It\u2019s a Wednesday morning. 10.13 am. Not quite tea break time and I\u2019m bored. No customers since we opened. I look up from my spreadsheet. Angie is filing her nails as per usual. Neil has his head buried in his desk. Could there be an more obvious way to use your phone at work. I really hope it isn\u2019t porn again and if it is that he\u2019s got the sound turned down. Unlike the last time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I stifle a yawn behind a smile and rearrange my business cards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The shop darkens. I look up to check the lights but the darkness has come in from the window. The sky is now almost black and huge hailstones are bouncing off the pavement. I stand up and walk over to watch. It\u2019s like the world has changed to monochrome. The high street is deserted, shoppers scurrying for the nearest shelter. Our bell rings, I turn towards the noise and an elderly couple enter, scattering hail as they shake themselves off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe\u2019d like to book a holiday\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cA cruise\u201d she adds \u201ca long one\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I smile again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cYes of course. Please, take a seat. A window cabin, a balcony?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The commission is clocking up in my head. This global warming is good for us \u2013 sometimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cCheap\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ah I think. Where fools rush in.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A short piece by Fiona Pretswell, taken from a writing exercise we did in one of our recent classes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":268,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-stories"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=286"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":785,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/286\/revisions\/785"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nethergatewriters.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}