Marty

Fáilte romhat, @Caz Pedroso! How's it hanging, compadre?

Didn't write them all today, Albert! It's taken me over a week to get this far. I think the main reason it takes so long is that I'm way, way, way more critical of my own scribbles than I am of anybody else's.

Hi Page, Gary, Thorn, Albert, cloch, Drew, Randy, and anyone else I have forgotten. Bit distracted here. About three and a half thousand words into a new short I'm trying to write, and it's starting to make my head hurt...

Two thirds of the way to 666....

Another great chapter, Jason. I'm glad that Greg can now say Richard's name out loud. A sure sign that he is getting there. And his realisation that he is holding Nathan back, and must be prepared to eventually let him go, is likely to be a vital part of his recovery as well. @IBEX Personally, I don't really think Greg and Kyle will end up together. I just don't think it would be in Greg's nature. I can see him becoming an important person in Kyle's life, however, but more as a mentor than a lover. Perhaps Keigan and Greg? And, even if that doesn't work out, I still see it as a step in the right direction, if only because Greg has now, for the first time in his life, come to realise that he is capable of making the first move.

Why thank you very much, kind sir! But remember...

Laughter is good for the soul, Albert! I'm so delighted to have made at least one person laugh today.

I know from personal experience what you mean about just having to accept errors and typos when you self edit your work. And one of the things I find myself doing is over editing some of my own work. Maybe it's me just being too critical with my own writings, but I sometimes look back after an edit and realise I've actually destroyed the feelings, or the flow, that I had put into a piece when I wrote it first. For that reason I always save edits with a new name. Now, I'm not for a moment suggesting that it seems like you have done the same. This story captivated me from the first chapter, and the dialogue, internal musings, character developments, and "interludes", have all been brilliant. I feel invested in all three of the of the main characters' lives. (Three up to now, at least - I'm not sure if Keigan may also have a story to tell.) I've read all the chapters up to this point in a single sitting - that should show just how much this story has caught my imagination. The grim underpinnings, as you describe them, are part of what makes the story. I know they must have been difficult for you to write, but the story would not have been the same without them. I also like the way you don't reveal too much at once, and appreciate how difficult it probably was for you, as a writer, not to do so. There's lots many soppy romance stories out there. I'm not knocking them, but real life isn't always like that. In few hours I have been reading these first eleven chapters, you have made me laugh out loud at times, and left my crying other times. I look forward to reading the remaining (5?) chapters, and your other stories. As for typos - I may have spotted one or two, but they are so rare that they've not bothered me in the least.

Oops... My apologies, Page! I don't know what I was thinking...

I have to admit that I am not fluent in it. But I have a few friends who are, should you need help. [EDIT] Alternatively, Google Translate usually does a reasonable job.

Yea, it means "hello" (literal translation: "God with you" - there's no real Irish word for hello (and none for yes or no either)

No worries, Gary. I was busy elsewhere anyway And I'm heading to bed now. Oíche mhaith, go leir! 💤

Dia dhuit, a h'Albert!

Hey right bakaya!

Three very nice photographs, Gary. They all brightened up my day. But (there's always a but, isn't there?) ... .... you got any of hunks without facial hair?

"I am the egg man" And you are...? Seriously though... a thought provoking piece, Thorn.

Welcome, Tal! I've just read the first chapter of Camp Echo and am thoroughly intrigued. It's certainly well written, and I look forward to reading more when I have the time.

Well gang, I'm away to my bed. Sweet dreams all. I'll leave a candle burning, just in case...

There are two YouTube videos linked in that SATW comic. Unfortunately one of them (the punching woman) is no longer available, but the other one did make me laugh out loud (even if I didn't understand a word of what was said). Maybe I have a northern European sense of humour, after all.

The Cure are performing in Malahide Castle, Co. Dublin, in June. Almost €75 a ticket, though. I'll have to check out the two support bands (Ride, and The Twilight Centre) and decide if I'm prepared to pay that much...

Go for it, Tim! There's nothing wrong with a bit of comedy. As W. B. Yeats says: "For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand."

Me too! They've done so many great songs. I think Lovesong is brilliant in its sheer simplicity.

Yes indeed, Yeats wrote some magnificent poetry! I was born in England to an Irish father and an English mother. I have lived in Ireland since 1986, travel on an Irish passport, and now consider myself Irish, not English (although I still have a northern English accent). Although Yeats didn't reference it as such in the poem, The Stolen Child, it is based on an old Irish legend about Changelings. If a child were sickly and/or not thriving, the belief was that the original (healthy) child had been stolen by the faeries, and a sick faerie child had been left in its place (hence the term "changeling"). It was believed that male children were more likely to be stolen in this way than a female one, so apparently a mother would often dress a young boy in girl's clothing to try to trick the faeries. There's an old Irish poem (which I have also heard sung), probably written in the 17th or 18th century, about changelings:- A mother came while stars were paling, Wailing round the lonely spring; Thus she cried while tears were falling, Calling on the fairy king: "Why, with spells my child caressing, Courting him with fairy joy, oh why take a mother's blessing? Wherefore steal her baby boy? Over hills and down through valleys, Where his childhood loved to play, Where the flowers are freshly springing, There I wander day by day. There I wander ever fonder Of the child who made my joy, Calling on the wild winds blowing To restore my fairy boy. But in vain my plaintive calling, Tears are falling all in vain; He now sports with fairy pleasure, He's the treasure of their train. Fare you well my child forever, In this world I've lost my joy, In the next we ne'er shall sever, There I'll find my angel boy." To avoid taking up too much space, I've put a link to a rendition of it, sung by The Grehan Sisters, inside spoilers below.

That's a photograph of Glencar Lake. The lake, and the nearby Glencar Waterfall, was made famous by William Butler Yeats, as it was the inspiration for his 1886 poem The Stolen Child, in which a human child is stolen away by the faeries.