Waif

                                                                                  Jam sandwiches


 Dear Reader,

This week I have made a very useful discovery about taking drugs prescribed by myself.  Off the chemist's shelf, as it were.  Ever since I was a small child I have suffered with catarrh and found breathing difficult. Nothing that was prescribed for me by doctors I have told about this, have been of any use at all.  But then I found out about Sinex.  A small dose up the nostril every night and I slept undisturbed.  And have used it ever since not knowing that I was certainly not supposed to. Only 3 to 5 nights at a time, it states on the back of the bottle, otherwise you can suffer from high blood pressure and other disagreeable side effects. And I had been taking it for over twenty years. And subsequently have high blood pressure.

And the other drug was Nytol, something to help you sleep.  But this is an addictive drug and should not be taken for any length of time and the side effects are dire to read.  Going to buy some in the chemist in Lyme Regis two very bossy women (doing their job) told me not to take Nytol except on particular occasions when needed.  Certainly not every night, absolutely not. I had been taking them for years.

I no longer take either of these drugs and have learnt a salutatory lesson.  That is to read the small print more carefully.  In both cases had I done so I would have taken them as advised and not in the incorrect way that I was happily doing. And giving myself nightmares and high blood pressure. Ah well....

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From William Cowper, 1782, July 3rd, in Buckinghamshire

'I shiver with cold on this present third of July.....Last Saturday night the cold was so severe that it pinched off many of the young shoots of our peach trees....The very walnuts, which are now no bigger than small hazlenuts, drop to the ground; and the flowers, though they blow, seem to have lost their odours.  I walked with your mother yesterday in the garden, wrapped up in  winter surcoat, and found myself not at all encumbered by it.'

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Waif

The waif lived in a tent
on the beach.
 It was cold, he was hungry.
He was always hungry.

He met a boy from a big house.
They played together
on the sand, picked up winkles
and shells, ran down to the sea.

The boy took him to his house
cut large slices of bread,
buttered them, piled cherry jam on top,
gave them to the waif who
wolfed them down.

When autumn came the boy
went back to school.
The waif missed his friend,
screwed his fists into his eyes
as the tears gathered.
Wept for the loss of friendship
and food.

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With best wishes, Patricia