Wednesday's Words on a Friday

 

The original Words for Wednesday was begun by Delores and eventually taken over by a moveable feast of participants when Delores had computer troubles. Sadly, Delores has now closed her blog forever due to other problems.

The aim of the words is to encourage us to write. A story, a poem, whatever comes to mind.

If you are posting an entry on your own blog, please let us know so we can come along to read it and add a few encouraging words.

This month the words/prompts are supplied by Hilary Melton-Butcher and can be found here

This week's words/prompts are: 

1. clawing 2. sunglasses 3. landscape 4. Grandee 5. anodyne 

and/or: 

1. descriptive 2. resilience 3. country 4. slice 5. finger 

and a few extra words: 

1. rainbow 2. coriander 3. falling 4. art 5. exhibit 6. sage

Also included is Charlotte's colour of the month: turquoise blue

I have not used all the words this time, but here is my story:

Clawing through the miscellaneous items in her big shoulder bag, Carol finally found the missing lens that had popped itself out of her sunglasses. Again. She popped it back in place and put the glasses on her face. Relief from the glaring sunlit landscape was instant. There in front of her was a blindingly white house large enough to be a castle and walking down the path to meet her was quite obviously the “Grandee” as her mum had told her. Her great uncle Sal whom she had never met until now. She’d seen photos, but in them he’d appeared much taller. There was no mistaking the full head of wavy white hair though. This was indeed Salvatore Balleri, the Grandee of Milona. Her Mum had told her Grandee meant nobleman, the title having been carried down through the family from the first Salvatore a few generations ago.

Carol waved away the cloud of dust left by the retreating taxi and walked towards the wrought iron gates to finally meet her Uncle Sal. He gathered her into a bear hug, exclaiming how much she resembled the women he had known and grown up with, he had photos to show her. “How is your dear mother?” he asked, taking her suitcase from her as they walked towards the house. “She is well,” said Carol, "and her words about your country were very descriptive, everything I see is exactly as she said it would be, yet she never came herself.” “We have exchanged letters and photographs for many years,” said Sal. “I know much about your England too, yet have never been there.” 

Sal pushed open the heavy carved wood doors and they stepped into the wonderfully cool interior. “Oh, this is so beautiful!” said Carol with delight. “Thank you,” said Sal. “The house and one small parcel of land is all that is left to us now. Over the years fields have been sold and others have houses there now where once there were great herds of cattle and sheep. The original land parcel was a gift to an ancestor, along with the title of Grandee, he saved the life of a King’s son or something like that. Lost a small slice off a finger in doing so, but resilience is great and he made do with just nine and a half fingers after that.”

Sal showed Carol which bedroom was to be hers for the duration of her stay and hoped that she might like to stay longer as there was to be an art exhibit a week after her planned leaving day. “I shall phone mum and ask if she can manage without me,” said Carol. “Perhaps our neighbour could keep an eye on things a bit longer, I do worry about mum falling again, she has only done it once, and wasn’t hurt, but it is something on my mind now.” “I shall leave you now to unpack,” said Sal, “and Carmen will come in a few minutes to show you the way to the kitchen for our lunch.” 

Carol thanked him and looked around at the spacious room, soft sage green walls, a rainbow of blooms in a vase on the desk, and the wide window framed a view of the turquoise blue water in the swimming pool beyond a stretch of green lawn.