Already!

ALREADY!

So where did that year go to?

It's only just arrived!

Is it really twelve whole months

That I have just survived?

I'd swear that it was yesterday

I was singing 'Auld Lang Syne'!

Wishing everyone good luck

 And drinking too much wine!

Easter slithered past me!

Birthdays hopped on by!

The winter came and then it went!

The sun rolled round the sky!

There are a few more wrinkles

To mark the passing year;

Whatever happens in my life

They, without fail, appear.

But Twenty-Ten was meant to be

A year of such import,

So vital and so different....

At least, that's what we thought.

So we stumble into another year

Trusting that we can cope.

My best wishes to everyone!

Thank goodness we live on Hope!

*

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HAPPY NEW YEAR!

This was my New Year Wish for you two years ago! Not much has changed!

Another year has passed and gone;

Once more it's time to travel on.

Maybe we view the year askance:

Will it lead us a merry dance?

The year that's gone was not the best,

But still, so far, we've passed the test.

Think of all that we've come through!

We're pretty feisty, me and you.

Everything will turn out fine

(We hope!) in the coming year, Oh-Nine.

*

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PS

My peeyesses have been non-existent lately because I 'lost' my camera's ability to move shots between the camera and the computer. However, I had a brain-wave yesterday so I'll play catch-up.

We had our main Xmas meal on Xmas Eve evening this year as Brian was going to be on duty down in Sydney on 'the day'.

Here are the boys being uncooperative about a photograph on that occasion!

I read the riot act on Xmas Day. The result is TOO serious!!!

 Yesterday Malcolm and I spent the morning at the Lake, having lunch there. After the weeks of rain (Queensland is still a disaster area) it was lovely to enjoy perfect weather.

 At home everything looked lush too. I'm delighted with Malcolm's garden renovations.

*

255. Chintz.

New Year! A time for nostalgia!

The picture couldn't be more appropriate to this poem. The scene portrays the idealised 'Englishness' of my childhood, no doubt seen through rose-tinted glasses. I have often wondered how our parents, with the threat of War hanging over them, managed to create an atmosphere of calm and certainty! Nowadays, with young children learning so much about War and Depression and Crime from the TV it must be much harder to shelter them from reality, which is what my parents did.

CHINTZ.

A New Year dawns and I recall

Other New Years when I was small,

When 'Christmas trees were still so tall'

And way above me.

When, in the Northern Hemisphere

I woke up to another year,

Surrounded by those I held dear,

And knew would love me.

The world seemed oh, so safe and calm,

So quite removed from all alarm,

So free of anything like harm,

So bright and breezy.

Such chintzy cheer, such fire-bright flames,

Such relatives with well-known names,

Such laughter and such merry games.

Life seemed so easy.

Yet, for the adults at that time,

Life often seemed far from sublime,

The threat of Universal Crime

And Conflagration

Approached from somewhere very near,

And it drew nearer every year,

At any time it would appear

With devastation.


How did my parents laugh and smile,

With Hitler hovering all the while?

Yet breast-beating was not their style;

They showed no sorrow.

That's why, at certain times like these,

When worries tend to taunt and tease

I like to mutter 'Stand at ease!'

To face tomorrow.

Here, in a country far away,

I wake up on this holiday

Hoping, that I, like them, can stay

Relaxed, unflurried,

So that my grandsons may recall

When they are older, strong and tall,

That childhood was good fun, that's all,

And stay unworried.