Thursday 17 December 2009

Dad





She thought he’d be a safe bet & he is. Sometimes you do actually get what you ask for in life.

Friday 27 November 2009

Cowman

Cow eyes make him want to weep. He thinks he may have been a cow in a past life, which is why he gave up eating meat. He’d like to believe in a higher, benevolent power but thinks this may be fantasy, so he trundles along in his daily life with the dream of waking up one day to bird song, not an alarm.
He likes clotted cream and country walks. If he could have his own way he’d move out of town, buy a piece of land and do permaculture. But he’s only read books on the subject and done a week’s course on a farm where he stayed in a yurt and was taught basket weaving and digging.
He likes wellies and women in knitted jumpers, though he keeps this to himself.

Thursday 12 November 2009

Pisser Of A Mood

It's November, it's cold & damp...The drizzle has even penetrated through his thick-knit jumper to make his mood even more sour.
He sits by the fire drinking copious amounts of tea, mumbling to himself whilst the rain drips, drips, drips...

Tuesday 13 October 2009

The Way He Is

He likes pigs. He doesn’t like frogs. If you’re a frog don’t take it personally, it’s just the way he is; he has an aversion to cold slimy things. When he wakes up in the morning he plays a tune on the thumb piano he keeps by his bed in case of the blues. He hopes it’ll cheer him up on dark November mornings but it rarely does. He sees life as being one cold, dark November morning, poor luv.

His favourite tune goes something like ha ha ha hee hee hee sung with a guttural thump and scrape cos he eats too much burnt toast. It has that kind of effect on the throat if eaten too quickly and without margarine. He likes the crunch so he can pretend he’s eating a crustacean from a million years ago. It’s the kind of fantasy he has whilst eating breakfast at 5am before dawn’s grey glow.

















When he’s older he sees himself as having a nippy black car that he can squeal around corners in trying to scare cats and kids. He’s quite indiscriminate as to which. Kids are an easier target though when dawdling to school with music welded to their ears, backpacks on. They are an especially easy target when their shoes have those flashing red lights & their bags fluorescent strips. Nice! He thinks to himself, imagining ramming his foot hard down on the accelerator.

He’s forgotten who his parents are. That was such a long time ago, longer than a giant’s mind span. Big brains & dawdling careful thoughts & a sense of time stretching to the moon and stars, that’s what he has. And a smile that’d never melt a woman’s heart; more likely send em through the nearest door they could bolt briskly behind.
it's just the way he is..., originally uploaded by artbysara.

Tuesday 29 September 2009

Flowery Slippers




He had a friendly, poetic aspect. He loved words. He loved watching golf. He loved cheese & pickle sandwiches & a nice cuppa. & peanuts. & chicken...with chips of course. His favourite trick was to fit as many beetles between his lips as he could & crunch them in one go. He also liked balloons & planes & biros. & spider’s webs.

He lived by the park & you could hear him at night brushing his gunked teeth & howling with the effort cos it was a hell of a pain that shot across his jaw, down his back & straight to his big toe. Brushing his teeth was one of his least favourite activities. He only did it cos there was a hefty lass over the road he fancied who wore flowery slippers. He caught glimpses of them as she sat in front of the TV. Oh to be sat beside her he thought to himself.

But it was a good job she’d always avoided him on the street cos he could've squashed her in one fatal flop. He had ancestors from some northern realm & his grizzly frame was a genetic throw back & the reason his parents had abandoned him in 1979 in the supermarket car park.

& so he lived in his bedsit talking to the spider plant & answering the questions to quizzes on the radio. He would’ve been such an asset on a pub quiz team. But he was never asked. & if there was a happy ending to the story I’d tell it but there isn’t.

Monday 21 September 2009

Carbuncle


It's just one of those days...she's had trouble with the neighbours... & her mum. They disagree on just about everything. Especially marmalade & eggs...& politics & how long a skirt should be & how to make the best chocolate cake.

Not that this lass does a lot of baking...she’s out on the town too much to cope with ounces & whisks, oven temperatures & cooling racks.

She’d much rather be sat skim-reading the paper whilst forgetting to text a mate about where they’re gonna meet before the club to get cash out at the cash machine so she doesn’t have to rely on the generosity of random strangers when it comes to beer...or random blokes to be more precise.

But, as you can see, it’s been a day of complications which if I had the time I’d divulge the details of, I would, but I don’t as my dog needs walkin...well, dawdling, as he’s the world’s slowest greyhound.

Friday 18 September 2009

Toothache


oh life can sometimes be painful like toothache. like the wince you get when eating icecream with sensitive teeth. ow.

Thursday 3 September 2009

blankmediacollective & artbysara



Blank Media Collective's aim is to promote artists, writers & musicians in all manner of ways- with online portfolios, monthly events in Manchester, exhibitions & collaborations & an online artstore. So I am pleased to be featured in Issue 14, available for download from the website at http://www.blankmediacollective.org/.
This is how the editorial folk summed up artbysara:
Featured in this issue are the striking images of artbysara - bold caricatures that cover everything from fairy-tales to ‘the man down the street’. Her work draws together almost archetypal figures and drops them right into the modern era, and explores the places where the figure and the surroundings don’t quite fit. Unlike artists whose work hangs in galleries to be admired, the availability and accessibility of her work is part of the point, in terms of subject matter, presentation, and the formats in which her art can be bought and kept. We are delighted to be adding to that accessibility in blankpages.
& this is how I summed myself up:
Welcome to the world of artbysara peopled by feisty, finicky folk from the realm of fairytale to the bloke down the road...
I love scary women & men who look like they’ve just stepped out of some weird ancient fairytale & landed in this day & age with its mobile phones, street scenes, slang & woes. They’re a bit confused, a bit mouthy, at times timid, lost, pissed off...But that’s just the way life is...know what I mean?


Monday 17 August 2009

Marmalade



there was once not so long ago a girl called marmalade. well, that was her nickname. and she relished telling boys off and frightening old ladies at the bus stop and being rude to whosoever crossed her path...the usual teenage stuff.
one morning she was shuffling down the road in her scuffed up shoes singing rather badly to the tunes blasting into her ears when a huge crow swooped down, sat on her head and started pecking at her eyes...
marmalade screamed and screamed and ran and ran til she ran out of breath and fell over and the silky crow sat on her shouder cawing with an eerie fatalistic croak. oh my god she thought, i'm done for!
then it spread out it's huge wings and enveloped marmalade in one massive swish and the girl with the red knotted hair disappeared...
well, not completely, as she has become a legend. to this day she is said to be seen loitering around bus stops where her spirit scares old ladies waiting for buses, and lads smoking outside pubs.
this story was told to me by a grandma who swears she saw her ghostly apparition last week whilst getting on the 177 at 9.30. and this picture is how i remember her before her mysterious disappearance. others say she's working as a waitress in spain and the bloke over the road swore he saw her down the supermarket at the weekend.

Thursday 13 August 2009

Amber & Debs


Debs has just finished with her bloke so has some spare time on her hands. You could say she’s been getting a bit morose, dwelling too much on the state of the planet with its wars and conflicts and the fact we’re heading towards environmental oblivion.

And she has no one to cuddle up to now, poor luv…But at least she has a friend like Amber who can’t really be arsed with all the naval gazing but does her best, though it goes without saying she’d much rather be sat down the pub.

Sunday 26 July 2009

Delicious


Her slippers are scuffed by seven winters of shuffling. New, they were green and white, in case you were wondering. She likes boiled eggs washed down with loose leaf tea and such images frequent her thoughts. Cheese and pickle sandwiches are also her favourite which she shares with her cat Thomas. Mmm...delicious.

Saturday 25 July 2009

In The Beginning



Sometimes it can take a while to get going in the morning, like til midday even. Well, this bloke has that kind of a feeling most of the time. If I was going to be critical I’d tell him to get off his backside & go & do some exercise to get those endorphins moving around his body. It might perk him up a bit. But he likes to wallow in the inanity of his life so much so that it has become his main preoccupation, nay excuse, for inactivity. Best steer clear.

Tuesday 14 July 2009

Giant Bolster & The Press




Giant Bolster has made it into the local newspaper! Which is a miracle as he is huge & hates having his photo taken. But thanks to the wonders of modern digital photography he looks about 2 inches high
It took a while convincing him the picture would do him justice. Giants can be vain, though some of course are very shy & hardly ever leave their mountain peaks & murky bogs.
Giant Bolster is of a cantankerous nature but the professionalism of the paper's photographer ensured the photo-shoot was a success. & I've even heard rumours down the pub that Bolster keeps a framed copy of the picture on his favourite crag.

Wednesday 8 July 2009

Right place Wrong time



Just one of those days...
She mislaid the scrap paper scrawled with the details as to when she's meeting Jim, a keen angler and Formula 1 fanatic she has nothing in common with.
Just as well really.

Sunday 5 July 2009

Supermarket


I drew this a while back when I had the mother of all menial jobs in a well-known supermarket. It was the most boring, oppressive, brain-destroying job ever, & I had to get out of bed at 4.45am to do it.
But the whole deadendness & meaninglessness of it must've seeped into my very being when I wasn't looking, & I became a zombie, fulfilling the will of this multinational corporation that was tighter than Scrooge. (Time off at Christmas, Easter, weekends, no way!)
But one day I realised how bad my life had actually become & I escaped!

Tuesday 30 June 2009

Spilt Milk


Alas, she's been having bloke problems. She's gone & split up with her surf hunk who looks really good with his tatty, weathered hair and tight t-shirt. She blames herself cos she wasn't that interested in surfing, & it showed.

Wednesday 24 June 2009

yellowpunkman


I drew him a while back & the yellow is dirty, like his smirk. He knows more than he should & has a past I don't want to know too much about. It'd fill a book to full...if he could remember it.

Wednesday 27 May 2009

Bluedogman

Dogs have big teeth like wolves. But they can also be trained quite easily, to sit up & beg, to roll over on their backs, to fetch a ball. Unfortunately though, they often have bad breath. This can be alleviated by crunchy charcoal dog biscuits. But remember, hide chews cause excessive salivation as do hot cars & the sight of a rabbit bounding over the hill.

To treat your dog well you must give him a comfortable bed to sleep in, make sure he gets plenty of fresh air, & long country walks. If you leave him couped up at home whilst at work in the office you may return home to find your sofa in shreds as well as your favourite pair of pink fluffy slippers. This would be most unfortunate.

So my advice would be to give up your job, buy a van & travel around Europe playing the fiddle whilst he howls & tourists chuck coins into your hat. Now what an adventure that'd be!

Wednesday 20 May 2009

Cor...Books!







 Over 200 illustrations collected together in two books called Sing & Stuff! If you'd like to purchase a book or two they are available from my website at peachweb.










I know for sure the finicky folk of Sing & Stuff would love to be given a home by you...they are a nosey lot tho & may cause a little mischief around the house, after all piskey is amongst the pages, the well known & notoriously naughty character from folk lore who still lurks beneath the stairs, in the darkest corner & in the garden shed...You have been warned!













Sunday 3 May 2009

Prissy


This picture I drew when I moved to a place I'm about to leave.
I liked her attitude, but she did scare me a bit.
I'm glad I won't see her again.

Friday 17 April 2009

Dredge


I saw her last week. I was walkin my dog & dew glistened on the grass & blackbirds were singin'. The town had yet to awaken, there was none of the hussle & rush of a weekday morning with car doors slamming & schoolkids smokin' by the park gate. So there I was, appreciating the fine spring greenness about me, when i caught a glimpse of a foot stickin' out of a bush. It was Dredge. Of a sudden the foot twitched as if tickled by a fly. & then slowly but surely the Dredge rolled out from under the bush. She straightened her skirt & put a fine pointy shoe over her gnarled toes. She opened an eye. Focused. Cursed with the effort. Stood up. & seemed to glide across the mowed grass of the park like she was an angel...or apparition of death. & maybe she was. A ghost of Dredge past, present & future. A symbol of rebirth in these uncertain times...

Wednesday 8 April 2009

Luv & Stuff

This lass had a stroke of luck in the love stakes....she's all loved up cos the door to door salesman actually was her type & not at all bad looking considerin he was wearing a creased grey suit & pink tie the first time she lay eyes upon him. Ok, so he wears white socks & his ears are like rashers of bacon, but she sees through such imperfections to the real inner man. Honest. & I ain't being sarcastic.

Thursday 12 March 2009

Merbabe & Dogman On Holiday


Merbabe is the Mermaid of Zennor babified. She thought she'd come onland for a bit of fun, maybe even seduce a bloke whilst he's too drunk to see her tail hidden beneath her pink & orange sarong. By the way, you can always tell a mermaid by her wet hem. Be warned.
Dogman is a jack-the-lad, the Beast of Bodmin down from the moor & on holiday. He's in St Ives eyeing up the babes, enjoying the ale & pretending he can surf, but he can't. He's such a slacker....except when it comes to food. He can gobble up old grandmas & children whole.

Tuesday 3 March 2009

Betty Stoggs




Betty Stoggs has had a real ale named after her, that's how famous she's become. But few of the punters at the bar know her true story...and probably wouldn't want to if they had an inkling as to what it was about. See, Betty married big burly Jan the Mounster in the olden days and they had a baby.



But whilst Jan was out at work, Betty began to slacken when it came to doing the housework and cooking. Her baby was dressed in rags and her bread was like concrete. And to make matters worse she got in with the gin woman who went from door to door selling more than threads and material.
Then one day whilst she was nattering and knocking back the booze her baby disappeared. Betty swore she would change her ways just to have her baby back. As luck would have it, after a huge search, the bloke from the end terrace came upon the child hidden under a gorse bush, wrapped in a fine blanket and covered with flowers.

 See, the fairies had taken the child but dawn had come before they had a chance to whisk him away to the otherworld, so they'd left him til the evening when they would return.
Lucky Betty! And did she mend her ways?
Mmm.....

Cheese


Life grates on him. Life the grater, him the cheese.

Yellow Top





I couldn’t be arsed pretending to like him.
I mean, what’s the point of disliking someone if you can’t show it?

Friday 27 February 2009

Beagle


He smells of crisps and beer.
She's in love.

Dogman on holiday

He likes the beach does dogman, the warm breath of the breeze ruffling his fur, the tickle of waves making his thighs tingle. Mmm, but remember he’s part dog and not all dogs like to swim, so he never goes completely in.

And so the surfboard by his side never skims a wave but is a prop...literally, when he’s beered up. But then again thank God he doesn’t go for a dip as there’s nowt worse than the wet dog smell is there?

So, here he is on the beach eyeing up the babes, pretending he can surf, swigging back the ale, pink tongue licking his glistening, pointy teeth.

Duffy and the Devil


Squire Lovell was returning from hunting one winter’s day when he passed by a cottage where a young lass called Duffy was having an furious row with her step mother and a right lot of swearing was going on too! 

The Squire, feeling sorry for Duffy, invited her to live at his manor where she would spin and knit for him, little knowing that Duffy was in fact very lazy and hopeless at spinning! 
 


In a short time Duffy was installed at the manor and put to work carding and spinning a pile of wool up in the loft. One day a devil suddenly appeared right before her, a bucca boo who had lusted after the pretty young maid for quite a while! He smelt of burnt clothes and charcoal and said,

“Here I am at your call young lady, ready to do any work you ask of me, if you’ll agree to go with me at the end of three years to my realm...unless by chance you can tell me my name.”

 
Duffy, seeing three years at least of an easy life, agreed to the devil’s deal and the rest of the household on hearing the rumble of the spinning wheel in the loft, thought Duffy to be hard at work, when in fact it was the devil. Each day she in fact sneaked off to the mill where the women gathered to grind grain and gossip. 
 





The devil meanwhile kept to his word and produced the finest stockings that ever were spun which the Squire wore to church each Sunday. They were much admired by the congregation; young and old alike desired to feel his legs and the silkiness of those superb stockings that survived all the furze, brambles and bogs when the Squire went hunting.

He never again had scratched legs and was so delighted by her work, on returning from hunting one evening, he grabbed her and proposed marriage to the pretty young lass, little knowing she had had to stuff an admirer who had come to court her into the oven to hide him!

 
So, the Squire and Duffy were married and the years went by and the Squire came to be dressed head to toe in the devil’s handiwork. Duffy continued to go to the mill where she told Betty, a cunning witch, the deal she’d struck with the devil as three years were nearly up and she was no nearer knowing the devil’s name. Betty thought on it a while and hatched a plan, telling Duffy to make sure the Squire went hunting the next day.


Well, the Squire took quite a bit of persuading but eventually he went out hunting. When he returned at midnight he was singing snatches of a song and was laughing like a madman.




Finally calming down he told her about how he’d been chasing a hare that led him to a grove and there he saw a devil dancing with witches around a fire, and Betty of the mill was amongst them! The devil sang,

”I did knit and I did spin
For three years to the day
Tomorrow she shall ride with me
Over land and over sea
Far away, far away,
For she can never know
My name is Tarraway.”

And the witches sang the chorus,

“By night and day
We dance and play
With noble Captain Tarraway.”

The Squire was so excited by the song and the sight of witches flying over the fire on broomsticks he shouted out, “Hurrah!” and in an instant a blast of wind swept away the fire and all was dark and silent! The Squire drank another flagon of cider and rolled dead drunk on the floor so Duffy covered him with a blanket and crept to bed. 


 
The next night the Squire went hunting to try and find once more the witch’s gathering and Duffy was left on her own. Of a sudden the bucca boo was stood in the doorway dressed in his devilish finery, come to take Duffy to his sizzling underworld realm. A very anxious Duffy insisted she’d much rather stay at the manor but the devil was adamant she tell him his name otherwise she’d have no choice but to leave with him. Said Duffy,

“Mr Devil, aren’t ee lord Beelzebub?”
“No young lass, how could you confuse me with such a one! For the second time I demand of you my name!”
“Well, it must be Prince Lucifer.”
“Don’t be so ignorant! For the third time I ask you my name!”
“Well I reckon it is Tarraway!”
“Aggghh, I’m too proud of my name to deny it, you are right, I’m fair beaten.”
 

Taraway disappeared in an instant with a flash of lightening, thick smoke and the stench of brimstone.

Duffy’s life had been saved by the cunning of Betty the witch who had made the devil reveal his name. From that day onwards though still terrible at knitting, she did the best she could, and the Squire once more had to get used to the scratches of thorns whilst out hunting.

Monday 23 February 2009

Lorry


He came over with a grudge the size of a lorry, his face smeared with oil.
He’d been fixing his car he said.
This was not a good day to ask him for a favour.

Angels & Devils





Cut his finger and out grew a tree
From the acorn of blood came his ancestry
Climbed down the tree to sit at the roots
Where angels and devils like ivy grew.

Friday 20 February 2009

Rabbits & Worms


He had rabbit ears and a habit of hiccupping whilst drinking beer. I said he should forget it, I wasn’t interested in dating a rabbitman but he just grinned, his buck teeth glinting.
As I got up from the pub bench he pulled me back and tickled my ear with his whiskers and put a paw around my waist. His nose was quivering. I looked around hoping no one had seen this embrace, then looked him in the eye and said, ‘No way!’
With that he jumped up and over the bench, a tear glinting on his face. 'But it's not my fault i was born this way!', he cried and began to tell me the story of his life.
I'd best stop here as I swore his secret I'd keep but, blimey, what a can of worms it was, that night at the pub by the dock where the seagulls screech.

Wednesday 18 February 2009

Giant Bolster


I'm tellin' an old tale now, old as hills and ancient as trees. It's about a giant who roamed these parts long before you or I ever spoke of double-glazing, ring tones or the property market.

He was gruff as the gales that batter the Land's End peninsular and vicious with it. He wasn't too nice to his wife either and fell in love with the chaste St Agnes, patron saint of Celtic Cornwall. 

Being a nun she just wasn't into the whole romance thing, especially with a married giant. But Bolster continued to woo her with dead cows and by blowing the morning mists away.
 
Be glad you can't smell how bad his breath is...enough to make birds drop out of the sky, dead, for miles around...





Sunday 15 February 2009

Betty Trenoweth


Betty Trenoweth is a witch from the Land's End area of Cornwall. She used to fly around on a piece of yellow-flowered ragwort in the days before railways and radios and mobile phones. She's renowned for her shape-changing abilities and can transform herself into a hare in an instant. She can even talk to animals and put them under a spell, which is what she's done to this pig. She whispered in it's ear so it'd follow her home, to be fattened up and eaten along with tatties and a sprig of herbs. Special herbs, mind, that give her the ability to fly, see into the future, and into other people's minds.
So be warned, if you ever happen to be up on the moors near Land's End and you see a tall lady in a black hat...
SCARPER!

This is a tale told by the folk who knew her years back.

One Thursday at the end of harvest Betty went to the market to buy a pig to fatten up for Christmas. She had nearly agreed on a price with the seller but pretending she didn't really want the pig and saying she wouldn't give a farthing more, she turned her back and went to look at some others with the intention of scaring the farmer into lowering  his price. In the meantime her cousin Tom offered a little more and purchased the sow.

When Betty returned to say she would have the sow she found Tom the new owner and was fuming as you can well imagine.
"Well if I don't have her you’ll find the sow the dearest bargain thee hast ever had." Tom refused to give up his purchase and Betty went off mumbling threats and curses, and shaking her bony finger at Tom.

Tom got the sow home, put her in a sty, filled the trough and firmly fastened the door. When he rose early next morning he found the door open and his sow rooting in a neighbour's garden and it took many hours to get the troublesome beast back into her sty again. In spite of all he could do, scarce a night passed without her getting out to do some mischief that Tom would have to pay for.

Months passed, during which the more the sow ate the leaner she became. One day Old Betty met Tom and said, quite friendly-like,
"Well, Cousin Tom, how is thy sow getting on, will she be fat ready for Christmas? I hear she is very troublesome; perhaps you had better sell her to me.”
Tom replied, "I'll drive her to market and sell her for less than I gave, rather than you shall have her!"


More time passed and Tom, finding that his sow had eaten and destroyed more than she was worth and all the time getting leaner, fastened a rope to her leg and started early one Thursday morning for market, determined to sell her for anything he might be offered.

The sow walked quiet as a lamb till she came to a stream but she wouldn't cross the water; he tried to push her across wheel-barrow fashion, holding her up by the hind legs; then he endeavoured to drag her through the water, but she turned right around, bolted between his legs and the rope slipped from his hand. She ran up the moors over hedges and ditches, Tom following through bogs, brambles and furze for many miles till all his clothes were torn to rags with the thickets.

At last Tom caught hold of the rope and tied it round his wrist. No sooner had he done that a hare leaped out of a bush beside the road crying "Chee-ah!" It ran down the moor, the sow following, dragging Tom along, till the sow bolted under a bridge so far as the rope would let her.
Tom by good luck had his knife in his pocket and cut the rope but he could neither drive nor coax his pig from under the bridge! About noon Tom got very hungry yet he was afraid to leave his sow and go to the nearest house that he might have something to eat because whilst he was out of sight the bewitched pig might bolt away, no one could tell whither!

So he sat down beside the bridge in case someone might pass by then near sunset who should appear but Old Betty with her basket on her arm and knitting in her hand. She walked clicking her needles, knitting all the way, and looking as demure as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. When she saw Tom sitting beside the road she seemed all surprised and said,
"Cousin, is that you? Have 'e sold the sow and got drunk on the profit, that you have missed your way back?"

"Well, Old Betty, is that thee? I must say that thee hast beaten me hollow." Tom replied. "The sow is under the bridge and thee dust know it well for who but thee crossed the road and went over the moor in the shape of a hare? Thy friend, the devil, lent thee his hounds, I suppose, to drive her in.”
"Well, thank the powers," said she, according to her custom when anyone came to grief, "As you are a cousin of my own, I'll give 'e the value of the sow still, and that is about half of what she cost 'e because she's now gone to skin and bone, and it’ll take months to fatten her up again."
"If you will give me something from your basket to eat and what you offered, you may take her and be damned to 'e!"

Then the dame went down to the mouth of the bridge and called "Chee-ah! Chee-ah!" and the sow came out and followed her home like a dog! All who heard Tom's story agreed that the hare was no other than Old Betty in that shape and they wished they could send a silver bullet through her (lead has no effect on a witch-hare). Betty kept her pig many years and she became the parent of a numerous progeny.

After Betty had gained her ends with Tom Trenoweth nobody dared deny her anything she coveted except Madam Noy who was a strong minded lady who kept the best hunter and hounds which she coursed with daily as she rode over her farms, across hedges and ditches, to inspect her lands. She took great pride in her poultry, above all in her rare breed of hens with large tufts on their heads, called coppies.

Now Betty knew that Madam Noy refused to give or sell any eggs from her coppies yet one morning she put on her steeple-crown hat, took her stick and hobbled down to Madam Noy’s where she sat herself on a stile till she saw the Madam coming from a barn with a bowl of corn in her hands to feed her poultry.

"Good day to your honour," said Betty, as she went up curtseying and nodding to Madam, "Dear me, how well you are lookan, you're gettan to look younger and younger I do declare, and what beautiful hens you've got, the finest in the parish I do believe. I don’t suppose you could you spare me a dozen eggs?"

Said Madam Noy, "I've no eggs to spare! Dust thee think that when I've refused to sell any to my own sister or to my cousin, that I would spare them to the likes of you?"
Betty replied, "If you won't sell me some eggs you shall regret it heartily, me dear."
"Now go thee  home and what business hast thee here pryin’ about the place, covetan all thee can spy with thy evil eye, I'd like to know. Be gone or I'll set the dogs on thee, don’t think thou that I'm afraid of thy witchcraft."

Madam Noy and Betty continued their threats until Madam Noy snatched up a stone, threw it at Betty and hit her with a blow that made her jaw rattle. Betty limped to the stile mumbling to herself. Standing on it she pointed her finger at Madam Noy, making the lady shake in her shoes, whilst she waved her out-stretched  hand and ill-wished her by saying,

"Mary Noy, thou ugly, old, and spiteful plague,             
I give thee the collick, the palsy, and ague.
All the eggs thy fowls lay, from this shall be addle,
All thy hens have the pip and die with the straddle.
And before nine moons have come and gone,
Of all thy coppies there shan't live one:
Thy arm and thy hand, that cast the stone,
Shall wither and waste to skin and bone."

Madam Noy was never well from that day on, her coppie’s eggs were always bad and all Betty's spell took effect. Before six months were past she lost her every one of her coppies and her arm withered to skin and bone. She was never to ride with her hounds again and  rarely left the confines of her home. 


My Mate

my mate had to be very patient. i mean, there're so many icky blokes out there, and lasses come to think of it. she'd been through years of torture doin' the whole internet dating thing and met up with beardos, blokes with stick legs and huge heads, the meek, the freaks, the dubiously sleek...
and then ralph came along, well, hit her head on cos he wasn't lookin' where he was goin' down aisle 3 in the supermarket by the spring greens (bit healthy for both of em they are.)
he apologised and they both headed for aisle 5- biscuits, crisps and cake mixes. and 10 minutes later love bloomed in the cafe where coffee was only 99p a cup and tasted ok really for the price.
sweet, eh?