The Retired Tractor!

Posted on April 5, 2017 by The Baldock Bard.

Yesterday I started up our old David Brown tractor. When she was new and shiny she was on display at the East of England Show! Now her bonnet is pitted with rust, her windscreen is filthy and she sometimes can’t help but dribble oil. She is is also prone to bad moods, gross flatulence and doesn’t like getting up in the mornings…

We have an old tractor,
Her name is David Brown!
She’s now retired,
Doesn’t work upon the ground.
She’ll likely be seen,
Sawing up some wood,
She’d like to go ploughing,
I doubt if she could.
So she sits in the shed,
Doesn’t go anywhere,
It’s the tractor equivalent,
Of the high wing-back chair!

© Baldock Bard 2017
For more from the Baldock Bard click on ‘Home’ above 
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E-mail: simon.holtom@btconnect.com
The Baldock Boot Sale
SG7 6RD
is the friendliest bargain bonanza anywhere!
BACK AFTER EASTER
2017 Season
From April 22^nd to mid-October 2017
With more FREE parking and a field full of bargains!
www.u-boot.co.uk

Sunny Clod Crushing!

Posted on March 31, 2017 by The Baldock Bard.

It’s strange how a few hours can make such a difference to most things. The evening before last I had to pull out of rolling a field after the drill because great clods of clay were sticking to the rolls. Yesterday the sun came out and within a few hours the result was completely different and I was a ‘Happy Chappie!”…

Some days things go badly,
other days things go well.
Yesterday I was in rolling heaven,
the day before in rolling hell!
When the sun comes out in the afternoon,
and the top of the soil dries,
the rolls clank away merrily,
a perfect clod-crushing exercise!
Whatever you do in life,
some days work out just fine,
often your rolls clog in the morning,
after lunch bathe in perfect sunshine!

May the sun shine on you today, your rolls clank merrily and crush all those clods that inhibit your enjoyment of a Friday!

© Baldock Bard 2017
For more from the Baldock Bard click on ‘Home’ above 
Facebook: Baldock Bard
Twitter: @baldockbard
E-mail: simon.holtom@btconnect.com

The Baldock Boot Sale
SG7 6RD
is the friendliest bargain bonanza anywhere!
BACK AFTER EASTER
2017 Season
From April 22^nd to mid-October 2017
With more FREE parking and a field full of bargains!
www.u-boot.co.uk

Mutual Benefits!

Posted on March 13, 2017 by The Baldock Bard.

It’s Monday morning, the weather is mild and dry and all is well in the kitchen! The three dogs have been out, saluted the morning and are now glued to the warm Aga. The puppy (who we hope will soon grow up) is sharing a bed with our pensioner. They seem to have bonded well…

Our boisterous puppy,
likes to be seen,
with our old dog,
who’s seventeen!
Unfortunately,
it looks and appears,
she ignores his wisdom,
from all those years!
She rushes around,
our fenced garden,
crashes into him,
never says ‘pardon!’
Though when she settles,
not on full throttle,
she makes an excellent,
hot water bottle!

Have a great week, see you again tomorrow!

© Baldock Bard 2017
For more from the Baldock Bard click on ‘Home’ above 
Facebook: Baldock Bard
Twitter: @baldockbard
E-mail: simon.holtom@btconnect.com
The Baldock Boot Sale
SG7 6RD
is the friendliest bargain bonanza anywhere!
BACK AFTER EASTER
2017 Season
From April 22^nd to mid-October 2017
With more FREE parking and a field full of bargains!
www.u-boot.co.uk

non-P.C. Pancake!

Posted on March 1, 2017 by The Baldock Bard.

Yesterday was Shrove Tuesday, here in the UK (and possibly where you live too?) it was also Pancake Day. While we rarely eat them at other times, we make up with pancake-gluttony on this particular day and they are my granddaughters firm favourite. One such day, when our children were small, while I was out on the snowplough, my mother-in-law spent over an hour at a pancake production line feeding them and many of their friends who could not pass the farm drive due to the depth of snow on the road. Everyone has a different topping, Personally I await a visit from the Politically-Correct Diet Police…

In my defence it’s just once a year,
a family tradition at that!
But on my pancake I have Golden Syrup,
I plead guilty as to the fact.
A little lemon to add some bitter,
some butter – guilty again!
But under ‘mitigating circumstances’
it’ll be a year before I do it again!

…and today’s another day!

© Baldock Bard 2017
For more from the Baldock Bard click on ‘Home’ above 
Facebook: Baldock Bard
Twitter: @baldockbard
E-mail: simon.holtom@btconnect.com

The Baldock Boot Sale
SG7 6RD
is the friendliest bargain bonanza anywhere!
BACK AFTER EASTER
From April to October 2017
With more FREE parking and a field full of bargains!
www.u-boot.co.uk

Shopping By Button!

Posted on January 26, 2017 by The Baldock Bard.

Yesterday evening Mrs Bard and I were browsing our favourite internet shopping site when we came across electronic buttons for sale! For a fiver you can have a button that, when pressed, will auto-order the required item from the site. So you’d have a washing powder button next to the washing machine, a cereal button in the cereal cupboard and in the toilet…

No longer without loo roll will we be,
auto-ordering’s the future you see!
A button placed right next to the loo,
press it once for toilet paper new!

My granddaughter came to us to stay,
I didn’t explain the button away,
When she was sent up to bed,
pressed it many times instead!

A lorry turned up at the farm,
all quite normal no alarm,
fetched the forklift as requested,
ten tons of loo roll not expected!

NB. This is just fiction, I don’t (yet) have a button for ordering loo roll (although one for chocolate could be handy!). All best congratulations to the shopping site for their innovation, I just wish I’d had the idea first!

© Baldock Bard 2017
For more from the Baldock Bard click on ‘Home’ above 
Facebook: Baldock Bard
Twitter: @baldockbard
E-mail: simon.holtom@btconnect.com
The Baldock Boot Sale
SG7 6RD
is the friendliest bargain bonanza anywhere!
BACK AFTER EASTER
From April to October 2017
With more FREE parking and a field full of bargains!
www.u-boot.co.uk

The JCB Loadall’s Unique Job!

Posted on January 20, 2017 by The Baldock Bard.

Our farm’s JCB Loadall has been used for many operations. From loading grain, mending fences, hoisting people up to clean gutters to rescuing my drone from a tree and loading fertiliser and seed. Yesterday saw it on an unique mission…

From the Loadall:
“I never know what I’m going to do,
It leads to an interesting life,
most of the time I’m around the farm,
with Farmer Bard or his wife!
But sometimes I have an interesting job,
I’ve never done before,
yesterday I took a new altar to church,
(I was to large to get through the door!)
I carried it down to the church on my tines,
taking care to not let it fall
they then carried it through the church door,
a unique job for a yellow Loadall”.

Have any of your farm implements ever partaken in a unique mission? Maybe your Landrover is crying out for something new or your tractor yearns to turn new corners!
© Baldock Bard 2017
For more from the Baldock Bard click on ‘Home’ above 
Facebook: Baldock Bard
Twitter: @baldockbard
E-mail: simon.holtom@btconnect.com

The Baldock Boot Sale
SG7 6RD
is the friendliest bargain bonanza anywhere!
BACK AFTER EASTER
From April to October 2017
With more FREE parking and a field full of bargains!
www.u-boot.co.uk

Marital Differences in the Bathroom!

Posted on January 17, 2017 by The Baldock Bard.

In every good marriage there are differences between parties. Some are tolerated and some drive the partner screaming from the room at warp speed ten! I am lucky that in the bathroom, Mrs Bard puts up with my strange behaviour…

I like to lie in a bath,
Mrs Bard hops into a shower,
she takes just minutes,
I can soak for an hour!
When I get out my aches are all gone,
My knees and elbows are great,
But my supper can be rather cold,
After a long time on the plate!

Whether shower or bath… enjoy!

© Baldock Bard 2017
For more from the Baldock Bard click on ‘Home’ above 
Facebook: Baldock Bard
Twitter: @baldockbard
E-mail: simon.holtom@btconnect.com
The Baldock Boot Sale
SG7 6RD
is the friendliest bargain bonanza anywhere!
BACK AFTER EASTER
From April to October 2017
With more FREE parking and a field full of bargains!
www.u-boot.co.uk

The Ice Road Trucker

Posted on December 29, 2016 by The Baldock Bard.

A friend recently admitted that when she couldn’t sleep she would creep downstairs and watch ‘Ice Road Truckers’ in the middle of the night. Having given the therapeutic nature of such a programme some thought, I came up with these words, not to mock, but to show that we all have our unique ways to help us through dark nights…

Meek and mild Martha on the school run,
respectable, maternal and full of fun.
Once ‘Kids Away’ with their packed-lunch tucker,
she becomes ‘Merciless Martha the Ice Road Trucker!’

She doesn’t care there’s no sixteen-wheeler,
her imaginary truck’s a saddened-girly-healer,
with her truckers cap perched on her pretty head,
she drives the frozen wastes around Maidenhead!

With love to all the Martha’s,’The road will get ya!’

© Baldock Bard 2016
For more from the Baldock Bard click on ‘Home’ above 
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E-mail: simon.holtom@btconnect.com

The Joys Of Friendship

Posted on October 26, 2016 by The Baldock Bard.

Last year everyone told me not to worry about turning sixty as this is now the new forty! Huh! In many ways it hasn’t felt like it, my body is in slow decline and the shock I get every morning when I look in the mirror starts my heart beating again. But now I’ve become sixty-one I realise that some things don’t change…

My oldest friend and I
stood on a gate,
in the same position,
as we stood
many years before.
We re-encacted
the picture!
He is distinguished,
having had,
good health,
a successful career,
long marriage,
three children,
and grey hair!
I on the other hand,
have been a peasant,
all my life,
but enjoyed,
good health,
two children,
and long marriage.
Sadly,
we both share,
the devastating
loss of a child,
but above all,
we also share,
the joy of a life-long friendship.

To all my readers, friends and loved ones, thank you for your friendship. The other person in the old photo is my father, still going strong at 90 years old!

© Baldock Bard 2016
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E-mail: baldockbard@www.baldockbard.co.uk

The Farmer’s Wife!

Posted on October 7, 2016 by The Baldock Bard.

At this time of year farmer’s nerves are frayed, tempers are short and backsides sore from hours spent in a bumpy tractor seat. However there is one life-saving member of the team who is unseen, un-thanked and generally un-waged – it is the Farmer’s wife. Without her the autumn cultivations, and much more, would fall apart…

Mrs Bard’s day isn’t going to plan,
delivers lunch to her old man,
then it’s off to fetch spare parts,
there’s no time to bake jam tarts!
Very soon it’s time for tea,
out to the field to a grumpy ‘He’.
Late at night in darkness now,
a tired grumpy man arrives for ‘chow’.
Dust-fill nostrils make him snore,
then it’s up with the lark
…it starts once more!