Dad's Garden

When I was 9 years old we moved from a small terraced house with a backyard to a semi-detached house with a real garden. That was when our Dad became a gardener. He had never owned a garden before and so he started with plants that he knew.

First of all Dad planted rose bushes.
I have some lovely rose bushes in my garden especially one that my sister bought for a rather large and special birthday.

Next he moved on to annuals; blue lobelia, white allysum and small marigolds that he planted in a neat row every spring.
I don't have marigolds. The slugs love them too much. But I do have lobelia and allysum each year and they always remind me of Dad.

Dad soon became more adventurous. I'll never forget the day he came home with a Broom. Its name gave me the giggles. How could a broom be a bush?
Now I too have a Broom. It's a smaller variety than the one Dad bought but it's beautiful. It smells headily sweet at this time of the year and it reminds me of Dad and his first ever garden.

Our Local Keep Fit Class

[I really did view this event but I’ve changed the location for the sake of dignity.]

Loud music roared out from our local church hall. 

I walked in through the graveyard to pry.

To coin an old phrase, it could waken the dead 

And in this place they had better not try.

I crept to the window to have a quick peek 

But a sign said, “All welcome. Come in!”

So I peeped round the door as the Lady Up Front 

Shouted, “Left, right and bend!” What a din!

I looked round the room at this new fitness group. 

Not one would see sixty again.

Each moved as if hearing a different tune. 

Each winced as a turn caused them pain.

The group were dressed up in all manner of clothes. 

Some wore jumpers, some even wore hats.

One lady wore gloves and a pair of suede boots, 

Then I looked at the exercise mats.

There was no way this lot would get down on the floor. 

If they did they’d need help getting up.

But the Lady Up Front didn’t give it a thought 

As she shouted, “Left, right, bend. Keep up!”

So this was our council’s new keep fit idea 

To stop old folk from turning to sloth

But I worried that rather than helping them live, 

They were likely to kill them all off!

[Many apologies if the fitness instructor or the group recognise themselves... but they do say that the ability to laugh at ourselves can be beneficial to health!]

Playing with words

I love playing with words. I can happily sit with a cryptic crossword for hours and delight over such clues as:
      Big impression made by small character on the stage (6 letters)
      [The answer is at the bottom of this post in case you haven't worked it out.]

 

Puns are my favourite kind of joke... I couldn't work out why the ball was getting bigger, and then it hit me. No? Oh well, it made me smile. It's the kind of joke that provides Tim Vine with a living, isn't it?

Unintentional malapropisms have me helpless with laughter. Apologies to regular visitors to this blog because I have told this anecdote before, but I once asked the ice cream seller for a large cornflake instead of a large cornet with a flake, I laughed so much I ended up in a heap on the pavement [Don't know who left the heap there - boom! boom!... Sorry!]

Spoonerisms are equally amusing. I've mixed up the phrase 'nook and cranny' so many times that now, when things go missing, I regularly search in every crook and nanny. And whenever the weather forecaster announces that there will be frost and fog I am compelled to add, "Or do they mean fost and frog?" Humour me. April was a long month!

I recently heard of a different kind of word mix-up, a mondegreen, the mis-hearing of song lyrics. As I've just spent the entire month of April immersed in song lyrics I thought it was serendipitous when, half way through the month, I turned on BBC Radio 4 as they were discussing mondegreens. I hope I didn't commit any glaring mondegreens during the A to Z. I was extremely careful because I have been known to sing the occasional incorrect song word. My best remembered mondegreen was a song called The Wichita Lineman. I was convinced that it was called The Witch of Alignment. 

If you've made any glaring gaffs over song words or well-known phrases then do please share them. I'm sure we could all do with a smile after the strains of a cold, dull and extremely busy April.

[The answer to that crossword clue is impact. Good, isn't it!]

Z Song Lyrics - A to Z Challenge

 Last but not least...
 
It's songs beginning with Z

And there's just the one lyric snippet to send you off smiling!

 

1960s:           Zippedy Doo Dah - Bob B Soxx and the Blue Jeans

1970s:          Ziggy Stardust - David Bowie [Ziggy played guitar, jamming good with weird and gilly...]

1980s:           Zoom - Fat Larrie's Band [...just one look and then my heart went boom, suddenly and we were on the moon...]

1990s:           Zombie - The Cranberries [...in your head, in your head...]

I could have said lots more things about lots more song lyrics but I'm going to let Bob B Soxx end this extravaganza on a really happy note...

Zippedy Doo Dah

This was originally recorded for a 1946 Disney film called Song of the South. Phil Spector produced this Bob B Soxx rhythm and blues version.

'Zippedy Doo Dah 
Zippedy A
My oh my what a wonderful day.
Plenty of sunshine heading my way.

Zippedy Doo Dah 
Zippedy A...'

You now have to imagine a cartoon version of me skipping out of shot with bluebirds encircling my head...

Done it! Woohoo!

I'd like to thank everyone who visited my A to Z this year and a really big thanks to all those who commented. It's been a great month. See you in May.

 



Y Song Lyrics - A to Z Challenge

This is an April Blog Challenge. Normal blog posts will resume in May.

So much more than moons and Junes

• Today it's the penultimate list of songs and they begin with Y
• And here are my penultimate lyric snippets!

1960s:           You'll Never Walk Alone - Gerry and the Pacemakers

1970s:           You're So Vain - Carly Simon

1980s:           Your Love is King - Sade [...round and round and round my head, touching the very part of me...]

1990s:           You're Still the One - Shania Twain [Looks like we've made it. Look how far we've come now baby...]

You'll Never Walk Alone

Rogers and Hammerstein wrote this beautiful song for the stage show, Carousel. I think it's a shame that the football crowds have adopted it because it has a special place in my heart that has nothing to do with football. You may have read my F post where I talked about agoraphobia and holding a song in my head to help me through difficult times. This song was another of those.

'When you walk through a storm
Hold your head up high
And don't be afraid of the dark...'

It didn't save my sanity quite as much as 'For Once in My Life' did but I used to play the Gerry and the Pacemakers' version in my bedroom over and over again and try to get inspiration from the words.

'...walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart
And you'll never walk alone...'

The mantra is almost one of religious faith.

What does this song say to you?

You're So Vain

Carly Simon wrote this song but never revealed who it was about. Some think it was Warren Beatty but it could just as easily have been Mick Jagger or Kris Kristofferson.

'You walked into the party 
like you were walking onto a yacht
Your hat strategically dipped below one eye
Your scarf it was apricot...

...You're so vain you probably think this song is about you...'

I suppose it could work just as well about a woman although I love the thought that she was having a pop at Mick Jagger. [Did I ever mention that I once chased Mick Jagger across a car park and he'd shouted, "Get off!" and hit me across the face. *swoon*]

Is there someone you know who could fit into this category?

Lots of Y songs I could have used. Which ones are missing here for you?

X Song Lyrics - A to Z Challenge

This is an April Blog Challenge. Normal blog posts will resume in May.

So much more than moons and Junes

• It's lovely, uncomplicated X today. Aaagh!
• Lyric snippets below

1960s:           Legend of Xanadu - Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich [You'll hear my voice on the wind 'cross the sand...]

1970s:           Roxanne - Police

1980s:           Xanadu - Olivia Newton John

1990s:           Exhale - Whitney Houston [Shoop, shoop, shoop...]

RoXanne

Yes, I know the X is in the middle but... *sigh* it's been a long month! Sting is said to have written this song when the band were staying in a seedy Paris Hotel where prostitutes were 'walking the streets'.

'...you don't have to put on the red light
Those days are over
You don't have to sell your body to the night...'

It's a sad truth that there is a lot of prostitution in most UK cities. I suspect it's the same the world over. To me it seems wrong in every way.

Do you agree that while men are paying for sex we'll never have full emancipation for women?

Xanadu

The lyrics to this song from the film of the same name are decidedly moons and Junes so I thought I'd just say that Xanadu, the Kubla Khan's summer palace, is mentioned in Coleridge's poem, Kubla Kahn and it's given a surreal, almost Garden of Eden, or paradise quality.

There's no way I missed an X song, is there? This was a really difficult letter!

W Song Lyrics - A to Z Challenge

This is an April Blog Challenge. Normal blog posts will resume in May.

So much more than moons and Junes

• Today's songs begin with W
• Plus some lyric snippets to set you thinking and commenting!

1960s:           Walk On By - Dionne Warwick [If you see me walking down the street and I start to cry each time we meet, walk on by...] 

1970s:           We Are The Champions - Queen 

1980s:           Woman In Love - Barbra Streisand [Life is a moment in space, when the dream is gone it's a lonelier place...]

1990s:           Wind Of Change - Scorpions

We Are The Champions

Freddie Mercury wrote this classic anthem tune, guaranteed to get a crowd singing and swaying together.

'We are the champions, my friend
And we'll keep on fighting til the end...'

Mercury knew how to rouse a crowd. What a loss he is to the music scene.

What's your favourite anthem tune?

Wind of Change

This song was written by Klause Meine to celebrate the end of the Cold War with Russia. The video shows the fall of the Berlin Wall. How sad that families had been separated by that wall for so long.

'I follow the Moskva
Down to Gorky Park
Listening to the wind of change...'

'...Did you ever think
That we could be so close, like brothers.
The future's in the air...'

The Moskva is the river that runs through Moscow and Gorky Park is an amusement park there. I'm starting to (inevitably) get repetitive here but I don't understand why we have to have wars, be they hot or cold and as soon as one area of friction is soothed another flares.

Will we ever be at peace with each other?

Did I miss any W songs?