The circus was in town again. No one knew why.
There wasn’t even anything you could really do about it, except perhaps ignore it and hope they’ll leave everyone alone.
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Notes:
1. Written in August 2026
__________tales from the town
Tales From The Town #241: Quiche: A Critique
“Whoever invented quiche is an idiot,” Claire announced. She wasn’t even eating quiche. She was just thinking about it.
“Quiche wasn’t invented,” Daniel said. He wasn’t thinking about quiche at all. He was too busy eating it. “It was discovered.”
“By an idiot,” Claire said, still thinking about quiche. And suddenly also celery. “Whoever invented celery is an idiot.”
“Celery wasn’t invented,” Tina said. She was both thinking and not thinking about celery at the same time. Also she was drinking a cup of tea because she’d already eaten all the celery she could eat and it’d made her feel a bit ill. “It was grown.”
“By an idiot,” Claire said, thinking about quiche and celery now. And suddenly also ravioli. “Whoever invented ravioli is an idiot.”
“Ravioli wasn’t invented,” Ethel said. She was both thinking about and eating ravioli. “It was born.”
“It was not!” said Claire. But now she would never stop thinking about ravioli ever again. Ravioli, and where, where it came from.
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Notes:
1. Written on August 10th, 2026
__________Support An Accumulation Of Things
If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi. Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more). Thank you!Tales From The Town #240: A Summer Taunting
There was a cloud out to sea, raining.
Was it a mirage, a ghost, a premonition? Whatever it was, everyone in the town looked at it wistfully and begged it to come closer.
But it did not.
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Notes:
1. Written in August 2026
__________Support An Accumulation Of Things
If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi. Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more). Thank you!Tales From The Town #239: Not The Last Day
“What’s wrong Claire?’ Agnes asked, opening the curtains at 10 minutes past ten exactly.
“Nothing,” said Claire.
“Well, you can’t stay in bed all day,” said Agnes. “The sun’s out.”
“So?!”
“So stop grumping and get up,” said Agnes. “You like the sun and you like the summer holidays.”
“I don’t,” said Claire. “The sun makes me sun burnt and the summer holidays make me bored.”
Agnes was still trying to think of some counter argument to those irrefutable facts when Claire interrupted the silence all on her own without even waiting for something to disagree with.
“And anyway Daniel said yesterday was going to be the last day ever and then it wasn’t,” Claire said. “He said there were going to be explosions and implosions and there weren’t any AT ALL!”
“Maybe they cancelled each other out…”
“Shut up Mum,” said Claire. “I’m already furious enough without you making it worse.”
She threw her hairbrush on to the floor and then crossed her arms over her chest and stared balefully round the room like some sort of fairy tale princess. Albeit a huge and particularly angry fairy tale princess. Maybe Goldilocks if she finished up by shouting at the bears until they all moved to the mountains.
“You’re furious because it wasn’t the last day ever?”
“YES!” Claire said. “I was looking forward to not existing AT ALL!”
“And what would that have achieved?”
“NOTHING!” shouted Claire, who wasn’t entirely sure what she was upset about anymore, she just knew that she was. “Urgh, fine, I’ll get up then. But you have to let me get an ice cream from the ice cream van.”
“Do I?”
“In fact you have to let me get TWO!” said Claire. “Otherwise I’m coming straight back to bed.”
It was, Agnes realised, going to be a long six weeks. It always was.
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Notes:
1. Written on July 17th, 2026
__________Support An Accumulation Of Things
If you like the things you've read here please consider subscribing to my patreon or my ko-fi. Patreon subscribers get not just early access to content and also the occasional gift, but also my eternal gratitude. Which I'm not sure is very useful, but is certainly very real.(Ko-fi contributors probably only get the gratitude I'm afraid, but please get in touch if you want more). Thank you!Tales From The Town #237: The Many Months Of Summer
Claire hated the months of summer (or at least the months of summer which coincided with school (which was at least two thirds of the months of summer (and even more if you included May (and the nice two weeks of September (which Claire definitely did))))).
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Notes:
1. Written on May 23rd, 2026
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