How did you get into Oxford?

I just got off the train and turned left

Did you pass the Entrance Exam?

Where is it? Carfax?

It you passed it you are very clever.

I pass lots of things just walking down the street.

Well don’t pass go!

Patients must not bring animals into the ward unless they are registered blind

So where can I get a blind cat from? Are they tax deductible?

Patients must be polite at all times unless they are wealthy

What about the doctors?

The doctor apologised when

I gave birth.

He said, oh dear He looks like me.Does your husband have good eyesight?

So I said,at least it’s not twins.

One might have looked like him!

Well it may have been better

Not if they were meant to be identical.

In early June the flowers are fresh and bright.

Massed in vases what a lovely sight

Mary was feeling very tense; her back was aching.
Oh dear she moaned to her cat Emile. what a pity I can’t go to the beauty salon for a massage. I feel like it would do me so much good
Her little cat was very worried.
What can we do ?
I have got a bright idea ,said Mary. you can massage my back
I don’t think that my paws are  big enough
I know what to do Mary cried. If I lie on the bed with my back bare you can put some hand cream on your paws. then you can walk up and down my spine.
Off course you will have to wash your paws first.

 I have got a better idea as a cat. I will go out and get Smokey who is in the shed and Dusty he lives up the road and all the three of us can walk up and down your back

 I suppose that since I am the biggest one I will walk in the middle and they can walk on either side of me

 Emile left to collect his friends while Mary got a shallow dish of warm water and a towel so that the cats could wash their paws after they came through the cat flap from the garden

  She carried a large tub of moisturising cream upstairs and lay down on the bed with nothing on but her skirt and some stiletto heels plus a scarf and hat in merino woo;

 Suddenly she heard a loud voice.

 Where are you Mary she heard this very loud cry
Go away,Annie said Emile, go away mother is having a sleep

Ok I’ll come back at 5  oclock. she heard the kitchen door close and a few minutes later in  ran the three cats ready to help her

My goodness what would Annie have  thought if she  had seen Mary lying on the bed?
Mary put some cream from the moisturiser tub on to a plate so that the cats could get their feet covered
She lay face down on the bed  and she felt the soft pads of their feet on her back
Lovely she cried

 Emile mewed, Now keep parallel to me and press your feet down firmly as you walk. The three cats walk slowly up her back until they reached her shoulders
Now do do a 180-degree turn and slowly very slowly tread down Mary’s back until you come to her waist
All of the cats kept well in line firmly but gently down there is aching bad
 Do it again Mary  called

Smokey  and Dusty  were surprised  but Emile was used to the strange ways of human beings especially Mary and Annie who has been very distressed when poor dear Stan had been taken away from them
This is how grief affects some people They do the most odd things. but in another sense it seems a very sensible thing to do;it certainly helped Mary’s back
When she told them that she was feeling better they stood up on their hind legs and with paws touching they dancted around in a little circle on her back while Mary sang

 Here We Go Gathering nuts in May

 Unfortunately there was nobody there to take their photograph  but if you have someone might be able to arrange for something like this for yourself

 Otherwise tie a soft cloth on the end of a brush and and rub your back with this.

 Do  make sure that no one can see you through the window because you would have to take your clothes off

 You might live in a nudist colony  and then it will be alright 
I think I’m going to do it myself after I have a cup of tea. I will  put my raincoat on and go outside to see if I can find any cats roaming around at dusk
I do have a black cat that sleeps on the landing on the hot water pipe but unfortunately he doesn’t speak English
And nor do all of us

Where are we when we are deep in thought?

In a photo sometimes we are caught

Our eyes are still as we are

looking in

Hoping to discover love not sin.

Do we search our conscience far too much?

Let God take half the blame,we must go Dutch

Don’t kill yourself to finish that project by the weekend

Shall I wait till it’s complete?

It will kill your mother if you have a baby

What would happen if I had a monkey!

We want exciting news,the Queen must die .

Balmoral murder,killed by MI5

Disguised as horses, agents gathered near

Wondering if her Majesty drank beer.

They were sent to Epsom where they raced

It made them breathless and deep red of face.

They were furloughed or they worked from home

Balmoral was too far away to comb.

The Queen still lived and she turned 96

They say she has goats milk in weetabixy

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/tip-sheet/article/67591-the-10-best-emily-dickinson-poems.html

BY EMILY DICKINSON

Wild nights – Wild nights!

Were I with thee

Wild nights should be

Our luxury!

Futile – the winds –

To a Heart in port –

Done with the Compass –

Done with the Chart!

Rowing in Eden –

Ah – the Sea!

Might I but moor – tonight –

In thee!

Dickinson poems are electronically reproduced courtesy of the publishers and the Trustees of Amherst College from THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON: VARIORUM EDITION, Ralph W. Franklin, ed., Cambridge, Mass: The Belknap Press of Harvard University of Press, Copyright © 1988 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College

Might I but moor – tonight –

Girls must not invert commas in the class-ruins,

Don’t kill your chickens before

they hatch.

Don’t kill yourself getting ready for gym.

I never want to be buried again.

My husband never said he would cry before me.

I don’t want to be curried again.

Did you pass the driving pest?

All class ruins to be demolished by morning.

Who is he?

Spread your cocktail sausages with honey and sesame butter and they will disappear rapidly says Nigella our lovely writer

I didn’t know she can work magic!

Melt butter in a pan then pour over the chicken legs after killing yourself for best results.

Caramelise the sugar and mix with butter before finally tasting yourself.

Peel potatoes and cut into large chinks.Put salt all over and soak for a year before washing in cold water Eat hot with chopsticks

Please drink your own water at ,7- am No tea this week. No money.

Please learn to walk before you get out of bed , No physio.

We don’t like the food either.

Do you like hot chocolate?

Well you can’t have it in here.

Why not?

You have got dementia

Is it infectious?

Do cats have eyes?

Come again

I am not the Messiah

Would you know?

You don’t mean I have to walk on the river Lea?

Only if God tells you to.

I might drown

O ye of little faith

t

It’s not anxiety I feel but dread

Wondering if I can live until I’m dead

Is that an oxymoron,is it true

That when we die a little world dies too?

We want all women to look their best

While they sit the IQ test.

No bra with wires,no woollen vest

No lover kind, no more sex pests

We want them neat and clean as fleas

As clean as rats,as cruel as bees

They must be virgins, must not tease

Nor laugh at men nude in the breeze

I think it’s late Take out your pen

Undress when I count to ten

I found both WP and the Times use a lot of tracking cookies accordingly to Duck Duck Go 33 today

Why?

Can you bake love in a microwave?

Why bake it? Try eschewing it with carats

Can you fake love for a dessert?

What’s the first coarse?

Can we take love on holiday?

Is it a tablet ? Is it on the NHS?

Don’t wait, they might cut it out

Take your holiday afterwards

J

I wish there were no numbers and no dates
I forget them all , yet memory is like glue
With counting, with remembrance, with lost mate

There’s our sorrow and its seas to navigate
The waves rise up and drop, so old so new
I wish there were no numbers and no dates

Why are modern hearts so separate?
The seas of knowledge, all are one in truth
With counting, with remembrance, with no trace

Oh,universe, why do you have such space
With patterns in the stars, that might us soothe
If there were no numbers and no dates?

Why are we self labelled as a race?
Slowly, surely we will dig up truths
With anguish, with remembrance, oh, lost face

When will grace remake a soul so bruised
Struggling with the time scale, still bemused
I wish there were no numbers and no dates
No counting, no remembrance, no lost face

Oh happy were we crossing Salisbury plain

On the way to Dorset once again

The isle of Purbeck, butterflies and birds

he lark near Swanage waiting to be heard.

Once the plain was home to peace

and sheep

The Cold War brought the Army and their shells.

Now there’s War again,a thought to mull.

Do men want peace when War is all the rage?

Look on Facebook,Mr Putin’s page.

One cruel man kills children in the streets.

There is no warfield,like there are no sheep.

There is no safety now for

Ukraine’s least.

As Russia plays with evil and the Beast

s

I have walked the silent paths of grief
Sunless, dreary, cold and all alone.
I have slept on beds of winter leaves

Oh death you are a cruel, mysterious thief.
Although my heart weeps, and my joy has gone,
I have never felt I was deceived.

I have learned that human life is brief.
I have learned by sorrow we’re undone.
I have sifted earth and what’s beneath.

I have felt the dark emotions seethe
While I’m mocked by glaring, savage sun.
I have learned the geography of grief.

I wait in patience for my life to ease.
Will I know when my Last Supper’s come?
Will my tale be written on a leaf?

Unconsoled grief can make us dumb
Into our hearts, we drag the ice that numbs
I have walked the silent paths of grief
I have made my bed on winter leaves

Does Carrie feed Boris with cake

Or does she not know how to bake?

Off with their heads

When they rise from the dead.

Or all that we saw will be fake

There is a cook called Jack Monroe

Who helps the poor battle their foes.

The Tory’s don’t care

If the poor go out bare.

Starving from head down to toes

But if you have an electric car going through water surely that’s dangerous

That leaves you with a donkey you hired on a beach.Cleethorpes maybe.

I wish I had a donkey

I really don’t know who you are are

Sitting there with your guitar

I don’t know if the feeling’s real

We never even sat down for a meal.

I don’t like to quarrel or fight

Hallelujah,I am always right.

I don’t want another man who shouts.

I wonder why I think you are alright

Would I let you share my bed?

Should I get a cat instead?

My imagination dressed you to suit

The way you look is handsome and cute .

.

I fn

Random apples

Fall silently

On unknown Newtons

The sunlight’s lemonade,the trees are dark

Oh beautiful the feelings of my heart.

I remember Silverdale with joy.

The small green lanes,the meadows, girls and boys.

Arnside Knott the sheep the glimpse of sea

My heart is longing to be there with you

The train runs on the viaduct to Grange

The sea and river mix is rich and strange.