Allotments 4 All

With apologies to Keats

“Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom friend of the maturing sun,
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch eaves run”
But is this just a poet`s fanciful  notion,
A too romantic eulogy of things
Do gardeners always feel such great devotion
To what the autumn season really brings?
The autumn peas that earlier showed good reason
To expect a heavy crop of well filled pods
Have succumbed to the downy mildew of the season
-A most unwelcome present from the gods.
And in the borders other plants and flowers,
The foliage of azalea, phlox and rose,
Show the spreading white of powdery mildew`s powers,
Will the Bressingham Hybrids get it next? Who knows?
A September gale springs up (and without warning)
And as it thrashes through the trees around
I know that when I go out in the morning
The fruitfulness will all be on the ground.
The lawns, of course, have not yet stopped a`growing,
But now the grass stays wet throughout the day
Which makes a messy business of the mowing,
(Although it gets the leaves up, by the way).
The evenings are steadily getting shorter
There`s no light left for gardening after tea,
Tonight `twas dusk by seven and a quarter,
And I hate to spend the evening with T.V.
But I`ve suddenly remembered one good reason
For liking what the Americans call “The Fall”
In three months time `twill be the festive season
And that will make life brighter for us all
So all of you that feel you`re budding tyros
At story telling, and at doggerel rhyme,
Get ready with your notepads and your biros,
It`ll soon be time to write the Pantomime.

Your a wonder Hugh!  Well done for that brilliant poem which I much enjoyed, and all soo true too.  ;D  busy_lizzie

I loved that! ohhh powdery mildew!

Great Hugh!
Bought back memories too as I had to do "seasons of mists" for my English lit "O" level all those years ago! ;D DP

Surprisisng how things didn`t change much under the `old fashioned` educational system, Doris.  I had to learn it at 14 fot the old NUJB School Certificate, and that`s a good few years before you - and I can still recite it word perfectly.

Unfortunately, not word perfect here Hugh, but Shakespears "Merchant of Venice", how I slaved over those quotes, never to be used in conversation ever again! ;D  (except maybe when I go to the butchers and ask for my pound of flesh!!)
Daughter is doing Oliver Twist for her GCSE lit, am enjoying reading it with her. He had quite a wit!

Did Oliver Twist in Lower IVA.  I have the complete set of Dickens` novels and read them all every year.  Must confess my favourite is David Copperfield.

Great, Hugh! = Tim

Wonder if D I C K E N S has ever been called dickens before! ;D

Beautiful Hugh and so true

It looked o.k. on the Preview, and I only saw the wretched thing after tim had made his comment (about D.C. or the bowdlerisation?).  Should have remembered the ones about the `thingypit` in the aeroplane, and the `thingychafer` grubs.  Can you imagine ringing your wine merchant for half a dozen `Thingyburns 57` or asking the London `bus conductor for a ticket to `Thingyfosters`, or tuning to the BBC Light programme every evening in the late 1940s to listen to `Thingy Barton - Special Agent`? (sorry, my age is showing now)

Perhaps we should have a competition to see who can produce the silliest transmogrification of a verifiable english word or proper name.

Loved the poem Hugh.Now you've set me off thinking Xmas parties and Panto.Must get Bonfire day over with first.How i love Bonfire Day.We make it  a family occasion.Yes Autumn has certainly arrived.

I think people in the north might be surprised to find they live in Scunthorpe...

Ten x