The Farm on the Bottom Bunk

Milking day was on Tuesdays at 4
when I got home from school.
It used to be on Mondays,
but then I started cubs.

Christmas stockings were always full of sheep,
cows, horses, dry stone walls
one year, a tractor
so the farmer could travel
to the lower fields
where a lake was made from Kit Kat foil
and pigs ate from a trough
made from a matchbox.

My dad used to cut up sponge
dab it in green poster paint
and copydex it around the edge of the farm.
The sponge left over
would be painted brown
and stuffed inside Smarties tubes.
"We made oak trees today"
I would tell my mum over fish fingers.

The farm is now in the loft
or maybe we gave it to the kids next door-
I don't remember.
I abandoned the animals
when I got interested
in milkmaids.