Crowd

This week’s prompt for the GBE2: Blog On Facebook group is ‘Crowd’ and, coincidentally, this fits with my weekly challenge to myself of clicking ‘Random Article’ on Wikipedia and writing about whatever article comes up first.

 

The ‘Random Article’ this week was ‘Live at Squamish’ which evidently is an annual music festival in British Columbia. It started in 2010, and last year there were 19,000 attendees. I’ve never been to a music festival, and have absolutely no desire to attend one! The thought of being in such a crowd holds no appeal, particularly when, as often happens in the UK, the heavens open, everyone gets soaked, and the whole place turns into a muddy, soggy mess!

 

About 20 years ago, I went to an event in the middle of my home city. It was in a large open area, but at the end, everyone was trying to leave at the same time, and there simply weren’t enough exit streets. We were ‘funnelled’ into one of these exits, and people were being pressed together and pushed along by others. It didn’t develop into a dangerous crush, but I admit I was frightened that it might and was so relieved when we finally got away safely.

 

Less frightening, but maybe more frustrating, are the ‘crowds’ we meet in everyday life – in the supermarket, on the trams and buses, and in the shopping malls. Today I went to a museum, and in the lobby area there were crowds of school children (especially in the shop part of the lobby). Fortunately the museum was a big one, and so we were able to get away from the crowds.

 

At one time I didn’t particularly mind crowds, but the older I get, the more I dislike and avoid them.

 

Maybe the only time I wouldn’t mind a crowd is if I was holding a book-signing somewhere and there were crowds lined up waiting to buy my book! Well, I can dream, can’t I?

 

P.S. If you’d like the chance to WIN one of my books, scroll down to yesterday’s post and tell me which one you’d like and why!

Righteous Anger?

Paul yanked the handbrake as he pulled up outside the house. He knew he probably shouldn’t have been driving when his anger was about to blow like a pressure cooker. Or like a bloody volcano, he thought grimly.

His mind flashed back to the moment when his world had shattered. To start with, shock had numbed his brain. The jolt when he’d realised the boy was Lisa’s had been followed immediately by the heart-slamming moment when he knew Nicky couldn’t be Ralph Glover’s. He didn’t even look like Glover. He looked like… He’d virtually stopped breathing when he realised the boy’s fair hair and blue eyes reminded him of the photos of himself at the same age. This little boy—this Nicky—had to be his. His mind had exploded into a million fragments.

Only when he’d heard Lisa say to Nicky “His name’s Paul” had the anger rushed in. Paul, not ‘your daddy’, not even ‘your father.’ Hot fury swept through him. Had she even told Nicky about him?

More to the point, why the hell hadn’t she told him about her son? His son. Okay, maybe not while he’d been in South America, since they’d parted so acrimoniously. But what about the past few weeks? She’d let him find out by complete chance. If Fiona hadn’t said anything, if he hadn’t agreed to help at the summer fair, he might never have known.

He’d kept his seething anger suppressed all afternoon and pretended everything was normal. He laughed with the kids who were shooting balls into the nets on the basketball court, even helped some of them by showing them the best way to stand and balance the ball.

Now he was parked outside Lisa’s home, and his blood was boiling. He couldn’t remember ever being as angry as he was at this moment.

He strode up the path, jabbed the doorbell and waited.

When Lisa opened the door, he saw her eyes widen, but there was no time to waste on the usual formalities.

“Why?” he demanded. “Why in God’s name didn’t you tell me?”

This excerpt from my latest release, Changing the Future, is offered as my response to the GBE2 (Group Blogging Experience) challenge for this week, which is to write about one or more of the 7 Deadly Sins. In this case, it seems that Paul’s anger is totally justified, and I’m sure there have been times when we’ve all felt a sense of ‘righteous anger’.

Changing the Future:

Lisa Marshall is stunned when celebrated volcanologist Paul Hamilton comes back into her life at the college where she now teaches. Despite their acrimonious break-up several years earlier, they soon realise the magnetic attraction between them is stronger than ever. However, the past is still part of the present, not least when Paul discovers Lisa has a young son. They can’t change that past, but will it take a volcanic eruption to help them change the future?

Available from Amazon