Tuesday 21 October 2008

His day is done


"Finish good tractor; the bright day is done,
And we are for the dark"*

All the proud work in field and valley is forgotten, this old workhorse is now counting out his days in the damp corner of a grotty field, powering a bandsaw.

*Sincere, abject apologies to W.S.

13 comments:

Unknown said...
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Toby Savage said...

What a beauty. How good that would look on the lawns of Combo Towers. Lovely beam front axle. Check the OD of that!

Thud said...

There is still life in the old dog yet.

Toby Savage said...

Tractor, yes, Ron....Doubtfull.

Affer said...

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old tractors should brrrm and rave at close of day;
Brrrm, brrrm in the dying of the light.

Fred Fibonacci said...

Alas poor Tractor!
I knew him, Horatio
He hath a faulty thylinder head, and hith thpark plugth would'th't foul motht terrible, and hith driver never did find out where the 'thtop' button wath.

Why the lithp? Why?

Affer said...

And now your end is near,
And as you face the final furrow,
My friend, I'll say it clear
I'll state my case, with more than sorrow.
You've lived a life that's full
You ploughed up weed and burr and teazel,
But more, much more than this, you ran on diesel.

Ron Combo said...

Affer....you're wasted. You should be on Broadway.

alastair fox said...

Ron, I thought it was you that was wasted!

Vinogirl said...

It looks so forlorn :(

Peter Ashley said...

I love that word 'forlorn'. It sounds so seventeenth century. I'm going to see if I can drop it into a conversation today, but considering it's likely to be only the window cleaner it might be tricky.

Fred Fibonacci said...

Don't under-estimate the window cleaner Peter. He may be reading Eng Lit on a correspondence course, he may be working deep cover for MI6, he may be as thick as two short planks. In any event, I think you should try out 'forlorn' on him: 'Your damp cloth looks a little forlorn today, window-cleaner' or, possibly: 'I say, window-cleaner, is it just a forlorn hope or do you think you could actually clean the windows rather than merely re-arranging the grime of centuries, like you usually do?'. Or even: 'Forlorn, forlorn, forlorn..I did it all for Lorne Green, he was in Bonanza wasn't he? Or was it 'The High Chaparral', I can never remember'

Peter Ashley said...

Thankyou Fred. I didn't mean to even remotely suggest that my window cleaner was in any way a stranger to the Shorter Oxford English Dictionery (24 vols.). But since a twenty-something single belter has just moved into a cottage on the estate, I might be tempted to go down there and say "Listen, it's a forlorn hope, but do you think there's any chance...."