www.thedragonlords.zoomshare.com : Homeward

www.thedragonlords.zoomshare.com : Homeward

Seligor's Castle, fun for all the children of the world. : Homepage 1

TRUDIES TIT-BITS

THE GARDEN GNOME

The children were very pleased when daddy brought home a garden gnome. He was a cheerful gnome with a smiling face. His hat and his jacket were red and his trousers were green. He had red, pointed shoes on his feet. he had a long white beard and his eyes were a very bright blue. he stood in the back garden at the edge of the grass.

The children ran out before breakfast to say "hello" to him and they often ra out at bedtime to say "good-night." The children grew very fond of him. Jane washed his face when it got dirty and Janet gave him a twig for a walking stick.

The gnome never stopped smiling not even when it rained. He smiled all the time especially when a robin perched on his hat and sang.

One day the girls were eating strawberries in the garden close by the gnome. They were called in for a time as a visitor had arrived, but when they came back Jane looked down at her plate in amazement.

"Janet, when mum called us in I had four strawberries on my plate, four really big ones and now, look there are only three!" Where could it have gone? Jane stared in bewilderment at her plate.

"Oh my goodness!" exclaimed Janet, "I left three on my plate and now I only have two, were on earth could they have gone. Do you think a bird could have ate them?"

Jane shook her head, "I don't think so , a bird would have just pecked at them but who else could it have been?" mused Jane. Together the girls looked round the garden, then Jane let out a squeal. "Janet, look at the gnome, he's smiling more than ever and just look at his mouth?" There was a red stain round his mouth and his smile grew even bigger. "I do believe you ate them, didn't you gnome?"

Then to the surprise of both girls the gnome replied. "Yes I did, you see they looked so delicious and you never bothered to offer me any, I just couldn't resist them. I hope you don't mind?"

"Of course we don't mind." said Janet. We didn't know that you could eat or talk . In fact we thought you were just well... plaster."

"Oh yes, I can walk and talk and do lots of other things," said the gnome. but I keep still and quiet when there are grown ups about."

The girls just sat there for a few seconds , it was hard to believe that their garden gnome could talk and walk just like a real person. "Will you be able to talk to us again? Asked the girls eventually.

"Yes, of course I will, but it will have to be when we are alone." After that the gnome often talked to the girls and they found him very useful too. If they were shelling the peas for their mother the gnome loved to help them. And he was terrific at finding lost balls or even marbles. His eyes were very sharp. In fact he was like magic when he had to turn himself back to plaster . The sound of a step or a voice and he froze in a twinkling. The girls became quite used to this and after a whilethey stopped being surprised when it happened.

One day when the girls went out to greet him they found him very excited. "Hurry girls, look in the garden next door." They looked over the hedge and they saw another garden gnome, this time with a pipe in his mouth and a spade in his hand.

"His name is Jeremy," said their gnome. "We had a long talk last night and I think we are going to become best friends."

That night after Janet and Jane had gone to bed, they tip-toed to the window and peeped through the curtains. They could see the two gnomes talking together through a hole in the hedge.

"I am so glad they like each other so much." said Jane, as they climbed back into bed. "It will be so nice for them to play together when everyone is asleep and to talk about whatever it is gnomes talk about."

The Jacqueminot Rose: The Crumpled Rose and the Real Princess

Dr. Do Diddily and the Dee - Dot's
Invite you to France and her Countryside
 France - Monaco - Corsica
 Alsace - Aquitaine - Auvergne -  - Brittany - Burgandy - Champagne Ardenne
 Lorraine -  Midi Pyrenees - Lower Normandy - North Calais - Picardy
 Paris-Isle-of-France - Rhone Alps - Upper Normandy - Provence-Alpes - Côte d'Azur, etc.

THE CRUMPLED ROSE-LEAF AND THE REAL PRINCESS

                                                                                                                                                                                           

Her Majesty went softly to make the stranger's bed,
And took a crumpled rose-leaf, a leaf of old Jacqueminot,
A scented sweet Jacqueminot, and shook a cunning head.
She hid it in the mattress, and over it she spread
Forty layers of swan's down, and twenty quilts of goose's down,
And shook them up and shook them down, to make them light, she said.

She laid upon this mountain her sheets of finest thread,
And three-and-thirty blankets, the whitest Witney blankets,
From all the thickest fleeces, the land of Sussex bred;
And over that a cover that fragrant odours shed,
Above the snowy pillows, , the lightest puffy pillows,
The softest pillows ever known; to make her sleep she said.

The Queen came in next morning: "How did you rest ?" she said.
The stranger told her sadly, and showed a host of bruises,
Across her slender shoulders and down her back they spread
Like petals of Jacqueminot so satin-soft and red.
She wept, the weary Princess: "Oh, oh !  I am so sleepy !
I wish I hadn't stayed with you, it's such a horrid bed !"...

                      A half-hardy, deep crimson  rose of the remontant class; - so named after General Jacqueminot, of France.

Jean François Jacqueminot, viscount of Ham (1787–1865) was a French General.

He was born at Nancy, studied at the École Militaire, entered the army in 1803, and , distinguished himself at the battles of Austerlitz, Essling, Wagram, and the Beresina. In 1814 he was promoted colonel. When Napoleon returned from Elba, Jacqueminot was made commander of lancers. He made a brilliant charge at Quatre Bras and after Waterloo refused transfer to the service of the Bourbons, was imprisoned for a month. After his release, Jacqueminot established at Bar-le-Duc
 a great silk factory, which gave employment to many of the veterans of
the French Imperial Army. Elected to the House of Deputies in 1827, he
joined in the protest of the Two Hundred and Twenty-one against Polignac, and with Pajol directed the Rambouillet expedition which led Charles X to leave France. In 1842 he succeeded Chaud as commander of the National Guards of the Seine. Louis Philippe made him Viscount in 1846. His indecision at the head of the Guards made possible the revolution of 1848, and he was retired in that year.

He died 78, years old, in 1865.

Diddily Dee Dot's Dreamland for Children Everywhere : Knock?Knock?

Diddily Dee Dot's Dreamland for Children Everywhere : Knock?Knock?

Why did the Little Mermaid ride a sea-horse?

Because she was playing water polo!


Doctor, Doctor I keep getting pains in the eye when I drink coffee
Have you tried taking the spoon
out ?

Little Monster: Mum, Mum What's for tea?

***
Mother Monster: Shut up son and get back in the Microwave!


How can you tell the difference between a rabbit and a red-eyed monster?

* * *
Just try getting a red-eyed monster into a rabbit hutch!
diddilydeedotsdreamland .

Tongue Twisters
should be said quickly

Betty Botter bought some butter but the butter it was bitter.
If I use this bitter butter it will make my batter bitter, so t'was better Betty Botter bought a bit
of better butter. So she bought the better butter and it made her batter better, so t'was better
Better Botter bought a bit of better butter.

Which wristwatches are Swiss wristwatches?
She sells sea shells on the sea
shore , the shells she sells, are sea shore shells I'm sure.

Why are most Monsters covered in wrinkles?

Have you ever tried to iron a wrinkly Monster!

Henri Warnery. Sur l'Alpe, Almanach Pestalozzi 1929

Welcome to Dr Do-Diddily and the Dee Dot's to
 Germany and the Alps
   Switzerland.  Austria.   Liechtenstein.  Germany. 

Tableau du soir

..... Le soir descend. Sur la neige des frissons roses
Courent, qui la font palpiter comme une chair ;
Et les toits des chalets, par leurs trappes mi-closes,
Laissent un filet bleu monter dans le ciel clair.....

Table Lake

There all of a sudden, a wide horizon unfolds,
Any country by a vague haze iridescent
Jura encircled its distant wave;
And Geneva, as a huge sapphire shines
More stroking undecided between its banks,
More divine than the vault lovely nights.

This is Sur l'Alpe as it appears in my original copy of 
"Almanache Pestalozzi 1929"

C'est un haut pâturage au flanc d'un mont boisé.

Là, tout d'un coup, un large horizon se déroule,

Tout un vague pays par la brume irisé,

Qu'enserre le Jura de sa lointaine houle.

Et le Léman, comme un saphir immense, luit,

Plus caressant entre ses rives indécises,

Plus divin que la voùte adorable des nuits;

Et des villrs au pied des coteaux sont assises.

Devant ce cher tableau je m'attarde, rêvant...

Mais bien vile un réseau de tristesse m'enlace,

A revoir de si loin ce monde des vivants

Où comme un autre, hier encor, j'avais ma place.

         

                                                                   Henri Warnery. Sur l'Alpe.

Warnery Henry (1859-1902) is a poet Swiss -born French-speaking Lausanne . He studied theology before becoming a French teacher at the college of Constantinople . "Sur l'Alpe," sings the mountain with a freshness and intensity of feeling remarkable. Warnery Henry won the literature prize Rambert in 1903 for "The People Vaud.

Pacific Coast from the wonderful pen of Cicely Fox Smith, a connection with British Columbia

Pacific Coast - 

by Cicely Fox Smith

1882-1954, written in 1920

I found this poem in my 1937 Junior Reciter's Repertory, along with Lavender Pond and London Seagulls, both by Cicely Fox Smith. I thought this would fit nicely in the Pacific Territory Page with its connection to British Columbia.

Dr Dodiddily and the Dee Dot's
OCEANIA - PACIFIC TERRITORIES:

Once again I must thank the following link, to which I am a member for the help in placing this wonderful picture and poem description.

http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/41673-Cicely-Fox-Smith-Pacific-Coast

Half across the world to westward there's a harbour that I know,
Where the ships that load with lumber and the China liners go, —
Where the wind blows cold at sunset off the snow-crowned peaks that gleam
Out across the Straits at twilight like the landfall of a dream.

There's a sound of foreign voices — there are wafts of strange perfume —
And a two-stringed fiddle playing somewhere in an upstairs room;
There's a rosy tide lap-lapping on an old worm-eaten quay,
And a scarlet sunset flaming down behind the China Sea.

And I daresay if I went there I should find it all the same,
Still the same old sunset glory setting all the skies aflame,
Still the smell of burning forests on the quiet evening air, —
Little things my heart remembers nowhere else on earth but there.

Still the harbour gulls a-calling, calling all the night and day,
And the wind across the water singing just the same old way
As it used to in the rigging of a ship I used to know
Half across the world from England, many and many a year ago.

She is gone beyond my finding - dash gone forever, ship and man,
Far beyond that scarlet sunset flaming down behind Japan;
But I'll maybe find the dream there that I lost so long ago —
Half across the world to westward in a harbour that I know —
Half across the world from England many and many a year ago.

Notes

From SEA SONGS AND BALLADS 1917-22, edited by Cicely Fox Smith,
published by Houghton Mifflin Co., New York, US, © 1924, pp. 96-97;
previously published in SHIPS AND FOLKS, © 1920, pp. 65-66.


This poem describes the poet's nostalgic feelings after leaving the
Pacific Northwest and returning to England, as she thinks back on her
9-year residency in and around Victoria, British Columbia.

The header graphic is a photo showing Victoria Harbour, circa 1900, with
the floating boathouse of the Victoria Yacht Club with small sailing
craft in front. The old Customs House is behind (and still survives);
there are also some sealing schooners drying sails while lying stern to
the wharves.

Charley Noble

Freddie Mercury, gone but never forgotten

Dr Do Diddily and the Dee Dot's present

The Question "WHY" Show,

I mean to say, WHY is it some of us like Fish and some of us Like Marillion. Then again WHY does my son Michael think That MEATLOAF is the greatest singer the world has given us.... NOT. And WHY did FREDDIE committe slow suicide by "his erotic and erratic lifestyle which is common amongst rock stars", so that he died way before his time , along with many others. I watched Queen for the first time the other day with Paul Rogers, It wasn't half bad, but it also wasn't Freddie Mercury. Sad, now to get away from my little tirade and give you some questions to think about whilst you finished your email checking and settle down to watch the amazing picture show. Hugs, Diddily Dee Dot. xxx

Why.....do Tesco's make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.

Why.....do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke.

Why.....do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.

Why......do we leave cars worth thousands of pounds in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.

Why.....do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering.

EVER WONDERED....

Why the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin ?

Why can't women put on mascara with their mouth closed?

Why don't you ever see the headline
'Psychic Wins Lottery'?

Why is 'abbreviated' such a long word?

Why is it that doctors call what they do 'practice'?

Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavour, and dishwater liquid made with real lemons?

Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?

Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?

Why isn't there a mouse-flavoured cat food?

Why didn't Noah swat those two mosquitoes?

Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?

You know that indestructible black box that is used on planes? Why don't they make the whole plane out of that stuff?!

Why don't sheep shrink when it rains?

Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?

Why If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?

Why? Good question.