Little Things

Little Things

That patch of skin, not in the shade,
Warmth on side of face.
Words cannot near the truth of it,
How rich I feel in Grace.

The little robin lyrics hidden,
Yet tells a joyous tale.
He hops about the garden
And up and down the vale.

Even the goldfish in the pond
Swims along merrily,
Not knowing how just being there,
 He lives and pleases me.

The gentle breeze to cool us down
Laughing children remove a frown.
All little things that if taken together
Bring peace to the soul, in any kind of weather.

GettingOut

The prompt for today from OctPoWriMo was "Things Aren't Always What They Seem.."
So I wrote this:

Getting Out

Toys scattered, mums chatting,

Happy toddlers  - busy, noisy –

Racing round the Church Hall.

Smile, talk, join in with “friends”.

Coffee please, milk no sugar,

Thank you, yes it’s a lovely day.

Yes, he’s sleeping through now,

Thank God, I get some sleep too...

Who to sit next to, whose face welcomes?

Everybody happy ...

Smile...

Can they hear a heart beating fast?

At last it’s over...

Time to go home...

To shut the door...

To be alone....

Mid Morning Walk With Uncle

This poem was inspired by a couple of hours spent with my Uncle going for a walk in North London.


Mid Morning Walk With Uncle

To the right or to the left,
New steps to take.
This way or that -go left.
A robin, friendly reminder, joins us,
Going before with joyous song.
We stop, admire the rich beauty -
A Japanese Red Dragon Plant,
Exotic,  glorious in Autumn sun .
But don't interrupt the story.

We walk on, uphill,  breathless
Slow our pace,
Enjoy sky - blue, clear
In still air,
words struggling to escape
And  reaching  the top, stop
Only for a moment,
To quiet the pulse,
But don't interrupt the story.

How far shall we go?
We'll see now, just keep going,
Maybe we'll reach the village.
All topics keep the
Conversation - the tale-  fresh:
The house with the huge gated driveway
Double fronted and double garage -
Double your money.
But don't interrupt the story.

The ruin of a Church left forlorn,
In the graveyard,
Seems right somehow.
Centuries of ordinary life
Witnessed by these stones-
We imagine ancestors.
The chap who bought four burial plots -
Just to make sure.
But don't interrupt the story.

At last we reach our goal-
The village high street.
Let's stop for a bit before we head back.
The pub or a cafe.
No, not Costa, not Costa...
Ahhh,  There, a sweet little place,
Hidden from view,
Cappucino £1,20.
Yes, that'll  do,
But Don't interrupt the story.

That Day

It's been a long time since I rambled on. Just a little funny...

That Day

That day when you look at the bath 

And realise 

The grime is now

Limescale

And you decide

Later, you'll have 

A shower.

For now, 

Bleach stained leggings 

Baggy, old t shirt

And a large quantity of

Cilit Bang

Will do just fine.

One hour and twenty minutes later,

Having

Scrubbed, cleaned and

Polished with a soft white cloth

You stand and admire

The shine.

No one needs a bath...

We have a 

Downstairs shower room.

You can clean that tomorrow...

Red Arrows

What a fantastic day in the Bay,

Train loads of visitors wound their way down from the station in large groups. Every train from early morning packed . People still on the trains and going on further than Herne Bay breathed a sigh of relief and headed for the empty seats left by the hoards  getting  off. We were walking through the park at 11.00 am and were caught up in a swarm heading for the seafront. Given that the Air Show wasn't due to start until 1.00 pm we thought that was quite impressive. All roads leading into the town were crammed with parked cars and camper vans ( quite a number parked up over night). 

And then, whichever way you looked along the coast there were people - not an inch of space to be seen anywhere. Queues for the toilets and  for all the eating places. We certainly had never seen this before in The Bay . 

And so many attractions too - Birds Of Prey, Snakes, Stalls of all kinds, the Amy Johnson project and old war planes to see on the ground. 

Enthusiasts had come from all over Kent and London, as well as farther afield such as Nottingham and Sheffield - and that's only from the few we spoke to.

I don't know how the numbers stacked up , but I've never seen so many people in The Bay. 

We saw The Red Arrows and a few others, but ended up coming home early because we were uncomfortable on the tiny bit of beach we managed to share with so many others. 

Chips

                                                Chips

Seagulls - 

Come and get my chips,

Mum got too many

Seagulls Look -

Come and help me

Here have some ,

Look, you like them.

Oh , right, ok have them all.

No problem,

 I didn't want them anyway,

Oww !!!...

Seagulls Owww !! _

You've hurt my hand

And now mum's shouting

You'd better go,

GO, stupid 

Seagulls go away -

You're

so greedy.

I'm Wet And Watery

After spending time with four of the grandchildren today and making up poems with them, I did this little piece for fun. I will get the poem that my four year old grandaughter created on my blog as soon as I can copy it. She wouldn't have wanted me to take it home so I'll have to make a copy.

I'm Wet and Watery

Every day I visit the shore

Each day different to the one before.

If the trees are still and all is calm

My surface is glass,  a comforting balm.

I like these days and look forward to

Children splashing and crashing the blue.

I help them along with my happy spray

 They do it again and giggle and play.

Yachters out for a spot of sailing

And further out fishermen whaling.

While I hold myself still and as calm as can be

They give the whales chase and sing merrily.

They have no idea I’m part of their crew

Making an effort, doing all I can do.

I’m little thought of most of the time,

So I love it when I can whip up my brine.

On blustery days I race into the coast

Huge arms of waves making the boast

That I am strong and make no mistake

If you get in my way, I’ll crush you like cake.

I bring debris with me, I throw it around

Flotsom and seaweed spread on the ground.

My angry time, brown and green churned

May do some damage but if you’ve learned

To keep your distance and always beware

We’ll get on fine,  you’ll keep your hair.

Getting it Right - or Not!

Getting it Right - or Not !

The strawberries were on offer today.
Right I thought, a treat on the way.
I pondered whether one punnet or two
And true to form thought we'll make do.
After all we have to have  cream
It has to be double - a lovely thick stream.
And then the meringue, I just couldn't resist,
Makings of a sweet that shouldn't be missed.

So imagine my surprise and dismay
When I said, after dinner at the table today,
I've got a special treat for you now
Strawberries, cream and  meringue-wow!
One said "what're you giving everyone else"
But the joke back fired against himself
As two of the party declined the treat
Said they'd  had enough with all the meat.

Well, I'm glad I never opted for two.
One was plenty without making do

Fairy

The Little Fairy

Is there a little fairy

In your house

Who cleans and tidies

And is as quiet as a mouse.

Does this little fairy

Go on holiday

Sometimes

And leave the place

Full of dirt and dust

And grime.

And do you wait

For your little fairy to

Soon come back

And put things right

Get things on track.

Well maybe it's time

You changed your tune

And saw that you could

Be a boon.

You could learn to

Cook and clean

And help your fairy

And be a team.

China 1

 I am going to try and blog about our ( my two sister's and my Mother's) journey to China.
I did write about it at the time but unfortunately a lot of the interesting personal stuff is lost. But here, I'll give it a go. This is for you guys, Mum, Kay and Di , oh and you Dad too, of course - as I promised:

 Part 1

19th March 2007.

Everything packed , much more than I need in fact and I arrive at Mum's at 9.30.p.m. on the Sunday evening, relieved to be there safely the night before flying off to China.  Di, Mum, Dad and myself ponder the great adventure in front of us. As it's a Sunday Elaine is also there drinking tea and enjoying the chat.  I am looking forward excitedly to this special holiday with my two sisters and mum.

Looking at our luggage, huge suitcases bursting at the seams you'd be forgiven for thinking that we were going for three months or more, but no, it's just a couple of weeks.

So the next evening we arrive at the airport, get confused about where we are supposed to be and wait around chattering on about the mighty sights we will see. What fun we will have. We giggle like school girls, mum being the biggest culprit.

The flight is long and I sleep for a good while but about  12.40 a.m. (English Time) I am wide awake and discover we're only a few hours away from Beijing. It's 8.30 in the morning  ( big time difference) and the sun is shining.

We are so excited and when we look out of the window we see that we are flying over the most glorious mountains.  We all go to the toilet .

Morning has come too early and they bring breakfast. We're not ready for breakfast. after all, to us it's the middle of the night (1.0 a.m !!!! for goodness sake and dinner was only 6.30.p.m.)
Di and Kay, still sleepy after travelling through time zones, but where food is concerned we are not known to say no. We make a good effort at eating breakfast - you never know when the next meal might be and it looks as if we'll be out of routine with dinner etc etc .
We haven't long finished breakfast when we start the descent into Beijing.





Just a very small section of the enormous city of Beijing







The view from above is amazing - a concrete planet of high rise buildings. Beijing City, we discover is at least the size of  the county of Kent and  makes London ( Greater London, that is ) seem so teeny.
The population of London being 8 million, Beijing has 11.5 million. Not all of areas of Beijing are as crowded as London but the centre seems much  more dense with people .

And when we travel long hours to the hotel on that first day we  wonder how big it is with it's many roads of six lanes of traffic and huge skyscrapers wherever you look.

We are given a tour guide, who, for the sake of us English folk calls himself Mike. His accent  is tinted with a collection of other languages but mainly American. He is helpful and enthusiastic and tells us a bit about the History of Beijing.   It is one of the four ancient cities of China along with Xian, Luoyang and Nanjing.. It is known as the cradle of humanity with Peking man living here 700,000 years ago.