouldering wreck of my old apartment block, as this introduced a potential new topic to discuss. However, just as I had formulated an appropriate remark to share, my walking companion seemed to startle, then made a show of looking at her watch, and declared she had forgotten a meeting with the Cheerleaders’ Pompom renewal fundraising committee at the sports stadium. She was sure I could carry on and fetch a few tea-cups by myself. I was so busy watching her scurry off that I almost walked right into Neil Fairbanks and his mini self, who were standing surveying the muddy crater which was once my home. I pretended to saunter off, then crouched behind a roadside flowerbed, to see if I could hear what the Fairbanks duo were discussing. The wind direction kept shifting, but I picked up some of the conversation. From my notes; NeilF: …It’s a miracle there were no serious injuries here Roy RoyF: …don’t know how I got on the directors list Neil... NeilF: Did you have to bring that thing with you? (pointing to a canvas bag that Roy seemed to be struggling with) RoyF: …the babysitter wouldn’t put up with it and the wife is away this week.. (loud road traffic for a while so I couldn't hear) NeilF: You are a complete and utter (list of rude words I won’t repeat) Roy. (Roy’s attention was distracted by trying to hold down his hand luggage, which continued to have a mind of its own.) NeilF: ..loft insulation made from shredded paper, those yokels in Farnham making some sort of effigy out of valuable government papers, then that jail in Huxley melting in the rain. RoyF: You told me to use my initiative Neil , recycled vegetable waste is the building material of the future. NeilF: There's mashed potato blocking the gutters, you should hear the phone calls I get. I'm sick of the Fairbanks name being dragged through the mud yet again! (At this point, Roy totally lost control of his strangely animated bag, and it leapt out his hands and rolled off towards the side of the road, where the receptacle went oddly flat, as if it had been deflated.) RoyF: It’s escaped Neil, Amber’s going to go ballistic!! NeilF: What idiot carries a snake in a bag Roy? I told you after I fixed that salmon farm in the mountains debacle, that was it, you are on your own now. You’re a walking disaster area brother. RoyF: Mister Snake, come out, here’s a nice treat for you! (Roy was hanging over a roadside water grid, dangling something I didn’t want to look at.) NeilF: (striding away from the scene and shouting into a telephone) Let loose a boa constrictor into the drainage system, you heard me right….. I would say shoot first, ask questions later, wouldn’t you? Yes the snake, not my brother, though the thought is tempting enough. Neil Fairbanks' horrible laugh rang in my ears as he bounced away. I decided to continue on to the vicarage. My mind was in a whirl, and it felt steadying to focus on my original mission. The Rev was acting a little strange when he answered the door. The churchman was wearing a black and white checked apron and had his sleeves rolled up. A foul smell drifted out of the house and my eyes started to water. ‘I’ve come to borrow some tea-cups’, I coughed through my sleeve. Cotterall gave me a harassed look, then pulled me through his hallway and into the small kitchen. I was a little disturbed by a large shoal of unidentifiable fish, bubbling away at a rolling boil in a pan on the hob. Their little eyes seemed to stare at me as they rose up with the heat, before descending back into the murky depths. Recipe books lay open on all available surfaces, many with sullied cooking utensils holding open the pages. Several large bulbs of garlic had been ripped apart, and macerated with red peppercorns in an old fashioned press, and a rancid bottle of wine had been half emptied into a bent enamel bowl full of nastily pungent herbs. I was getting to the limit of holding my breath. Gasping for air I lunged to open the back door, but the religious gourmand was having none of it. ‘Tea-cups,’ he reminded, and reached into a tall cupboard to drag down a splitting cardboard box full of mice droppings and assorted crockery. I staggered under the weight, but was so relieved to escape the vicarage, that I took it in my stride when a familiar six foot yellow boa-constrictor slithered out of a road drain and hid itself in the corner of the covered bus-stop just outside the house. Someone else could deal with that. I had obviously missed rush hour at the jumble sale, most of the punters must have left already. They did warn me that it all happens in the first ten minutes. The Church Hall looked like a deserted war zone, its battle scarred floor was scattered with torn bin bags and broken toys. Two committee members were playing push me pull you with Mayor Todd’s medlar jam, arguing vociferously about whose turn it was to find a home for the unwanted produce this time. Snappy curly haired woman was busy scraping scone crumbs off a table, but she was kind enough to direct me to the unsold clothing pile. It was fair to say that the choice was limited. Don’t let anyone tell you you can’t wear a zip-up lurex jumpsuit after fifty. If it has been reduced to 15p and you are desperate enough, then anything can be made to work. I changed into my new purchase behind the stage curtains. The front doors were wide open now, and hanging somewhat wonkily. It seemed that the faulty hinges hadn’t been improved by holding back the weight of expectation created by the assembled discount shoppers of Ballina Central. Myrtle was bending over the promotional sign-board on the pavement, wiping away ‘tea and scone £1.50’ and replacing it with ‘Hot Ovaltine’. Her new fiance was sitting alongside in the space age wheelchair, with a half empty bag of polystyrene cups hanging from one handle. His bow-tie was rotated to the vertical, and his eyes held a dazed expression. ‘Les got trampled in the rush for the erotic jigsaws,’ my friend explained, before turning to look at me properly. Then her jaw hung down low in astonishment as she blinked at the full view of my outfit, sparkling in the winter sunlight. The ex solicitor appreciated my new look. In fact he laughed so much that the brake was thrown off his new ride. Several passing cars honked their horns in appreciation as Myrtle and I bent over to rescue the giggling pint-sized man from the gutter. Later my friend handed me a steaming mug of our favourite brew. ‘You’ve cheered up our Les no end, ‘ she confided, I don’t think he was really ready for the challenge of a church jumble sale. I nodded and wiped the foam off my top lip. 'I'm not sure if I'll volunteer next time,' I suggested, but Myrtle didn't hear me, she was too busy sorting through a somewhat rattly large shopping bag. 'Something to do in the evenings,' she muttered, 'so long as there aren't too many missing pieces.'

That was a surprise, a new tribe, and an interesting theme for their building work too! Your images are really well done as always, and that slacker hospital sounds very familiar!