This short piece was written as a family history memento for our two sons (Stuart and Craig) and their amazing families.

It is about Storytime with Zac and Rory, always an adventure, like trying to herd butterflies as they flit around their bedroom.

I have adopted an interactive style, using YouTube links on the assumption that the reader is has the PDF downloaded to an iPad or Tablet. The AI image of the Rainbow with Swallows was generated by Microsoft Co-Pilot in less than two minutes.

The AbingBons

Zac was 5 last August: Rory was 4 on Christmas Eve. They both attend the Europa School on the outskirts of Abingdon. Zac is in P1 studying in Spanish from Monday to Wednesday lunchtime and then in English for the rest of the week. Rory is in Pre-School where he has proved to be a dutiful and helpful ‘leader’, organising his classmates, following in Zac’s footsteps.

Both are enrolled in Am Dram classes and we often get ‘performances’ on our FaceTime ‘visits’. Sometimes we follow them as the race around their huge child-friendly garden or zoom along their long driveway on bikes or scooters or electric cars. Zac in particular drives his Mercedes saloon with a nonchalant air, revesing into his lean-to mini-garage with aplomb.

Matthew, who will be 16 in August, attends Abingdon School, where he is prepping for his GCEs. He is a keen and capable member of the Abingdon School Rowing Squad and is an active and very able golfer. In the recent past he was captain of his rugby squad before leaving to concentrate on rowing. In summer he plays plays competitive cricket with Stuart in a mixed team of adults and teeneagers.

Matthew has matured into a fine young man, a good role model for his four cousins.

The NetherBons

In Netherlee, just half an hour away from Bearsden by car, we have Ethan and Drew and yes, (as we learn in this story), they are indeed BRILLIANT footballers.

Ethan, now 12, attends High School while Drew, aged 10, is in P6 at Netherlee Primary.

These boys also enjoy busy lives, always active, with weekend football matches and mid-week training sessions, specialist soccer skills coaching from Greg and athletics, swimming, skateboarding, mountain biking and parkour (a form of free flow gymnastics).

Nowadays with the NetherBons, Storytime is a more sedate affair but in the past they were just like Zac and Rory, leaping around like momkeys.

In their quieter moments Ethan is a bookworm, wedded to his tablet for games and homework. Ditto for Drew who is also a budding artist with real talent and has developed a ‘home business’ selling his art works to his grandparents.

So, we (The BearsBons) have five superb grandchildren who are delightful, polite ane vastly entertaining lads.

How lucky are we!

Fergie is a romantic tale about the ‘homecoming’ of a man who is seeking to break free from his addiction and mental baggage and attempt to rebuild his life on the island of his birth.

It is set on North Uist, a small community in the Outer Hebrides, an island I visited for around two decades, fishing for wild brown trout.

Around 50% of North Uist is covered by lochs containing fresh water, sea water and sometimes a mixture of both.

Loch Obisary is prominent in this story and I have included an ‘endnote’ which contains lots of surprising information.

Although Fergie is grounded in North Uist and its geography and wildlife, it is essentially about its people who live their lives in a close-knit weave and who care deeply for each other.

It could, I suppose, have been set on any of the communities of the Outer Hebrides.

I hope locals who read Fergie will forgive any factual errors and indulge my flights of fancy.

I think most of us are voyeurs, so give it a go.

Fergie is entirely a work of fiction and its characters are not clones of real people.

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Fergie has its origins in a ‘doodle tale’ which started on my iPad mini back in April 2025 while visiting my older son and family in Abingdon, near Oxford. After our visit, Fergie lay dormant until early December 2025 when I was presented with a Writers’ Circus topic ‘about a picture’.

While writing Fergie, I have become inccreasingly enamoured with ‘Perplexity’, an AI search engine which I have used many times over to check facts and confirm (and correct) information dredged from my memory.

As in the recent past, I have self-edited this piece using the ‘Read Aloud’ tool in Microsoft Word.

Aplogies for any errors you might uncover: please forgive, make your best judgement as to meaning, and read on.

This is another story in the Maisie Kaywood series.

If you are new to Maisie Kaywood romps, follow this link:

https://www.thebuzzinbee.co.uk/updates/maisie-kaywood-stories/

LYNX features a new character working alone in the field, chasing a group who have abducted a teenage boy.

Go on, dive in!

FYI

This story has been self-edted using “Read Aloud” in Word.

It almost certainly contains errors. If you find one, use you best judgement and read on, please.

I recently send a link of the original story called ‘Sealed’ to a friend who pointed out a few errors.

I have revised it and re-named it ‘Pact’.

A quick read.

The basics of time and place are true and then my Muse took a hand.....

This is a snippet story about green gardening using Ladybirds by Post to fight in The War Against Greenfly.

At this stage, the battles are just starting but we are confidant the our Ladybirds will succeed.