10th August 2019
My wife and I were drugged by a Buddhist monk once. For reals. Apparently he was enlightened but we only had his word to go on about that. I can say for certain that he was a decent business man because he sold us some of his home brew jazz cd’s while we were there (he was a local business man of the year). That was after the scented tea drug (he was a local business man of the year). Afterwards I drove home across the country with a headache. Part of the way home from the tranquility garden that we’d gone to visit, I said to Anna that I was thinking of bloody driving back to said monk to say that if he’s in the market for popping enlightenment then I’m sure that such drugs already exist. Unless enlightenment is supposed to feel like a headache. Years earlier I’d hung out around the fringes of Das Western Buddhist Order and generally found enlightening to be no more harmful than it was a hassle. Anyway that tea was dreadful to drive under, like an endless Blob Dildo anthem blasting from a puja circle within the oscillations of my mind-brain. I couldn’t even have a go on the worry beads he’d flogged us because I was busy with the steering wheel. Ridiculous.
These days as a Christian I enjoy what I what loosely refer to as Christian Permission. It is a cure all promise that I am basically safe with anything as I am under the grace of God. It’s why Christians drive faster, pray at a moments notice and aim more accurately. It is also why I can be trusted to use the word awesome correctly.
I cannot recommend this highly enough. Call upon Jesus now and your own permission slip will be in the post. The Holy Spirit moves faster than WiFi and does not leave you short of connection.
But anyway that’s theology for you, and that always splits people like a pagan hand axe. Let’s do some travel news instead.
I have just got back from a couple of days about the Shropshire hills around The Stiperstones. For a largely well-kempt county, those hills are packed with wildness and unusual history, enough to drove itself into your head and rewind your mind. And not just because by the time you’ve reached the peak of those hills it’s about two years later than when you started. Yet you’ll feel like you’ve stepped back to about 1850. Weird. I highly recommend a visit for a few days.
Might as well talk about gardening for a bit and pretend that you’re still with me. Tis the season of lawn maintenance. The ground is still moist with spring showers/constant bloody rain, and now the sun has swooped around to play, yo grass is gonna get legs. Green legs, like little upside down head-in-the-ground, ground Martians. Nothing gets in the way of my mower whence she is set to Ground Level No 2 though.
I’ve been trying out a few new moves with the strimmer recently too. Basically I discovered the handle was entirely adjustable and it has opened up a whole new reality of precision. I also ask Jesus for help, to strim like He would. I like to think that we find a middle ground. There’s some to and fro about who’s turn it is.
Also while working the lawn and borders recently I started the creation of The Rural Dictionary. Within it is an incomplete guide to slang and terms that relate and refute those of a rural disposition.
For instance;
Backlaner. Noun: Someone without street smarts and inclined towards B road mentalities. Eg, ‘Don’t expect him to know that his car parking bay is limited to fifteen minutes use, he’s a backlaner.’
Also related to Backlaning.
Go ahead and have some of The Brine in Me before we bugger off. I have recently received a few preview hard copies of The Brine in Me for myself and a few other decider-makers to peruse and proof read. Somehow you never really know what you have written until you have the hard one, so to speak. I’m not really one for pride or the rubbing of ones own rhubarb (so to speak), but I am happy with the tone and the shortness of the chapters that I was going for with this one. It’s really so close to being finished now that it has already been fitted for a life underneath a table leg somewhere. Admittedly that is going to be a table leg in poor shape. The Brine in Me is not that little, there’s a man’s whole life inside. Derek Gainsborough’s. At this point in his life he has just sauntered into a May Day of the mid 1970’s variety
You’re welcome.
‘The Squid and Squirm didn’t mess about on May Day – they were open well before 11 a.m. Moley and I showed up in our jeans and old chequered shirts, out to impress, or failing that, whatever might be on offer. Ever the man for an open market, Moley had brought a couple of ounces of weed to sell off. By midday, though, we were tipsy and thinking that we’d smoke it all for ourselves.
By 1 p.m., I was on the outskirts of joining in with the local morris troupe, only to be booed away by the crowds and back into Moley’s company on a bench. He wasn’t alone, either. The easy afternoon breeze had drifted female company his way – company that was smoking with him. She was pretty, more than the Mole was anyway, with long hair and warm features that were fast to smile. When neither of them noticed me sat on the bench, I rolled up a joint and took my pale ale out into the crowds. I wandered about between the people, meeting new ones and catching up on news with the ones I thought would tell the most interesting version of local events. I loved the attitude of May Day, and that was even before I bumped into Vivian again.
She was wearing jeans and a cropped top, and in my mind, that was just the sort of ensemble that would maximise the chances of me getting close to her. She recognised me as well, not likely because of my clothes, but because my face has always been at one with character. It might have even been Vivian who told me that a face of features was of greater importance than handsomeness. Whatever the case, she seemed pleased to see me, and even took the ale from my grip and finished the remainder. Christ, she looked good in the afternoon haze; that lightly burnt hair, those eyes that knew what they were seeing.
I took her the hundred or so yards back to the house at the earliest opportunity, only to find Moley and his good lady at the kitchen table, reefer smoke filling the space between them. They were flush with something like excitement as well; in fact, Moles looked positively worn out. I took Vivian’s hand and led her towards the stairs before we got caught up in conversation at the table for the next half hour.’
Inner door, outer rooms…
JW Bowe xx
If you enjoyed this blog, and you’re impatient for something else to read, feel free to bunch up close to a free sample chapter from JW Bowe’s debut novel, The Meifod Claw, which is available now at Amazon, iTunes and on various other international eReaders.
You can also double up your sampling by following this link to the forthcoming fictional autobiography of The Meifod Claw’s wheelchair-in-chief, Derek Gainsborough. His life and apologies will be released this year under the sail of The Brine in Me.
JW Bowe can also be unearthed on YouTube and in various other ways through the Serious Biscuits homepage. Scroll down for further links, action and disclaimers.
Are you the kind of person who likes a solicited email on a regular basis? Then come closer… Even more than that if you like! Just click here.
Serious Biscuits doesn’t bite but it will update you on what’s going on and what’s been released into the wild.
If you like Serious Biscuits please share, rinse and repeat with others ↓
Serious Biscuits 
Leave a Reply