The Road to Oz

Well it's 7.30am on the 22nd of Sep and on opening the curtains for the last time for a while I notice the cars on the road have had their first of frost and like the impending winter the prologue is over and the journey starts. I have a vivid if not accurate idea of the first stage of the journey. I've always had a vivid imagination but never in any sense accurate. But as a friend would say "Smithy don't let the truth spoil a good story" but then I think it was Keats who said "Truth is beauty, beauty truth. Perhaps I'll try and steer a middle ground. So what follows may not be accurate both factually or grammatically but to quote this time an old work colleague who use to say 'you've got to have something to say before you can learn to write'. Perhaps my lesson is just starting.

The following impression is how I see the first part of the trip and I'd like to try and present it as a ballad in the tradition of Raglan Road or The Ballad of Reading Gaol, however, the outcome may be more McGonagall. Hope you enjoy it and I find the reality of the road not too dissimilar or disappointing.

The Road to Oz

Chorus

It's farewell to Sheffield and England
As we head for new vistas abroad
Foresaking the work and the weather
For dreams down that long winding road

We're bound for Sydney Australia
With conviction, no pomp nor a band
Just the strains on the chains from the hammer
As we strike out for Van Deaman's land

Chorus

From the west, celtic shores of the channel
To the lands of the Magyars and Huns
Past that cold, cruel road to Sarayevor
To Islam, the east and the sun

Chorus

See the delights of old Constantinople
The great mosque Hag and its Dome
To the place of the face and the Trojans
And the far flung reaches of Rome

Chorus

To the exotic world of the Persians
And the ancient capital Esfahan
Take a magical trip care of Sinbad
Down the silk route from Shiraz to Bam

Chorus

Travel on to the land of the Indus
Through the desert of Balochistan
Like the Mughal lords and their armies
Raising the pillars of Islam

Leave the men of silly walking
Into Sikhdom and a temple of gold
Through Delhi onto Agra and romance
And Varanasi the Ganges and the journey