Christmans Carols and Party 2023
Sunday, 10 December 2023 17:00
until Sunday, 10 December 2023 19:00
Our Christmas Party will be held on Sunday 10th December from 5.00pm to 7.00pm.
Please bring and share Christmas food and we will provide wine and soft drinks for a cash donation. There will be carol singing around the piano with lots of well-known tunes so that everyone can join in. Everyone is welcome and please bring your families and friends who are with you on the day. If you are new to the area you are especially welcome.
BSRA Committee
Photographs by Ella Blankstone
Christmas Readings by Angela Lanyon
Christmas Poem 2018
Eight weeks to Christmas,
And I’d better make a list
If things aren’t down in black and white
They’re likely to get missed.
A note to sort out Auntie Kay,
Will Robert brings his squeeze?
And I’ll prioritise the baking
To fill up the deep freeze.
Seven weeks to Christmas
Now you say you’d like a change?
But I’ve already ordered turkey,
Organic and free range;
There’s beef and ham and chutneys
And pickled walnuts too,
Although there’s some still lurking
That you never did get through.
Six weeks to Christmas
The shops are full of gunge
To find the perfect present
I’ve got to take the plunge
The grandchildren need something more
Than endless festive socks –
A largish cheque, a little gift
Inside a Christmas box
Five weeks to Christmas.
And by some ghastly oversight
I’ve missed the date for surface mail
For cards I meant to write.
Some E things rife with robins
I’ll send to foreign friends,
And promise – in the coming year –
I’ll try to make amends.
Four weeks to Christmas
And it’s time to put the lights
Along the hedge and up the tree
To brighten up the nights.
You said you’d left them tidy –
Not in a tangled lump –
No, I haven’t time to sort them out
Just take them to the dump.
Three weeks to Christmas…
Now I need to get ahead
And clear things from the spare room
So I can find the bed.
The clothes from summer holidays
Were never packed away
The sort of job you put aside
To do another day.
Two weeks to Christmas
And it’s time to dress the tree –
Trendy or traditional?
Right, leave the choice to me.
There’s balls and baubles form the past
Things that we’ve had for years
Unlocking distant memories
That bring us close to tears.
One week to Christmas
There’s the Christmas cake to ice –
It’s soaked in loads of alcohol
At fourteen proof per slice,
The pudding’s marinated too
It’s soaked right through the tin
The mincemeat fortified with fruit
From homemade damson gin.
Two days to Christmas…
Collect the turkey day.
The beds to make, the sprouts prepare
And rubbish cleared away.
I wish I felt on top of things
But with presents still to wrap –
Sophisticated, super - cool
No, I’m in a desperate flap.
Two hours to midnight
And all the chores are done,
There’s mince pies on the mantelpiece
For Santa’s sure to come.
In a vaguely alcoholic/ sentimental haze
I wait for Christmas chimes
Dreaming of the future
And remembering past times.
364 days to Christmas
I need to start a list!
MUM’s Christmas Carol
God rest you, merry revellers,
Of rest I have no hope
When all the family descend
I don’t know how I’ll cope.
Air beds for Clarissa’s boys,
Extra pillows for Aunt Jane,
A box of chocolate biscuits
Lest night starvation strikes again.
Philip won’t eat Brussels sprouts.
Geraldine’s gone woke
I know she’ll row with Philip’s siter
Who regards it all a joke.
Oh the rising of my temper
And the rushing to and fro,
The din of their computer games
And Thunderbirds are go!
God rest you, merry family
You might as well make hay
Your mother’s nervous breakdown
Is scheduled for Christmas day.
Fathers in the cellar
Sorting out the wine
I doubt if you’ll catch sight of him
Before it’s dinner time.
There’s extra pigs in blankets
How teen agers can sleep
Rolled up in their duvets,
What curious hours they keep.
Granny’s lost her hearing aids
I know I put them there.
One’s entangled in her specs
The other in her hair.
God rest exhausted mothers
When it comes to Christmas night
A hefty slug of brandy
Relief things were all right.
Oh the gathering of the family
They come from far and near
Smiling faces round then table
Of those we hold most dear.
AGE RELATED MACULAR DEGENERATION
Now, although I cannot see the stars
I know they’re there.
The stars remain beyond the canopy of cloud,
Visible by day to those who’ve trained
And know the place to look.
The crescent moon was once a silver scythe
To reap the sky –
A crooked notice hanging on a star.
CLOSED.
I still see things.
Honeycombs, magenta pink and green
With cream surround, (but rarely red or blue),
Tumbleweed twinkling spheres
That whizz off into space like Catherine wheels.
I see dead bodies on the TV screen,
Rubble from earthquakes, damage in Ukraine,
Tear rivered faces rubbed with grubby hands.
‘Tell me your name?’ I ask the friends I meet.
I see enough – enough to know
That through the smoke and mirrors of my life
The stars remain.
© Angela Lanyon
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