Tuesday 5 March 2024

the owl and the pussycat

 Apart from the fact one is dry and one is wet here are two different owls


Above a perfectly clean barn owl at the wildlife hospital who is in for rest and recuperation and below this dear tawny owl that I found sitting in a puddle.

It just doesn't seem to have stopped raining and this poor chap was waterlogged. Their feathers are not waterproofed which enables them to glide silently through the night but he just couldn't get back off the ground. I picked him up (painfully as I wasn't wearing gloves and had forgotten how tightly they grip on with their sharp claws) took him home and dried him with a hairdryer. Later when it got dark and had stopped raining I put him back in a branch of a tree just where I'd found him. In the morning he had gone so hopefully he recovered.


Here are the two pussycats,Nancy above in mid washing session I think or mid demanding for her third breakfast and below the superior Pocket.

Cats, he informs me, obey no commandments, have no ideals and do not experience guilt or remorse or struggle to better themselves. Yes I say I've certainly noticed you have no guilt when you dig your claws into friends who might have popped round for a quiet cuppa.
Forgetting he said, is the greatest source of freedom a person has. Who said that? I asked. I've forgotten he chortled. But I do know that man is the most blighted and frail of all creatures and more over the most given to pride.  That's Montaigne I answer with pride. I forget he purrs. But I do know that where of one cannot speak there of one must be silent. That's Montaigne again I say still with pride. I am silent he replied and so should you be.



In the next door village the starlings have been murmuring  every evening from 5.15  or 17.15 in modern time. I have found it impossible to capture it on film as there are hundreds of them swooping over the trees and the meadow. But what a joyous sight.

Rocket tells me he's forgotten everything and what time was supper?


You can't have a blog without a picture of a hedgehog. Here's one at the wildlife centre perking up as Spring is here so they say. I have a family of them in my stable and someone is certainly awake as all the cat biscuits I put down every day are gone by the next. (tha cats assure me it's not them even though they are their biscuits.)
The daffodils think it's Spring anyway.

My daughters have been applying for new jobs and have spent ages concocting C.V's. I decided to write my own should I need to apply for another job.

See below.


Job Application.


I am applying for this job because

I can cry in ten different languages

and know how to stroke the tail of a dove

without altering its flight path.

I can decline all tenses of Latin 

in one breath

I can send out your correspondence in Haiku

or sonnet form

I am experienced in appreciating woodland fauna

and can name seven different species

of the ranunculus family.

My strength is my good telephone voice and

I can impersonate a jackdaw calling to its mate.

I can sew a hair shirt

and know the correct temperature of coals for

walking barefoot on.

I can tell when it's going to rain by the seaweed 

method

or observing cows lying down.

I can bake humble pie

and eat it if necessary.


Linda Coggin






Tuesday 6 February 2024

the darkling crows




Although the magpies have gone I do have a rook, a crow and a raven in my shade tunnel. Collectively known as the crows. Sounds like the title of a new book. None of them can fly properly at the moment which is why I was given them but they've palled up with each other and there is no squabling. They sit in a row on a branch then scuttle away when they see me.



 Because they all came to me as grown birds they are quite rightly not used to humans and still hurry away in spite of seeing me with the plates of food I bring them. I was so used to M.Magpie coming when I called and sitting on my head that part of me would like them not to be so fearful but that won't help them when they get back into the world of birds. I don't want them to be like Moses's  wife and be a stranger in a strange land.

  Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck Pocket tells me. Ah you've been studying the Dalai Lama I say but he tucks his paws in and tells me that those who play with cats must expect to be scratched. Cevantes? I query but he's already excluded me from his line of vision by shutting his eyes.




Here he is spouting Charlie Chaplin who purportedly said that he who feeds a hungry animal feeds his own soul and wouldn't I like that? I told him he'd already had three breakfasts and had just polished off Nancy's who sits there unbothered. Nancy has the softest fur ever - like stroking fog. The raven is a similar size to Nancy now and still has growing to do. Unlike M.Magpie it will never swing on the bird feeder like he used to do. In fact the bird station has been taken over by a colony of sparrows - hundreds of them swing on the peanut feeders and there is no room for the darkling thrush that used to visit or the woodpecker with its glorious red plummage. Once I saw a sparrow hawk sitting on the stones underneath the feeder - a strange sight as I've not seen one at rest nor so near a house. I expect Pocket has been on patrol and scared it away. The sparrows seem unbothered about either of them.



I read the news today - oh boy. I thought this hedgehog might have broken into a Beatles song - about a lucky man who made the grade. When I change their papers I make sure there are no harrowing or fear mongering headlines or gaudy photos - which is difficult as most of the papers people kindly bring in are Daily Mails. And talking of hedgehogs did you know that a group of hedgehogs is called an array - but as they are solitary creatures in the wild it would be unlikely to have the chance to see an array of them unless they were round the back of the bike sheds having a smoke.


When I toyed with writing a book about a rook, a crow and a raven Rocket awoke from slumber and told me that outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. Who told you that ? I asked. When he said it was Pocket who denied ever hearing of someone called Groucho Marx I decided to go in search of an array of hedgehogs.


Have planted the sweet pea seeds for the summer flowering. They have avoided being eaten by mice and are now sporting long shoots which one day will support an array (not of hedgehogs) of pink blooms.

The Darkling Thrush

by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate
when frost was spectre -grey,
And Winter's dregs mad desolate
The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted night
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death - lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full- hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt and small,
In blast-beruffled plume
Had chosen thus  to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around.
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good -night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

Wednesday 3 January 2024

new beginnings




Who we are and where our life leads us is yet unwritten but what we choose to let go and what we chose to begin is ours only.
I am learning to let go of dear Scout who died just before Christmas.




We knew that sometime it would happen - the heart doctor had warned us her heart would give out any moment but she had an extra few months after being carefully monitored at the heart hospital. After taking 21 pills a day she seemed rejuvenated.

She won the hearts of everyone who met her. She was loving and wise which I imagine we all hope to be and she definitely waited for me to return from getting the papers to walk up to me, stand behind my chair and literally die. So my only consolation is that I was with her and it was quick and peaceful. Grief is the price we pay for love.

As Mary Oliver writes

to live in this world you must be able to do three things:

to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and when the time comes to let it go. To let it go.


RIP dear Scout who lived for nine years - a long time in the life of a wolfhound.


Although Rocket seemed quite depressed it seemed to be of no consequence to Pocket. Slowness opens the way to wisdom he told me. Ah you've been reading Montaigne I say. He ignored me and told me he had a lot of slowness to catch up on and would I be quiet. Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length he  burbles on. My I say, Robert Frost as well as Montaigne but he just stretched a paw and reminded me that his third breakfast was yet to come.

Meanwhile if Pocket and Montaigne's theory is right Rocket is going to be very wise which is not a word I would have used to describe his personality. When Scout died he walked up to her lying on the floor, sniffed under her tail and walked away. I guess we all handle death differently. I did notice Pocket tried to cheer him up by sitting on his nose which he wisely said nothing about - always aware Pocket might take the other eye out and he wisely waits his turn if there's a bowl of milk around.

Meanwhile in the stable most of the hedgehogs seem to be hibernating. Some heavy breathing comes from the hedgehog house and when I put my hand into the bag of straw that was in there I met with a bunch of prickles as I was about to toss some into the duck house.


Anyway dear Readers - we all wish you a Flappy New Year and I leave you with this poem by Rumi.




 

Friday 8 December 2023

the narcissism of small differences





Here is a Christmassy photo of M.Magpie taken this time last year. 



As he has now flown the nest with his love - beware the host of the air (the fairy folk)- I doubt there'll be any more recent photos of him but I shall remember him like this in all his glory. He left me a few things to remind me of him though. When my printer broke for the third time and I took it to the repair shop they looked at me curiously when I said I expect a bird had put a dog biscuit down it. When I collected it the man solemnly handed me a tiny dog biscuit and suggested perhaps I closed the printer up completely when not in use.  He still looked at me curiously.
When I returned home I unexpectedly decided to do some spring cleaning and turning down my wall mounted anglepoise light shade was showered with nine further dog biscuits he'd cached in the light. I'm still finding toast crusts in books and this morning found one tucked inside a card on the mantle piece. I do miss him.


However at the moment I am caring for a family of hedgehogs. They are too small to hibernate outside so they have the run of the stable. I weigh them every now and then - they must be 500gms to survive a hibernation and they are scoffing back the food. I feel like a waitress as I carry a tray of little bowls of cat food every morning to them across the mud. No one leaves me a tip.
I love this poem by the late Benjamin Zephaniah who has died tragically young - a wonderful poet.


I am in luv wid
a hedgehog
I've never felt this way
before
I have luv fe dis
hedgehog
an every day I luv her
more an more
She lives by de shed
where weeds and roses
bed
An I just want de world to know
she makes me glow.

I am in love wid a
hedgehog
she's making me hair
stand on edge
so in luv wid dis
hedgehog
an her friends
who all live in de hedge
she visits me late
and eats off Danny's plate
but Danny's a cool tabby
cat
he leaves it at dat.

I am in luv wid a
hedgehog
she's gone away so I
must wait
but I do miss my
hedgehog
everytime she goes to
hibernate.



Here is Pocket holding forth on the narcissism of small differences. I've told him if he doesn't stop going on about it I'd tell him about The Great Cat Massacre. I told him to google it when he didn't believe me that in the 1730s in Paris there was a big massacre of cats.


He told me he had more important things to do and sat waiting for his agent to ring him. He also asked me if I was aware that in the beginning was the word. "Have you been reading Genesis?" I said. He scowled and told me Genesis was a rock band and how could he read that. I've learnt to ignore these things. He thinks he's very superior.
I had to admit to him that the more our relationship shared commonalities the more likely we were to engage in interpersonal feuds and mutual ridicule because of hypersensitivity to minor differences. He then argued that the differences weren't remotely minor rather more major.



Here is Scout who ignores most things except when it's meal times. It's been so cold in this house that I've been sitting in two hats, a coat and a scarf as well as ordinary clothes and occasionally lie like Scout near the fire.
Nancy thinks that Pocket is just a plump numpty who mumbles too much.
And Rocket wouldn't dare say anything rude about Pocket incase Pocket took his other eye out. He certainly didn't want to engage in any interpersonal feuds.
 

So dear Readers I will end this year of blogs wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and  Happy New Year with few interpersonal differences.



THE HOST OF THE AIR

by: William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)

    'DRISCOLL drove with a song
    The wild duck and the drake
    From the tall and the tufted reeds
    Of the drear Hart Lake.
     
    And he saw how the reeds grew dark
    At the coming of night-tide,
    And dreamed of the long dim hair
    Of Bridget his bride.
     
    He heard while he sang and dreamed
    A piper piping away,
    And never was piping so sad,
    And never was piping so gay.
     
    And he saw young men and young girls
    Who danced on a level place,
    And Bridget his bride among them,
    With a sad and a gay face.
     
    The dancers crowded about him
    And many a sweet thing said,
    And a young man brought him red wine
    And a young girl white bread.
     
    But Bridget drew him by the sleeve
    Away from the merry bands,
    To old men playing at cards
    With a twinkling of ancient hands.
     
    The bread and the wine had a doom,
    For these were the host of the air;
    He sat and played in a dream
    Of her long dim hair.
     
    He played with the merry old men
    And thought not of evil chance,
    Until one bore Bridget his bride
    Away from the merry dance.
     
    He bore her away in his arms,
    The handsomest young man there,
    And his neck and his breast and his arms
    Were drowned in her long dim hair.
     
    O'Driscoll scattered the cards
    And out of his dream awoke:
    Old men and young men and young girls
    Were gone like a drifting smoke;
     
    But he heard high up in the air
    A piper piping away,
    And never was piping so sad,
    And never was piping so gay.

Saturday 4 November 2023

the egg stone

 



My new book The Egg Stone has just been published. It's a departure for me and loosely based on an incident that happened to my grandfather in the war.




Old Charlie is the only person who is able to understand the words that Kip speaks. Misunderstood and judged, Kip's early life leaves him with only two treasures; a stone in the shape of an egg and a young magpie. At the turn of the Second World War, Kip and Charlie go on the run and find themselves in peril on the sea. The Egg Stone is a tale of friendship, superstition, human differences and prejudice.
Were all men the same - some hiding their true selves until they lost their common sense? What separates men like this from someone like me?
You can read the first chapter at the end of this blog and you can buy it from Amazon.


I couldn't have written the story without the help of M.Magpie who let me into the extraordinary world of these misunderstood birds.


Above is about the only picture I have of M.Magpie's new consort. Pictured here in her ivory tower - ie the poly tunnel. I think she must have whisked him away as for over a week he had disappeared. For a year and a half magpie visited me every day, coming into the house, chatting and stealing and prancing up and down the table nicking things when I wasn't looking and when he went I really missed him. I even missed the broken pots he knocked off the mantlepiece admiring himself in the mirror. I missed the paperwork he would strew across the floor. The way he came flying across the lawn when I called him and land chattering on my shoulder. I wouldn't even have minded the peck on the ear. Ever since he'd met up with his lady friend I knew he'd become a proper wild magpie - not one who half lived in the house or swing perilously on the bird feeder outside the kitchen window then seeing me fly onto the window sill and then sit on the taps. But for now he's back perhaps for a fond farewell.


I have been trying to write this story for a long time - originally thinking of a biography of my grandfather's life but then knowing I wanted it to be a novel with a boy who is judged for being different. One day I went to a Henry Moore exhibition of some of his drawings of Stone Henge. The man who was in charge of one of the rooms told me that as a boy Henry used to carry a stone from the beach in his pocket which he used to hold and draw from touch. "You should put that in one of your stories" he said. (my companion had told him I wrote books) 
And so I did.





Chapter 1

Charlie was the only one who understood the words that Kip spoke.

It was if he had fine tuning in his ears which could translate the boy’s sounds; a mixture of all the languages under the sun, all the cries of the birds, the barks and baying of the wolves, the hooting of owls, the songs of the whales. The growling of dogs.

He and Kip were about to leave Greenacres when someone started shouting in the room down the corridor. The shouting turned to howling and then the sound of someone throwing a piece of furniture at a door. Kip shrank back and covered his ears with his hands and Charlie shut and locked the door to Kip’s cell. Inside they waited. Several pairs of footsteps pounded along the corridor. They heard jangling as someone opened the other room and Charlie sighed with relief. He had stolen the key to Kip’s room and feared whoever was outside would notice it had gone.

After some shouting and more banging noises it quietened. The patient must have been jabbed with a tranquilizer needle Charlie thought. Either that or smothered with a pillow.

Eventually they heard the door being locked. Charlie and Kip waited for the footsteps to return along the corridor but instead they came towards them.

“They’re trying all the doors,” Charlie whispered to Kit putting his finger to his lips. “Don’t make a sound.”

Someone stopped outside their room. The handle gently turned. Charlie let out a quiet breath, relieved that he’d locked the door from the inside and looked around the room for somewhere to hide if whoever it was came in. Just as he was considering squeezing under the bed the footsteps retreated.

They waited a while then once out in the corridor they locked Kip’s room again and returned the bunch of keys.

“We’ll have to leave the back door as it is,” Charlie said to Kip as they stepped outside. “That’s the way I came in. Let’s assume the staff will just think they’d forgotten to lock it.” He looked over his shoulder “But with your room Kip I think we’ll be ok. These people shut you up for hours in a place like this don’t they – without even checking to see if you are O.K. as long as you don’t make a fuss.”

Kip nodded.

“It’s locked, left and misunderstood isn’t it? Whoever had been in the other room must have been needing severe attention and known that the only way to get it was to smash the furniture.”

They were just out on the drive when they saw the flash of a light inside the building.

“Hurry,” said Charlie “– looks as if whoever it is might have discovered you missing after all.”

As he spoke a cloud passed over the moon throwing them into semi-darkness. He grabbed hold of Kip’s arm and they walked as fast as they could up the drive. Turning his head he caught sight of a powerful torch by the kitchen entrance and heard voices as the light scanned the drive in a large arc.

“We’re going to have to run Kip.”

Charlie grabbed his hand and Kip started to run but his feet seemed paralysed and he tripped and fell onto the ground.

They’re not working Kip panted.

In spite of his age, Charlie was still a strong man and scooped Kip up, throwing him over his shoulder as if he were a sack of corn. He could tell they’d been seen as the arc of light fell just behind him. As he ran he prayed the car would start – it had always been tricky. Sometimes not catching till the third or fourth try. They were nearly there when he heard them gaining ground. Charlie knew he couldn’t get them inthe car and the camouflage removed and perhaps several attempts to start it before they were reached. They veered off into the trees and threw themselves down in the undergrowth. The men’s voices grew louder.

Kip lifted his head and Charlie put his finger to his lips again.

They heard footsteps nearby and saw the beam of the torch sweeping around them and then shining up in the trees.

Do they think we’re birds? Charlie thought.

The land under the trees was ill kempt and one of the men tripped on a bramble which twisted around his boot, causing the torch to fly out of his hand as he crashed down.He swore loudly. The torch landed a few yards short of the hidden figures.

They held their breath.The man scrambled to his feet and grabbing the torch, turned it to shine into the face of his colleague.

“Watch where you tread,” he ordered.

The men moved around and then right behind where Charlie and Kip were hiding a twig snapped. Another twig snapped then there was rustling as something crept closer.

They lay still in the leaf mould waiting for the hands to grab them and haul them to their feet.

A fox stopped a few yards from them and sniffed the air.

“Someone must have picked them up,” Charlie heard a voice say. “We’d better ring the police.”

“He’s just a boy isn’t he? He can’t have got far.”

“Still a murderer though. Did that woman in didn’t he? And someone helped him escape.”

Charlie felt a chill run down his spine. A murderer. Is that what they thought of Kip? Of course they would. There was a dead woman and there was Kip and he couldn’t tell them what had happened.

The man with the torch swept the undergrowth with the beam and picked up the russet face of the fox.

“Fox!” he shouted. “They can’t be here. That fox would not have hung around if they’d hidden in there. Come on let’s make that call.”

Charlie waited until the men had gone back to the building and pulling Kip up, bundled him into the car. It started straight away and he drove with his lights off back up the drive and onto the road.



Thursday 12 October 2023

wherefore art thou

 




Mrs Magpie has written a poem on my lap top



                                                  M/////////ccx!\\\\\\§§k

                                                  [[[[[[[[[[[bxxxxx==

                                                  ggghggggggggg///////111

A very thought provoking piece with an experimental line structure.

(Pocket later wrote one himself that appeared to be about his existential angst and lack of food and this too had an interesting and modern line structure.)


I used to think Mrs Magpie was a bit of a housewife - her white front feathers look very much like an apron and she goes about the house picking up errant crumbs in her beak and tidying away pens and bits of paper. Here she is looking smug on the Smeg. But now she seems to have taken a wife herself.

A few weeks back at around 6.40 in the evening I looked out and saw she/he had been joined on the little table in the garden by another magpie. And every evening since they sit together in the apple tree where they spend the night.

The other magpie is very nervous and flies off as soon as she sees me though I can't help thinking she was the one I raised this year. I've no idea where she goes in the day but she flies to the table at 6.40 regular as clockwork and they canoodle in the apple tree. Sadly it's always so dark I can't photograph them together but I can hear the response from passers by Ah two for joy.

Having lived with one for sorrow for over  a year that is a blessing I suppose.

Now I can see my magpie with another I notice M.Magpie is much bigger and therefore more than likely a male though I'll probably still refer to him as Mrs Magpie. He may be speed dating but it seems his consort is the same one and I'm waiting for him to steal one of my rings as an engagement present. If they set up home together their nest will be made of pens.

On one occasion I went out before dark and she flew off. M.Magpie landed crossly on my shoulder, told me off with a loud squawk and pecked my ear. I apologised.

If on the odd occasion she hasn't turned up by 6.40 we both wait anxiously for her - me hidden upstairs and looking out the bathroom window and MM sitting on the roof of the pink tower surveying the scene and calling in a voice I haven't heard before 

wherefore art thou .......?


Here he/she is helping with the tomato harvest before he/she started writing poetry and waiting for her to turn up.


Pocket meanwhile is fed up with all this magpie palava and said he was going to write a book of jokes, Really? I query. Is that possible? I can't remember you ever saying anything funny. He stared at me. Too much possibility leads to the mad house. Ah you've been reading Kirkegaard I say but he ignores me.

How do you tell the difference between a weasel and a stoat he asks.

I shrug, as far as I know he's never brought either into the house.

Well a weasel is weasily recognised but a stoat is stoatally different.

I wished him luck with his book.



Meanwhile Rocket said he hadn't been fed since Christmas and would have to eat this cushion. After that if anyone comes to the gate he would meet, greet and eat them.


Dogs



We went for a walk
together you and I
you and your stick carrier
and me with my ball fetcher.
They jumped with each other.
Your growler howler, rabbit chaser
deer bringer downer
fox poo roller, garden digger
ran.
My tail wagger, food gobbler, cake stealer
sofa surfer, cushion napper
wet noser
came when called.
Yours disappeared 
into the landscape.




L.Coggin

Thursday 7 September 2023

theatre of insects

 


Pocket, tired of watching the theatre of insects that came with the cut flowers in the house has announced he's writing a Captive Narrative.


What do you mean? I ask You were hardly captured by pirates or Native Americans were you? He washes a paw and tells me by being a Bengal cat he was taken from his own tribe and made to live with humans. You're only one quarter Bengal I say to him but he says that's not the point - he's still a hybrid of the Asian leopard cat and as a breed, he adds, is smart, energetic and playful. I'm definitely being held against my will he says and I'm changing my name to Pockethontas. I tell him he can go any time he wants but he said he was going to take a nap as being smart, energetic and playful was tiring. He might go after tea and might be back for breakfast.

I shall weep crocodile tears Rocket says and Pocket adds he'll weep turtle tears.

"Watch out the butterflies in our theatre of insects don't lick the salt as a source of sodium from them "I tell him. Pocket scowls. I know that. I used to live in the Amazon when I was taken from my tribe. Rocket points out that Asian leopard cats come from Asia not the Amazon. 

Oh Amazon Shmamazon Pocket replies shutting his eyes.

We don't have a flea circus in our theatre of insects as we treat our pets with Frontline but I did once go to the Natural History Museum in Tring where there is a display of fleas dressed up as Mexicans. Apparently this was the pastime of Mexican nuns in Victorian times who unbelievably attached threads of clothing onto fleas with adhesive. When you look through a magnifying glass you can see they are perfectly dressed and even wear a hat.The flea circus's attached them to tiny chariots which they pulled as they hopped around the miniscule circus ring. I've never had much time for fleas but it can't have been nice to be glued to anything. I've told Pocket not to get any ideas. As a quarter Bengal cat full of energy, playfulness and smartness he has already given me a lecture on spiders, telling me that conkers in the fireplace do not keep them away but that they're not keen on chalk so if I didn't want any in the house why didn't I draw lines over the floor ? I told him I didn't mind spiders that much.

Rocket, who goes to the door every time I get up keeps telling me he hasn't done enough steps. I didn't know you had a Fitbit I say."I've discovered motivation that's fresh, fun and fashionable" he says. When I ask him where he keeps it he doesn't answer. Yes fresh, fun and fashionable he mumbles. I suspect he's just been reading the advertisement and I can't see any sign of one in his bedding nor strapped to his legs. It's just an excuse to go on more walks.


Here he is on holiday in Devon. He likes being on holiday - he doesn't have to bark at people or other dogs who are on his territory like he does at home. He surprisingly came into the water when we went swimming but only enough to get his paws wet. Then he stood anxiously on his hind legs to watch us as we swam away then ran up and down the beach telling people that his people were out there and he wasn't sure if we knew how to swim or even knew how to come back and could anyone help and go and rescue us?

Here is Mrs Magpie pleased with herself for opening a package all on her own without being asked. Apart from the usual stealing I've noticed she likes to re-arrange things. I think this must be a control thing. I've seen her tuck a sweet pea flower into the leaf of a zinnia. She also thinks flower pots look better scattered on the ground in the poly tunnel rather than in neat piles which is what I've done with them.

My favourite dahlia is at last in flower!  Earwigs like dahlias and I've notice one or two scurrying across the table before Pocket gets the idea he could harness them to a match box.

And dear Scout is no trouble at all. Here she is on her morning stroll across the harvested corn fields.

The green party members in my garden.

So although I told Pocket I didn't mind spiders you can see from my poem below there was a time when I did.


Entirely Spider.


It broods in the folds
of the nightdress-
huge, as if it wears an overcoat
- as dark as dreams.
I shudder and sleep in the other room
there is nothing sadder than
being single and having
to deal with a large bug.

Later, when life becomes
too short to dust
and I have found other fears
I keep good company with one.
Through the borrowed view 
of the bedpost
I watch her dance attendance
repair and tidy her beautiful web
nibbling at her trussed hors d'oeuvre
saving herself for the Big One
her Mr Right whom she devours
after a night of spinning passion
her just desert.

Curled like a cat
she fills the corner
her egg sac casting a vast shadow
across the ceiling
she ceases to scurry
instead she watches and waits
her web slack with time
and misuse.
Now as winter approaches she is ready
for her long descent.
She clings to her clever thread
my daughters screaming as she wearily
passes them
I cajole and re-ssure
I place her in the palm to prove a point
and now, close up
she seems much smaller than I thought.


Linda Coggin from Dog Days published by Zero Books.