by Roald Dahl In England once there lived a bigAnd wonderfully clever pig.To everybody it was plainThat Piggy had a massive brain.He worked out sums inside his head,There was no book he hadn’t read.He knew what made an airplane fly,He knew how engines worked, and why.He knew all this, but in the endOne question droveContinue reading “The Pig”
Category Archives: My blog
The Blind Boy
by Colley Cibber O say what is that thing called light,Which I can ne’er enjoy?What is the blessing of the sight?O tell your poor blind boy!You talk of wond’rous things you see.You say the sun shines bright!I feel him warm, but how can heThen make it day or night?My day or night myself I makeWhene’erContinue reading “The Blind Boy”
Poor old Hopalong has to get round on three legs but his tail’s fine
While our hedgehogs have been hibernating, hopefully among the woodpiles scattered round the garden (remnants of the vicious hedging which used to run along one edge), I have been concentrating more on our foxes and one in particular has been causing me worries. I noticed him at the beginning of November a ragged-tailed fox who seemedContinue reading “Poor old Hopalong has to get round on three legs but his tail’s fine”
Epitaph on the Tomb of a Child
by Aphra Behn This Little, Silent, Gloomy, Monument,Contains all that was sweet and innocent;The softest pratler that e’er found a Tongue,His Voice was Musick and his Words a Song;Which now each Listn’ng Angel smiling hears,Such pretty Harmonies compose the Spheres;Wanton as unfledg’d Cupids, ere their CharmsHas learn’d the little arts of doing harms;Fair as youngContinue reading “Epitaph on the Tomb of a Child”
It’s a brand new year – can we look after it properly this time round
It’s a funny old world, not necessarily the funny that makes you laugh, although I can still manage a wry smile for the tragedy that is humour. I started this year with a poem, by Dannie Abse, the poet brother of politician Leo Abse. I rather pre-empted the New Year by posting this short poem,Continue reading “It’s a brand new year – can we look after it properly this time round”
Last Words
by DANNIE ABSE Splendidly, Shakespeare’s heroesShakespeare’s heroines, once the spotlight’s on,enact every night, with such grace, their verbose deaths.Then great plush curtains, then smiling resurrectionto applause, and never their good looks gone.The last recorded words tooof real kings, real queens, all the famous death,are but pithy pretences, quotable quotationscomposed by anonymous men decades later,never withContinue reading “Last Words”
Life is hell without a car – but thanks to my daughter I’m back on the road
A new month and a new start in many different ways. The greatest, however, is that I am no longer carless. As I mentioned three months ago I drove my Chevy to the levee . . . Well not really, for levee read scrapyard and the only driving in this case was them sending aContinue reading “Life is hell without a car – but thanks to my daughter I’m back on the road”
Even a drunk rugby club crowd can not outdo Swift in bawdiness
In my wayward youth I did spend time carousing in pubs and in the rugby season my friends and I would head off to one of our favourite pubs and, once we had consumed an appropriate amount of alcoholic liquid, we would entertain ourselves, and many of the other patrons, with a variety of whatContinue reading “Even a drunk rugby club crowd can not outdo Swift in bawdiness”
Night time raiders who treat our garden with complete disdain
One of our friendly hedgehogs bumbling around in the dark You, my readers, have probably realised by now that I enjoy nature and love our garden (mainly created by my dear Marion) as well as all the visitors – well, maybe not all, in fact definitely not all. We have always welcomed birds to ourContinue reading “Night time raiders who treat our garden with complete disdain”
The thought fox
by Ted Hughes I imagine this midnight moment’s forest: Something else is alive Beside the clock’s loneliness And this blank page where my fingers move. Through the window I see no star: Something more near Though deeper within darkness Is entering the loneliness: Cold, delicately as the dark snow, A fox’s nose touches twig, leaf;Continue reading “The thought fox”
Robin's Nest 