We ain’t sending Christmas cards any more!
We’ve done the list and that’s it!
Oh no!…There’s another one just dropped through the door.
You approach it gingerly like an unexploded bomb
Cautiously wondering “who the eff is it from?”

“Oh no! It’s someone who’s not on the list… the *******!”
Or, an older relative who doesn’t ‘do’ computers....
“We don’t do computers!”...
And so it bounces off them this ‘losers’ two pronged attack.
like getting one in the post and not sending one back!
But we definitely ain’t sending cards any more!

Can’t they just send an e-card, maybe one of those Jacqui whats-her-name jobbies...
with floating fairies, sleigh bell sound effects and ****** labradors too.
Or bang off a picture of Santa on FaceBook, Twitter, SnapChat, Instagram…surely that will do.
Oh no they’ve got to go the whole nine yards.
Even if they buy ****** Poundland Cards
there’s still the cost of a ****** stamp! That’s extortionate too!
No… Sorry… actually not sorry...
We ain’t buying OR sending cards any more!

We’ll donate to charity instead - that’ll be us…
It’ll be cheaper and a lot less fuss.
Sponsor a neglected reindeer, maybe a redundant elf
Or yeh…better still - rescue a pup.
One that WAS just for Christmas then just got chucked.
For me this Christmas mail-out is over - the game's definitely up!
Or really… if all else fails…we’ll just buy next year’s supply
in bulk from the January sales!

...but NOT of the Pantomime kind!

Alan & Gus - unruly cousins of mine…
Bold, naughty boys: brothers in arms!
They would fight, squabble
cause widespread mayhem.
Anything but sublime, rarely calm.

My Auntie Nellie, their mum, she couldn’t cope
their behaviour would often drive her nuts...quite mad.
And Uncle Charlie?  Well, you’d never want to witness
the legendary temper he had...Not nice.
He’d even boxed my ears once or twice.

Anyway, it was December 10th when the boys went out,
He wasn’t in - so they took Charlie’s prized car for a spin…
No licence, no test, no insurance…Nowt!
Well, for 12 & 14 year olds, this was so very, very far out,
…on a limb I mean.

Quiet roads only, of course!…only lanes beyond Preston.
A bit icy like. And Alan overcooked the corner at Lelley
and finished up rolling into the ****…
Proper upside down it were - all four wheels pointing up in the air.
…You can see it was not going quite how they’d like!

So…It was getting dark when the car limped back home,
dents and scratches, all oil, mud and slime - hard to hide…
Charlie saw them drive past t’front room window…
and he met ‘em out in’t yard… Only one word was spoken,
like a maniac he screamed… “INSIDE!”

Punishment back in those days was stern
a leather strap… across bare buttocks
That’s what you’d earn…6 times…
and another if you dared flinch.
Ironically that was the bit they found easiest to bear - a cinch!…

But the bag o’Cinders instead of presents on’t best day o’t year?
That’s what really hurt… Not even chocolate money or an orange!
AND… being made to wash the car every week for 12 months…
Pocket money cancelled… so, not a scrap of good cheer…
And neither one of ‘em drove a car again till their 17th year!

We’ve been married 50 years.
But in fact we are both still around 25!
It’s that good.

We giggle and laugh
and yet neither of us has said anything…
it’s that good.

I read your mind and you read mine…
It’s that good…
It's understood!

At this time of my life
I find myself wearing hats…
I’m not happy with my head you see,
In short, being able to see it
it just doesn’t thrill me.
Not through those depressing, disappearing strands.
So it’s that time - It’s hat time!

Hats are warm, comforting things;
take it off and, for a while at least,
it feels still there - a phantom hat.
Not quite as spooky or worrying
as a phantom arm or leg - after that
severed limb thing, but right there!
It really is that time - It’s hat time!

My Grandma Lamplough,
that’s on my mother’s side,
was an avid knitter of things to order,
She was even a freelancer for Jaeger…
matinée jackets, mittens, cardies, pullovers
But in later days mostly just tea cosies.
If there was no immediate customer in mind…
“Everybody needs a cosy and one size fits all”
she would say… and anyway,
commissions were rare for cosies back in the day

She’d wear it boldly herself
with handle and spout slots front & back, proud
She’d start the next one and announce
to every visitor right out loud…
”Hey…Do you want a cosy for your ***?
Mr Watling, the milkman, he had quite a lot!
But then he showed up every day!
A quart is it Mrs L?… and yes, I WILL have a cosy today!

Me? I’ve never fancied a toupee, wig
or go in for a Bobby Charlton tribute gig ….
I’ll be happy just to settle for a beret,
news boy or Fedora… to hide the offending pate
and avoid the comb over till a later date.
Meanwhile I’ll maybe settle for Grandma’s cosy special?

A Down the Railway Rhyme!

I walked the line
to where the steel once ran.
I walked the time line…
Where the rail gap clatter
gave way to wild bird chatter.
Where commuter crush
became deer grazing in a siding’s hush…

Wild flowers, weeds & shrubs
flourish where the occasional sleepers lay
and the odd rail cleat on the track bed ,
remind us where the rails once led,
till those who govern these things said…
Too expensive!…No more the train.
Let the trucks & roads take the strain.

Today… Nature’s Food Chain
replaces yesterday’s Freight Train
Wolf’s Bain and Wart’s Ease
instead of strap hanger’s
carriage squeeze…
meant kids would sit on their mother’s knees

Today there’s a diving Sparrow Hawk
where once 3rd Class picked up on small talk
and 1st was treated to business ‘squawk’.
The river & passing pastures have seen it all;
rail trade that kept a town alive
gives way to help the wildlife thrive.

The fabric of our society is slipping.
It’s so transparent you CAN see right through.
We’ve got a posh yob thinking he can do the leader’s job.
He knows he’s *****, that his detractors are right,
and he should throw the towel in right now.

The algorithm’s not the only thing that’s ******.
our future’s definitely been well & truly chucked.
the wrong people are being knighted
the proles are being slighted and
we’re being seen as a laughing stock round the world

it’s the blind leading the partially sighted,
where the grass roots need just  to be united
and who is it who can handle that job?
Not anyone from this current motley mob?
It’s not pretty… It’s downright ugly!