Tuesday Poem- Endeavouring

Nine years ago (can it really be that long?) in search of adventure, we packed up the house, the kids and the cat and went off to the U.K to live and work. We are all holders of British passports because it runs in the family- the majority of which are still in Britain having ventured very little further than Majorca on a summer holiday. I wrote this for my Next magazine column when trying to make travel plans to go and visit the family..

Endeavouring

I have a Cornish aunty
And she’s the perfect parody,
Of the cautious British traveller
On the road from A to B.

If you mention for a minute,
That you thought you’d go to Wales,
She’ll recount outrageous instances
Of nightmare traffic tales.

“You shouldn’t go on Friday,
Unless it’s before seven;
The M5 will be hideous
With half term down in Devon.

There’s road works in Old Sodbury,
It’ll set you back a day,
So you’d best go via Chippenham
If you want to get away.

And Monday is bank holiday
I hope you didn’t plan
On finding bed and breakfast there;
You should have booked last Jan”

Now, if in 1768
My aunt was Captain Cook,
New Zealand would now be pom free, ‘cos
She’d have never gone to look!

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Outpourings

For everyone in NZ who has suffered the wettest winter ever...

I told the rain to go away
And come again another day.
It did and now it’s with regret
I find myself so sodding wet.

My car today was down the street;
I ran to it on soggy feet,
My brolly fighting with the wind,
Turned inside out, and had me pinned

Against a wall where gutters gushed,
Awash with leaves and humus, mushed.
It all cascaded down my neck;
A filthy shower, made for Shrek.

My jeans, a trendy baggy pair,
Dragged a denim driftnet flare,
And I craved a retro 80’s taper
Instead of street-cool litmus paper.

When I was young, we used to say,
Rain was the Almighty’s way,
Of showing he was feeling blue…
I hope he doesn’t get the flu!