I've been posting on Your Messages -- each day you have the chance to win a place in an anthology by writing 300 words.
1. What I have always thought of as a clogged ditch has swollen into a stream after the rain.
2. The call to dinner -- a pan of spicy red sauce in which two chicken thighs have been cooking.
3. I catch sight of the faint white line under my eye from where I cut my face open in Africa. I remember never being worried that it might be disfiguring -- even when I looked in the mirror and saw the wounds hanging open. Even when I woke up the next morning in hospital and really thought about what I had done. I think this was partly because at uni I had a housemate with a scar. When Ali was cold or excited, a scar as long as my middle finger showed up red on her cheek from where, aged 11, she had fallen through a window. She was beautiful and confident and men came up to her and wanted to know about the scar. It was never seen as an ugly thing, or something to be ashamed of -- rather, a badge of honour and a good story.
