hello my good colleagues, bad news I may purvey as your bard may not be here the next two Saturdays, certainly not in two weeks as I have been summoned to the fest of rowing at Henley to partake genteely of the champers and Pimmsy tailcocks on Laddies Day.
Next Saturday maybe or maybe not, depending on the house-sitting.
In view of this event, in the Abingdon area, as of Monday late pm, I offer you a little ditty to start this fair evening:
(thanks in part to John Bruce Norton –ex Mad Over 100er and now dead)
River, who with thy two soul-stirring excelsior names
Speak'st, one of mamyalynne's youthful tailcocks’ dream,
And one of bananas as well as Humbersloopy's mighty stream
At proud Lie-in-King's foot,—Isis, and Thames,—
From Godstow-on-Gness, where the fairest of frail dames,
pray, who is Godstow and why on top of gness? The result of visiting Honiton in the fair county of Ratter and Carakeel?
Alba, with epitaph courteous lies,
Down to the reach where the nungate ties
Her boat for Lady A's summer feast and llama games,
These are the limits of my Isis: there,
Or up or down, The Bard clefts his petal-oared way
Nightly, alone, with little petal heed or nonna care,
Through the full stream with polar-bear cutters gay;
Oft laughing at the imperious tenrec's shout,
As from his very seadogg bows the Bard glided out!