Tag: Pick-a-Word

The Adventures of Major General Algernon Gove

Five random words. Paula, over at Lost in Translation posts five different words every month, and invites bloggers to choose five different photos to illustrate them. Well, I decided I’d join in. But I thought I’d have even more fun if I wrangled those five words into a piece of doggerel to accompany my images. Here we go…

The five words are …

FAMILIAR, SELECTED, NAUTICAL, REFRACTION, SPLENDID

A retired Major General from Hove
with the moniker Algernon Gove
said ‘Before life unravels
I must finish my travels.’
And forthwith he made plans to rove.

He selected some places to stay:
His first port of call was Norway.
He thought he'd get bored 
with a trip round a fjord.
But he found it quite splendid, if grey.
.
Thereafter, he thought the romance
Of a yacht sailing slowly to France
Would just do the trick.
But the poor chap was sick.
What nautical mis-happenstance!

Dry land seemed a safer idea.
Get his plans and his thoughts into gear.
The familiar?  Go home?
Or a day-trip to Rome?
Or ditch the whole plan till next year?

He mused - and looked up at the sky
Which was sulky and grey - though now dry.
And saw the attraction
Of a rainbow’s refraction
It was time to bid drifting ‘goodbye’.

So what did the old fellow do then?
It needs planning, the where and the when.
But I’ve got a hunch
That after his lunch
He’ll announce an adventure.  Amen.
Maps are a good place to make destination-selections from. This is the Catalan Atlas, created in 1375 by Abraham Cresques, and may not be the map book that Major General Gove made use of.
This isn’t a fjord. It isn’t even in Norway. I’ve never been there. It’s Lake Ohrid in North Macedonia. But I think it’s rather splendid – if grey.
These yachts look a little small for a nautical voyage. No wonder the Major General was sea-sick.
A familiar scene to the Major General as he gazed out of his bedroom window in Cheshire.
A rainbow. A double rainbow in fact. Plenty of refraction here.

Before he retired, the Major General was commanding chaps like the fellows shown in the featured photo.