Brain training

I have started to sing recite poems I remember my dear old dad teaching me as a child such as ‘A frog he would a wooing go heyho said Rowley’. Also ‘The Teddy Bears Picnic’. Such very happy memories they evoke.

Also at the local Panto tonight I sang along with all the songs, as did most of the audience.

I like ‘ I wish I’d looked after my teeth ‘ by Pam Ayers. I have subscribed to the Lumosity brain training app- hope it helps me!

This thread is why l love Gransnet. Oh the diversity you find.
Can we keep it up.
Dawn.

favohurite favourite

A little one to start with. A favohurite of my mums.

Jenny Kiss’d Me
BY LEIGH HUNT
Jenny kiss’d me when we met,
Jumping from the chair she sat in;
Time, you thief, who love to get
Sweets into your list, put that in!
Say I’m weary, say I’m sad,
Say that health and wealth have miss’d me,
Say I’m growing old, but add,
Jenny kiss’d me.

Yes I have just started the GB book too Shysal. I think I am going to attempt 4 lines at a time/day.

My GB book came yesterday so I tried learning my first poem today - Trees by Joyce Kilmer:

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree

A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast

A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair

Upon whose bosom snow has lain
Who intimately lives with rain

Poems are made by fools like me
But only God can make a tree.

I thought I had learnt it over the morning, but when I decided I would type it on here from memory couldn't even remember the first line! I think this proves that I need to use this part of my brain more!

Thanks NanKate!!

But it’s worth a go Green. I’m also having a daily odourless garlic tablet. I’m a sucker for any medical advice in the paper.

Great idea NanKate. My New Year resolution was to learn a language and I'm also doing 10mins Spanish via an App although I'm not so good at remembering all the tenses.
Will try learning poems next. There's good evidence that the brain can change, whatever age, and new neural pathways are formed by learning and retaining things.
Whether it staves off dementia is another question entirely, unfortunately.

Keep ‘um coming Danni ?

Here's a little poem I put in a Birthday card to a friend - supposedly from my little dog:

Here's a Happy Birthday wish,
and a Happy Birthday kiss,
I hope you have a day that's jolly,
Lot's and lot's of Love from Holly

And if this poem makes you merrier,
then I'm a happy Yorkshire Terrier!!
----------------
I know I am no Pam Ayres (who I love) but it amused my friend.

Just got the GB book of poems. Will snuggle down with it tonight. ?

While I certainly memorised and loved poetry in my school days, the only one that I remember in its entirety is The Lake Isle of Innisfree (as follows):

I will arise and go now
And go to Innisfree
And a small cabin build there
Of clay and wattle made
Nine bean rows will I have there
And a hive for the honeybee
And live alone in the bee loud glade

And I shall have some peace there
For peace comes dropping slow
Dropping from the veils of morning
To where the cricket sings
Where midnight's all a-glimmer
And noon a purple glow
And evening full of the linnets wings

I will arise and go now
For always night and day
I hear lake waters lapping gently on the shore
While standing in the roadway
Or on the pavement grey
I hear it deep in the heart's core

Hope this jogs the memory/emotions of anyone who has moved from an island childhood to live/work in the city.

Oh yes the lion and Alfred, complete with the ‘orses ‘ead’andle

And ‘im in ‘is Sunday best too!!

Wonderful stuff!

I am going to look into a lot of these suggestions.

As well as Gyles Brandreth have a look at Pam Ayres. She has several books of poems out.

The lion and Albert is great isn't it. Just reminded me about
Matilda who told such dreadful lies.
I think the story element and simple rhyme would male them easy to remember.

Jennifer Eccles I love that one too! I also like ‘ Sam,Sam, pick up tha’ musket’, and ‘ The Lion and Albert’ .

I can ( or could!) recite Tam O’ Shanter from memory too, and bits of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayam.

I'm not too keen on poetry so I try to keep the brain ticking over by doing The Times Ultimate Killer Su Doku. My OH starts at the front with the easier ones and I start at the back with the 2hr. 40 min. ones.

How about some Shakespeare?

Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments,
Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no, it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken
'Tis the star to ev'ry wand'ring bark
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not time's fool
Tho' rosy lips and cheeks within his bending sickle's compass comes,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks
But bears it out, even to the edge of doom,
If this be error, and upon me proved
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

Or the Winter song from Loves Labours Lost, which begins;
When icicles hang by the wall, and Dick the shepherd blows his nail
And Tom bears logs into the hall,
And milk comes frozen home in pail.

Or Home thoughts from Abroad by Robert Browning

Or I remember, I remember the house where I was born by Thomas Hood

Or To Autumn by John Keats. (This one I confess, I have only committed the first two verses to memory).

NanKate as you may have guessed, I love poetry.

We had to memorise poems at school, and some of them have stuck. Here's one I learnt at about seven years old:

'When I was at a party', said Betty, aged just four
'a little girl fell off her chair, right down upon the floor!
And all the other little girls began to laugh, except me.
I didn't laugh a single bit' said Betty seriously.

'Why not?' her mother asked her, full of delight to find
that Betty, bless her little heart, had been so sweet and kind.
'Why didn't you laugh, my darling? Or don't you like to tell?'
'I didn't laugh, said Betty, 'for I was the one who fell.

Thanks ALL for your brilliant suggestions, I loved the corkscrew one !!

I shall pop into my bookshop tomorrow and order GB's book.

Keep the ideas coming please.

What a helpful place GN can be.

.Oh will investigate the Gyles Brandreth book too.

What a good idea!
I love all of Wendy Cope's work - many short and light hearted tho' not all.
Loss
The day he moved out was terrible -
That evening she went through hell.
His absence wasn't a problem
But he'd taken the corkscrew as well.

Love Emily Dickinson's work too

If I can stop one heart from breaking
I shall not live in vain,,,
is a favourite.

Leisure by W H Davies is one I've loved since primary school.

What is this life, if full of care
We have no time to stand and stare.

The Highwayman by Alfred Noyes is just a great story that never fails to move me,

Thank for the information on the Gyles Brandreth book, I have just ordered it. I still use my Nintendo Brain Training and word games on line, but this will make a welcome change. It will be interesting to see how long I can retain each one.