Bogged Down with Cultivations!

Posted on March 5, 2013 by The Baldock Bard.

This has been a strange twelve months weather-wise! A year ago we had drought and were worried that there’d be no rain to germinate the seed. Once the rain started it didn’t stop. My father always told me (regarding rain): “The ground is like a drunken man, the more it has the more it wants!” Judging by parts of the field we’ve been cultivating I can honestly say it’s had enough and it’s time to go home…

Cultivate,
Before too late,
Because the weather,
Doesn’t wait!

Don’t forget,
Ground is wet,
Oh my heavens!
Tractor’s set!

Back to farm
Raise alarm!
Pull me out?
Tractor back to barn!
© Baldock Bard 2013
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Modern Regency Bath!

Posted on March 4, 2013 by The Baldock Bard.

Yesterday was a crisp frosty morning. On the way to cultivate some land ready for drilling beans I ran into Dolly the Horse’s support team. Apparently Dolly’s mummy, Charlotte, had gone on a hen weekend to Bath. I though Bath was very much a genteel, quiet-mannered, old-fashioned town, more used to literary festivals and time-warpers who dressed like Jane Austin. I was obviously wrong! The thought of it as a centre for raucous pre-marital high-jinks seemed an alien concept, however if it suits for Bath then there might just be hope for Baldock…

A hen party went to Bath,
Simply to have a laugh.
It wasn’t the drink,
Made them sick in the sink,
But a curry that made them all barf!
© Baldock Bard 2013
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The Bear in the Chair!

Posted on March 3, 2013 by The Baldock Bard.

Many years ago I remember seeing a bear in a shop window. Yesterday while walking through town with my granddaughter I came across a shop window that contained a bear in a chair. Times had changed but it was a familiar scene. I couldn’t let the opportunity pass…

There once was a bear
Who sat in a chair,
In the window of a shop in town!
He’d sit there all day,
Not a word did he say,
Never blinked not even a frown!

Along came a child,
In a pushchair styled,
Like the expensive one in the book!
He looked at the bear,
Just sitting there,
And said to his mother, “Look!”

“If we give him a home,
I’ll call him Jerome,
I’ll be a good boy all week long!
I can’t bear to see,
Him there so lonely,
If you buy him it can’t be wrong!

So she bought him Jerome,
And they took him home,
Left behind his empty chair!
Twenty years later,
If you visit his mater,
The bear from the chair’s still there!

© Baldock Bard 2013
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Child Minding Grandpa!

Posted on March 2, 2013 by The Baldock Bard.

Have you noticed how many of advancing years are out and about pushing prams and walking toddlers? Either there has been a sudden advancement in fertility treatment or financial hardship has made grandparents a cost-effective alternative to employed child-care. However it has been suggested that Google is replacing grandparents; kids now look stuff up online rather than asking their wise old grandpa…

“Grandad, I’m so hungry,
What have I got for tea?”
“I should go ask Google,
Or your mother, don’t ask me!
We’ve already done the shopping,
Been down to the dry cleaners,
A visit to the DIY stores,
To repair your misdemeanors!”

“You know your mother’s ordered me,
You can’t have any sweets.
You’re not allowed to eat those crisps,
Or any unhealthy treats!
She says I’m not to spoil you,
Give in to you at all,
She’s has completely forgotten,
How it was when she was small!”

“I think we got away with it,
Telling her we were home,
When she rang to check on us,
On her mobile phone!
As you’ve been so good,
We’ll buy some sweets to munch,
So long as you don’t tell her,
We went to the pub for lunch!”

© Baldock Bard 2013
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St David’s Day

Posted on March 1, 2013 by The Baldock Bard.

Today is St David’s Day. As the patron saint of Wales it is a day to celebrate all that is Welsh. Many Welshmen hope that the celebration carries over to March 16th when they play the ‘Old Enemy’ (England) rugby team in Cardiff. In my case it is also a day when I remember all those in the little Welsh village of Pembrey who welcomed a rather strange Englishman into their family so many years ago, they may mostly be gone now but the memory remains, diolch…

I wandered lonely on the hill,
On a mountain outside Rhyl
When all at once I saw yellow frills,
A host, of golden daffodils;

This can’t be the Lake District
With rain and gales!
On March the First,
This must be WALES!

With apologies (and respect) to W. Wordsworth Esq.
Thanks to Petr Kratochvil for the picture http://www.publicdomainpictures.net
Also a massive thank you to all of you who have visited this blog in my first year, all 25,390 of you! A million thanks to you all!

© Baldock Bard 2013
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Chirpy the Chicken!

Posted on February 28, 2013 by The Baldock Bard.

As I get older I’m getting softer, or so everybody tells me! Last week we had a death on the farm. Chirpy the Chicken. She was a natural show-off: right from when she was hatched, if a camera was pointed in her direction she’d assume it was for her and preen. She’d also rush to greet visiting groups of schoolchildren assuming that they were on the farm just to see her! Despite having other chickens roaming the farmyard she was always special, we’re going to miss her…

Chirpy’s mother was a duck!
Who was most surprised to hatch her,
Ever since then she’s hogged the limelight,
No other chick could catch her!
As she grew she liked attention,
For children she would run,
She’d show off as if on the stage,
And sometimes show her bum!
In harvest she played ‘chicken’!
With the giant wheels of the trailer,
I’d be waving it into the store,
Her courage never failed her!
We discovered her body without her head,
And buried her in a box,
She’s been denied retirement,
By a bloody murdering fox.
RIP Chirpy.

© Baldock Bard 2013
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Oats Away!

Posted on February 27, 2013 by The Baldock Bard.

Another bout of loading lorries on the farm. We’ve moved oats from the bins in the main grain store into the flat floored barn. This is for two reasons: firstly so we load the lorries quickly using the large grain bucket on the JCB Loadall and secondly so that we can do a final visual check for quality and take a moisture reading before the load leaves the farm. Unfortunately this doesn’t always guarantee a claim-free consignment as the mill can choose a test from a different part of the load…

We’ve sent away a load of oats
So in the bank we’ll be putting pound notes!
They’ve gone North to make boxes of porridge,
To be sent back to towns like Norwich!
In the next day’s post there’s a notification,
They’ve cut the price for non-specification!
Moisture wrong and admix not nice,
£5 per ton removed from the price!
I suppose all in all I can’t complain,
I finished harvest before the rain!
So I won’t boast or tell a story tall,
As some have no harvest to sell at all.
We should never boast or brag,
Until the deal is in the bag!
I recommend that you eat oats of course,
Because they’re pure and contain no horse!
© Baldock Bard 2013

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Sad Old Letchworth

Posted on February 26, 2013 by The Baldock Bard.

There is an old family story: Many years ago, at around the turn of the last century, my grandparents travelled in a pony and trap to look at two houses in the middle of a field. Everyone laughed at funny little man with a pointed beard, not only because he was a Quaker but because of his vision of a ‘Garden City’. The concept was revolutionary: Every house would have a big-enough garden to feed the family, an industrial area and shopping centre would be separate from homes to add value to the quality of home life and there were to be no pubs. Against all odds Ebenezer Howard’s vision became Letchworth Garden City and thrived. Yesterday I returned for the first time in many years to the shopping centre, it was a melancholy visit…

Letchworth was empty,
like the child’s paddling-pool in winter.
One or two walked the streets
huddled against the cold
to look in shop windows at
stuff they didn’t want
couldn’t afford
or just didn’t interest them.
Empty shops held no attraction
and there seemed to be
plenty of them.
The only shop I found
that attracted the pound in my pocket
was an old-fashioned sweet shop
but that’s not surprising
I have a sweet tooth.
Where were the shops I used
to know and use?
Dead, gone, vanished.
It was as if
the First Garden City
was sitting in a high-backed chair
frail
aged
and quietly weeping as it
wondered where
it all went wrong.

© Baldock Bard 2013
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A Tall Story of a Small Car!

Posted on February 25, 2013 by The Baldock Bard.

Do you find that sometimes the weirdest of objects can suddenly invoke a memory that has been laying dormant for years? The other month I saw a small Fiat car in a car park and I took a photo. Looking through some photos last night I suddenly remembered someone I hadn’t thought of since college nearly forty years ago…

Looking at a photo,
A memory stirs within,
Of a fellow student,
Very tall and slim.

I’m sure his name was Bob,
A memory – I can see it!
This vision of a lanky lad,
Getting out of a baby Fiat!

When he’d left the car,
Of ownership – some proof,
A noticeable head-shaped bulge,
In the small sun-roof!

Another thing I remember,
His tall girlfriend’s name was Sue,
And I’m pretty sure that I’m correct,
That little car was blue!

….that’s all folks, memory gone!

© Baldock Bard 2013
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An Ordinary Saturday Night in Baldock!

Posted on February 24, 2013 by The Baldock Bard.

Mrs Bard and I had a very ordinary Saturday night in. Chinese takeaway with the latest Bond film on DVD. My assignment was to collect a top-secret package from Baldock and deliver it, still hot, to the table…

In the Golden Rickshaw in Baldock,
The counter-man stood there ‘real hard’,
In a deep voice he asked for my name,
I replied: “Bard,” (with a gap) “Baldock Bard!”

I left through the door with the package,
Checked both ways (so by the book!),
Missed by an inch by a white van,
I shot him (a real dirty look!).

By the bank just up the High Street,
A beauty offered poisoned-deep-Posset,
I pushed her into the Cashpoint,
Where she made a no-interest deposit!

Just outside Chapman’s the butchers,
I tackled a crafty Fu-Man-Chew,
I threw him back through the window,
And said “it’s been nice to meat you too!”

Further along by Days the Bakers,
A giant – steel teeth in his head.
I fought him off with some Rock Cakes,
Two donuts and some handy sliced bread.

Two baddies on bikes tried to chase me,
I reversed my car in a hurry.
They crashed through the window of the Lancer,
I presume they were after a curry!

I reached home with the takeaway still hot,
Mrs Bard watched me straighten my tie,
“Was it busy or quiet in Baldock?”
“Just the usual, quite quiet” said I!
Dedicated to Ailsa and Mark ‘Bond’ with thanks for the reminder that nobody does it better than 007!

© Baldock Bard 2013
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