Britain has many mysteries

but the strangest one of all.

Is how to make the plumbing work

in the small room down the hall.

Some you pull and some you push

and some will need a special touch.

But you are not sure of success

until you here that welcome flush.

 

Also beware that flaunted shower.

That hangs in welcome on the wall.

It’s not there to wash your hair

but placed upon your foot to fall.

If used, it drools in feeble drops.

Some times it’s warm, but mostly not.

And when your eyes are full of soap

th wretched flow will surely stop.

 

Never ever drop the soap.

For if for it you try to grope.

You may expose your nether end

outside the stall in which you bend.

Hand basins like a bathroom shrine.

Hot and cold, oh how sublime!

As long as all you need to wash

is one hand at a time.

 

With groan and belch, in Falstaff style,

hot water from a tap will flow.

The bath will fill, you’ll wait a while,

your bathing sure but rather slow.

Your minds eye dwells on fluffy towel,

to warm your shoulders, now so chill.

But when you take it from the rail,

you find it will not fill the bill.

 

With clanking chain and dragging leg.

Fear not the haunting of the tower.

The thing that causes sickly dread,

the plumbing and the shower.

 

 

David Garlick, England, 1986