OLDIE´S OUTING:

All onto the coach with suitcases, boxes & bags,

Packed lunches, new coats, still sporting price tags,

Socks with sandals, caps & newly blue rinsed hair,

Some in gnarled solitude & others clinging in pairs,

Shuffling with Zimmer-frames & old tapping canes,

Chatting about grand-children, pills, aches & pains,

All popping tablets together with beer & their wine,

Groaning in their creaking, about the passing of old time,

Every five minutes, stopping the coach for a needed pee,

Left behind shouting, “hey driver, please don´t forget me”,

Once in the hotel, they all settle in their favourite chairs,

Ensconced in their places, they sit, doze & vacantly stare,

Forget all the excursions, trips, monuments & fair sights,

Sitting in front of the telly, is how they spend their nights,

Meal times are the best, that´s when things get exciting,

Elbowing each-other, to get all the food that is inviting,

Soups dripping down bosoms & cream upon old chins,

Spluttering, gnashing, champing, with evil contented grins,

Then off to bed until breakfast, when food beckons again,

Trudging streets daily, in what could be Leeds, Crete or Spain,

It makes no difference to them, where they go or even when,

And when it is all over, “Yippee, now we can go home again”,

Buying dirty postcards, sticks of rock & presents made of tat,

In karaoke creaking, shod in slippers & donning silly-billy hats,

Moaning about their bunions, their false teeth & achy veins,

Dripping from every orifice & then comparing all their pains,

Then turning off their hearing aids & not hearing anything,

But turning up for dinner, in best cardies & their pasty bling.

(I know, because I am one of them.)