By: Blonde Two
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing their way and driving caravans down tiny lanes,
If you can trust yourself to have enough fuel;
But make allowance for a trebled journey time;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting
In traffic jam after traffic jam.
In all directions, and not give way to hating.
If you can dream of a time when roads were empty;
If you can think – despite the engines drone;
If you approach a Triumph and avoid disaster
And abuse chocolate to calm yourself down;
If you can bear to hear the traffic report
Twisted and repeated making a trap for fools;
Or watch your careful day’s plans be broken
And stoop and revert to plans that break your usual rules.
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And spend it on petrol to sit in queues;
If you can start your journey again at its beginnings
And drive the long way round with pretty views.
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To make the trip although all hope is gone;
Of holding on to your sunny day schedule
That you thought would be such fabulous fun.
If you can drive with crowds and keep your virtue
Or lose your dignity uttering the common tongue;
If neither foes nor loving friends can help you
Because all are stuck in the same traffic throng.
If you can fill the many, many unforgiving minutes
With sixty seconds of absolutely no distance run;
THEN YOU PROBABLY LIVE IN DEVON
GOOD LUCK TO YOU MY SON!
Especially if the Triumph is old enough to have drum brakes all round.
“Keep your virtue”!! Things are much worse in the south-west than I thought.
Interesting point. The poem’s addressed to a lad – I assume his sister doesn’t need this form of spine transplant. So it’s sexist but the other way round.
Not that I care to rain on your parade. Well done, Blonde Two: exercise you’ll profit from. Like doing a crossowrd puzzle while lacking a writing implement. Proof that you’re not gristle from top to toe. But then I knew that.
I think Kipling must have been referring to a different type of virtue. Down here in Devon all of this virtue has been lost in the crowds.
I paint an unkind picture though. We need the visitors and we shouldn’t gripe about sharing our beautiful place.
Brilliant. There ought to be another verse about three of you having to reverse 100 yards including uphill round a blind bend because someone doesn’t want to go back 20 yards to a passing space and risk scratching their wing mirror!
And/or doesn’t know the width of their own car/has never actually reversed so doesn’t know where the gear is! Grrrr. I have offered to reverse someone’s car for them on two occasions! We’ve always said there should be an extra part to the driving test for visitors to Devon – like the camping endorsement on the Walking Leader I suppose. I drove 100s of miles of Dartmoor lanes in a very old Mini before my driving test, was the best way to learn reversing!
A great post B2!!
Thank you – a very heartfelt one, but I am trying very hard not to get grumpy about it … trying that is!!
I neglected to mention the coach that needed at least a metre between his left side and the wall!
Hee! I sat at the front of 3 vehicles once and argued that one out with a small van driver for nearly 15 minutes – but in the end got so cross that all 3 of us reversed out of the way. Not worth it.
Reading all of these, I think you were all at Sidmouth this week (Folk Festival).
The best place to go and learn to reverse a camper – Ireland. They never tell you you are in a cul de sac until you have gone down about 3/4 mile of it, and then you come across a little sign telling you how many sea bass you are allowed to catch, and by the way, there are no more passing/turning places. (They never tell you where you are.)
(With apologies to all who come from that hugely delightful and beautiful country.)
Dartmoor is sadly lacking in signs about sea bass. I think we should rectify this and cause a bit of jolly confusion!
What a delightfully fishy idea!