January Blue

The Mamas and the Papas “California Dreamin’ “

Wonderful harmonies from this great Californian band. I have never been to America and I suspect I never will but the music of the Mamas and the Papas always take me to the west coast during a hot endless American summer.

That is how we always remember the seasons of our childhoods as either cold with

endless snow or summers of warm days and barmy nights. This winter in the UK all the talk has been about the weather and you know how we Brits like to talk about the weather.

The young people complain about the snow and we older people come back with “Well, the winter of 1964 was much colder than that and we had snow for months”

This week’s poem is a celebration of our collective desire to out bid each other with our weather anecdotes.

January Blue

My childhood winters were a wonderland
Each November brought the soft white snow
That stayed until the first daffodils of spring
We would build igloos on the green
Jump from the yard wall into newly fallen snow

Every June brought the summer
Warm balmy nights and sun drenched days in Nuns Moor Park
Sundays swimming in the sultry waters of the North Sea
Building sand castle on the shore line
Rolling down the dunes my underpants full of sand

Of course, it isn’t true it just seems like it now
The reality was snow blackened with soot after a few days
A sea cold enough to cause my testicles to retreat
We rarely went to the coast as it was too expensive
The park was a playground for bullies and perverts

But these are the stories I told my children
Now they long for the glory days of their childhood

© Jeff Price March 2018