Mother’s Day II

Four came back for Mother’s Day
last of March for sun
Late afternoon roast dinner
enjoyed by everyone

Conversation snippets
I listen with a grin
These times with all our children
and the pleasure that they bring

Good music on the Hi-Fi
real ale there in the jar
all combined to make this
Mother’s day spectacular

©Jemverse

Photo – the Croucher clan – Jempics

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Decades

Born in the fifties, baby boom years
A child of the sixties, scuffed knees and tears

A teen in the seventies, met Sal, fell in love
and at the end of the decade, wed the above

Brought a house in the eighties, two offspring we saw
and then in the nineties, along came two more

Watched the i2k clock at the Millennium turn
and nothing stopped working, we were quite pleased to learn

A new century turned and into the noughties
as we left a decade behind and entered our forties

Twenty-ten came and went, the best years of our lives
then we found we were fifty, well what a surprise

And now as the teenies are nearing an end
we are looking at pensions on which to depend

But the twenties will follow when we’ll be retired
so perhaps we’ll go backwards and become more inspired

We have decades more to look forward to yet
with more pleasure to come the older we get

©Jemverse

 

Makeover

We took a week long holiday
and whilst we were away
Our lovely children trashed our house
‘Disgraceful’ you might say
But you’ve not heard the half of it
for what they planned to do
was a complete and total makeover
to create a home brand new

They stripped down all the walls
and painted everywhere
Fixed the big hole in the ceiling
Re-floored the kitchen there
Fixed the plumbing for the drainage
Re-plastered all the gaps
and all of this with only
the occasional mishaps

They tidied every single shelf
and dusted every book
to give our home a wonderful
clean and brand new look
So you can picture our reaction
when we returned and saw all this
It was the perfect present
Big hugs all round and kiss

Particularly when we found
that many more had lent a hand
to give our house its makeover
and leave it looking grand
What a simply marvellous thing
to go on holiday for a rest
and return to find a brand new home
Our children are the best.

©Jemverse [1/9/2016]

Video – ‘The Crouchers do DIY SOS’  – by Holly Croucher

Happy Birthday Emily Rose

We have a birthday in our house today
it makes us feel quite old
For nine and twenty years ago
when it was pretty cold
a daughter was our first born child
in Brighton in the snow
Back in the last century
It seems so long ago

I wonder where those years have gone
they’ve happened pretty fast
Nine and twenty of them go
to history and the past
But what a joy they all have been
we’ve had joy and we’ve had tears
And adventures in the growing up
we’ve seen across the years

And now as a result of that
we really are quite blessed
to have four grown up children
and each of them the best
Birthdays are in celebration
a really joyous time
So today we’ll raise a glass to
the eldest, first in line

©Jemverse

Solstice

Summer Solstice Father’s day
longest daytime too
Sunshine brought the magic
for this middle day of June

We sort of played some golf
and hit some balls around
But they went in all directions
mixed with laughter sound

We’re really not that good at it
but that doesn’t matter much
‘Cos it’s all about the fun we have
not the game itself as such

Summer Solstice Father’s day
It’s all about the fun
Spent with my four children
’til the longest day is done

©Jemverse

Growing up

We once had an allotment
where we grew loads of stuff
But it was very overgrown
so the going there was tough
And when you’ve four young children
who all are growing fast
you sort of know that things like this
are never going to last

So we gave up on the planting
and decided that instead
We’d get a beach hut on the beach
with a comfortable sunbed
The children they all loved it
and spent many hours by the sea
with their buckets and their spades
Whilst we all sipped hot tea

Now several long years later
The allotment is long gone
But we still have our little beach hut
Fondly known as ‘one-oh-one’
And soon we will be down there
soaking up the rays
And the children though now all grown up
will join us there some days

Through change we’ll say goodbye to
certain things along the way
whilst others are a constant
and through our growing always stay
Hut ‘one-oh-one’ is one such thing
to have and love and hold
For children and grandchildren
and us as we grow old

©Jemverse

Memory’s wisdom smiles

In a blue suit that I hated
I threw a flower to the wood
And felt the chill of March around me
By that deep hole where I stood
Fifteen years I’d known him
But his shell was now below
Wondered how I’d manage then
As at the time I didn’t know

There were two holes on that lonely day
The one there at my feet
And the one his passing left in me
As I felt then incomplete
He’d been my friend and confidant
My angst he’d understood
He’d had the words for everything
As every father should

Yet, as I grew, his presence
Powerfully remained
And as the years passed ever on
His wisdom I retained
Now over forty years have gone
My own children all now grown
But I’d like to think his memory
To each of them I’ve shown

His fathers’ love I have passed on
Because that love it never ends
And as we were those years ago
My four and I are friends
His memory’s wisdom smiles
On grandchildren never seen
Stronger with each passing year
As it has ever been

And occasionally I’ll visit
That plot up on the hill
And though the headstone is now faded
His eye is on me still
Im my mind’s eye I can see him too
Time can’t take that from me
It’s a picture now embraced with smiles
And a treasured memory

©Jemverse

 

Feeding the ducks

The pond by the cottage was frozen this morning
And the ducks had nowhere to go
We found them down in the sunshine
Where the oak tree and daffodils grow

Some had found a little water
Where they could swim and float
But most were waddling on the grass
In their winter coats

We had some bread in an old bread bag
And they were grateful that we came
So, scattering it on the grass for them
We watched and smiled again

©Jemverse

[This poem captures a moment from a time when my children were young. On the way to school most mornings we’d pay a visit to the duck pond across the way from the school. A few pleasurable moments feeding a few scraps of bread to them has made for a lifetime of wonderful memories; snapshots that can never be taken away. Smiles in my mind].

Girl

My heart was a-flutter, my breath shallow, short

My clay-covered hands trembled slight at the thought

Yet I knew I must do what I knew that I ought

For the girl close there at my side

My throat was bone-dry, my lips cracked and parched

Tight like a high collar, crisp, clean and starched

Poised like a cat’s back, tense and full-arched

For the girl close there at my side

Deep in my chest my heart beat like a hammer

Shouting loud in the silence, all of a clamour

I could find so few words, I was all of a stammer

With the girl close there at my side

Summoning up courage from an inner reserve

Though my voice lost all fervour, zeal, zest and nerve

My hand found that just as it had deserved

The girl close there at my side

And I smiled with a glow that started within

Spreading out like a sunbeam, wide like my grin

Knowing that here was the birth of new kin

With the girl close there at my side

A love that grew stronger with each passing day

Flowing into the years we have shared, come what may

Standing back now I smile, and love still I can say

The girl close there at my side

‘Most thirty-five years we’ve shared now, us two

Seen four lovely children as to adults they grew

And the love that I found still seems just as new

For the girl close there at my side

 

©Jemverse

Childhood

In life, we as parents

Are often the worst

For forgetting the reason

The true miracle of birth

And as the years they slip by us

With their tears and their mirth

We miss out on the pleasures

As we put ourselves first.

God gave us our children

As a present you know

And yet, with our selfishness

It seldom shows

How grateful we are

As His love through them flows

And the years of their childhood

Like a memory goes

©Jemverse