Poetry - July 2021

A Coastline of Castles

Hugging the North East coastline
With the dramatic North Sea in view
There's so many historic castles
That deserve a visit or two
From their perches on the rocks
Above the sand dunes of the beach
It's a little slice of history
Which is well within your reach
The castles stand out facing the sea
With their imposing stone and towers
That you just have to wonder
How the skilled people put in the hours
To build all of those places
With the weather being so changeable
But it's left a historic legacy there
Which everyone can enjoy to the full
So when you make that walk from Craster
Past all the sheep on to Dunsatanburgh
Just think of all the efforts made
To even place such a castle there.

(One thing I certainly noted on the Northumberland coastline was the castles by the sea - it really did make for a wonderful place to be and so many lovely castles visited too..)

Climate Is Changing

How do we go from all the humid sun
To a day later of torrential rain
From having the barbecue out one day
To having the back garden flooded the next
This month has seen the extremes of weather
And I don't think it will be over yet
As the storm clouds are gathering
With the emphasis on the storm apparent
It goes to show just how much we can see
That the climate is changing very fast
If we keep carrying on as we are doing
Then I think we'll be in trouble sooner than we think
There's a definite sense of extremeties
Even in what's supposed to be the height of Summer
It does concern me that it'll continue
And we'll see different weather for years longer
So what can we do? We must act now
Because a failure to act lets our children down
We have to be responsible for what we've done
And shown that as a society, we can change that.

(Definitely with some hot and humid weather followed by intense rain, storms and flooding, it's been a last few weeks that you could say was unusual but seems to be happening far too often now.)

Sunset On Amble

My love and I felt really lucky this year
To have such a lovely apartment in Amble
It overlooked the marina and its peaceful boats
And when the sun came down, it was beautiful
It just had the right amount of red sky
To really make it feel somewhere to special
We both stood and admired on the balcony
The feeling that another day had been wonderful
We wanted to relax and make the most of our time
And we did that with plenty of lovely days
But the one thing we'll both remember so much
Was the evening sun coming down with its rays
A sense that we were away from it all
A feeling that we just had so much peace and tranquility
With the little ducks following their parents down below
And the sense of being in a place so full by the sea.

(It was just lovely where we stayed having such lovely sunsets and admiring them from the apartment balcony - definitely more enjoyable because we had somewhere lovely to stay.)

I Woke Up And It Was All A Dream

Whenever you wrote a story
For the creative writing lessons
You would always be stuck for an ending
And you'd ponder one for a while
Then you decide it's time to return
To a tried and trusted formula
Of writing the end - and then..
I woke up and it was all a dream
And now you're happy
Because the story's finished
And it all seems logical enough
Two days later the truth dawns
As the teacher says to the class
I marked all these stories
And out of the twenty four I received
All but four had the same ending
I woke up and it was all a dream
Can't you think of a better ending
Than that which ends so prompt
From now on if I see any story
With an ending of that
Then they'll automatically get zero
So now you can't use it
And your mind will have to be creative
But then you woke up and it was all a dream!

(Admit it, we've all copped out with this story ending, haven't we?)

New Harness Haiku

Brian's new harness
So he can play out at night
Means he stays out more!

(Brian the cat has a new harness, so he is more tempted to look at his Mummy and say "please let me play out" with such a cute face. He loves that fresh air!)