Hmm! What about these new-fangled garage door covers then?
If I had one it would be a choice between this one...

and this one!

LATEST NEWS
-------------
Kitten arrested on suspicion of driving James May's Ferrari!
Is it a case of mistaken idenkitty, sorry identity?

Car Crime - the likely suspects.




Now James, can you identify the above cat as Scarface Fusker May?

So, James' column this week is about his calendar idea 'Cats on Supercars'.
How about James, cats IN supercars? We were obviously thinking along the same lines, combining felines and Ferraris, when I concocted my last poem, (the controversial, unaccepted by the Telegraph one, ooh eck! I've done a Clarkson! Yeh!
*It's a bit further down the page.)
Cats - now you're talking. ;-) Elaine x

Longing
by Matthew Arnold

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

Come, as thou cam'st a thousand times,
A messenger from radiant climes,
And smile on thy new world, and be
As kind to others as to me!

Or, as thou never cam'st in sooth,
Come now, and let me dream it truth,
And part my hair, and kiss my brow,
And say, My love why sufferest thou?

Come to me in my dreams, and then
By day I shall be well again!
For so the night will more than pay
The hopeless longing of the day.

This poem has been rejected by the Telegraph - yeh!

While the cat's away... doing things Down Under.
---------------------------------------------------------------
You will always be lucky if you know how to make friends with strange cats....Proverb.

I was driving along when suddenly,
What ho! 'That's May's Ferrari!'
Well, obviously then I could do no more than
to change into mode - Mata Hari!
Trying to be very PC, I'd say that he could either
have been black or white.
And trying to keep up with him at ninety through Hammersmith
was giving me quite a fright!
I was sure you were still 'Down Under' re Antipodes,
posing with the ladies - not jealous! - much!
And I bet you gave your Other Half strict intructions,
miss you, love you, but lady-mine, DON'T TOUCH!

(It would seem then that your underground bunker/garage,
The place where you perform skillful vehicular dressage,
has alas, been infiltrated, as I earlier have stated,
By some scoundrel that you'll find to be of a most felonious kind.
Yes! the villain's known to you! You'll find it's all interrelated!)

To continue...

I managed to catch up as he was held up by the traffic.
Swearing emanating from your car
was exceptionally loud and graphic!
Although in disguise, I began to realise
that this miscreant creature was quite small.
I was certain that he could not have reached,
without help, any of the floor pedals at all!
And so deduced he must have an accomplice,
Do you know I could have sworn it was a dog!
It was difficult to see, he wriggled like he had a flea!
Plus the morning mist was turning into fog.

Well, we set off once again and I have to say
that his driving was exceedingly erratic,
And that's when I found out, that he did alas appear
to be a catastrophic off-roading fanatic.
Through fields and over hills, way, way off the beaten track.
Dear James if you had seen it you'd have had a heart attack!

Doggedly I followed, as in the mud we wallowed.
Eventually he did turn round.
And after all that roaming, like a pigeon that was homing,
Without a moment's hesistation, Hammersmith his destination
he parked it in your garage underground!
Well that was quite a shock! He did park it very neatly
and when he exited the car he smiled at me so sweetly!
It was washed and it was polished, a bottle of car wax was demolished.
It looked as good as new, well thank goodness for that... Phew!
All was as it was, the new Ferrari gleamed and shone,
None the wiser you'd have been except, the fuel, now, was gone!

He mentioned you were really quite forgetful
and hated filling cars up anyway,
He took off his disguise and there before my very eyes,
Oh my gawd! what a surprise, shut your mouth, you're catching flies!
Impenitent, stood... Scarface Fusker May!

Elaine x

A Woman's Last Word
Robert Browning

Let's contend no more, Love,
Strive nor weep:
All be as before, Love,
---Only sleep!

What so wild as words are?
I and thou
In debate, as birds are,
Hawk on bough!

See the creature stalking
While we speak!
Hush and hide the talking,
Cheek on cheek!

What so false as truth is,
False to thee?
Where the serpent's tooth is
Shun the tree---

Where the apple reddens
Never pry---
Lest we lose our Edens,
Eve and I.

Be a god and hold me
With a charm!
Be a man and fold me
With thine arm!

Teach me, only teach, Love
As I ought
I will speak thy speech, Love,
Think thy thought---

Meet, if thou require it,
Both demands,
Laying flesh and spirit
In thy hands.

That shall be to-morrow
Not to-night:
I must bury sorrow
Out of sight:

---Must a little weep, Love,
(Foolish me!)
And so fall asleep, Love,
Loved by thee.

This one is for my old mum,
who had to learn this poem off by heart at school.
Love you Mum x

The Donkey
GK Chesterton

When fishes flew and forests walked
And figs grew upon thorn,
Some moment when the moon was blood,
Then surely I was born;

With monstrous head and sickening cry
And ears like errant wings,
The devil's walking parody
On all four-footed things.

The tattered outlaw of the earth,
Of ancient crooked will;
Starve, scourge, deride me: I am dumb,
I keep my secret still.

Fools! For I also had my hour;
One far fierce hour and sweet:
There was a shout about my ears,
And palms before my feet.

An August Midnight
Thomas Hardy

A shaded lamp and a waving blind,
And the beat of a clock from a distant floor:
On this scene enter--winged, horned, and spined -
A longlegs, a moth, and a dumbledore;
While 'mid my page there idly stands
A sleepy fly, that rubs its hands . . .

Thus meet we five, in this still place,
At this point of time, at this point in space.
- My guests parade my new-penned ink,
Or bang at the lamp-glass, whirl, and sink.
"God's humblest, they!" I muse. Yet why?
They know Earth-secrets that know not I.

A Broken Appointment
Thomas Hardy

You did not come,
And marching Time drew on, and wore me numb.
Yet less for loss of your dear presence there
Than that I thus found lacking in your make
That high compassion which can overbear
Reluctance for pure lovingkindness' sake
Grieved I, when, as the hope-hour stroked its sum,
You did not come.

You love not me,
And love alone can lend you loyalty;
-I know and knew it. But, unto the store
Of human deeds divine in all but name,
Was it not worth a little hour or more
To add yet this: Once you, a woman, came
To soothe a time-torn man; even though it be
You love not me.

‘We knew immediately...’
Felix Dennis

We knew immediately. A wide-eyed look...
I searched your eyes and knew what was in mine:
An invitation we must both decline—
But as you sipped your wine your fingers shook,
And mine shook, too. Vesuvius erupts!
I gabbled as I fought the urge to tear
The silk from off your back and do it there,
While fainting matrons gloated in their cups.
But we are neither young, nor cruel, and so—
The moment passed, or rather, we forsook
What in our youth would not have seemed so mad
As it seems now; world’s shame we never took
The rightful path of easing such a blow:
And if we had — might that have been so bad?

Happy DownUnders Mr May!

Inversnaid
Gerard Manley Hopkins

THIS darksome burn, horseback brown,
His rollrock highroad roaring down,
In coop and in comb the fleece of his foam
Flutes and low to the lake falls home.

A windpuff-bonnet of fawn-froth
Turns and twindles over the broth
Of a pool so pitchblack, fell-frowning,
It rounds and rounds Despair to drowning.

Degged with dew, dappled with dew,
Are the groins of the braes that the brook treads through,
Wiry heathpacks, flitches of fern,
And the beadbonny ash that sits over the burn.

What would the world be, once bereft
Of wet and wildness? Let them be left,
O let them be left, wildness and wet;
Long live the weeds and the wilderness yet.
pkins

The Invitation
Percy Bysshe Shelley

Best and brightest, come away,
Fairer far than this fair day,
Which, like thee, to those in sorrow
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough year just awake
In its cradle on the brake.
The brightest hour of unborn Spring
Through the Winter wandering,
Found, it seems, the halcyon morn
To hoar February born;
Bending from Heaven, in azure mirth,
It kissed the forehead of the earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free,
And waked to music all their fountains,
And breathed upon the frozen mountains,
And like a prophetess of May
Strewed flowers upon the barren way,
Making the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.

Away, away, from men and towns,
To the wild wood and the downs -
To the silent wilderness
Where the soul need not repress
Its music, lest it should not find
An echo in another's mind,
While the touch of Nature's art
Harmonizes heart to heart.

Radiant Sister of the Day
Awake! arise! and come away!
To the wild woods and the plains,
To the pools where winter rains
Image all their roof of leaves,
Where the pine its garland weaves
Of sapless green, and ivy dun,
Round stems that never kiss the sun,
Where the lawns and pastures be
And the sandhills of the sea,
Where the melting hoar-frost wets
The daisy-star that never sets,
And wind-flowers and violets
Which yet join not scent to hue
Crown the pale year weak and new;
When the night is left behind
In the deep east, dim and blind,
And the blue noon is over us,
And the multitudinous
Billows murmur at our feet,
Where the earth and ocean meet,
And all things seem only one
In the universal Sun.

PERSONAL TALK
William Wordsworth

I AM not One who much or oft delight
To season my fireside with personal talk.--
Of friends, who live within an easy walk,
Or neighbours, daily, weekly, in my sight:
And, for my chance-acquaintance, ladies bright,
Sons, mothers, maidens withering on the stalk,
These all wear out of me, like Forms, with chalk
Painted on rich men's floors, for one feast-night.
Better than such discourse doth silence long,
Long, barren silence, square with my desire;
To sit without emotion, hope, or aim,
In the loved presence of my cottage-fire,
And listen to the flapping of the flame,
Or kettle whispering its faint undersong.


"Yet life," you say, "is life; we have seen and see,
And with a living pleasure we describe;
And fits of sprightly malice do but bribe
The languid mind into activity.
Sound sense, and love itself, and mirth and glee
Are fostered by the comment and the gibe."
Even be it so; yet still among your tribe,
Our daily world's true Worldlings, rank not me!
Children are blest, and powerful; their world lies
More justly balanced; partly at their feet,
And part far from them: sweetest melodies
Are those that are by distance made more sweet;
Whose mind is but the mind of his own eyes,
He is a Slave; the meanest we can meet!


Wings have we,--and as far as we can go,
We may find pleasure: wilderness and wood,
Blank ocean and mere sky, support that mood
Which with the lofty sanctifies the low.
Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good:
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow.
There find I personal themes, a plenteous store,
Matter wherein right voluble I am,
To which I listen with a ready ear;
Two shall be named, pre-eminently dear,--
The gentle Lady married to the Moor;
And heavenly Una with her milk-white Lamb,


Nor can I not believe but that hereby
Great gains are mine; for thus I live remote
From evil-speaking; rancour, never sought,
Comes to me not; malignant truth, or lie.
Hence have I genial seasons, hence have I
Smooth passions, smooth discourse, and joyous thought:
And thus from day to day my little boat
Rocks in its harbour, lodging peaceably.
Blessings be with them--and eternal praise,
Who gave us nobler loves, and nobler cares--
The Poets, who on earth have made us heirs
Of truth and pure delight by heavenly lays!
Oh! might my name be numbered among theirs,
Then gladly would I end my mortal days.

Just spent a few seconds looking at the above picture and to my weird eyes/ brain interpretation, the background moves. This doesn't surprise me as I'm a whizz at those 'magic eye' pics.

Some magic-eye pics to try.... (click to enlarge)

James May - Garden Designer!

James May - Total Fitness!

THE RUINED MAID
Thomas Hardy

"O'Melia, my dear, this does everything crown!
Who could have supposed I should meet you in Town?
And whence such fair garments, such prosperi-ty?"--
"O didn't you know I'd been ruined?" said she.

--"You left us in tatters, without shoes or socks,
Tired of digging potatoes, and spudding up docks;
And now you've gay bracelets and bright feathers three!"--
"Yes: that's how we dress when we're ruined," said she.

-- "At home in the barton you said `thee' and `thou,'
And `thik oon,' and `theäs oon,' and `t'other'; but now
Your talking quite fits 'ee for high compa-ny!"--
"Some polish is gained with one's ruin," said she.

-- "Your hands were like paws then, your face blue and bleak
But now I'm bewitched by your delicate cheek,
And your little gloves fit as on any la-dy!"--
"We never do work when we're ruined," said she.

-- "You used to call home-life a hag-ridden dream,
And you'd sigh, and you'd sock; but at present you seem
To know not of megrims or melancho-ly!"--
"True. One's pretty lively when ruined," said she.

-- "I wish I had feathers, a fine sweeping gown,
And a delicate face, and could strut about Town!"--
"My dear -- a raw country girl, such as you be,
Cannot quite expect that. You ain't ruined," said she.

I promise that these are the last of the Winter images!

The Heart of Night
William Bliss Carman

When all the stars are sown
Across the night-blue space,
With the immense unknown,
In silence face to face.

We stand in speechless awe
While Beauty marches by,
And wonder at the Law
Which wears such majesty.

How small a thing is man
In all that world-sown vast,
That he should hope or plan
Or dream his dream could last!

O doubter of the light,
Confused by fear and wrong,
Lean on the heart of night
And let love make thee strong!

The Good that is the True
Is clothed with Beauty still.
Lo, in their tent of blue,
The stars above the hill!

A Thunderstorm
Archibald Lampman

A moment the wild swallows like a flight
Of withered gust-caught leaves, serenely high,
Toss in the windrack up the muttering sky.
The leaves hang still. Above the weird twilight,
The hurrying centres of the storm unite
And spreading with huge trunk and rolling fringe,
Each wheeled upon its own tremendous hinge,
Tower darkening on. And now from heaven's height,
With the long roar of elm-trees swept and swayed,
And pelted waters, on the vanished plain
Plunges the blast. Behind the wild white flash
That splits abroad the pealing thunder-crash,
Over bleared fields and gardens disarrayed,
Column on column comes the drenching rain.

Gracious in defeat.
The NTA Awards

Renouncement
Alice Meynell

I must not think of thee; and, tired yet strong,
I shun the love that lurks in all delight--
The love of thee--and in the blue heaven's height,
And in the dearest passage of a song.
Oh, just beyond the sweetest thoughts that throng
This breast, the thought of thee waits hidden yet bright;
But it must never, never come in sight;
I must stop short of thee the whole day long.
But when sleep comes to close each difficult day,
When night gives pause to the long watch I keep,
And all my bonds I needs must loose apart,
Must doff my will as raiment laid away,--
With the first dream that comes with the first sleep
I run, I run, I am gather'd to thy heart.

Hello Mr May,
I would just like to say,
I wish you a fantastic Ferrari day.

Happy Birthday James x

My delight and thy delight
Robert Bridges

My delight and thy delight
Walking, like two angels white,
In the gardens of the night:

My desire and thy desire
Twining to a tongue of fire,
Leaping live, and laughing higher;
Thro' the everlasting strife
In the mystery of life.

Love, from whom the world begun,
Hath the secret of the sun.

Love can tell and love alone,
Whence the million stars are strewn,
Why each atom knows its own,
How, in spite of woe and death,
Gay is life, and sweet is breath:

This he taught us, this we knew,
Happy in his science true,
Hand in hand as we stood
'Neath the shadows of the wood,
Heart to heart as we lay
In the dawning of the day.

AGRICULTURAL CARESS
John Betjeman

Keep me from Thelma's sister Pearl!
She puts my senses in a whirl,
Weakens my knees and keeps me waiting
Until my heart stops palpitating.

The debs may turn disdainful backs
On Pearl's uncouth mechanic slacks,
And outraged see the fire that lies
And smoulders in her long-lashed eyes.

Have the such weather-freckled features.
The smooth sophisticated creatures?
Ah, not to them such limbs belong,
Such animal movements sure and strong.

Such arms to take a man and press
In agricultural caress
His head to hers, and hold him there
Deep buried in her chestnut hair.

God shrive me from this morning lust
For supple farm girls, if you must,
Send the cold daughter of an earl -
But spare me Thelma's sister Pearl!

Did you think that was funny?