• Late evening walk, in these strange times
    Like a gnarled old hand, the spindly tree spread out above me Stooped over the country lane Its silhouetted fingers, tickling the hedge-hemmed curious calves Lying in wait somewhere, hidden and camouflaged – The accursed covid corsair Ready to make inroads, to breach boundaries, to infect and infest To strangle the lungs Of the desperately […]
  • Peter Bonetti, R.I.P.
    If I wasn’t Ossie for the day Then I’d be the Cat For he was our hero And that was that All over the goalbox He’d leap and spring “There’s only one Peter Bonetti” Oh, how the Shed would sing And now that he’s gone Our memories all good and true For he was the […]
  • Busy as ever?
    The nest-builders are as busy as ever…. a delightfully dappled thrush appears at one of my garden pots checks surreptitiously for danger instinctively knows I am fastened behind the bars, of toughened glass he / she selects twigs and dried leaves tucks them up into their bushel of a beak and flutters away, with busy, […]
  • Social Distancing
    Usually, it’s an acerbic reaction An emphatic ‘bothered’ and ‘bemoaned’ Whence learning of: “All matches postponed” But this time around We nod and agree when it’s intoned For containment of COVID-19 Is the combat condoned Coughing or sneezing ‘uncovered’ Is roundly disowned And the collective goal Is a virus dethroned
  • Hot Press
    I watched the first half live last night then I switched off for I guessed what would follow: lauded team of Albion, one down to an early, fluky goal a team unquenchable in the domestic league but up against a needling, durable, desperate bunch who’ve found their form in this one game back to their […]