This story arose from a challenge at the Writers’ Circus - we should choose a Proverb, and write a story about it.

The next weekend we went off to Edinburgh to stay with our friends Alan and Jean, in their brand new town house in Morningside. Part of the same impressive development, was a new block of luxury flats, the locus in my mind for this story.

I dug out a Bible that had belonged to my mother-in-law, Georgie. From it fell a greetings card sent to her from one of her Women’s Guild friends. The image on the front of the card was of a Sweet Sultan.

The story wrote itself.

You may note the input form the ubiquitous Maisie Kaywood, she of “Hook, Line and Sinker”.

(Please, do not use Sweet Sultans to make an infusion, unless you know that it is safe so to do! This is fiction, folks!)