Category: Humour

Christmas for Monty and Robin

Christmas for Monty and Robin

(With apologies to Amarinta)

 

And while the critters were all hob-nobbin’;

The field mice and the red-breast robin,

A squeal went up, ‘what, pray, was that?

‘I think it is the farmyard cat.’

‘Oh my sweet holy Jesus

I think she means to come and seize us.’ Continue reading “Christmas for Monty and Robin”

Ungrateful? Not me!

My thanks to Madiba for giving me democracy
and his able successor, Thabo ~ baai baai danke
For guiding us through those difficult years
took patience and courage to allay people’s fears.

My thanks too to Jacob for steering our ship
no easy task, There could have been many a slip.
A bountiful country with employment for all
Roofs over our heads, public services on call Continue reading “Ungrateful? Not me!”

Little things please little minds . . .

While sipping my second restorative mug of tea this morning, I chuckled quietly at the good-humoured badinage, subsequently removed, between Janus and Christopher on the subtleties of ‘council’ versus ‘counsel’.

But I almost spilt the scalding contents when I moved on to read Mr Mackie’s splendid gaffe ‘from whence’.   And with relevance to Charterhouse, too.   An old Kingstonian would never perpetrate such a solecism. 🙂

If you need an explanation, there’s absolutely no hope for you.

Shark Attack, with pictures. Not for the squeamish.

Well that’s what I’m telling people.
It happened two Sundays back about eleven in the morning.
I was working on the boat, tearing out and replacing old waste water piping. Most of the pipe is in the bilge, not the healthiest spot in which to spend time, and I was lying on the galley floor reaching into the void to thread some more pipe when I must have kicked the companionway steps. The steps are a heavy wooden four step flight that mount into clips on the bulkhead and have pegs that drop into holes in the deck. Having done what was needed below I needed to climb the steps into the main cabin.
Thinking only of the next job I was off up the steps, well I got to the top when they let go, sliding down the bulkhead and onto the galley floor. My left leg caught the left mounting clip, opening up an seven-inch gash from ankle to mid calf. It felt as if I had been hit in the leg with a hammer, and my first thought was “I’m going to have quite a bruise there”. Then I saw the extent of the damage, kind of like a busted watermelon. I took off my dirty gloves and pushed the wound shut with both hands to see if it was something I could fix with a few band-aids or some electricians tape, but it was clearly beyond that.  I took off my t-shirt and tied it around the leg and started off the boat, up the dock and into the house in a kind of Quasimodo hobble. Nobody home of course, and as far as I could see, nobody on the creek.

(There are pictures coming up, if you do not wish to see them STOP NOW.)

Continue reading “Shark Attack, with pictures. Not for the squeamish.”

Life’s a Beach

On vacation this week, borrowed a house from my rich business partner, on the beach at Lewes (say Lew-is), Delaware. Got here late Friday night via Delaware City, Delaware (more about which later). Raining today and windy with it, holiday innit?
Lewes (the First Town in the First State) was settled by the Dutch in 1631 in what was to become Delaware (the first state to sign the Declaration) so naturally it is home to the Zwaanendael Museum just a couple of blocks away from here, and perhaps a little more surprising home to the Kalmar Nykel, a replica of the Dutch ship that brought original settlers to Wilmington, Delaware (sixty miles North of here), however, they were Swedes, following me so far?
Here she is back in 2011 on the Bay.

Continue reading “Life’s a Beach”