Reasons why the old should not be kept apart from the young

Have you seen the recent TV programmes and news items about young children being taken into care homes to cheer up the residents? What a fabulous idea. I wish my gran had had the benefit of this before she died last year. She loved the regular visits of the therapy dogs - great slobbery Labradors she loved to stroke and pat. She'd have relished visits from singing toddlers. On the couple of occasions I took in my grandchildren to see her, she grinned from ear to ear, round her head, and back again. 

I wrote a poem about it. 

Care

Most stretched afternoons we are sat

(don’t judge my grammar erroneous

because I mean someone sits us)

in front of Flog It, Homes under the Hammer,

and, particularly cruel for those of us

with months, not years, Countdown.

Tepid tea is served from a trolley

forgotten in a corridor while Elsie Brown

is rescued, trembling, from the lift.

A woman with a headmistress bark

speeds us through Bingo and crosswords

as though afraid she left her iron on.

Today, Prudence says, ‘Is that a baby’s cry?’

and the headmistress is left with 3 Down,

14 Across, and an ego like crushed fruit.

Double buggies arrive as if cavalry.

Dennis sings Old Macdonald to a toddler

in a rich bass unused since he buried Eileen.

I hope you liked my poem. Here's the news story link that inspired it.