Number 56, To sea or not to sea.

This is number 56.  I have been working long hours, yesterday I got up at 5.00am and returned home at 7.30 pm, the same will be true on Monday, so I try to get inspiration while I am out on the road.  Sometimes it comes, sometimes it doesn't. One day I hope that a publisher will enable me to stay home and write and not need to thunder up and down the roads of England in a juggernaut.  If I had all day to do it, I think the challenge would be much easier, but then it would be less of a challenge.  So here is a rhyme about contentment.

To sea, or not to sea.

My family are not a wealthy lot,

We work quite hard, though paid well we are not!

But what we have is nothing you could buy;

I know, I’ve seen a lot of people try!

We’re living in a very pretty place,

A long way from the city and rat race.

The air is very healthy, pure and clean;

The view from here is something to be seen.

If I go out and look towards the sea,

There’s nothing that can spoil the view for me.

It’s very nearly twenty miles away,

And just about be glimpsed on a clear day.

The sky is unpolluted here at night,

And when it’s clear it is a marvelous sight;

The stars are brighter here, and many more

Than can be seen elsewhere, and that’s for sure.

Our house was built six hundred years ago,

When life was probably a bit more slow;

A gentle happy atmosphere pervades,

And what we need we seem to have in spades.

Our garden is a very big to-do;

The lawn alone takes several hours to do.

And all around are fields and bridleways,

To wander and explore on sunny days.

In winter on occasions when it snows,

We are the place that everybody knows

To come to and enjoy the annual thrill,

Of sledging down our own particular hill.

In autumn mushrooms are the things to find;

We have them to ourselves, and we don’t mind

That everybody else is too afraid,

Though many times their fears we have allayed.

They eat them when they come and visit us,

And at the local pub they make a fuss

About the local mushrooms we provide;

It’s us who gathers them from far and wide!

The track to get here’s rough and very long,

There are no signs so you can get it wrong

And end up in a very different spot;

As friends of ours and strangers do a lot!

But once you’re here you’re in a magic place,

And everybody says it is the case.

We do not have a lot of fancy stuff,

But what we have would seem to be enough.

There’s friends of ours and neighbours down the lane,

Who go to London time and time again

To earn a lot more money than we do,

And do a lot more shopping than us too!

The thing is that they all are very nice,

You wouldn’t think that they all shared a vice;

Despite the Jones’s having mostly died

To keep up with them they have clearly tried!

They hanker after something cold and wet;

Something that’s flat and featureless and yet,

Despite it being dangerous and vast,

All of them are heading off there fast!

The countryside for miles around is free,

But all of them just want to go to sea;

The one thing that they all seem to have got

Is something very expensive; a yacht!

© Stephen Saunders

To book Steph'nonsense for a rhyming evening:
bowleyfarm@gmail.com or 01428 741212

Agent / publisher wanted.