Oh Glen, you must be so tired
Little ones are so busy and fired
But when you are older
Your energies moulder
And kids seem to be all fast wired.

Janda, your journey remote
Over there in England of note
I guess there are changes
I hope there's no dangers
And not too much luggage to tote.

I got an ol' neighbour called Otto
who every Saturday buys Lotto
he says with a grin
"if I ever win
I can spend the rest of me life, Blotto"

It's a beautiful sunshiny morn
And the dead leaves are littering the lawn.
I'll go spend an hour
Before there's a shower ...
With the rake and the bin - leaves all gorn !!!!

And the chickweed is all bright and green -
It don't know that the summer has been ...
Its wee, smiley faces
Are in all the wrong places
I glare at it and feel very mean ...

If I stop sitting here and I move
I'll soon be in the gardening groove.
What used to feel fine
Now takes me some time ...
The old arthritic knees ain't so smoove ...

Oh Glen your menagerie minding
And children with schedules so binding
and family to stay
extra cooking each day
Must all be so terribly grinding.

And yet, when they're no longer there
The silence you'll find hard to bear
And you'll wonder how time
Had been so hard to find
When there's suddenly so much to spare.

Now Janda that is such a shame
But should it be moths that you blame?
Or did you crave a dram
Of some NZ lamb
And nibble away on the plane?

The trees are all shedding their leaves
They're tumbling down now in sheaves
Soon they'll all be bare
With no leaves up there
Until spring with new leafage reprieves.

The leaves pile up there on my lawn
There's more there with every dawn
They're good for manure
But block up the sewer
And trees look all winter forlorn.

Yes how does it happen I wonder
A few days of rain wind and thunder
And the weeds have increased
But the good plants deceased
And the garden is one messy blunder

I took the young grand-kids today
For a walk in the bush down the way
But the ground was all slush
And their shoes filled with mush
And the jumbled trails led us astray.

I thought we'd be lost there forever
It seemed quite a hopeless endeavour
The signs made no sense
and the growth was quite dense
But we did make our way out however..

Tis, I am glad you got out
It's not good to be rambling about
To be lost in the night
Would be so filled with fright
And the kiddies would cry, I've no doubt.

Kuranui, deciduous trees
In Autumn have colours that please
And their buds in the spring
Are a wonderful thing
And in Winter there's no shade to freeze

But I ponder a lot, which is worse
Do their benefits outweigh their curse?
For there's problems they bring
Between Summer and spring
As you've told us about in your verse

Well, Tis, you have made quite a point
With your reasoning my thoughts have joint
Although it's a mess
When fall trees undress
More sun doesn't us disappoint.

And bare branches lying 'gainst sky
Is a pure delight to our eye
Their patterns bewitch
So I would not switch
And those pretty red leaves beautify