{"id":33,"date":"2025-11-15T19:47:18","date_gmt":"2025-11-15T19:47:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/stories\/?page_id=33"},"modified":"2025-11-18T17:15:01","modified_gmt":"2025-11-18T17:15:01","slug":"welcome","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/stories\/","title":{"rendered":"The Mess and the Meaning"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Hello and welcome to my collection of short stories and thoughts<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Who are you? I Hear you ask<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am Steve McDonagh, professional grumpy old man, 65 years old in 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I do like words and I play with them a little from time to time. This site has a collection of my more recent short stories. You will see a clickable list of categories below, feel free to explore and see what you can find. Feel free to share if you like them or leave a comment so I know the stories are alive, because a story only lives when it is told \ud83d\ude42<br>Love and Hugs <br>Steve<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-categories-list wp-block-categories\">\t<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-4\"><a href=\"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/stories\/index.php\/category\/stories\/\">All Stories<\/a> (47)\n<ul class='children'>\n\t<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-9\"><a href=\"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/stories\/index.php\/category\/stories\/memories\/\">About Remembering<\/a> (1)\n<\/li>\n\t<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-7\"><a href=\"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/stories\/index.php\/category\/stories\/things-that-happen\/\">Life and things that happen<\/a> (7)\n<\/li>\n\t<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-6\"><a href=\"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/stories\/index.php\/category\/stories\/mythological\/\">Mythological<\/a> (9)\n<\/li>\n\t<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-18\"><a href=\"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/stories\/index.php\/category\/stories\/nether-oak-close-stories\/\">Nether Oak Close Stories<\/a> (24)\n<\/li>\n\t<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-10\"><a href=\"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/stories\/index.php\/category\/stories\/sci-fi\/\">Sci-Fi<\/a> (3)\n<\/li>\n\t<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-8\"><a href=\"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/stories\/index.php\/category\/stories\/strange\/\">Strange Things<\/a> (2)\n<\/li>\n\t<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-17\"><a href=\"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/stories\/index.php\/category\/stories\/what-if\/\">What If<\/a> (1)\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\t<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-13\"><a href=\"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/stories\/index.php\/category\/long-stories\/\">Long Stories<\/a> (2)\n<ul class='children'>\n\t<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-14\"><a href=\"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/stories\/index.php\/category\/long-stories\/the-raven-under-the-hill\/\">The Raven Under the hill<\/a> (1)\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\t<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-11\"><a href=\"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/stories\/index.php\/category\/musings\/\">My non Story Musings<\/a> (29)\n<ul class='children'>\n\t<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-16\"><a href=\"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/stories\/index.php\/category\/musings\/ancient-places\/\">Ancient Places and things<\/a> (5)\n<\/li>\n\t<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-15\"><a href=\"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/stories\/index.php\/category\/musings\/family\/\">Family<\/a> (4)\n<\/li>\n\t<li class=\"cat-item cat-item-12\"><a href=\"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/stories\/index.php\/category\/musings\/life\/\">Life<\/a> (22)\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hello and welcome to my collection of short stories and thoughts Who are you? I Hear you ask I am Steve McDonagh, professional grumpy old man, 65 years old in 2025 I do like words and I play with them a little from time to time. This site has a collection of my more recent&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":167,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-33","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>The Mess and the Meaning - The Mess and The Meaning<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/slightlydoolally.com\/stories\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Mess and the Meaning - The Mess and The Meaning\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Hello and welcome to my collection of short stories and thoughts Who are you? 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