The Tractor Drivers Mate!

Posted on August 15, 2014 by The Baldock Bard.

It’s those little improvements in life that you seldom notice that make the greatest impact. Spending hours on the tractor at the moment makes tractor drivers reliant on a vacuum flask. They have improved beyond all recognition: Gone are the cold dregs at teatime, the insipid taste of stale drink or the death-rattle of a dropped flask. The modern flasks are such an improvement it’s hard to remember the old times…

Beside me on the tractor,
Keeping me company all day long,
My vacuum flask is silver,
And it’s very strong!
I used to go through flasks,
Almost by the week,
They’d break if you dropped them,
The glass inside was weak.
And then you’d have to shake them,
Just to check they’d broke,
you’d get a coffee/glass rattle
Like a percussion shakey-bloke!
But now they never let you down,
Indestructible is their name,
They hold so much coffee,
Got to stop the tractor again!

© 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!
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Back To Smarties!

Posted on August 12, 2014 by The Baldock Bard.

I bought a tube of Smarties for what must be the first time since my daughter was at primary school. In the intervening twenty-odd years much has changed. Gone is the round tube with its collectable coloured and lettered plastic top. As for the contents of the new unimaginative colapsible hexagonal package…

Whatever’s happened to Smarties
I heard myself refrain
They say they’re the best taste
Yet they don’t taste the same

Their taste is unexciting
Colour no longer six
They are almost bad enough
To be sold from ‘Pick and Mix’

I know that I’m an oldie
And oldies must complain
But bring back original Smarties
This change is just a shame!

Old Age Awaits us All!

Posted on August 6, 2014 by The Baldock Bard.

While waiting in a car park the other day I was enjoying a spot of people-spotting. An old lady was making her way along the pavement. I realised that as a society we ignore the elderly and treat them like pariahs rather than former wealth-creators. Invisibility is their only reward…

I sit on the bed to put on my socks
I can no longer touch my toes
My toenails are now like rhino horn
That’s how old age goes

I need my specs to find my specs
The truth the mirror shows
I hope my eyesight doesn’t improve
That’s how old age goes!

My legs are next to useless
Now a burden I suppose
Some used to find them attractive
That’s how old age goes

My teeth I drown in a mug at night
Iced over when it snows
Can’t afford to pay for heating
That’s how old age goes!

My friends have predeceased me
I’ve buried all my foes
I’ve no one left who knows me
That’s how old age goes!

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!

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!

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!

Forty-Eight Years Later…!

Posted on June 21, 2014 by The Baldock Bard.

Forty-eight years ago I was given a First Day Cover where the General Post Office had over-printed a stamp with ‘England Winners’. This simply altered stamp rather sums up the difference between then and now. In those days footballers earned a wage, it was the greatest honour to represent their country, tackles on the pitch were crunching and it was not unusual for them to run a pub on retirement. Such a far cry from todays touch-and-fall-to-‘win’-a-penalty, media-posing, Wag-posturing, prima-donnas, where even the manager earns over £67,000 a week. So much has changed in nearly fifty years, many things for the better, but some of the changes make you wonder…

Sea lions on their shirts
And they’re coming home,
They should have stayed in Brazil,
By beating the team from Rome!
There’ll be calls to retire the manager,
To a bungalow by the sea,
Where in a wingback chair he can dribble,
No chance of a penalty!
However they’ve one remaining fixture,
Before they board the plane,
Perhaps they can share the aircraft,
With the exiting team from Spain.

…hopefully better luck next time!

The Pavement Racer!

Posted on June 6, 2014 by The Baldock Bard.

Yesterday I was strolling through a town centre when I heard the unmistakable sound of protesting tyres. Pedestrians leapt for their lives as the turbo-charged grandma came into view. Her walker, aerodynamic and sleek was being pushed to the very limit as she sped through the pedestrian centre; here was a pensioner on a mission…

Nan’s a pavement racer,
She races into town,
Her wheels squeal on the corners,
As she takes pedestrians down!

PCSO’s can’t catch her,
Constables have tried,
A traffic warden once said to halt,
Was taken for a ride!

She’s the scourge of Sainsbury’s
And of Tesco too,
Get in her way and she may,
Make mincemeat of you!

Those Magnificent Men…!

Posted on June 2, 2014 by The Baldock Bard.

During the Baldock Car Boot Sale last Saturday we had an air-intrusion that made many customers look to the skies. The angry-wasp sound of a microlight grew louder and louder until the aircraft buzzed down the length of the field and disappeared off over the hill. It reminded me of a film years ago called Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines…

Sunday afternoon film
‘When I were a lad’
An air-race to Paris,
Terry Thomas the cad!
How modern microlights,
Stay in the air,
They look flimsy as biplanes,
Used to look there!
I was once offered a flight,
A microlight pilot I met,
The next time I saw him,
He was upset:
“I was taking off well,
I failed to gain height,
Just six busted ribs,
‘Spose it served me right!’
I remember a man,
Who eschewed modern things,
He said, “If man were supposed to fly,
He’d have given us wings!”

© Baldock Bard 2014
For more verse click on ‘Home’ above
New! – Video from the bootsale 17/5/14!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbIERPYokho
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

Thirty-Five Years!

Posted on May 19, 2014 by The Baldock Bard.

A rare photo of Mrs Bard with her Granddaughter!
Thirty-five years ago a nervous young Bridegroom with wet hair stood in a small chapel in South Wales waiting for this bride-to-be. I had not taken much notice of the time and had wandered around the shops in Llanelli looking for a tie to wear! I then had a leisurely bath, having dragged the hotels TV into the bathroom doorway so I could watch Swap Shop! This was followed by hammerings on the door as my Best Man attempted to speed up my leisurely bath in attempt to get me to the chapel on time. As a result when I ‘made my entrance’ it was on all fours as I tripped over a step, with wet dark hair (my hair changes colour as it dries!). My intended was a little late (I think!) despite having been in jeans some ten minutes before the ceremony.
I thought I was the luckiest man on the planet… and I still do. How Mrs Bard has put up with me for all these years, I have no idea. Sometimes she says that she’d have got less if she’d buried me under the patio! However she’s been there, always by my side and today we celebrate thirty-five years since that day when I fell into marriage with wet hair!

© Baldock Bard 2014
For more verse click on ‘Home’ above
Facebook: Baldock Bard
Twitter: @baldockbard
E-mail: baldockbard@www.baldockbard.co.uk

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Category Archives: Past Times