Parking Wars

Very recently, due to the Corona Virus pandemic, various hospitals dropped their parking charges, which previously had been astronomically high. If this is a permanent move, it is very much welcomed and the following poem is out of date. If it is just a temporary fix, the text below is valid.

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THE HOSPITAL CAR PARK

The hospital car park today

Is invariably ‘Pay and Display,‘

If you don’t buy a ticket

And dutifully stick it,

Your car will be clamped straight away.

If you’ve just crawled in off your sick-bed

Or your head’s hanging on by a thread,

There is still no respite,

Be it morn, noon or night,

You must pay and display - or you’re dead!

Yet if you’re a nurse or a cleaner,

You pay too - which is even obscener.

Yes, it’s all a bit thick

For the ill-paid or sick

And it’s all getting meaner and meaner.

Maggie Smart

The Great Fairy Save

Magical things happen when you are five years old

Chloe Smart was five years old and, because five is a magical age, it is understandable that sometimes exciting and unexpected things happen. So, Chloe was not in the least surprised when she received a letter from a donkey. This was no ordinary donkey, this was the Green China Donkey, a very wise animal indeed, who knew loads of important things and had connections with some extremely influential people.

As the weeks passed, Chloe came to know a number of other curious creatures, some of whom also sent her letters and entertained her with details of their lives and their various squabbles. One, amongst the many, was Bella The Elephant, a pink, soapstone elephant, who, since she was always in a pickle, caused her friends no end of upsets.

Then there was Mitten The Squitten, (half squirrel-half kitten) who 'lived in an ash tree, that was tidy and trash-free.' Mitten was a successful private detective, whose skills would be put to good use in the bothersome matter of the Fairy Garden, which was under threat by a group of hoodlum magpies and crows.

The adventures that all these creatures shared had resulted in a good deal of work for Chloe who, together with her grandma, recorded all their goings-on in a wonderfully illustrated book which recounts the triumphs and disasters that culminated in:

'The Great Battle of the Fairy Garden.'

(The brilliant artwork on this page is courtesy of Chloe May Smart)

That Wretched Absence Note ...

Were schooldays really the happiest days of our lives? Well, yes and no. My three sons' schooldays were certainly chaotic for me, with each of them attending a different school. How had we managed to contrive that? Looking back, I now also begin to understand that I had brought a good deal of the drudgery upon myself.

Take, for instance, that wretched absence note:

Feeling really sorry for my son's form-master, having to read all those boring absence notes, I decided to spice things up a bit by writing the next one in rhyming couplets. This I did and it totally back-fired on me. The note was read out in the staff room and much appreciated. I was requested to write all future correspondence in verse.

A victim of my own success, I would typically find myself at 07.45, with just three minute left to leave the house on the school-run, struggling to find rhymes for 'laryngitis,' 'middle ear-infection' and other such maladies.

Were schooldays really the happiest days of our lives?

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Dear Mr. Wood,

Smart came home on Tuesday night,

Said he wasn't feeling right!

Get your homework done, I said,

Then I packed him off to bed.

Wednesday morning, 3.03

He threw up - comprehensively!

And writhed and wretched, the little sham,

And griped and groaned, ad nauseam.

Till by today, I'd had enough.

'Cos I myself am feeling rough

So, back to school, I've done my part.

Yours sincerely,

Maggie Smart