Hello folks! I am glad to be posting this today as I feared that my recovery from the hernia operation was going to knock me back a lot more than it has... don’t get me wrong I still haven’t been out of the house yet and I am still taking it one step at a time on the stairs, but I feel much better in myself... no more sleepiness or sickness... I hope!

    Anyway more on that on Sunday! Now lets get straight into the spirit of things with a new original short story! Remember you can find the audio version of this on the Audio Page or you can find the podcast in iTunes HERE.

Without Further Ado...

Two Hills

By Daniel .M. Brown

He sat down in the shade of a large tree. A long needed rest, the backs of his legs had been giving him grief all the way up the side of the hill. Sitting here he surveyed the surroundings, he just had a little further to go until he would be at the top. “Fantastic” He thought.

Looking down on the little villages scattered about the plains below he couldn’t help but feel at peace. Look how far away they were and here he was all alone seven-hundred meters above. He had a quick sip of water and a bag of salt and vinegar crisps to keep him going, then off he went trotting up the barely visible path.

As he went he thought about the view that was to meet him at the summit, it was only a small hill at eight-hundred-and-fifty-six meters but on a day this clear he was sure that he would be looking off into the distance at unnamed landmarks.

True enough when he got to the top he cast his gaze across the large flat lands covered by a patchwork of fields in front of him and then tried to focus his eyes on the hills and mountains in the distance, some of them he recognised, some of them he didn’t, ultimately though his eyes were drawn to one of them in particular. There was an awful thick brown smoke about it, he had seen this type of smoke before, it was a forest fire.

He wasn’t surprised to see it, there had been a wonderful few weeks of sun and the ground must have been pretty dry over there, even on his ascent he had seen patches of dead and dried up bracken and shrubbery. The fire didn’t really effect him though as it was miles away, it was just something interesting to see for a change.

Out on the hill that he was looking at stood another walker who had also been thinking about the incredible view he would have from the top of his mountain, now though he could barely see his own hand and was being overwhelmed by the smoke, he stumbled to the ground and his mountain view was gone completely.

The End.

As always and until the next time:

Look after yourself,

and have fun,

dan