56. Location, Location, Location

I’ve loaded an app that allows me to see not only how many hits the site has but where in the world they are coming from.  Some locations, particularly London, have provided many hits.  67% of all visits have been from the UK and 64% of those have been from London.

You may be interested to know that I am becoming big in Wisconsin and in Moscow and that’s surprising as I have never been to either place nor ever known anyone who lived there or has even visited them.

The only facts that I know about Wisconsin are that during the last Ice Age most of it was ice-free and that Barefoot Man, a very popular Caymanian singer/songwriter and Cayman’s second biggest export after Rum Cakes mentions it in a catchy song he wrote called, “Three Widows from Wisconsin”.  He mentions the city of Appleton and, that place, with Milwaukee, are the only cities that I knew of in the state until now. 

In Britain, a city may be defined as a settlement that has a cathedral.  St Davids (no apostrophe and my computer spellchecker hates that) in Pembrokeshire, Wales, is Britain’s smallest city with a population of fewer than 2,000 people.  The City of London (The Square Mile) only has a population of around 8,000.

St Davids is the location of the only act of wilful desecration I have ever witnessed.  On a geography field trip, q.v. Life’s Ironies in January, we were taken to visit St Davids cathedral.  While wandering around and fairly bored, I heard the unmistakable sound of a geological hammer hitting rock.  I investigated and found that it was Kenny Gardner, the geology teacher, hammering away a gravestone.  He picked up the chip of rock he had dislodged, studied it and turned to me with a look of deep contentment and satisfaction and said,

“Yes.  Thought so.  Sussex marble.”

A town in the UK is granted city status by the monarch on advice given by the part of the British government known as the Department for Constitutional Affairs.  City status is granted by the sovereign and conferred by Letters Patent.  It is granted by personal command of the monarch, on the advice her Ministers.  There is sometimes a discrepancy between the common meaning of the word “city” and the 'official' meaning.

In 1969 Swansea was designated a city and the name of the football team changed from Swansea Town to Swansea City. 

In the USA, the definition of a city varies from state to state.  Usually any settlement with more than about 10,000 inhabitants is called a city. This is not a hard and fast rule but it is rampant titular and classification inflation. There are some very small settlements in the US that are called cities such as Woodland Mills in Tennessee with a population of only 296.  Before it was dissolved in 2002, Maza, North Dakota with only 5 inhabitants was a city.  In California, the terms "town" and "city" are virtually synonymous.

A large number of those visitors listed above only came once.  There were a lot of first time visits a couple of weeks ago to read, “Name Dropping.”  I listed a long string of famous names in the labels section and so anyone subsequently putting one of those names into Google was directed to my blog.

One referral was interesting and quite touching in a way.  The visitor was from Dubai and he had entered, “KISSING” into Google.  Much to his great disappointment I imagine, he had found his way to my posting entitled “Hugging and Kissing”.  I suppose that if you’re searching for porn in Dubai, then “KISSING” is about as far as you dare go.

I get more visits from Wisconsin than I do from York in the UK, which may not surprise you, but it irritates me because my two daughters live close to York and so I know that they never read these essays and this is a shame because it was with them in mind that I started posting my memories and thoughts back in January.  They were really offended and upset to read something that I posted in January when I alluded to the fact that I have feelings and even (whisper it very quietly), urges.

“I don’t want to read about that sort of thing from my Dad!” protested one of them, while the other just refuses to talk to me about it.  They are both in their thirties and should know better!

I wonder if DH Lawrence’s biographers ever paused to consider that it was because of the possible reaction of his children, that he never had any of his own?  Frieda, his wife, had three from a previous marriage but he wouldn’t have cared so much about their sensitivities.  If I ever write anything remotely similar to the themes in Lady Chatterley’s Lover (and believe me I’m tempted) and my daughters are on the jury at the subsequent obscenity trial, I shall plead guilty immediately and burn every copy I can find.

A few months ago, I had a visitor from Carmel, California and we all know who lives there, don’t we?   Clint Eastwood!   He was Carmel’s mayor a few years ago.  It’s obvious to me what’s going on: 

I have had several hits from other places in California and one of those must have been Steven Spielberg.  He will have read the post featuring Sir Alan and Huck (Knight and Day at Prospect Reef) and wants to make that episode the basis of a huge multi million-dollar movie and he’s already thinking ahead and casting Clint as Sir Alan.   At 80, Clint Eastwood is a bit too old and I worry that he might not find the English accent too easy but he’ll certainly look the part.

Don’t write all that off as impossible and a ridiculous fantasy because that’s the kind of thinking that makes Steven Spielberg the success that he is.   He sees things that people like you and I don’t.   Obviously, Clint has checked it out to see why Spielberg is so excited.

OK, he’ll cast Clint as Sir Alan, that little white kid from “The Blind Side” as Huck, probably Brad Pitt as me and Angelina Jolie as Caroline.  You’d go and see it, wouldn’t you?

In that supportive way that she has, Caroline has just picked herself up from the floor where she collapsed in fits of rather unkind, uncontrollable and I’m sorry to say, unpleasant laughter, and has managed to suggest that Mickey Rooney would be more convincing playing me and if he’s not available, then Bob Hoskins but he’d have to put on about fifty pounds first.

It’s a pity Hattie Jaques isn’t around any more.  She’d be perfect as Caroline.

Clint, Steven and those of you in Wisconsin and Moscow, look her up in Google!

55. Bloody Islington!

£7.40 for 2 hours parking on the street in Islington... Outrageous!

That was what was posted on Facebook on Tuesday and it doesn’t surprise me at all. Bloody Islington!  It was posted by Alex, whose wedding with (to)? Lucie, Caroline and I went to in December.  Well done you two.  And to think that some people said it wouldn’t last!

You may remember that I wrote about life in Islington last summer when we were living there for five weeks in Caroline’s sister’s house while ours was being refurbished.

Parking in Islington is an absolute nightmare.  We ran up more than £300 in parking fines in those five weeks.  Bloody Islington!  I appealed two and lost.  A third is still under review. 

As an Islington resident, Joanna has a resident’s parking permit that goes with the car. Joanna and her family were away in France and she gave us the use of her car and the use of her resident’s permit.

There is a parking bay with a meter right outside Joanna’s house.  I was unsure whether or not I could park in the bay without paying while displaying a voucher.  As I was getting into her car one morning, a traffic warden was passing.  I showed him the voucher.

“May I use this to park in the metered bay?” I asked him.

He studied the voucher and assured me that I could.  Later the same day I received a £60 parking ticket for parking in that bay and not “paying and displaying”.

I appealed, quoting the warden’s name and number and advice given but my appeal was turned down on the grounds that the information I had been given was incorrect and a different warden had issued the notice legally.

These vouchers only had to be displayed between 8:30 in the morning and 6:30 in the evening.  One morning I woke up, looked at the clock and saw that it was 8:35.  I ‘leapt’ out of bed, got dressed descended two flights of stairs and hobbled as fast as I could (which is about half normal walking speed) to where my car, that I had used instead of Joanna’s the previous day, was parked around two hundred yards away.  I was in time.  I had not been ticketed.

The vouchers were for one hour at a time.  The start time had to be scratched off and the card displayed.  In my rush to get dressed, I had not put my watch on and so I estimated and scratched 8:50, locked the car and went back for breakfast. 

Fifty minutes later I returned to find I had a ticket.  £60!  The ticket was timed at 8:48.  I had been fined for being a bad judge of the passage of time or I suppose, for walking faster than I thought I had or maybe, just for parking in bloody Islington.

The appeal was dismissed for the same reason as the first: the warden had issued the ticket legally.

The third ticket, the one that is still under appeal, was an outrageous injustice, (in my opinion m’lud).  .

One afternoon I parked Joanna’s car in a nearby street.  I displayed a 24-hour parking permit and didn’t use it again that day.  When I went to drive off the following morning I discovered that the car had been moved across the road.

I am officially classed as disabled.  I have a blue badge issued by Enfield Council that allows me many parking concessions.  I never walk further than I have to. I parked as far down Garnault Place and as close to Joanna’s home in Rosoman Place as I could to make the walk to her house as short as possible. I parked some 15 to 20 feet beyond a lamppost.  That, for reasons that will become clear in a moment, is important.

I put a 24-hour parking-scratch-card on the dashboard, got out of the car, locked it and set off along the pavement.  I did not turn round to look at the lamppost (Why would I?) and even if I had done so, I would not have walked (painfully) out of my way to read an A4-sized notice hung upon it.   I would have assumed that it would have had information of interest to Islington residents only such as clearing up after dogs fouling the footpath or to watch out for uneven paving slabs.

The following morning at 11:30 I found that the car had been moved to the other side of the road and the windscreen was plastered with notices.

The notices told me that I had parked in a restricted area as road works were due to start there at 8:00 am that morning.

At 11:30 there no was work being done in the road nor was there any sign of any workmen or equipment.  However, the area where my car had been parked was now cordoned off.

I do not think that I should have to pay this fine, as the warning sign was neither obvious nor large.  I’m not even sure that it was hanging from that lamppost the previous afternoon.

Islington will not communicate with me as I am not the registered keeper of the car and Joanna is not keen on communicating with them as she was out of the country at the time.

Her first appeal has been rejected for the usual reason but I am urging her to go for a hearing at a Parking Tribunal.  Islington has to be stopped.  Bloody Islington!

54. Will you still be sending me a Valentine .... ?

I finished last Saturday’s post by writing that unless something interesting happened at Sandown Park later that day, I would be putting up the final posting today.  Nothing interesting happened at the race meeting (not to us anyway) because we didn’t go.  Caroline woke up that morning unable to speak and with yellow blisters on her tonsils.

This isn’t the final posting, however, as I think that I’d better tell you about my birthday that happened last Tuesday.  I became 64.  Wednesday, October 6^th 2010 was also my birthday.

Like the Queen, who has her official and her natural birthday, I also have two birthdays – one on February 8^th, the day I was born and the other on October 6^th.   It was on October 6^th 2008 that I received my new liver.

I was lying in bed on Tuesday night after an enjoyable but exhausting day when Caroline asked,

           

“How old were you when, “When I’m 64”, came out?“

(By the way, that title is the stupidest one the Beatles ever came up with.  I bet Paul McCartney who is 68, regrets it now.  64 isn’t old!  It’s a song about a young man who has fallen in love and wonders what the future has in store.  Apparently McCartney wrote it when he was 16 and at that age 64 must have seemed a long way off then but even so, why didn’t he write, “When I’m ninety-four?”  Even in 1967 when it first came out I was irritated because my grandmother was 64 at the time and like me now, totally alert and independent.  Yes I am!)

“Nineteen or twenty, I think,” I answered.

“When you were twenty,” Caroline went on, “did you think then that when you became sixty-four you would be laying in bed with a beautiful, sexy woman?”

“Well,” I said, “I probably hoped I would be but even at nineteen I realised that you don’t always get what you hope for in life.”

Caroline is a lot better now but I’ve got a big, painful bruise on my upper arm and it really hurts. 

********

I got a bit of a fright on Tuesday morning. I was in the kitchen when I suddenly realised that my right leg was shorter than the left one.  I walked up and down a couple of times to check it and realised that I was not imagining it.

“I’ve got a problem,” I said to Caroline and explained why.  “I think my replacement hip joint has slipped or snapped in some way.”

Before my hip replacement operation my right leg had been about two inches shorter than the other and it now seemed as though something had gone wrong.

“No it hasn’t.  You’re all right,” she said.  “Look at your feet.” 

I looked down to see that on my left foot was a thick-soled slip-on shoe while I was wearing a slipper on the other.  What a relief!

********

Before you leave my site for what is possibly the penultimate time, why not check my links if you haven’t already done so?  You can find them on the right of the page under the heading “My Blog List”. 

The first is Ian Quill : My World.  Ian is like me, a liver recipient.  He has been going through a bit of a bad time recently but things are looking brighter now.  He writes about his experience and the problems of living with Hepatitis C that he contracted as a result of a blood transfusion many years ago.  It was undiagnosed for a long time while the damage to his liver got worse.

Below that link is Alison Macleod Studio Jeweller.  Alison is Dugald and Joyce’s daughter.  You met those two in Hesperody.  I met Alison a couple of times in Cayman.  She designs and makes fine jewelry that is simple, beautiful and relatively inexpensive. 

She has outlets in Massachusetts, Sydney, Tokyo and Seoul and all over the UK in: Bakewell, Bristol, Chichester; Exeter; Holt, Leicester; London, Brick Lane E1; London, Clerkenwell EC1; London, Muswell Hill N10; London, Notting Hill W11; London, Pimlico SW1; Manchester; Taunton, Somerset; Penrith, Wellbeck, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Kirkwall and Perth.

Below Alison’s link are four links to transplant organisations.  If you haven’t already done so, I urge you to sign up to allow your organs to be used after you no longer have any need for them.  One person can make a massive difference to at least seven people and their families.  In the UK you need to go to the NHS donor register: http://www.organdonation.nhs.uk

The link to Monken Hadley Common will be of interest to you if you live in or near to North London.  Even if you live elsewhere it may be of some interest, as it shows how a group of interested and concerned residents look after their local environment.  The Common is an area of managed open space of some 175 acres.  The link is here because Roger, whom you may have read about a few times in my ramblings, manages it.  Looking after it keeps him out of the pub and he spends a lot of time keeping it clear and environmentally healthy.  It has a long history and is a lovely tranquil area of open space and woodland and it is well worth visiting.

This is a photo taken on the evening of October 6^th last year in a restaurant where we went with friends to celebrate my other birthday.  Sandy brought the balloons.   I have no idea what the other diners made of it seeing a middle-aged man with a balloon saying, “Happy 2^nd Birthday”.

53. What rhymes with "Empty"?

A few weeks ago I wrote about the Sunday before Christmas when my grandchildren came for lunch ('THE KING' and Cricket).  I don’t see them very often as they live more than 200 miles away in Yorkshire and I was so captivated and enchanted by the experience that afternoon, that after they had left to drive home, I was inspired to write.  A few hours later I had written, among other things, the poems or more accurately I suppose, the ‘nonsense rhymes’ that you will find below.

Twice in my life I have been horribly embarrassed listening to someone recite a poem that they had written.  The first time was when I was at a staff get-together at the first school at which I first taught.  We were there to say farewell to a colleague who was leaving.  He gave his farewell speech entirely in verse.  What made it worse than it would otherwise have been was that, as I suppose that he didn’t trust himself to deliver it fluently, he had recorded it on to tape, edited it (badly) and then played us the recording.  The sound quality was terrible but the poem was worse.

The other time was at the funeral of the President of my rugby club. He had been a player in his younger days and at the service the wife of one of the committee members said a few words.

She had written a poem.  I can’t remember any of it now except for the first two lines of the first verse which was,

He’s playing with the angels now

On a far off sunny field.

Dah dah dah dah-dah dee dah

Dah dah dah dah dah.

I was squirming with embarrassment at the end of the first line as this was a determinedly, aggressive and strident humanist funeral.  The deceased was a vociferous atheist and there were no trappings of religion anywhere in the crematorium.  No clergy, no hymns and certainly no prayers and yet here was this stupid woman talking about him playing rugby with the angels.

Perhaps we could have a competition finishing that verse rather like the writers who finish “The Mystery of Edwin Drood” or those musicologists who finish Schubert’s symphony.  I think that while I’m about it I may set myself the task of finishing Eddie Izzard’s jokes, as he never does.

Here’s my entry:

He’s playing with the angels now

On a far off sunny field.

They’ve got him playing full back

So he’s keeping his eyes peeled.

So – it is with some trepidation that I present some of my efforts from that afternoon.  I’d better explain before you read them that William is 2 years 9 months old and Annie is 9 months.  They have never yet had a conversation with each other and it is only on the three occasions since July that I have met him, that William has spoken to me.

I rang up Lucy as they were going up the A1 and asked her what William would like a poem about. “Pooh,” she said.  William has a teddy bear who is called (rather unimaginatively I think) Pooh.  Pooh is always there.  He accompanies William wherever he goes including to the bath and to the potty.  Rocky is a black Labrador.  He has a dual role – that of household pet and au pair.

If you are squirming after reading the first line (as you possibly will be), I invite you to just, “Click Off!”  You don’t have to read them and I’ll never know if you don’t.  Please don’t plough on to the bitter end.

Bear in mind that I wrote these poems, imagining that either William or Annie was sitting on my knee in a year or two.  I was trying to entertain them and not adults.

My script editor has cast her practised eye over them.  “One of them doesn’t scan and one of the others is total crap,” was her expert opinion.

Annie doesn’t feature very much in them and I suppose that’s because I don’t know her very well yet.  I’ll have to make it up to her when I know her better.

The last one is adapted from the only poem I had ever written previously, posted in Hesperody in May.

1 The Gibblegobbler

William was a Gibblegobbler. Annie was a Quap.

When William shouted, “Gibblegobble,” Annie shouted, “Snap!”

William hid all his toys underneath the stairs

And Annie said to William, “No one really cares.”

William once said, “Gibblegobble!” on a rainy day

And Annie tried then really tried to make clouds go away.

“Expeedoushamarian,” said William, getting cross.

But Annie smiled as if to show the clouds who was the boss.

William went to China one Sunday after tea.

Annie called out, ”William!  Don’t go there without me.”

William had to stop the boat and see no one was hurt

But Annie couldn’t come as she’d got custard on her skirt.

“Expeedoushamarian,” said William in dismay,

“Custard stains and blocked up drains will not get in my way.

Gibblegobble, little girl, just see what you have done.

You’ve made the clocks run backwards and I fell down on my bum.”

“I’m very sorry William,” said Annie with a laugh.

“I heard you yell and then you fell from that small blue giraffe.”

“Expeedoushamarian,” said Will and shook his head.

“It’s much too far to China so - I think I’ll go to bed.”

And that’s what he did.

2 Night night William

Higgledy-piggledy Taggity Tay

What did William do today?

Go to the nursery or go to the park?

And what did William do when it got dark?

Higgledy-piggledy Taggity Tog

Did William play with Rocky the dog?

Did he share nicely with all of his friends?

And learn to count quickly in sevens or tens?

Higgledy-piggledy Taggity Top

Did William go out with Mummy to shop?

Did they buy sausages, bacon and bread?

And did they buy honey or chocolate spread?

Higgledy-piggledy Taggity Tad

Did William play football outside with his Dad?

After all that excitement William said,

“I’m getting so tired now - I’ll go UP TO BED!”

Night night William.

3 Introducing Pooh

Mummy was washing up plates in the sink.

William was eating but he started to think.

“It’s funny,” said William, “that my friend Pooh

Has got the same name as something you do.”

“A name’s just a sound,” said Mummy to Will,

“Now eat up your cabbage.  I don’t want you ill.”

William said that, “Pooh only eats honey.

He never gets ill and he’s got a big tummy.”

“Well that’s all as maybe and I don’t really care.

You eat all that cabbage; you’re a boy not a bear.”

William ate and he thought, then he had an idea.

So he looked up at Mummy and said loud and clear,

 “My name should be Pooh and if you agree,

That’s what, from now on, it’s going to be.”

“OK,” said Mummy, “Whatever you want

And Charlie’s your uncle and Fanny’s your aunt.”

“You’re just being silly,” said Will with a frown.

“I really do mean it.  May I get down?”

“Eat all your cabbage.  I want that food gone

And you’ll get it all finished or sit there ’til dawn.”

“Eat all your cabbage!  I won’t tell you again.

I want that plate cleared and please don’t complain.”

William sighed and he tutted but picked up his fork

With his mouth full of cabbage, he couldn’t talk.

So that’s the end of this poem!

4 Hurry up

“Hurry up William, we’re off to the shops

We’re late, so please get a move on.

Leave all your toys just where they are

And then put your shoes and your coat on.”

“Hurry up William!  We’ve got to go now.

Stop playing around.  I’m not joking

Look at those clouds. It’s gloomy and grey

And the last thing I want is a soaking.”

“Hurry up William!  The shops will be packed

With long, twisting queues at each till.

Oh come here and let me do up your coat

And for goodness sake, try and stand still.”

“Hurry up William.  Yes Pooh can come too

But make sure that he doesn’t stray.

Remember last week, he went off on his own

And was found in the fresh fruit display?”

“Hurry up William! What’s going on?

Why have you got just one shoe?

They were both there just now when I looked.

Where is it?  And no!  Don’t ask Pooh.”

“Hurry up William!  Just look at your hands!

They’re filthy and covered in grime.

You haven’t been out, so how can it be

That you’re dirty, all of the time?

“Hurry up William!  Oh no!  Look at that.

It’s pouring.  There’s sleet and there’s hail.

Hear that?  That’s thunder. Whatever next?

And listen, it’s blowing a gale.”

’Ready at last.’  Is that what you said?

No you’re not and where is your hat?

But it’s raining too hard, so we’ll stay at home

‘Cos I’m not going out in all that!

We’ll go tomorrow.

5 The Park

Rocky and Pooh, Annie and Will,

Went to the park with their Mum.

“I don’t know,” said Mummy to Pooh,

“Why William keeps sucking his thumb.”

“It don’t really matter,” Pooh said with a smile,

As he splashed in a puddle of mud,

“All it means is his thumb’s really clean.”

Then Pooh fell in the mud with a thud.

Rocky came over and William came too

And they looked down at Pooh where he sat.

“You’re all wet and muddy,” said William to Pooh,

“Bath time. Do you fancy that?”

“You can share one with me, straight after tea,

“You’ll get fresh and will be really clean.”

“Not on your Nelly,” said Mummy to William,

“He’ll go in the washing machine!”

And that’s what happened.

6 I like milk

“I like milk,” said William,

As he sat on the floor by the fridge.

“So much so that even though

It’s raining 

You won’t hear me complaining

Should it pour and pour as I go for more

All the way to Selby Bridge.”

Because that’s where the dairy cows live!

7 The Maybe Race

“It’s raining and it’s just not fair,”                                    

Said William to Pooh the bear,                                    

As they sat there, and watched the rain come down.        

“Cheer up now,” said Pooh to Will,                           

“Watch it splash on the window sill                           

And I like rain.  It makes my fur look brown.”                 

“Not today.  It’s Saturday,                                            

And I want to go out and play,”                                    

Moaned William, with a grumpy face.                 

“I want to run - and climb up trees                                   

And crawl round on my hands and knees                  

And then I’ll beat you in a skipping race.”                 

“Huh!” said Pooh, “What? You beat me!                             

That’s something that I’d so like to see.        

I’m quicker and more fasterer than you.        

Small boy, I’m a big strong bear                                   

And you may say that you don’t care                          

But deep inside I know you really do.”                          

“What!” said William, “You think that?                           

You’re joking and you’re much too fat,                           

To ever win in a race with me.                          

You’re too slow and I’ve a hunch                                   

When it stops raining, you’ll want lunch                          

And anyway, I think I’ve hurt my knee.”                          

“One day when it’s warm and dry,”                                   

Said Will, “We’ll race and I’ll fly by.                                   

I’ll beat you at least ten times in a row.”                          

“No you won’t,” said Pooh and smiled                          

“You’re fairly rapid for a child,                          

But compared with me, you’re really very slow.”                 

8 ALIENS

William and Annie were out in the garden.

Annie was skipping, Will played in the sand.

Annie looked up and she said, “Ooh, look William

There’s a spaceship up there and it’s going to land.”

William said nothing but carried on playing.

Annie stood staring, her rope in her hand.

“Look up please William.  Where did it come from?

There’s a spaceship up there and it’s going to land.”

William just picked up a bucket of water

He didn’t look up. He ignored her command.

“I’m much too busy and you’re being silly

As if there’s a spaceship that’s going to land.”

“All right,” said Annie, “If that’s how you want it.

I just thought I’d tell you so you’d understand

That the noise you can hear getting louder and louder

Is a spaceship up there and it’s going to land.”

“It is getting darker,” said Will,  “I can hear it.

You could be right.  This is not what I planned.

I hope that they’re careful and miss my sandcastle

When that blooming spaceship comes down here to land.”

“CLEAR OFF, ALIENS!”

9 BIZZ BOZZ

Bizz Bozz is an alien.                                   

He lives on William’s lawn                 

In a blue spaceship with fairy lights                 

With his friends called Eef and Crawn.                 

Bizz Bozz knocked on William’s door.        

“Are you coming out to play?                          

I’ve left my spaceship on your grass        

’Cos your Dad said that’s OK.”                          

“It’s really much too early,”

Yawned William, looking round.

“You mustn’t wake up Annie as

She’s sleeping really sound.”

“Do you know what?” said William,                  

Later on, when they were out,                                            

“It’s nice and warm and it won’t rain.         

And the sun has just come out.”                          

“We’ll have a game of football                 

Now the grass is almost dry                          

So move your spaceship off the grass        

And if you lose, don’t cry.”                          

Bizz Bozz said, “I’ll go in goal

And let’s see you try scoring

But as I will save all your shots

You may find it boring.”

“I doubt that,” said William,

“And don’t go making plans

You’ll only save the shots I take

Because you’ve got five hands.”

“Yes, that does help,” said Bizz Bozz.

10 William and Annie came to Tea

William and Annie came to tea

With all their friends and their family.

They sat in rows of ascending height

And everything was perfectly right,

That memorable day, now when would it be

When William and Annie came to tea?

It wasn’t a Monday or Thursday they came

They couldn’t come Tuesday and that was a shame,

As Tuesday’s teas are often auspicious

And the scones on a Friday are always delicious.

But it wasn’t a Friday, so when would it be

When William and Annie came to tea?

Willow and Maia and Sammy were sick

When Grandpa showed them a conjuring trick.

It wasn’t real magic but kids are naïve

And didn’t see teaspoons stuffed up his sleeve.

But, oh how they cheered, now when would it be

When William and Annie came to tea?

Was it a Saturday?  Couldn’t have been,

Nor on a Wednesday, as then our routine

Is off to the park, so all that remains

Is one day a week when he entertains;

So it was SUNDAY!  That’s when it would be

That William and Annie came to tea.

And very nice it was too!

Caroline and I have two nephews, Oscar who is 5 and Timo who is 3.  Joanna, Caroline’s sister and their mother, can replace William and Annie with her two.  So,

#1 begins: Oscar was a Gibblegobbler. Timo was a Quap.

#10 begins: Oscar and Timo came to tea

Sometimes for it to scan Oscar has to become the single syllable, ‘Osc’ though he would prefer to be  ‘Scar’. 

In Gibblegobbler:  “…  as she’d got custard on her skirt”  is changed to become “…  as he’d got custard on his shirt” and that’s likely as he is a very messy eater!