The Scribbler’s favourite way to spend those sweltering summer vacation weeks is to get into a nice hot airless class-room far away from home immersing oneself in irregular verbs, different cases (dative, genitive, instrumental, locative, vocative ....), where to place the verb, making sure that the female plural pronoun didn’t appear together with a male singular adjective, whether to use words like ”the”, ”a” or instead use suffixes or totally ignore any difference between determined of non-determined and so on … and on… and on.

Well this year The Scribbler, for various reasons couldn’t go away to have fun. Forced to stay at home The Scribbler had a look at the July contest at BCTS. That was not the original plan but it was worth having a look though.

The Scribbler has a very detailed and elaborate writing process procedure

One of two alternatives:
1. Get struck by a more or less silly idea.
2. Sit down and write story “fleshing it out” while typing.
3. Post story.
Total time 1-3 hours

A. Get struck by a more or less silly idea
B. (In particular if getting struck by the idea while in the bath, eating chocolates or strawberries) Let the idea bounce around in the head. Lots of empty space there. “Fleshing out” process.
C. Unless idea discarded for one reason or another: Sit down and write story
D. Post story.
Total time 3 hours to 2 years.

Please note that in neither case is there a phase of "sit down and get an idea"

It started off well. For a while The Scribbler had whale of a time boning up about corsets. However, the steel in the spine and the spring in the step disappeared into the black hole of “cation”. The idea just didn’t turn up.

The Scribbler had to resort to other things. Spending lazy days by the beach reading. Either a five minute walk to the lake or (gasp!) a quarter of an hour to the sea. The sea didn’t provide an idea. Walking around the medieval alleys of the city in the merely hot evenings was no better, not even stopping at the ice-cream place just across the 21-century old bridge. Watching those pesky sunsets from the cliffs was as futile. Sipping milk with friends watching the sailing boats returning for the evening was a distraction.

For the big military parade The Scribbler had a procedure: Get down to the avenue for the low-flying aircraft which you really have to be on-site to appreciate and then get back home to look at the rest on TV. Much better view. No idea though.

Day excursions to a castle or two that would make Dave (Abu Gaby) Bond drool were just useless. The day spent biking on the sandy peninsula with a stop for an assortment of herring with a view over the lagoon, the break for a skinny-dip in the sea only to wind up with a Sahara-like experience struggling up the giant sand dunes (over 40m high) in the fifty-something (Celsius) degree sun with only a few drops of water left – Well that day turned out to be arid.

Maybe a dip in a cold, rapid river fed from glaciers? Well that was a drag. The Scribbler was dragged at least a hundred meters before making it to land again.

The international ballet festival at the open air stage at “Seaside”? – Well, let’s just say that The Scribbler has an attitude problem.

And so the days went. Beach, reading, swimming, open air performances in the evenings, warm evenings spent with friends at cafés outdoor, sunsets, excursions to castles, cathedrals, digs, restaurants … Just terrible!

Then The Scribbler was contacted by Barbie Lee who wanted to know:

- Where is your “Staycation” story?”

The poor Scribbler could only answer:

- I have no idea!

If you haven’t already noticed this is an official non-entry in the “BCTS July Staycation Contest”