Though I’m working on linking the best showcase posts from this site too, in the meantime (and anyway) here’s a link to where you can find a list of some of the best posts on little red boat.
A testament to my chaotic and unconventional culinary skills, with more than a casual nod to a fellow blogger. (more…)
Subtitled How to be Sick and Make Sure the World Knows It, this is a post I wrote while ill. A draft version of a potential chapter form I was considering developing for later posts/projects, the guide is intended for beginners at the attention-seeking/illness game… (more…)
In the spring of 2006 I was interviewed for a Radio 4 programme highlighting some of the newest voices and most interesting blogs on the net.
The show, “Meet the Bloggers”, went out in August-September 2006, and my “whimsical musings” appeared on the very first episode.
You can Read about the show here, or listen to the full interview between producer Mark Savage and me.
The beginning of a children’s story by anna pickard
Over the ocean, well,
over a little bit of the sea - Over a strip of the sea -
Far away from the city, far away from all their untidy rooms and far far away from school;
Big Brother, Middle Sister and Little Anna went on holiday.
In the middle of summer, and sometimes in spring, and sometimes in autumn too, Big Brother, Middle sister and Little Anna would go on holiday.
To Nana’s house. Over a strip of the sea, next to the beach, over the ocean, under the blue, big skies, Nana lived.
And the day they arrived, or the day after the day they arrived, Big Brother, Middle sister, Little Anna and Nana would climb in the car and drive to the lake.
The lake where they sailed their boats.
Everyone had a boat apart from Nana. Nana liked to watch.
But Big Brother, Middle Sister and Little Anna had boats. Beautiful sailing boats, powered by the wind or pulled on string, different colours and different sizes, they all had boats…
Big brother had a boat -
And this was his boat.
As long as his arm, and as tall as his knee with three white cotton sails - rigging and pulleys, a door to the cabin and tiny glass portholes.
A perfect sailing boat - just like a big one, but little instead.
that was Big Brother’s boat.
And it was called “Endeavour”
Middle Sister had a boat -
And this was her boat;
As long as her am frrom her fingers to her elbow, as tall as her teddy bear and just as wide - it was blue, with funnels and decks and an anchor, a bridge for the captain and portholes and portholes and portholes for all the happy passengers.
It was a passenger ship. A liner.
This was Middle Sister’s Boat.
And it was called ‘Mermaid’
Little Anna had a boat.
And this was her boat.
It was a dinghy.
A little boat.
Little and red.
With a seat in the middle.
And her boat was called
“Sinky”
Which was a good name. Because it sank a lot. That’s what it did.
Put on the water, Sinky would sit, for a while, held by the thin nylon string connected to the little pink hand, and then, after thinking a little, would sink.
And be pulled, happily, around the boating lake, making a noise like this;
chhhhhhhhhh-rchhhchchchch -kkkkkkkkkkchchchchchhrrrrrrrch
as she crunched along the gravel toward the edge of the pond.
And damn I loved that boat.
I wouldn’t accept another boat but Sinky.
No matter how often it sank, no matter how predictably, I refused to stop putting my little red boat out on the water.
Float or not, she was mine. And I loved her. And the putting her on the water was the fun of it.
And that was enough.
So that’s it.
That’s Sinky.
That’s the toy I keep naming things after - Journals and stories and projects and theatre companies.
If you ever wondered, in case you ever wondered - that’s the little red boat.
And I only mention it because its a year today that this boat was put on the water.
And in terms of sinking? (insert sucky metaphor here)
Not yet.
And if we do?
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