Pondweed
A love story in the slow lane, a road novel from Stoke-on-Trent to Wales, a stolen caravan, and a salesman who kidnaps the love of his life — this is a journey of self-discovery for an odd couple of 60-somethings: childhood sweethearts reunited in later life.
One Monday afternoon, around three o'clock, pond supplies salesman Selwyn Robby arrives home towing the Toogood Aquatics exhibition caravan and orders his like-wife, Imogen 'Ginny' Dare, to get into the car. He's taking her on a little holiday, he says. To Wales.
So begins their road trip west via ponds, pitstops, and blasts from Selwyn's past. But it's a fishy business towing this caravan with its saucy mermaid curtains, fully stocked bar, and the words 'For your pondlife and beyond' in the slanted red font favoured by Pound shops. And Ginny must untangle the pondweed to get to the bottom of it, even it does mean unearthing her own murky past to find out.
Lisa Blower won the Guardian National Short Story Award and was listed for the BBC National Short Story Award and the Sunday Times Short Story Award. Her debut novel Sitting Ducks was shortlisted for the Arnold Bennett Prize and her short story collection It’s Gone Dark Over Bill’s Mother’s (Myriad, 2019) was widely praised. A contributor to Common People, edited by Kit de Waal, she has a PhD from Bangor University and teaches at Wolverhampton University. She lives in Shrewsbury.
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