Category: home
Big Sister In Charge!
This is in response to Sammi Cox’s Weekend Writing Prompt #316 where the given word is CHORE, and the word count is 62.
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Come along now, grab a cloth, some polish, and a broom.
Hoping it won’t take too long to tidy up this room.
Our task is clear and must be done before our Mum returns
Rebecca, get dressed properly and put down all those worms!
Everybody’s working hard although it is a bore;
HURRY UP, I can hear Mum coming through the door!
Frisky birds
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The birds are very frisky and it’s getting really risky
to walk outside and look at all the flowers
They want to make a nest in my warm and woolly vest
and the only safe time seems to be in showers
It must be Spring again ‘cause we now have warmer rain
and the gales are only every second day
It won’t be such a bummer when we reach the height of Summer
and the baby birds are coming out to play
I think it’s probably best that I ditch that woolly vest
the birds will find a better use I’m sure
It’ll help to raise the chicks in a nest of vest and sticks
helping keep the youngsters warm ‘til they mature
Freedom with a full tummy
Earlier today I went into my shed to get bird seed to replenish the feeders. Most seed is stored in bins which are rodent proof but I had stored a small bag of sunflower seeds in a plastic bucket, covered over.
I found a small mouse doing a pretty good impression of a motorcycle going round the wall of death. He had obviously jumped in and had a feast but then found it impossible to climb the smooth sloped sides to get out again. Because he may have been a relative of my friend Melissa I helped him out! Not before we had a little conversation though.
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The mouse ran round and round and round
He said “Hey mister here’s a pound
To let me out, to set me free
No-one will know, just you and me
I have a wife and kids at home
They always hate it when I roam
But roam I must, to find the food
To fill my belly, feed the brood
And what would happen may I ask
If I’m not there to do this task
My wife would starve, the kids would die
No-one will know, just you and I”
A little bit of Dad
In my final Lundi limerick yesterday I used the hamlet of Acton and linked it to the fact that it played a large part in my Dad’s life.
In the process of digging out a bit of real life background, rather than the normal wikipedia, or google sources, I rummaged through the suitcase that I brought away from Dad’s house after he died at the grand age of 96.
Mum had died nearly 11 years before and everyone expected Dad to follow fairly swiftly after. He was, after all, a hard working farm labourer, who had relied on Mum for meals, clean clothes, and a welcoming home. We had all, of course, forgotten his hard upbringing, his determination, and his adaptability.
Within a couple of weeks he had bought himself a microwave. “I’ve always wanted one of these but your Mother would never have one”, he said.
He went on to cook his own meals, wash, dry, and iron his clothes, vacuum the house, and thoroughly enjoy the whole new leaf that he’d turned over. My little sister (three years older than me), who lived a few miles away, kept an eye on him, had him over for Sunday lunch and, over the coming years, gradually helped him more, according to his needs.
Anyway, this isn’t meant to be a definitive history of Dad, purely an extension of the information about his link to Acton.
The suitcase I mentioned earlier has quite a few Bibles, and other books, in it, each one has a story to tell. Dad was a Methodist Local Preacher from the age of 20 until failing hearing, and health, caused him to retire, although he remained ‘on the books’ until his death, and received several certificates of Long Service, even up to 75 years service! It just could not be done nowadays!
Dad was a marvellous preacher. Inspiring, knowledgeable, plain speaking, always linking to everyday life, articulate but never verbose. In everyday life you would never dream that he was a gifted and effective preacher. He was a quiet, mild mannered man whose goodness shone out for all to see, always willing to help, support, and encourage all that he encountered.
How smart they all are, and I love the bicycle parked around the corner! Dad would have done a couple of hours work before going to school and would have many jobs to complete when he got home.
Lundi limerick #105
Thinking of Acton I’m glad
so special to Mum and to Dad
It’s where they first met
and their future was set
Such a wondrous life they both had.
There is not a lot to be said about Acton, a small hamlet in Staffordshire. You could so easily drive through it without knowing and yet, without its existence, I may well not have existed!
The one building that is there, an old Wesleyan Methodist Church that closed in 2003, is where my father, Charles Matthews, went to Sunday School, then to Chapel. Where he met my mother Irene Lily Matthews, née Talbot. Where they first started courting, all very prim and proper in those days. Where Dad first qualified for his 75 years as a Methodist Local Preacher.
I will add some photographs to a later post, and give a little more detail. I thought it appropriate that for the last of my two years worth of Lundi limericks (Lundi being french for Monday, for those who hadn’t noticed!!) I should write about somewhere extra special.
Thank you Acton. Thank you Mum and Dad.
Song Lyric Sunday – 6 September 2020 – Yanamamo
Jim Adams’ Song Lyric Sunday gives us the chance to share familiar, and sometimes not so familiar, songs. Jim has given us Musical/Opera this week rather than a choice of words to be included in the title or lyrics.
If you fancy sharing one of your favourite songs you can find out how to participate, and also listen to all the great entries, here.
I’m opting for a not so familiar song this week, from a musical that is normally performed by schoolchildren. I was lucky enough to attend a performance, probably 25 years ago now. It was very moving. The children had obviously spent a huge amount of time in learning, rehearsing, and performing the 90 minute work. Afterwards I bought a cassette tape (remember those) of the performance and played it often in the car whilst travelling to and from work.
Peter Anthony Rose MBE (music) and Anne Conlon MBE (words) are British writers best known for their environmental musicals for children. They were both teachers in Lancashire, England, for the majority of their creative achievements and most of their works have been written specially for St Augustine’s RC High School, Billington. At the time Peter Rose was their head of music. They wrote with a view to expanding the children’s knowledge of the world and the environment, perhaps hoping that their seeds would fall on fertile minds and help to make the world a better place.
In 1988 the US-based World Wildlife Fund (WWF) funded the musical Yanomamo, by Rose and Conlon, to convey what is happening to the people and their natural environment in the Amazon rainforest. It tells of Yanomami tribesmen/ tribeswomen living in the Amazon and has been performed by many drama groups around the world. Sadly, lessons were not learned and the Yanomami continue to endure massacres, disease, and a loss of more and more of their environment. What appeared to be a positive awakening of their plight was very short lived. The rest of the world calls it progress!
Yanomamo is a 90-minute work for chorus, soloists, narrator and stage band, and the original production, performed by the choir and musicians of St Augustine’s RC High School, was narrated by Sir David Attenborough and premiered at the Royal Institute, London, before appearing at the Edinburgh Festival. They later performed Yanomamo in America, narrated by Sting, which production was recorded for television and later broadcast (on Easter Sunday, 1989) on Channel 4 under the title of Song of the Forest. The TV version was commercially released by WWF. Since its publication the musical has seen performances by thousands of children throughout the world.
The lyrics are on the video which, unfortunately, is not very good quality. I hope you enjoy “Song of the Forest”
Apology to a spider – second leg – Rapid rhyme #29
I’m sorry Mrs Spider that I destroyed your home
I merely wished to walk your way whilst on my morning roam
I hope you soon restore the mess that I so rudely made
Please send the bill to me at once, it will be swiftly paid!
I went the same way once again to see if she was there
I found a cup and saucer smashed and half a broken chair
Her neighbour said she’d moved away, we talked of this and that
I understand that she has moved into a brand new flat
Peter's pondering 
