Author: Mad Aunt Bernard

A portal into the world of my poetry that takes it's inspiration from total rubbish. I work in the dark, down a hole, in a hedge. These works were first written from my base in the Cornish county of Trebollocks, where I also make clothes from fly-paper. Journal entries, usually concerning bizarre family matters. Poems, some tortoisy, some not - it depends what day of the week it is. But it's never about windmills or ghosts, that I can tell you. I am a Shrieking Tutor teach Advanced Hiding Skills at Trebollocks College, I studied tortoise flinging at Nempnett Thrubwell Academy of Reptile Propulsion. I have sinced moved to the County of Gloucestershire, and have a new hedge in the Parish of Clopton Mandrill. I am old. I am warty. I have a beard like a dandelion clock. I have two toads, some spiders, and a bat. My sister is terrified of satsumas. A trumpet's as good as a wig to a blind owl in a coracle. Born on 1 April 1905 My brain hurts.

Lynton Limpet Festival

Good evening, my little coddled eggs. I am writing to you from a very plush holiday hedge in Devon, which is most satisfactory. Within the windswept twisted twigs, I have a USB socket and WiFi, a luxury bed and a buggered toaster. I’m staying with Aunt Vom, Aunt Bench and Folly for the grand event of the Limpet Festival in Lynton, North Devon. It’s been a mite fractious getting here, as Aunt Vom borrowed (later found out nicked) a motor car and drove us here at speeds that have lifted my eyebrows a whole inch. The upside is I look 15 years younger, but resemble an owl on crack.

Lynton is a curious place, and should be famous for tortoises, as the pace is so crawly. I began to feel very, very old simply by looking at other people. There was, sympathetically, a Cobweb Shop, for the young at heart, encouraging people to slow down and mix with the general ambience. For those who have a fair walking pace and avoid dawdling in the middle of roads or stopping dead in the middle of paved areas, or for those who can decide what they would like for lunch within forty minutes, it’s possible to buy cobwebs to place over oneself in order to blend in. I gather it is also possible to buy a pill that has the power to make one appear on the brink of death within fifteen minutes.

The festival commenced this morning with a marvellous opening speech from a local Limpet name Gabriel. Apparently he is marvellously clever, and his vocabulary is unrivalled even by Stephen Fry. He spoke passionately at length about the life of limpets in the area, their plight in facing the building of tidal defences and the imminent eviction of rock families. He also touched on issues concerning the rise of flat-earth theory followers and the demise of good manners. This was all highly commendable, and apparently other limpets clapped loudly, but regrettably and suddenly, I noticed Aunt Vom clenching her teeth. It was about to kick off.

Local disgruntled limpets, they want justice not cream teas

The fraccas started when Vom began talking under her breath, someone had come over and Shshshh’d her. Her top lip blanched beneath her beard (this is one clue that she’s really pissed), and she reached into her portmanteau for a Chinese throwing star (this is the other clue). Vom launched into a diatribe about how we’d all paid good money to travel to see this spectacle of wonder, only to find that it’s a speech by a Gastropod and nobody has a clue what he’s saying. The organiser tried mansplaining that although you can’t hear the Limpet speaking, his words speak directly to the subconscious, so you walk away with an invisible gift to the soul. I quite liked this and tuned in perfectly. Vom didn’t.

She chinned him. The organiser began shouting about abuse in the workplace and fished out a clipboard. That was the last straw. Clipboards are like a red rag to a bull where Vom is concerned, at which she swiftly flung her stool at him and the whole crowd whipped up into a brawl. There’s still a folding chair on the roof of the Rising Sun pub, and someone’s cockerel weather vane is well buggered.

Notwithstanding, we did have a very pleasant afternoon. We got Vom out of the nick by fibbing dreadfully about menopause and the effects on the female temperament. The fact that it was recently International Women’s Day helped, I feel, at the very mention of menopause, the rozzers just opened the cell door and stood back, stunned.

Later, we decided we’d take the Cliff Top Railway which was like a bone-shaking water-powered lift providing the traveller with issues of altitude sickness and alarming perspective. I managed to keep things jolly while Vom orated that the whole system is designed to dupe the visitor. She claimed it’s solely for thick people to stand at the bottom, squint up with mouths open like dead fish, pay thruppence, then stand at the top only to squint down with mouths open like dead fish, then be conned out of sixpence for tea and a bun without the pleasure of ‘feeding dangerous gulls’. We almost avoided a fight in the carriage, when Vom stated nobody who lives in the Midlands should be allowed to travel outside the Midlands. Mr and Mrs Ivor Merkin of Edgebaston were restrained while she rambled, and their sudden fall over the side will thankfully remain a mystery. All in all, it was a lovely view and all was going well. Then, an hour later, we had to take Folly to the Poison Unit. She’d eaten something in someone’s clifftop garden and began hallucinating and frothing. To be blattidly honest, I didn’t notice for twenty minutes.

Clattery thing that attracks people who say ‘Ooh look Stan!’

I am baffled as to three questions, however, which I feel need answering. With regards to North Devon, why are there fudge shops every ten paces? And why do people walking in front suddenly stop without warning to take a picture of something totally irrelevant, like their own feet? And why in the name of Saturn’s Arse do couples decide to walk like a one-man-band with heavy weather clothing, crampons and walking poles when they’re only moving 30 feet from the car park?

Oh, and one more. We were a party of four. Where in the name of Zeus’s Nutsack is Aunt Bench?

Tortoise-Sitting Goes Deeply Wrong

I must confess, I made the gravest mistake today. Folly is jollying off on a Hiding Weekend with the ‘Nervous Branch of the Girl Scouts’. Bench became dreadfully fractious on the yoghurt pot phone and threw a total hissy, and in my efforts to calm her, I was duly conned into aggreeing to look after Wesley.
Wesley is a tortoise.
Despite the name of my writings, I don’t fare at all well with these creatures. This particular shelled joy looks like Douglas Hurd when he’s pondering something very carefully.
It’s so frustrating, he doesn’t ‘do’ anything. Well, actually, that’s a slight untruth, he did at first. His head came out, he moved his mouth like an elderly man demanding sustenance, then retreated when he saw me. Now, he is dreadfully quiet.
Aunt Bench should have kept him, especially as he belongs to her daughter. Unfortunately Bench is at the spa this week with Aunt Claymore and Cousin Girda. Aunt Claymore is being waxed (head to toe), Cousin Girda is being waned, and Bench is having some splendiferous conditioning jollop carded into her beard by a Tibetan throat singer.
So I’m lumbered with a sedentary tortoise. He doesn’t appear to enjoy entertainment.
I decided to ditch the ‘flinging’ idea at two o’clock due to his look of total disdain, I don’t think he knows about the Arguineguin Tortoise Flingers. So, I put on La Tapatia radio from Mexico, in the hope he may welcome some light music. But he didn’t move. I performed shadow puppets, I made a batman mask by turning my hands inside out over my eyes. Nothing. I did the classic – here is the church, here is the steeple – but the ungrateful little boggart gave me nothing to work with.
So I thought – food.
I had flageolet beans with goat’s rue and tree bark for dinner. Then I decided to throw in my neighbours’ buggered chicken, Len, he’s on his last legs anyway. Then I threw in a bhuna sauce.
And thought he might like some……………………..

WHAT AM I GOING TO TELL THEM!?!?!?
My shrieking classes start in a week, and I’ll be done for Torticide. I’ll be imprisioned for taking the life of a small dry thing (by mistake), and sentenced to a ten stretch, or worse – it could be community service. This is a horror, for several reasons.

1. It means being present in the community.

2. I’ll have to sort jigsaws for a jumble sale (most have a missing piece and I just want to hurl a stool at the donator).

3. I’ll have to make pleasantries (speaks for itself). This means my impersonation of a whelk will hold no quarter with anybody.


I can’t use the ‘hibernation’ excuse, as I did that with the last one. I can’t say he ran away, as Bench had him fitted with a tracker built by NASA. I can’t say he’s dead because Bench will get Aunt Vom to get a Triad to kill me.
So I need options.
I have killed tortoise with either flageolet beans, or goat’s rue or tree bark, or buggered chicken, or bhuna.
Or all three.

So I’ve blown out all the candles, I’m sitting in my hedge with an emergency torch
and the Radio Times and some Bovril, because I’m in hiding until I know what to do. I’ve also got my hands placed over my eyes so no-one can see me. If any of you dear people have any suggestions, please share them with me – I’ve still got time on my side. Bench isn’t back for three days, and Folly’s weekend hiding thankfully only ends when someone finds her.

Yours in fearful imancipation,
MAB

p.s. If anyone could post some Twiglets I’d be well chuffed (address it please, to: Mad Aunt B, The Hedge, Trebollocks). Also, if you possess the newflangled contraption of a yoghurt pot phone and you are a solicitor offering free advice, my number is St Vitus 201.

Woodchuck Calculations – For The Mathematical Reader Who Can Do Hard Sums

I was pondering aloud a question which has touched the very depths of my brain for years. Just how much wood can a woodchuck chuck, if a woodchuck could chuck wood? One of my two readers, Heather, commented on the fact that I should not ask questions about woodchucks and their work ratio with out the backup of advanced mathematics.

Pah!

Well, I’ve have the measure of this woman with her fancy ways. So, I am not thwarted by hard sums. I wore my twig spectacles and brought out an abacus and a sextant, which means I am very clever. This is the result –

I have calculated that 612 over 35-7 for the thing, needs to be timesed by a 4% drop in activity on a 16min tea break. Then times by a 124 degree bend for beak ratio over a wide angle of 631.444 doobreys, divide by Widdy, and add the number of wankel rotary engines in a seven mile radius over a log pile of 619.

The result is: A woodchuck can clear 6 logs, 4 twigs, and clear 2 piles of leaf litter when he’s almost finished.

(And yes, Heather, I have shown my workings)

Mr Buff Orpington-Brown

I will explain a few things about ‘Buff’,
He is known to many in town.
Trebollocks would be blander without him,
Mr Scrimpton Buff-Orpington-Brown.
His eyebrows sweep rubbish from streets,
He’s erratic and changes directions.
He is a master woodworker, but strangely,
No soul wants to see his erections.
The smell of his clothing is odd,
Like cats pee mingled with cloves.
He likes to break wind in the library –
And send out the public in droves.
Every thing is labelled with Dymo,
Even the Dymo labeller itself.
It’s kept in a box marked with Dymo,
On a clearly marked ricketty shelf.
He knows when the freezer was defrosted,
By a Dymo label, he’s told.
But he doesn’t know the fridge-life of cheddar,
As the date is obscured by grey mould.
The man has pamphlets on everything –
From scrofula to chronic amnesia.
And he’s been up to Slimbridge a million times more
Than a Canada Goose with a Visa.
Real poetry must rhyme to be good,
Or he’s just unblattidly appalled.
Pam Ayres is an Artist, Larkin is cack,
and Spike Milligan had no talent at all.
To build his collection of objects,
He fishes strange things from a skip.
He keeps them ten years for good measure,
Then takes them off down to the tip.
Famous is Buff, and a legend in town –
Unbeaten in oddness by far.
And he’ll offer you a lift, when it’s raining,
If he remembers where he parked his car….

Grand Tortuga Flinging Festival

Hola! Mantequilla! Zapatos! Orificio Nasal!
‘Tortuga’ is Spanish for tortoise, I hear, so it’s my new word. I’m back home after a whirlwind surprise holiday in sunny Gran Canaria. I won a prize after entering a competition on a box of Aunt Bench’s fly papers and answered the following question correctly….’When is it considered acceptable to electrocute a sleeping relative?’. And would you believe…. Jolly Dee! I won! (Aunt Weevil is fuming as my victory was gained only by copying her answer and burning her entry. No doubt she’ll get me back…my Wart Insurance has lapsed and I fear this is an omen..)

I flew out from St Swivel’s airfield on a sort of pedaloe with wings, and sat next to the gunner. It was a pleasant flight, with insects hitting my goggles and a flagrantly crap view of the sea. I landed in Bahia Feliz in the early hours of Sunday 14th. The temperature was very warm, and I found a new level of stench in my sack attire. Nice.
My company was fabulous, a collection of ten of us who thoroughly enjoyed annoying other tourists, eating everything in sight, and drinking almost anything that was labelled (and some things that weren’t). We haggled in markets with looky-looky men selling dreadful sunglasses, swam in crystal blue pools (a far cry from the ditch I live near), and poked fun at people changing awkwardly under small beach towels.

Well, the bonanza was fabulous. Juan de la Vega (above) was there with his matador act. He is my hero. I obtained his autograph, and he shook my hand. I shall not wash it again, although he washed his very quickly after. He was mildly impaled by one tortoise, but it was only a flesh wound. We were hoping for something more, as the Arguineguin Tortoise Flingers were late to arrive, and the act was getting a little stale.

The Arguineguin Tortoise Flingers finally appeared, and broke not only a Canarian record, but a World Flinging record of 320.8ft. The longest fling in history since Edward II had a go, and a man in ballooned trousers wrote it down before it became known he’d fibbed about the measurment.
After the tortoises are launched off the cliff, they gather at the bottom to come back up and take their places for the next flinger. The picture above is a birds-eye view of the lift coming back up after the first round. The tortoises pictured are multi-lingual, and are all sponsored by Speedo and San Miguel.

This was the picture I took of Juan de la Vega’s tortoise, after it went on the rampage. It is a Midlothian Thurible Tortoise, a particularly aggressive species and broke free of its moorings several times. It ate an old lady called Renata. The x-ray I saw clearly shows her in the beasts stomach, still knitting away. Bless.
The story was that it had been fed peanut kit-kat in addition to breakfast, and that is not a good idea.

Then we had music. First were the Fataga Reptile Orchestra accompanied by a small singing gecko from Sioux City. Next up was a variation on ‘Lip Up Fatty’ from the Maspalomas Naked Singing Troupe….nuff said – a little twee for my tastes. Then we were charmed by these two delightful children, Maria and Miguel Vileda, they played the tortoise for us. Maria is pictured tuning the tortoise, while Miguel is on standby to hold the legs and begin playing.
Although this picture seems full of jollity, I was suspicious that it was a case of the children fulfilling the dream of the parents. Maria confided to me that all she wanted in life was ‘a bloody Nintendo DS’.
Miguel didn’t comment. His face says it all.

So, I finally flew back in to good old Blighty on Sunday, and they didn’t even bother to land. Just pushed me out over the airfield, with only my double chin as a parachute. Charming. Passport control below became very crabby when I ‘didn’t look like my photograph’, and it appears that my unshaven appearance had fooled them. I usually keep a smooth chin (despite the odd habits of my sisters), and a three inch of growth like pampas grass meant I was immediately whisked off to an office for interrogation as to the whereabouts of thirty pounds of semtex. At that point, I remembered last month that I couldn’t find my passport. At the same time, Aunt Vom had been on a ‘weapons run’ to somewhere, and I just feckin’ knew she’d stitched me up like a kipper. I found some luck after a bribe with some Honey Rum laced with cuckoo spit, and a naked picture of Jeremy Irons in sepia – the Customs Bugger let me in.

I hope to be back in good old G.C. soon, and take my perfected shrieking act to the Spanish masses. You never know, if you’re familiar with the island, you may well see a haggard, warty, stinking old bat shrieking professionally one day from the top of Roque Nublo. Pip pip and glad to be back with you all! Missed you like buggery….well, not quite like that.

Bench Of The Week

Today is Friday, and it’s time to celebrate ‘Bench Of The Week’, so, for those among you who may have missed earlier stories – here is Aunt Bench.

Aunt Bench is one of my elder sisters, and lives in East Bung, with her only daughter, Folly. Bench has never quite recovered from a vexatious birth experience, as Folly was delivered by tractor pulling. Even this day, the trauma has left Bench with an overwhelming addiction to licking fly papers, and we frequently find her slumped by the pantry cupboards, with several sheets adorning her thin body, in a state of delirium.

Folly is now thirty years of age, but I fear Bench will always be duty bound to leave her under the beady eye of Mrs Coddy (who in my opinion is the SS branch of neighbourhood watch). Bench enjoys several hobbies, including staring at people in public, beard shows, barking classes, quilling and looking at the letter ‘o’. It’s quite a marvel when she combines them all in a single hour.

As a young child, she was a skilled competitor in our local dance competitions, and would frequently astonish judges with her own interpretation of the St Vitus Dance, a regional favourite and an invention of an ancestor of ours. Her fears and phobias include brown windsor soup, question marks, woad, and Folly, her daughter. She has favoured the more delicate beard, in contrast to our other bearded relatives, Aunt Vom and Aunt Turgid, who do not like thinning scissors. Bench favours the feminine look, which also compels her to wear sleeves as she does not care to display her Navy tattoos in public.

As a member of the RSPB, she fosters abandoned wrens, which she allows to nest freely in her hair. The bun allows them warmth, shelter, and some morsel of security. When on a bus into town, or in the vet to get her jabs, you could be forgiven for thinking she’s innocently adjusting a hairpin, when actually she is often posting in a mealworm that she’s stealthily taken from her handbag to feed her adopted brood. Bench is also a member of The Human and Crow Vocal Collective, she has made wonderful efforts to learn their language. She is frequently observed on neighbouring television aerials ‘kaaarking’ her head off, stealing chip papers from bins and rampaging across car parks to rip off windscreen seals with her ‘pretend’ beak.

A fascinating, odd, troubled soul. Many a time I could cheerfully take a plank of wood to her, but that’s family. Well, it’s mine, at any rate. But although, like Bagpuss, she is a baggy, and bit loose at the seams, we love Bench.

An Unexpected Diary Entry

I do not usually approve of such things as diary entries (in case one reads anything highly alarming or dubious), but I thought I should include one today. My father never approved of diaries, thinking them crass and obscene articles to be banished along with the egg whisk. This week has been a horror! My computing machine is on the blink, the hedgenet socket at the base of my tree has blown a piffle-fuse, I’ve had raging Piddock Flu, and it seems my sister, Bench (above), has forgotten to come and collect her daughter who arrived for a weeks stay – over a month ago. I have written her a letter, and this is the response I got this morning.

Dearest Bernard,
I am so glad you wrote, dear! Poor poor Folly! I’d had this nagging feeling that I had mislaid something. It was only when I read your letter that I realised it wasn’t the pinking shears, but my own darling child. Do send her back, dear, and I am so sorry to have been such an imposition.
You know it’s been a trial for me since she was born, and I honestly thought that now she’d turned thirty, things would be easier. Tell me, has she grown much?
I eagerly await her return,
Warmest love and deepest apologies,

Bench (P.S. Any chance of borrowing fifty quid, old girl? I’ve got a soiree on the east side of the docks at midnight next tuesday. x

Well, I became a little exasperated with her at this point. Bench is a terribly selfish creature, she’s so absorbed in the Weasel Stretching Foundation that she doesn’t give a second thought to others – and that’s without mentioning her chosen line of late night work. But I’m not entirely unsympathetic. Folly (pictured) is a treasure, but she’s dreadfully thick for a girl her age, and playing with traps and poisonous plants in the garden is asking for disaster. Only yesterday, she set fire to her own shoes then pushed them into a letterbox (a public one – so you can imagine I was wondering if my letter to Bench had been collected at all). Thus, I can’t do much more about it this evening, so we’ll have a pleasant dinner before I take the spiders out for a last wee. I’ve got an adder or two left in the freezer and some chicory that needs polishing off so I’ll create something Michel Roux would be in awe of. Perhaps.

A Letter From Aunt Bench About…Well…Folly’s Mood.

I received another letter from Bench this morning, dated two days (!) after Folly’s departure. The cheek of the woman exasperates me so I apologise for the clipped tone of this post but I really am as dreadfully mad as a cut snake.

Why she comes to me I know not, perhaps I am a soft touch? Are the luxuries of my draughty hedge-home too inviting? My hessian crackers and gin breakfasts too tempting? Whatever it is, I shall stop at once. My mother once said – Family are the most precious things, Bern, but remember they won’t ALL fit under your patio. Dear woman, rest her soul.

This is the letter…..

Kindest Dearest Bestest B,

I need to ask a favour, dear. Folly is really trying my patience – I’ve had to call in some lumberjacks to tie her to a dining chair as she’s had one of her heads on. To cut a long story short, she’s poured custard into all my shoes and hidden small incendiary devices all over the house. Aunt Weevil and Doctor Prong have suggested I get away, so I will come to stay if the idea does not rankle with you?

Notwithstanding, it is quite doing my nut in, dear. I can’t go to Aunt Vom as she’s still in the nick, and Mary-Jaffa is still Mary-Jaffa. So I’m coming for a few ——– (typically, this part was illegible). As the carriage journey is so long, I’ve written this six days before I leave so I should be with you in ten minutes.

Folly is being observed by our neighbour, Mrs Coddy, a dear soul. She can see our house from hers, since Folly stole the 7ft hedge last month. Well, see you shortly, pop a gin in a glass for me and I’ll bring the hemlock shortbread.
Pip pip, and tatty bye
-Bench

The woman is absolutely the limit. Folly should have been encouraged to move out now that she’s finished playgroup. For a girl of thirty, she should be doing normal things – vandalism, fighting, shrieking, you understand the drill. I will write to Aunt Vom in Worthing nick – she is the fiesty one and will know how to advise. She sorts out a lot of her problems with something called Chinese throwing stars and Colt.45’s, and swears by them. Perhaps she can put one in the post. I do miss her so, the village hasn’t been the same without the odd disappearance or public disturbance over the price of a stamp.

It’s a pity about the mix-up with the cozzers, she’s so unlucky – it’s the eighth time now. Well, no doubt it well get sorted out, they’ll find she was pushed to her actions, and the MP’s flat bugle will….puff out and…possibly resemble a nose once more. He shouldn’t have put in that £3,487 claim for a platypus sanctuary that doesn’t exist, anyway. Bleeder.

Toodle pip, for now, and keep a look out for the Post-modernists – they’re trying to ban Sutton Hoo again on the grounds that it’s not modern enough.

Aunt Vom’s Poem From Worthing Nick

This is Aunt Vomica. She’s the next sister below me. I am posting on behalf of her as she has been writing poetry to pass the time in Worthing nick after an altercation with an MP. We’ve always been close, but her behaviour is volatile and trying at times. Vom doesn’t like our youngest sibling, Aunt Mary-Jaffa. Her distaste is due to Mary-Jaffa being weak-willed and delicate – and she has a huge satsuma phobia. So Vom pelts her with them at Christmas and loves hiding them in her stocking. Mary-Jaffa faints, and the only thing that can bring her round is the smell of satsumas. Well, on waking, and being faced with a satsuma, she faints again. This goes on for months sometimes. It’s a pain in the arse quite frankly but we love her dearly, you see. However, I digress, the altercation came about as a local MP asked her for a certain kind of ‘favour’ in relation to a grand townhouse in Flange Street with lots of ‘benefits’. Vom kicked off, and left him with a flat bugle.
Anyway – this was the poem she sent me, apparently it’s called ‘MP Scum and Violence Pays’.

I’m stuck in Worthing nick,
After lamping an MP.
His way evoked sharp anger
So his knackers got my knee.
He wanted special favours,
He got a Glasgow Kiss,
He also got a shooing,
And a crossbow bolt that missed.
Notwithstanding I was cross,
As he called in the Fuzz.
They dived and pulled us both apart,
I got an amazing buzz.
‘Shut yer mouth , yer poncy twat’
‘Who checks your expenses’, When rozzers are on your tail, however,
You run and jump some fences.
I pulled forth a chinese throwing star,
From underneath my skirt.
The constable didn’t clock it,
And fell and hit the dirt.
But here I am in Worthing Nick,
Paying dearly for my crimes,
But I’m breaking out at midnight,
As soon as the town clock chimes.
I’ve got some rope and semtex,
I have a blade or two,
I’ll be on my way to Bumstead,
And in Thrupp by half past two.

She is a marvel, isn’t she? So eloquent and stylish. Aunt Gourd, however, disagrees strongly. She keeps sending her gifts wrapped in pages of the Bible, in the hope the highlighted sections will instill some moral fibre in her. Gourd also feels that taking part in the Easter celebrations in East Bumstead will do her the power of good. They make you take your shoes and socks of and carry a full size granite statue of Jesus up a tall hill, then make you run back down while a training member of the clergy kills your soul with constant criticism and another batters you with a shinty stick. I’m sure it’s all good clean fun in the Vatican but it’s not Vom’s scene.

Right, I must away and check my traffic warden spleens that are drying on a sunny branch. With any luck, they’ll be ready by evensong and I can begin making my time-slowing pouches for the W.I. stall. I’m sure they’ll be glad, parking outside the hall is at a premium.

Pip pip, and may the Sun’s rays warm your bare thrackles, always.

Lazy Witches

My tiny hedge is now quiet after being invaded by these four. They are witches from Gloucestershire, the noisest witches in the land. They arrived from their home on the Gloucester/Sharpness Canal, and unannounced, walked right in with a blunder of suitcases and bats and clompy heels and battered books. I know Gloucestershire witches, my cheese, wine and freshly baked bread had to be safely locked away, along with the rest of the neighbourhoods’. A witch from these parts will sell anyone’s soul to the devil for a glass of Chilean Merlot and some Port Salut on a poppy seed cracker. Well, it’s been a traumatic week, apparently my hedge-home has a ley line running through it, so they’d come armed with dowsing rods, pendulums, charts, maps, 5 bottles of gin, 12 bottles of Cotes Du Rhone, twiglets and vodka. I’ve been moved to vent my spleen in this poem, as a move toward positivity. Axe throwing is always a good back up option.

Stop watching Netflix at once!
And get those toads off your lap!
You’ve eaten all my fresh larks tongues,
You’re angling for a jolly good slap.
Tidy your cloaks from the floor,
And wash up the cauldron I say,
There are runes all over the garden,
And you’ve barely stopped drinking all day.
That broom can be used for sweeping,
It’s not like you’re able to fly.
I’m sitting here thinking of weeping,
You’ve scoffed all my home made pork pie.
A night on the town brings forth objects,
Like policemen and the odd chanting crone,
You venture off out in your black pointy hats,
And return with a motorway cone.
The elders think I’m too modern,
The young think I’m much too square,
I find hexes engraved in my toilet,
And a moment of silence is rare.
The chanting goes on at all hours,
The discussion of magic is deep.
But I listen and pick up some things,
So I do them while you are asleep.
Banishing visitors spell, here I come,
So cease your loud drumming, and away.
I’ve brought in ingredients aplenty,
And your books have led me astray.
So take yourselves back to Gloucester,
Where noisy witches are allowed.
Leave my hedge silent, my cheese unattacked,
And get Shshshh’d all around bloody Stroud.

Lord of Darkness, that feels better. It saves one from a troublesome time, if one can enjoy a good rant, it clears the soul of frustration. And we know some folk can get awfully prickly about a spot of murder. Still, onwards and upwards, now they’ve buggered off I shall be practising the art of Primomancy. This is the ancient skill of gazing at the current Prime Minister and trying to divine truth. To my knowledge, no scholar in the last two millenia have achieved it, so I have much work to do. Pip pip!