1 Last Saturday our other lovely neighbour brought us a pot of tightly closed hyacinth bulbs because they were going away for half term. Rather than leave them to blush unseen and waste their sweetness on the empty air, H brought them to us. They have bloomed and their scent is still glorious so when the family returns this evening, I shall return them so that they can also gain pleasure from the pink delicacy of these beautiful hyacinths.
Pink hyacinths
2 BBC Radio 4 has a lovely programme on Sunday afternoons called Poetry Please. This afternoon the poems were all either written by teenagers, starting with The Force that Through the Green Fuse written by Dylan Thomas when he was only 19 or for teenagers or about teenagers. The poem I am about to share with you fits both those latter categories – and I hope it amuses you rather than causing offence! It is by Adrian Mitchell. one of the Liverpool poets, and was written in 1996.
A Puppy Called Puberty.
It was like keeping a puppy in your underpants
A secret puppy you weren’t allowed to show to anyone
Not even your best friend or your worst enemy
You wanted to pat him stroke him cuddle him
All the time but you weren’t supposed to touch him
He only slept for five minutes at a time
Then he’d suddenly perk up his head
In the middle of school medical inspection
And always on bus rides
So you had to climb down from the upper deck
All bent double to smuggle the puppy off the bus
Without the buxom conductress spotting
Your wicked and ticketless stowaway.
Jumping up, wet-nosed, eagerly wagging –
He only stopped being a nuisance
When you were alone together
Pretending to do your homework
But really gazing at each other
Through hot and hazy daydreams
Of those beautiful schoolgirls on the bus
With kittens bouncing in their sweaters.
