The Pass – By Paul Holland

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Squaldroons – By Paul Holland

Hello,

Here is another old poem of Paul’s from a couple of years ago which I read at the weekend. I hope you enjoy it to.

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Here Is Theat Happy Goose Again And Another Old Favourite To Tickle Your Fancy

Hello,

Rain is on the way, Tomcat Fightback has fallen asleep in a saucepan and my feet are cold.

So here is that Happy Goose again!

And here is the brilliant Spanish Fresco restoration from last year!

Hope they tickle your fancy as much as mine!

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My Hinge Needs Lubricating So My Budgie Can Live – Can Oily George Help?

Oily George’s latest erotic masterpiece “Hand Shandy III” will be available soon. The perfect Xmas gift .

Hello Oily

The hinge on my wardrobe door has a terrible squeak and every time I open it my pet Budgie, Roger enters a catatonic state.

I’ve tried a wide range of ungents, moisturisers and gels all to no avail.

Will you see if your abundant reservoirs of natural emulsifiers can silence the darn door and give Roger the peace he craves and deserves?

Ariadne, Ullapool

Hello Ariadne

Lordy this is my lucky week! Such a beautiful woman and Budgie both in need of my attentions! Of course I will slip by anytime to check on your wardrobe door. I will bring my vast array of elixirs and pungent purifying potions which will need to be applied on the hinges of your wardrobe doors, and locks. And your buttocks. And the Budgie. That should do the trick.

Whilst there, maybe I can tell you about the new company I am setting up, Long and Hard Productions. Looking for a new PA and I feel you will fit the bill perfectly.

The Oilster

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Morning Coffee On My Doorstep – By Paul Holland

I’ve awoke to a mizzly day of low cloud
The sky is pockled
As the night sky with stars,
So here with Swifts and Swallows
And Martins whirling overhead.
The rain seems to have them out of wack
Hundreds cling
To the plaster of a nearby house,
As others wheel

To and from a large fir
Then for reasons unknown
All take flight
And that universe breathes in
And I
Gasp.

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A Happy Goose Picture!

Hello,

Saw this photo recently and it tickled us.

Here is a human version, Gingered up a tad – who says totalitarianism isn’t fun?

Goosey Goosey Gander

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Train Travel Tales #37 – The Birdman Of The 11.35

He had boarded the train at Derby. Pink Floyd was playing on my Ipod when he sat next to me. If there is a better song than Wish You Were Here, then I’m a Chinaman.

As the train left the Station,  the man placed his hands to his mouth and blew through them, carefully adjusting his fingers in a daintily choreographed process.

Curious, I turned down my Ipod to listen.

Birdsong.

Beautiful birdsong! It was like having Summer on the train. The gentle chirping carried me back to warmer, more carefree days. It was like hearing Dark Side Of The Moon for the first time. Seminal.

The Guard, a world weary man who attended to his duties with a grim relish, stopped to listen. “Fookin’ Brilliant,” he said to the man as he checked his ticket, “Like being in fookin’ aviary. Me mam had a budgie once. Fooker never said a fookin’ word.” He moved away, “Tickets from Derby please.”

The man desisted from his trilling and rummaged in his rucksack. He pulled out a number of twigs and arranged them around himself and then retrieved a small Tupperware box, opened it and ate a couple of fat, wriggling earthworms.

Most of the questions in life can be found in the lyrics of Roger Waters. If there is a better lyricist then I am a Chinaman. But even Roger would be stumped to explain a nest building, worm eating, bird impressionist on the 11.35 to Sheffield.

“Cuckoo, cuckoo.”

“Cuckoo?” I said.

“Yep! What’s this one?” He raised his hands to his mouth and  blew, his cheek and neck muscles working overtime to shape and twist the sounds.

If it had been the solos of David Gilmour it would have been another story. If there’s been a better guitarist then I’m a Chinaman.

“Robin?” I said meekly.

“Thrush.”

He went through his extensive repertoire. My lack of knowledge was cruelly exposed.

“Blackbird?”

“Canary,”

“Lark?”

“Pelican.”

“Seagull?”

“Flamingo.”

“Twit Twoo, Twit Twoo.”

“Owl?”

“Yep! Which sort?”

“A big one?”

“Barn.”

He chomped on a worm. He stood. He lowered  his head onto his chest, placed his legs together and waddled forward a few feet, turned and returned in the same manner, a low, skittish growl accompanied these movements.

“Need the toilet?” I asked. Worms can’t be good for the digestive tract.

“Emperor Penguin.” He sat.

His body language now carried an air of menace, “You don’t know much about Birds do you?”

“Not really.”

“OK. I’ll make it easy for you.” He repeatedly head butted the seat in front of him, stopping only to smile with a manic bloodstained leer at me before continuing with his butting frenzy. He stopped and sat back. His nose was a bloody mess. A couple of twigs had been dislodged and fallen onto the Carriage floor.

“Fookin’ Hell,” said The Guard who happened to be passing, “That is the best impression of a fookin’ Woodpecker I’ve ever seen.”

“Thanks.”

The Guard focussed on the elderly woman who was sitting in the seat the man had been butting and helped fish out the her partially swallowed top set. Her wig was also akimbo.

“What’s this then?” The man stripped naked and clambered into the overhead shelf. He levered his buttocks over the head of the elderly woman who was checking her top set for any damage and……well…….did something that make pigeons the scourge of city folk.

“You can’t fookin’ evacuate on fellow passengers. It clearly states this in Conditions of  Carriage,” The Guard said in an exasperated fashion.

“But it’s lucky to be crapped on by a pigeon!”

He escaped the clutches of The Police and roosted in the rafters of Sheffield Station. After a three day standoff  he attempted to fly to freedom. According to witnesses he flapped like a wingless, featherless titan.

The last words he uttered were, “Look! I can fl………..”

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Ginger Heartache – With Aunty Bill

Let the Train Take The Strain

Dear Aunty Bill,

Last week I fell in love with my next door neighbour. He is no oil painting (most people who see him have a gag reflex) but I cannot stop thinking about him and his train set. He has a scale version of London Kings Cross station in his back garden.

I was thinking of getting him something for his train set as a way to break the ice as it were.

What would you suggest?

Emily, Bashley

Aunty Bill Replies;

Dear Emily,

This takes me back to the days when I had a train set! Nothing as grand as your neighbours though. Dad was seldom home so we had to run round the garden making train noises and wearing baseball hats pretending we were Casey Jones.

My “Uncle Des” insisted we wore baseball hats and nothing else, he said it was more “authentic”. Never saw Casey Jones with his overalls off though.

Anyway, pigeons would be the ideal icebreaker for your train loving heart-throb. He can place them around his garden to add authenticity. Chuck in some stale bread rolls, a half eaten bag of cheesy Wotsits and scatter vomit in the raised beds to provide a true diet of the London pigeon.

To add an even greater air of Dickensian squalor, ensure that some of the flock should have a missing leg, eye or even a wing that doesn’t flap properly.

Pigeons healthy and deformed, are widely available and will really set the scene. He will love you forever!

Coo Coo! Choo Choo!

Aunty Bill

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Train Travels 23 – Quack

I was parched and decided to buy a cup of tea. The Buffet had no chocolate chip cookies for sale, so I had to settle for shortbread. You can’t have everything in life.

As I walked back to my seat, I noticed a rifle, with telescopic sight, peeking from a toilet cubicle. The gun was being held by a man bedecked in camouflage. The sound of quacking emanated from within.

I thought it wise not to investigate further, but made a mental note to report it to the Guard the next time I saw him.

I reached my seat and sat down. I let the tea stew for a few minutes, I like a strong brew. I removed the bag and added two cartons of UHT milk. The tea was hot. Too hot to drink.

The train approached Kemble station where a large number of commuters alighted. Itching to dunk my biscuits, I took a sip of tea. Still too hot. 

“Quack,”

Was it the Hunter again?               

A  family of Mallards; Hen, Drake and seven ducklings waddled passed me and stopped at the Carriage’s automatic door.

“Quack! Quack!” the Drake said with authority. The door opened and they all trooped through, save for a dawdling duckling who became trapped on the wrong side of the door. The chick called for its parents.

“Quack! Quack!” The door slid back. The duckling was given a ticking off by the Ma Duck.

I took a sip of tea. Still too hot. I popped to the loo. As I returned to my seat after completing my ablutions, I heard,  “Quack! Quack!”

The Mallards were perched on my table. The ducklings were taking turns to hop into my cuppa and paddle, oblivious to the risk of a scalded bottom. 

Pa Duck had caught his bill in one of the empty milk cartons. An incongruous sight. “Mwack” he cried balefully before shaking himself free.

An old woman was throwing bits of bread into the cup. She smiled at me and said,

 “Aren’t they delightful! I love their annual southward migration from the Arctic. Reminds one of the cyclical  beauty of life and nature. Do you think anyone would notice if I butchered the Hen?”

 “Quack! Quack!” ordered the Drake. The Duckling in the tea hopped out and returned to its parents, leaving a trail of tiny webbed prints on the table.

 I felt cheated. My tea had cooled but was unfit to drink. Several tiny sodden balls of bread bobbed in it too. The old woman walked away muttering to herself about Duck death.

 “Ladies and Gentlemen the train is now approaching Stroud Station. For the Ducks in Carriage C, please note you should alight for the Wetlands Centre at this station. A bus is located outside the main station entrance which will take you the rest of the way.”

 “Quack! Quack!” instructed Pa Duck. 

 I watched them wander to the waiting bus, where an officious Pink Flamingo, standing on one leg, checked their names against a roster before letting them board. He refused entry to a Peacock who had tried to disguise itself as a Puffin.

I returned to the Buffet for another cup of tea.

The hunter’s gun still poked from the toilet cubicle.

“They’ve gone,” I said to him.

“Shit. Three weeks I’ve been here as well. And this toilet is backed up.”

The Buffet was closed. I will keep my biscuits for the next trip.

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Train Travel Tales 13 – The Taxidermist

I was looking forward to the weekend trip to Scotland and catching up with my brother and his wife. It had been a difficult few weeks since my wife had left me for the Cobbler. I should have realised something was going on. Her complaint of ongoing heel defects with the stilettos were not really plausible. But at least I would never run short of front door keys.

“Is this seat free?”

A middle aged man appeared in front of me. In his left hand he was carrying a polyurethane sports bag with Adidas emblazoned upon it. In his right hand he held a sturdy carrier bag.

I mumbled that it was. He placed the bags on the table. I looked at the carrier bag, a durable plastic design with reinforced handles. I possessed a number of them, although my bags bore the logo of a slightly more upmarket company.

The head of an Owl appeared from the bag’s opening. Tawny by its markings. I wondered if Asda were doing a promotion on endangered birds of prey. Then it dawned on me. The Owl was dead. Stuffed too.

“Make yourself comfortable Clive, it is a long way to Dunbar,” the man said to the Owl.

Twit Twoo, Twit Twoo I thought to myself.

“Would you mind keeping an eye on Clive for me?” The man asked. I nodded.

“He won’t bite will he?!” I said waggishly.

“He’s dead.” The man replied drily.

He walked towards the buffet car. The Owl stared at me from the opening of the lifetime carrier. Upon closer inspection I noticed that its eyes were different colours. I concluded that the taxidermist was a cheapskate. Or colour blind. And a fellow with a limited sense of humour.

A passenger walked past and stared at the Owl. “I like Owls. I’ll give you thirty quid for him.” I explained the Owl’s circumstances. The man shrugged his shoulders and walked on.

The Owl’s owner returned and nodded his thanks. He was carrying a coffee and a packet of Cheese and Onion crisps. The same brand as mine, which I had bought at great expense from The Pumpkin outlet at Temple Meads.

He unzipped the Adidas bag and retrieved a stoat, at least I think it was a stoat. The small mammal was grasping a small log mounted on a plinth. A brass nameplate was screwed into the plinth. It read “Bessy – a true friend.”

Half a pound of tuppeny rice,  I thought to myself.

The man began to groom the stoat, whistling as he did so. A large middle aged woman stopped and asked him, “Do you know if they have any Cheese and Onion crisps left in the Buffet?”

“Plenty.” The man replied.

“Good.” The woman tottered toward the Buffet.

“Bloody expensive though,” the man said.

“Too true. I bought mine at Temple Meads. £1.20! Outrageous!”

We finished our crisps, relaxing in each other’s company. The Stoat was placed on the table staring out at the passing countryside. When alive she was very inquisitive apparently.

Pop! goes the weasel, I thought to myself.

The Owl remained housed in the carrier bag. It continued to stare at me.

“Got Some!” The fat woman said holding a packet of Cheese and Onion crisps up for us to see.

“Ridiculously expensive though?” We both agreed.

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