528 - UNDUE

GErald surveyed the picturesque scene with pleasure. He felt a nudge on his leg and was surprised to see a gnome moving around near him. The gnome was intent on harvesting toadstools, wielding his knife most deftly. The gnome became aware of Gerald's presence and thought he was paying undue attention to him and his harvesting. The gnome had a sip of his magic potion and promptly disappeared from Gerald's sight, leaving him free to carry on harvesting.

527 - TEPID

AfTEr Imogen made her afternoon cuppa she looked out of the window to see with dismay that her nearly-dry washing was getting rained on. She dashed outside to get the washing in. But then she smelled it - "What's that awful smell - oh, it's coming from my shoe!" An animal had left its poop in the garden and now some of it was on her shoe. So she had to spend a fair while cleaning it off and disposing of the rest. Eventually she got back inside and hung her coat up to dry. When she sipped her tea it was tepid - she had to microwave it to make it palatable.

526 - HAPPY

HorAtio surveyed tHe battle. Every time a French ship sunk he felt happy. The end.

525 - CLEAN

The faLtering Agitated slEuth is rooted to the spot looking across the bleak Moor, trying to glean what he could of the encounter. Through his binoculars he sees Heathcliff plead with Cathy to run away with him. He could make out the gleam in her eyes, but she was torn by other forces and they parted. The sleuth has been standing still too long and he suddenly realises that fleas were creeping up his leg. He runs home as fast as he can and soaks in a hot bath and damps himself with a towel. At last he is clean and flea-less and he can attend to writing his report on today's findings.

524 - ITCHY

HumpTy Dumpty was quite clumsy and noisy, not aided by his rotund form. He would frequently get in a tizzy when things went awry. To calm down he would sit on the wall in his garden. Unfortunately Humpty Dumpty was prone to being tippy and often fell off. The various scars he acquired as a consequence became itchy frustrating him even more. At last he decided to visit his Doctor (after having to grapple with the online form one needed to use to get an appointment). The Doctor (who at one time had been a physician for the King) prescribed some tablets which sorted out all his problems and so he lived happily ever after. 😁

523 - FEAST

GAry sat on ThE bench observing the boats in the harbour when there was a whack on the side of his head as a seagull flew too close. The lady sitting next to him volunteered that there had been a spate of these recently. Gary's business partner sidled up to him and proceeded to tease him that at last he had started to 'pull the birds'! Gary wasn't too impressed with this and went home to get the flour, butter, yeast etc to make some cakes. He ordered a takeaway and had a feast comprised of the takeaway followed by fresh cakes.

522 - DRIVE

LATEr in the afternoon an unusual sound was coming down from the ridge. The bride was encouraged to climb up to the ridge where she saw that the sound came from a wood-fired steam car that was anything but aerodynamic in shape. It was a strange vehicle with the smoke-stack and pile of logs but with a car windscreen, comfy seats and seat belts. The groom offered her his hand up into the contraption. "Has this got brakes?", asked the bride. "Oh yes, this is fully road legal!", exclaimed the groom. They set off for a drive in the town with everyone turning to look at the couple; they felt very special that day.

521 - PRIME

ERIc stopped to gaze up at the church spire. But this merely caused the toddler in the buggy to start to gripe. Eric gave him a tin of beans (one without a ring-pull!) for the toddler to try to prise the lid off. He walked past the new surgery building he'd designed with great pride. The next door store's window shocked Eric when he noticed the price one had to pay to learn to drive. A few yards further on was a mock medieval statue depicting a warrior with a sprig of mistletoe on his head (his prize) and his deceased victim at his feet who had been maced with one blow. But the prime reason for his journey was to get to the nursery so he could drop off his toddler and then get on to his workplace.

520 - AXIOM

Albert Einstein is not his real name - he is a phony. Many a day he soaks in his bath with the audio cranked up trying to think of an axiom that no one else has thought of, hoping to become famous like Newton or Maxwell. But it's all useless and eventually he runs out of money and has to leave his flat, much to the relief of his neighbours who are fed up with the noise.

519 - BRAVE

Anthony EaRned his living by mounting many a picture into its frame. He'd been working for hours and felt quite weary but he had to keep going so he could make the grade. He looked through those still to frame. There were a couple of bird ones - a crake and a drake. Then there was a modern art pencil drawing that he thought was a dreadful craze - Anthony felt like he should erase parts of it to improve it but restrained himself. Eventually he settled on 3 to press on with - one with ducks, another with fruit including a grape or two and one with a North American brave.

518 - AVERT

At a quarTER past ten, there was a great bang as the fire grate the builders were manoeuvring fell off the crane crashing into its crate, making the site manager very irate. "No-one is to stare at this but get back to their work", he shouted. Fortunately there was no sting in the tail of this mishap with the grate surviving intact and with the crate needing to be broken apart anyway. On pondering the event, the site manager realised that it could have been a lot worse, so he decided to treat everyone to an ice cream. But he would have to think up a plan for how to avert something like that happening again.

517 - GLYPH

ALbert George was the well-off scion of the county's largest land holder but he wasn't a very good man. The estate staff all knew him as a bully. Even more people got to witness his arrogance and bullying when he drove around town ignoring any one-way glyph he came across. Other drivers would be forced to back down the street. Eventually he had his driving licence removed, though that didn't stop him driving!

516 - THERE

AfTER the noisy party there was calm.

515 - BAKER

BArt ERnestly desired to increase his wealth. He placed a £100 wager with his buddy Daz that he could double his wealth in a year. At breakfast the next morning he was pondering what he'd done as he used his parer to remove the skin from his pear. He pushed up the fader on the sound system and scanned the morning's paper in which he found articles that captured his interest, looking for inspiration. One article that caught his attention was about a rarer allotrope of carbon than the four already known ones. Another was about a new form of pager which was an implant in the inner ear - Bart didn't like the sound of that. In the sports section the article about the latest cricket sensation pacer had him gripped. However, none of these gave him the inspiration for doubling his wealth, especially after he read an article about an entrepreneur whose business flops as soon as it becomes publicly listed. "Perhaps I'll have a go at being a faker of artworks", he thought. After pondering this idea he realised the risks were too high and so the scheme was ditched. "I know", he exclaimed, "I'll become a maker of a yummy new type of cake." he shouted. So he set about establishing himself as a baker. A year after the wager was set, Bart and Daz met up over a few beers and Bart showed Daz the calculations of his wealth which was 2.1 times greater than the year before. Daz handed over the £100 and Bart presented him with a 50% discount card for his cakes!

514 - SNARL

LAvinia was aRoused from her slumber by the alarm. Moments later she shivered from her log cabin between the old trees (which had at least one gnarl on each one) to get to the washrooms. She looked in the mirror at the snarl of hair on her head and groaned at the thought of sorting it out.

513 - MAPLE

PetaLs ArE falling on the ground. The nights are cooling. It must be autumn. It's time to sit round the fire and for someone to tell a fable. Some stories were true, but most were false. The favourite fables were a set of stories about a family of sable mammals (see Wikipedia picture). In these stories they would tackle various tasks such as erecting a gable end on a house so that they could then build a roof with a room in it so they could have a place for their model railway. In another story the sables set about building a cable car to carry sables up and down the mountains with ease. (The sables got plumper after this started being used, so it wasn't really a good idea!) Once the fire had calmed down to hot embers, it was time for the fables to finish and for the best cook among them to make pancakes which everyone enjoyed, laced with maple syrup.

512 - INANE

"What a disAstEr", groaned the town's mayor. The mayor and her deputy surveyed the damage done by the mini-hurricane. Previously the town was pristine all ready for the gardens competition, but now plants and decorations were strewn everywhere. The deputy mayor said "how about we make a feature of what we see?". "That is an inane idea" retorted the mayor, "let's mobilise the population to work together to tidy this up and we'll purchase the new plants from the town's budget."

511 - VALET

Lord Leonard ATE his lunch surrounded by his paints and paintbrushes. He was hoping for inspiration for his next painting. His palet was deficient so he asked his servant to get him certain paints so that he wasn't hampered once he'd started the painting. After he'd gone another servant brought him the day's post which included a tales for him to sign to summon jurors for the upcoming trial. The afternoon was spent checking on the stables and going for a short ride around part of the estate. When he got back he met his valet who helped him get dressed for the evening's formal dinner. Lord Leonard was not looking forward to the meal as his nemesis, Sir Richard, was going to be there. He hoped that things wouldn't flare up.

510 - MEDAL

The LAmE ostrich said to the scarred whale "Let's go and spend some money at the shopping mall to drown our woes". Although it was a big mall, it was a struggle for the whale to move around in there. The ostrich bought some flowers, though she didn't much like the petals so she plucked them off leaving the sepal set on each head. The whale was not venal (open to bribery) and so didn't fall for the drug dealer's proposals for a new route to get the drugs into the country. The drug dealer ran off, but the ostrich could run faster despite her lameness. She had him trapped by the corner of two windows that had many a decal on them displaying what the outlet could do for you. The police were soon there to take the criminal away. The manager of the mall decided to award the ostrich with a medal in recognition for her prompt and effective action despite her handicap.

509 - UNITE

It was TEN o'clock in the evening and the play rehearsal was still going on. The director was cross with the actors because they kept getting their lines wrong. "Have another go at that scene", balled the director. "I believe that this dagger is yours", said one actor. "No, no, no", cut in the director - "It's 'I believe that this dagger is thine'", he chided. And so they had to start again. During a coffee break the actors hatched a plan. When the next scene rehearsal started (by now it was gone midnight), the actors all turned towards the director and said in unison "We are going home now. We have decided to unite in this decision and there's nothing you can do about it." The next rehearsal was going to be tricky but by then the director had cooled down and was apologetic to the actors.

508 - RAINY

AsteRix the Gaul found himself  bound by chains and carried to the centurion in the Roman camp. The centurion warns Asterisk that if he doesn't tell him what makes the Gauls so invincible he will torture him outside on a rainy day. Unfortunately for the centurion a certain amount of rain briefly re-envigorates the magic potion so Asterix is able to escape.

507 - SPELL

LESlie was miffed. He had come to a deal with his old school pal that would have benefitted them both, but his pal had chosen to welsh on it. Feeling glum, he slumped into his chair and picked up the history book he had been reading. The book was all about ancient Rome and the divide between the plebs and the patricians, but it didn't grab his interest as before. Outside the snow was getting thicker and the children couldn't wait to get out with their sleds. Leslie pulled himself together and decided to go out in the snow too. He had to sort through the various fuels in his garage so that he could fill up the tank of his snowmobile. Zooming around on his snowmobile took the spell of gloom off of him. "I'll bounce back from this setback" , he thought to himself.

506 - BEGIN

ThE NIght was dark. All the night-time creatures were busy doing their thing - owls, bats, moths, small mammals, badgers, cats, foxes etc. Being an observer of the wildlife was easier for Nick these days now that he had access to infrared cameras. He settled into his hide - it was time for him to begin his observations.

505 - STALE

In downtown LA, TErry ducked through the narrow doorway. His plate loaded with refreshments from the bar, he went down to the gambling area. He whisked his slate from inside his trench coat and placed it next to him ready to keep score of his winnings and losses. The cards were dealt and the game started. His eyes fixed on the board, he reached out to his refreshments and took a bite of the bread roll - urgh, it was stale. "I'll bring my own food next time", he thought.

504 - DREAM

An ERrant rabbit was disappearing from the drawing. Glenda had to erase her and re-draw her so that she wasn't running quite so fast. Glenda's drawing seemed to be working now and the rabbit wasn't going to reach the paper edge. However, she paused to look out of the window and dream about her ideal house that one day she would have (though in reality that was most unlikely to happen😞). With a sigh she looked back at her drawing to see that the rabbit had almost disappeared off the edge again. She had to get her eraser out and repeat the process.

503 - PHOTO

TOny had always been a bit of a hoarder. Indecision and a love for the things that cluttered his house and garage meant that the place was heaving. Now that he was getting older, his offspring started urging him to do something about it. "You really ought to sort through this stuff and get rid of lots of it" one of them said one day. Eventually Tony hatched on a plan. Before getting rid of anything he would take pictures and videos of them. His offspring were delighted to help him achieve this, often featuring as models for the items. It took a few years but at last the house became clearer. The only drawback to all this was that Tony had to increase the amount he spent each year on cloud storage for each photo and video.

502 - ALOUD

ALexAnder was scrambling over the scaffolding, jumping across gaps from plank to plank from dawn until the gloam of evening, building his dream house. Sir Reginald was taking a stroll. Although he looked quite aloof he was a pleasant enough bloke. "Aloha", called out Alexander; Sir Reggy merely nodded his head. Next to the new building was an old house that had blocked and cracked guttering. During heavy rain water would slosh out making a slippery pathway and Sir Reggy hoped that the owner would take it in hand and get the place fixed up. Sir Reggy went as far as the disused mine shaft to make sure the security fences were all intact. They had been disturbed which made Sir Reggy angry and concerned at the same time. He called out aloud "Is there anyone down in there?" "Yes", came a faint reply, "can you get me out of here?" Sir Reggy called Alexander over and together they were able to rescue the miscreant who was grateful to pay for the damages to the fencing.

501 - INEPT

ThE cruise lINer approached the harbour. Up on the bridge the second officer was looking worried and so were others with him. "Sir, do you want me to cut the main screws back to idle now" he said to the captain, who was distracted by the beautiful slim lady standing very close to him. "Oh no, not yet" the captain replied, who was trying to impress his companion. After what seemed like an age the captain nonchalantly called out "Full reverse". But it was too late and the huge ship struck the moored vessel a glancing blow. Fortunately neither ship was badly damaged (though a few cocktails got spilt) , but the repairs were going to be very expensive. The ship's owners quickly fired the inept captain.

500 - PINEY

ErclIN the pirate took his index finger off the trigger of his pistol - the danger had receded. He raised the mizen and set course for the island with pines growing on it amongst which he had his valuable store of hijacked wines. He was always on the alert, every sinew of his body tense and ready for action. There was clearly no one watching so he moored up and made his way into the piney wood. To his horror all the wine had gone. All there was was a note saying "thanks for storing our wine safely for us". He was starting to wonder if he'd picked the right career.

499 - APTLY

Gilly was LATe for the rehearsal. She tried to slip quietly into the altos section but caught her foot on a step and went crashing down, taking one or two others with her. To her total embarrassment the piece they were rehearsing was "The Music of Stillness". Later on she would have a good laugh about it with the other choristers - it was aptly referred to as the 'anything-but-stillness day'.