Sh*tty Butty Night

(Note: Butty is Northern English slang for a sandwich, and tea is what we call our evening meal.)

When we were kids on those hot summer afternoons

when nobody feels like cooking

and the house itself is like an oven

we headed inside for tea.

My mother told by brother, my sister and I

that it would be a put-you-up kind of tea.

When we asked what that meant, she told us,

bits of everything, this and that. 

We came to the dinner table that evening

 and stared at the cold food piled high,

pork pies, sausage rolls, pickles and meats,

flavoured crisps, and crusty cob bread rolls.

We tutted and huffed our disappointment

at the lack of hot, home-cooked food on offer

and half-heartedly picked at the trimmings

barely hiding our disgust.

Get stuck in, you lot, it's a good spread, all this, 

insisted my father, piling his plate with cheese and crackers.

Sh*tty butty night, is what this is, I whispered

to my sniggering siblings.

A week or so later, my parents dished up the same.

Sh*tty butty night again, my brother said with a nudge,

as we reluctantly grabbed our plates,

feeling malnourished, under-fed and hard-done to.

These days, many years later, when I have nothing in for tea, 

there's nothing I like more than bits of everything,

a put-you-up wonderful feast of food,

just don't call it sh*tty butty night.