STRANGE......

MAGPIE TALES  94



I don’t like this picture at all,

The people are ugly and small;

A “Masterchef lunch

For that weird looking bunch,

Would send Michel Roux up the wall.

MAGPIE TALES 93

SOFA UNDER A BRIDGE

this looks like what it looks like

By design

It’s our front room,

We think it’s rather fine.

The design work was expensive,

And the building work extensive,

The other rooms, I fear,

Are in decline.

I WISH IT WOULD TELL ME WHY

LastWednesday my computer repairer arrived first thing to "dose my machine up with sennakot."   As he worked, he told me that the computer will only do what you tell it to do.  "Huh," I grunted, "and I'm Kate Moss."  The other day, it wouldn't let me into my bank account, my curser got stuck and then I wanted to buy some cords but it wouldn't let me register on the site I wanted. 

Now GOOGLE'S joined in the fun, and won't let me go to some blogs, which is a shame, particularly as I was invited, only this morning to "pop by" by someone who had been very complimentary about my latest Magpie effort, and I wanted to see his, comment on it and thank him. 


Can anyone out there please elighten me.  I'd love to know why this happens.

Magpie tales 92

“Have you been eating garlic?”
Asked the young man on the bed,
“Oh Jason, please don’t make me laugh,
I can’t do this,” she said.
“And you’ve got nits, I’ll swear it,
I just saw one in your hair.”
“It’s a wrap!” yelled the director,
As he leaned back in his chair.

MAGPIE TALES 91

POLONIUS :  

 Ophelia, where are you off to now?

You really are rather a pain!

You’ve gone out with practically nothing on,

Do you want to go dotty again?

OPHELIA

I must go to the top of the hill again,

Where the top of the hill meets the sky;

I painted those chairs weeks ago,

I wonder if they’re dry.

       (Forgive me Masefield.

Sorry, Frances; after seeing yours, I had to have a go)

Magpie Tales 90

    

DANCING POPPY
Too young to know how many men were sho 
Or what the actual word “war” really meant;
  She had no notion of the soldier’s lot,
  How many sea and airmen’s lives were spent
In blood and flames and drowning sailors’ cries;
She only saw the poppies passing by,
And wanted one herself to wear, and prize;
She knew nothing of what it was to die;
So, on that morning into church she skipped,
And cracked the solemn silence with her smile,
And for a time, the mask of sorrow slipped,
As she danced with her poppy down the aisle.
She did not know how many people died,
Yet wore her poppy with a smile, and pride.
7.11.11

Magpie Tales

MAGPIE TALES

 Passed!

I had to pass her, Mrs. B;

She would keep making eyes at me,
Her nineteenth test, she couldn’t drive,
But she was “eating me alive.”
Those mini skirts, revealing thighs
Up to and beyond her eyes.
Couldn’t see where she was going,
Blond fringe ever over flowing,
And, ah, me, that seductive smile,
As we zigzagged every mile,
Three point turn in twenty four,
 couldn’t take it any more.
So I lost my head and passed her,
Hoping to avoid disaster.
So, on the road she takes her place.

Be warned, people, watch this space.

28.10.11

           

STUPID DUCK

I said, “If I were you, I’d stay

On the pond, it’s your unlucky day;”

I knew, with his luck

He’d become Crispy Duck.

Oh, I’m no good at this sort of thing.

Magpie Tales

STUPID DUCK

I said, “If I were you, I’d stay

On the pond, it’s your unlucky day;”

I knew, with his luck

He’d become Crispy Duck.

Oh, I’m no good at this sort of thing.

Magpie TalesMAGPIE TALES

“THE LITTLE KING"

“So like him,” she thought as she walked past

His, (as she called it,) “stupid still life thing,”

“….Arrangement…..”  surely it could not be classed

As that; cold coffee, local rag and….king?

A little plaster model, and so small

Now chipped and faded, destined for the bin.

It, and the mug, she’d like to see them fall,

The coffee drench the king and then begin

To seep and spread, spoiling his pride and joy,

(Oh, yes! To see his disappointed rage,)

Half finished canvas painting, and, oh boy!

His silly smiling face soaked off the page. 

10.10.

 

ELEPHANT WITH WINGS

I’ve  been given these wings for my birthday

My ears just aren’t quite big enough,

I can fly in my dreams,

But on waking, it seems

That I’m too big for this sort of stuff.

I really am quite disappointed;

I can’t seem to get off the ground,

I watched Dumbo do it,

And thought, “nothing to it,”

But I’m too heavy, too fat and too round.

A "GIVE ME A TOPIC" POEM

Here's the topic a follower suggested I might like to write a poem about.  If you have any ideas, do pass them my way

NO SOUVENIRE

No. Souvenir?  You promised you would!

i did want some tat from New York,

“A Present From Broadway”, or some such bad taste,

Or even a French champagne cork.

Wot, no sombrero?  No “kiss-me-quick” hat?

No rude seaside postcard, oh, shame!

No interesting pong from the duty free shop?

Now, that’s really not playing the game.

No t-shirt from Blackpool! I’m so deeply hurt,

Do you know, I might even cry,

No bracelet from Brighton, no beach towel declaring

In crimson, “SEE FRINTON AND DIE.”

But what really battered our friendship to bits,

And came as somewhat of a shock;

The one thing I asked for and what you forgot,

Was a stick of pink peppermint rock.

Yuck!

When I was at boarding school, somewhere round about eight years of age, my friend and partner in crime, Nova and I were caught by Matron one morning eating toothpaste.  We knew we were for it, God save the mark and perish the memory; a fate worse than death; a large dose of Syrup Of Figs, and for no other reason than that she knew it made us feel sick.  Try as we might, we couldn't get rid of the taste.  It hung on for hours

However if we had an accident or were upset in any way, we were taken to the head mistress's sitting room, patted on the head and given a packet of dried figs.......as a special treat! 

Wet or dry I have hated figs ever since.  Even the word brings back the taste and the nausea.  They evern look as they should smell unspeakable.

Yesterday evening, however, Alice, (bless her) changed my life.  She walked towards me laden with fresh-from-the-tree figs.  I've never seen fresh figs before, but when she told me what they were, that horrid taste came back to me.  She offered me a couple, but I refused as politely as I could, but my daughter, Holly accepted them with glee.  "Mum, they're yummy!" she exclaimed. "Not a bit like the figs you buy at Christmas."  They were pear shaped and green and not at all like what I'd been brought up with.

Tentatively I ate a piece.  This wasn't fig!  This was glorious; sweet and juicy.  I felt a bit like "Mole" in "The Wind In The Willows"  ("oh, my, oh, my1")

Now I'm on a mission......Leave figs alone!  don't liquidise them or dry them.  Why do we have to mess things around?  They're wonderful straight from the tree.

Oh, by the way, whoever thought up sun dried tomatoes?

COULD IT REALLY BE "THE FOOD OF LOVE?"

              

                                                               MAKING MUSIC


  last night I watched a DVD of the choir group "Libera". (maybe not everyone's cup cup of tea, but) I was spell bound.  It wasn't just the singing and the enthusiasm of the group; it was also the quality of life it gave them and the tremendous opportunities that  opened up for them; travel, team work, resposibility and application.
           This morning I was reading "BROTHER OF THE MORE FAMOUS JACK" by Barbara Trapido, "We sing 'Oh, Worship The King'in four parts unaccompanied."     This immediately took me back to my childhood and christmases when we sang "'Twas In The Winter Cold", also in four parts and unaccompanied.  I remember that with great fondness.  It was lovely.
     Since then I have loved singing and choral music.  Always somewhere to go; something to look forward to.
      This may sound rather simplictic, but maybe if more young people were more strongly encouraged to read music, sing and join a group, (pop or classical, whichever suits,) it would give them a sense of purpose, streets and streets ahead of rioting and looting.



        

THINGS  CHIDREN SAY

(A TRUE STORY)

I was in school one morning and reading a story

About “a peculiar bug”

A very odd shape it looked like a beetle

Topped off with the head of a slug.

The bug was discovered” the story went on,

“By a young school boy” , as I recall,

“Who found that its diet consisted of bricks

Which it ate as it crawled up the wall.

The boy kept the bug secretly to himself,

And much as he tried to keep cool,

He was scared that the bug would eventually chomp

Its way through the entire school..

One day as the creature was eating the wall,

It disappeared down a small hole,

It turned out, the hole was the boiler room pipe,

Now the bug was beyond his control.

A whole week went by and the poor worried boy

Went to see if his bug could be found,

He looked in the boiler room, to his surprise,

He saw thousands of bugs all around.

They were stuffing their faces as they climbed the walls,

Eating bricks concrete rubble and earth;

It would seem that the warmth and the big boiler’s heat,

Had caused the first bug to give birth.”.

The story was ended, there was a short pause,

Then a small voice said, “Ros, d’you think maybe,

If I went and stood somewhere warm for a bit,

I would …. well, you know…have a baby?

                      

Does anyone know?

Can anyone tell me about Carola Dunn?  I downloaded one of her books the other day because the title caught my attention, but for some reason  I couldn't find any reviews

TEE HEE

My daughter, Hannah and her partner, Andy are staying with me for the weekend, as they are going to a friend's wedding locally.
 I think I mentioned earlier, that I have Cerebral Palsy,  I waa born with it, (personally I prefer the word Spastic, but I get shoch horror and dirty looks from people these days when I use it, so I use it whenever I can)

I used to be able to walk.  It looked a bit strange, but I got from A to B.  Now I have decided that sitting down is a better idea.  Sitting down is good.  I have a broken right knee cap, and nerve damage in my left leg brought on by a hip replacement, and only one weight bearing leg.  Each time I fell over I crashed down on to my hip replacement.

 I was strictly ordered not to do this, as, if it dislocated, there was a srong possibility the medics would not be able to relace it, and the idea of being "hipless in Hampshire", or anywhere else for that matter, doesn't exactly thrill me, _oh, and I forgot to mention the ankle I broke in April which is still in a cast.  So I decided to take to a wheelchair.  It turned my life around.  My hip is relatively safe, and my face no longer gets rearranged by a pavement as often as it used to.

My family and I just minutes after a sky dive

in August 2010

The point of all this is that Andy (See Hannah's partner, first paragraph) was telling that the other day he read a report in the paper saying that the government was clamping down on people receiving disability benefits, because most of them were shamming illness.  It turned out that about 70% of claimants were doing just that.  Well I say to you out there, if you can sham my lot, you can have my benefit and my Equity card, but if it's all the same to you, I'll keep my daughters.  That said, I confess I can't help feeling a tad smug.

WHO ARE "THEY" AND HOW DO "THEY" KNOW? This aternoon, I listened to a play on Radio 4 about how grief can bring people together. I don't often listen to the afternoon play these days because I think that, for the most part, modern radio drama has lost its "edge" in the last two or three years. "Stream, River, Sea" by Peter Souter, starring Alex Jennings and Juliet Stevenson, however, held mey attention, and seemed to "tick all the boxes" in my experience, (my husband died four years ago) except one. When Juliet Stevenson said something like "They say it takes seven years to get over the loss of a loved one," I started to twitch. Who are "they?" and how on earth do "they" know? Did they just pick a number out of the air? (probably) did they do a national survey? (probably not) and who wants to "get over" the loss of a loved one, anyway? I don't; I'd like to be able to live with it calmly (rather like a scar; it fades and can be forgotten for a time, but every now and then, it itches.) Surely no one can put a time limit on grief. It's an individual thing which takes as long as it takes, and if it takes the rest of your life, then so be it. I sometimes wish people wouldn't pontificate quite so much. When my husband died, my sister who has phoned me nearly every day since he was diagnosed with cancer, gave me just one piece of advice which I've never forgotten. When a friend's mother died recently, I turned that advice into a poem and sent it to her and her family. THINKING OF YOU Come, share your grief, and if it makes you cry To tell the story of your loss and pain, Then think of a huge jar of grief, and try Imagining that those shed tears will drain The grief away, the level sink, and so Then, inch by inch, by month, by week by day, The empty space within the jar will glow With tiny sparks of hope, where grief held sway. Yes, it will hurt, but with your falling tears, The grief inside the jar will sink still more; And even if its ebbing should take years, Your grief will fall away and hope will score. So if grief looms, and hope’s a distant star, Then let your tears flow freely, and think…..Jar. Is my grief jar empty?  Will it ever be empty?  Who knows?

Wheelchair hazzards

I think I said to someone the other day that being in a wheelchair doesn't bother me in the slightest, (I was born with cerebral palsy.)  Well, I lied!  Unpacking and putting away the weekly shop is a case in point.  Yesterday I wheeled over my breakfast.  I felt myself go over something, and half way over it I stopped.  "Forwards or backwards," I thought.  Either way my cerial bars would be mush.
It was then that my driving instructor's words from many moons ago flashed into my mind: "Always look where you're going."  If I'm going to wheel over something, ten to one it'll be because I'm going backwards.  Have you noticed how many drivers look straight ahead when they're reversing?  It's not just me then.

“BUMMER” SUMMER

They say wind, rain and storming’s

The result of global warming,

Though, for the life of me,

I can’t see how;

With radiators blaring

And with all the layers I’m wearing,

I feel rather like

 A bloated cow.

They said we’d have a scorcher,

But this Summer is cold torture,

If only they could get it

Right or wrong.

This so called scorching Summer

Has been a soggy “bummer,”

So I think I’ll skip the country

Before long.

I Must B happy

                                                                          

I MUST BE HAPPY

(BEING LEFT BEHIND)

I must be happy and I must let go;

She’s young, she’s married now, I must move on,

But there’s an emptiness, I miss her so,

A dull ache deep inside me, now she’s gone.

No more the text, “Mums, can I come for lunch?

I can’t stay long, though, fancy feeding me?”

Her absence hits me like a silent punch,

And I admit, I miss her dreadfully.

How full of ups and downs the years have been;

This sometimes thankless job of parenthood,

Where “Mum, I love you” turns to, “you’re so mean!”

Yet I’d not change things even if I could.

Although she’s gone and left me feeling low,

Because I love her, I must let her go.

My elder daughter, Holly has just left my flat in Lymington.  She and her sister, Hannah, (left in the photo) were both born in Souhampton, and have lived in Lymington all their lives.

 Hannah now lives in London, but Holly who is a vet has worked in this area for 3 years.  On June 25th, she married and now she and her husband, Chris are moving tomorrow to High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire. 

They are both blissfully happy and doing what hey want to do, so of course I'm happy for them.  I'm going to miss her so much, though!  I suppose I've been spoilt having her around here so long.  I promised I wouldn't make a fuss and I haven't, but now she's gone I feel somewhat bereft.  I feel like Eyor, and my flat feels "rather boggy and sad."

I do hope this feeling isn't going to last too long; unlike Eyor, I prefer toast for breakfast, not thistles.