The Old-Fashioned Toy!

Posted on July 8, 2014 by The Baldock Bard.

In a store the other day I watched as a small child manipulated his mother into buying him a ‘soon-to-be-discarded’ expensive toy. The next day I found my granddaughter happily playing in the garden with the cheapest toy money can buy! A quick photo is enough, I hope, to curtail any future demand! However it doesn’t apply to ‘Grandad-spoil-time’…

There’s a toy that always surprises,
Little hands, feet and eyes’es!
Primary colours are nowhere near,
No metallic music can you hear!
It has no wheels, legs or arms,
It’s not found in space, castles or farms!
No spin-off from a TV show,
Buttons, levers, knobs, no no!
No furry badger, hen or fox,
In fact it’s just a cardboard box!

© Baldock Bard 2014
For more verse click on ‘Home’ above
Facebook: Baldock Bard
Twitter: @baldockbard
E-mail: baldockbard@www.baldockbard.co.uk
The Baldock Boot Sale
Every Saturday until October!
With more FREE parking and billions of bargains!
www.u-boot.co.uk

Mr Blue Sky!

Posted on July 7, 2014 by The Baldock Bard.

Sometimes a sad day can be uplifting. Last Thursday Mrs Bard and I went to a funeral of a fireman. Nigel was a kind, decent, gentle-man and his funeral service reflected these attributes. There were so many people at the crematorium to celebrate his life that we spilled out of the door and down the drive. A poignant moment was the playing of ELO’s ‘Mr Blue Sky’, a most fitting accolade for a man who will be very missed…

Sometimes
Through the cloudy sky
We are shown a glimpse
Of somewhere else

And we are reminded
That maybe
Just maybe
There is something better
Waiting
Just waiting
Elsewhere.

The Revolving Lives of Three Fish!

Posted on July 5, 2014 by The Baldock Bard.

A friend has a fish tank. Whenever I visit, my eyes are drawn to the activity in the tank and I wonder what the fish are thinking, if anything. One of them seems to spend much time standing in a small ruin that looks like it was once a stage. The others look on with a sense of incredulity and boredom…

Three goldfish live in a smart fish tank,
Bill and George and ‘Thespian Frank’.
Every day they play on their stage,
Frank plays an actor because of his age!
“Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears!”
He plays Julius Caesar (or so it appears!).
The others look on with that slightly bored look,
They know all the words but have not read the book!
Frank comes to the last word in his Act One,
Bows from the stage and thanks everyone!
As Bill and George shout “Encore”,
They don’t realize they’ve seen it before!
And just in case they may have misheard,
Frank starts again to repeat every word.
And so competes this tale of three topical fish,
You can read it again, (that’s if you wish!)

Cheese Sauce!

Posted on July 4, 2014 by The Baldock Bard.

Do you know someone who has consistent bad luck? Someone who if at all possible ends up on the wrong train, going to the wrong town, on the wrong day? Kevin (name changed to avoid total embarrassment) has these capabilities…

Kevin took books back to the library,
(He likes to read for hours!)
The librarian said: “you should be home instead,
the computer says these aren’t ours!”

He once went to a party in London,
Drink (a lot) did flow,
On the train back, had a snoring attack,
And woke up cold in the depot!

The other day he ate in a café
Due to work he was very flustered!
Instead of cheese sauce, (on a jacket of course)
He had covered the potato in custard!

Happy Friday (Kevin)!

Eating Greens!

Posted on July 3, 2014 by The Baldock Bard.

It’s strange how looking after grandchildren is so very different from looking after your own children. Perhaps I’m not a great role model, but it seems to be a much more relaxed process, one filled with fun rather than instruction…

‘Eat up your greens!’
My mother said,
‘They help to feed
The brains in your head!’

Yesterday I looked after,
My young granddaughter.
I didn’t repeat,
What perhaps I oughta!

We had great fun,
(it’s in the genes!)
And without any nagging,
She ate all her greens!

A Whole Loader-Bucket!

Posted on July 2, 2014 by The Baldock Bard.

On my small farm it takes seventeen bucket-loads of my not-so-small JCB loader bucket and about seventeen minutes to load a twenty-nine ton lorry. Recently at a show I saw the mother-of-all-buckets. Using this leviathan would take less than five buckets and about six minutes to load the same lorry. Assuming that Mick, who organizes our haulage, could line up enough lorries, it could only take just over two hours to shift all our harvest (unless you have a hole in your bucket)…

“That’s a whole loada bucket,”
said Liza, the advisor,
“that’s a whole loada bucket,
for loading your wheat!”

“To what can I attach it?”
Said Palmer, the farmer,
to what can I attach it,
to load lorries with wheat.”

“Just buy a big JCB,”
said Liza, the advisor,
“You’ll see that they’re trouble-free
to quickly load wheat!”

The Bargain on the Pavement!

Posted on July 1, 2014 by The Baldock Bard.

We are now used to convenience in our lives. Change happens so fast these days that the term ‘Old-Fashioned’ can represent the recent past. The digital book is a case in point. For around six-hundred years – no change. Suddenly obsolescence beckons for the bookshop, bookcase and books and we can carry hundreds of books in our pocket. Is the printed book about to become as relevant to today as the gaslight…

I picked up an analogue paperback,
From a stall outside a shop.
I knew it wasn’t digital,
And sense told me to stop.
I tried to find the button,
So I could open the book,
But it just refused to open,
All I could do was look!
I vaguely remembered opening,
A book some years ago,
And so I concentrated,
Gave it another go.
I grabbed it by the corner,
And parted it with force,
It came apart in my hands,
Was delicate of course!
I Red-Laser-app’d the barcode,
i-Phoned the Kindle Store,
I now have the book in digital,
In my pocket with three hundred more!

Baldock Bard

Verse and Worse from the Baldock Versemonger

Monthly Archives: July 2014