Hostages and darling letters

There is definitely a seasonal change in the air. Most of the fields have been ploughed now and on our walk this morning I see new winter wheat already beginning to sprout. Pixie was particularly pleased to get out because she had been held hostage by the chest of drawers. She always comes to greet me when I come down the stairs but today she managed to get her collar caught in the drawer handle. She had to tell me all about it - how nobody - not even Beezle had raised the alarm and goodness knows how long she had been there and what time of day did I call this?

Pixie recovering from the hostage negotiations

I managed a drive in the cart with Harry the horse at the weekend whilst it was still stubble. It was a glorious day and he really enjoyed being out. As soon as we got into open spaces he took off like we were  chariot racing in Ben Hur. I remember seeing that film when I was a child with my grandfather and my older sister and was fascinated to see that in the gory bits my sister seemed to be clinging on to the arm of the sailor sitting next to her. Rumour had it that a man had actually been killed in the filming of the chariot race and we sat glued to our seats trying to spot the actual moment. They must have captured it on film because it would have been such a waste not only to have  died but to have ended it all on the cutting room floor.

With the seasonal changes I've been collecting old wood for the moment I have to light the wood burner. However I found myself only attracted to wavy lines which I've incorporated into arches etc in the garden. I am not a practical builder, nails and screws and raw plugs don't seem to work for me, so these are held up with cut up strips of bicycle tyres, Sellotape and chewing gum.

also cut the branches off the enormous willow tree which had started life as a willow hurdle, and wove another one.

Ben Hur has not been the only film running through my head this week. Our friend's son Samuel, is making a film for his A levels and wanted to film Trude(our black Friesian) as she looked medieval. He persuaded his Dad to double up as the young hero in the film. He cunningly disguised himself in a mask, a hood,  cloak and two hairnets and you'd never have known he wasn't who he was supposed to be. Trude was a star - look at that beautiful leg movement!

Dahlia Karma Fusciana

The approach of Autumn stirs the"must clear out" in me. This usually just involves discovering things you'd forgotten about, letters, photos, press cuttings from years gone by etc and spending the whole day looking/reading them - then putting them back.


I like this poem by Carol Ann Duffy.

 The 'Darling' Letters

Some keep them in shoeboxes away from the light,
sore memories blinking out as the lid lifts,
their own recklessness written all over them. My own...
Private jokes, no longer comprehended, pull their punchlines,
fall flat in the gaps between the endearments. What 
are you wearing?

                                    Don't ever change.
They start with Darling; end in recriminations,
absence, sense of loss. Even now, the fist's bud flowers 
into trembling, the fingers trace each line and see 
the future then. Always... Nobody burns them,
the Darling letters, stiff in their cardboard coffins.

Babykins... We all had strange names
which make us blush, as though we'd murdered
someone under an alias, long ago. I'll die
 without you. Die. Once in a while, alone,
we take them out to read again, the heart thudding
like a spade on buried bones.