Here’s one I wrote earlier

Clearing out a cupboard yesterday I found a long-since forgotten school magazine, dating back to when I spent part of my childhood in Malta.

My Dad was a printer by trade and he’d gone out to Malta to help set up a print company. We were there for about four years and he still reminisces about it being one of the best times in his working life, and for me and my sister, growing up on a  Mediterranean island was a childhood paradise. Year-round sunshine, never far away from the beach and swimming.

Finding the magazine bought memories flooding back. You won’t be surprised to hear that many of them are food or drink related. 7-Up floats in outdoor cafes, long glasses of ice-cold lemonade topped with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream. I suppose they have them elsewhere, but for, me they’ll always be Malta. 

Then there were the local cheesecakes. These delicacies of soft cheese and crispy pastry always make me think of trips to the dentist but in a good way. They weren’t the reason I needed to go, rather there was an exceptionally good cheesecake place on the same street as my dentist and Mum always seemed to take me there straight after for a treat.

Since I’ve been cooking there’s been a temptation to have a go at making my own. But some food memories feel too important to risk. What if I didn’t like them after all this time. It’s probably this sort of feeling that has stopped me from ever going back to the island.

It isn’t all just food memories though. When I flicked through the magazine I discovered I’m in there twice. First up there’s a photo of our school football team with me in it, looking gangly and a little uncomfortable alongside noticeably shorter teammates. Then at the foot of page eleven, I found a short story written by David Burbidge, Junior 1. It wasn’t as bad as I feared and as I’ve noticed on Twitter that today is #NationalWritingDay I thought I’d share it with you.

I can’t decide if the sudden ending was done for effect, or if I was getting bored and just wanted to finish.

Once upon a time, there was a woodcutter who lived in a hut by the river. One day in the summer a barge came chugging along the river, and there was the sound of musical instruments coming from the cabin. Suddenly the door burst open and a man ran out playing the trumpet, with another man singing in a weird language. Slowly the barge disappeared down the river. The woodcutter thought this very strange and mysterious. Three months later the woodman was shot at his work.

Maybe after all these years, it’s time to write a second chapter.