cogsmogsblog

Nancy my Familiar and Pocket the Author have decided they want this to be called a mog's blog. I have reluctantly agreed as Rocket or was it Beezle had his own cog's dog's blog a while back. We agreed it could have pictures of birds on (I said no to the little mice)

Above are the four adorable swallow babies in the stable. Their parents or relations come back every year and produce a brood. What I didn't know until I watched them closely was that when they fledge they return continuously to the nest. They go on flying expeditions and then when tired come back. They've been doing this for a week now. They are probably consulting a map of how to get to Africa which must be taped inside the bottom of the nest.

The birds in my shade tunnel are doing the same thing. Above is the crow with the white feathers looking like a magpie. There are now three jackdaws and two crows - all other birds have departed. BUT I left the doors open when the time was right last week and one of the other crows and the three jackdaws flew out. I had to encourage them and eventually they soared off into the trees. After a while I heard a plaintive crying from the smallest jackdaw who was sheltering in the hedge so I picked him up and popped him back in with the other two crows who I had moved from their inside houses to the shade tunnel. I shut the door and said good night. In the morning there were two jackdaws sitting on the branch. I shut the door and went away to bring back a bird table and when I returned there were all three jackdaws looking very pleased with themselves in a line on the branch. This has been going on for a week now. I leave the door open for all and sundry to fly away, shut the door at night for fear of predators and in the morning the jackdaws have squeezed in under the door because they can and I offer a very good buffet.

I am chief corvid woman at the wildlife hospital now and most weeks come back with one in a box which eventually finds freedom. Like Wendell Berry's beautiful poem the Peace of Wild Things, I find a wonderful tranquility when despair for the world grows in me, just sitting in the shade tunnel with the door open being with the birds. As he would say they do not tax their lives with forethought of grief.

Pocket says he's fed up with writing best sellers. "Works of Art are an infinite loneliness" he said "Rilke?" I said. He scratched his ear and told me he is going to become a diversity reader. 

.He's going to read all the books that have cats in them to make sure they are saying the right things, feeling the right things and behaving in a manner appropriate to cats. The authors, he tells me, aren't from that marginalized group and often don't have direct experience of the topic they are writing about and so a sensitivity reader like him is hired to assess the book. Are cats marginalized? I ask but he chooses to ignore the question and tells me he is working on some Shakespeare. I don't think there are any cats in Shakespeare are there? I say. He stares at me with that look that conveys that I am utterly ignorant. Of course there are and if there aren't any I'm putting them in.  I ask him which ones and he stares into the distance "Well there's Mogbeth, The Merry Cats of Windsor, Two Cats of Verona. The Taming of the Shrew and my favourite A Mogsummer's night dream."

So you're not altering The Taming of the Shrew then I say. He glares at me in exasperation. Do you know how to tame a shrew? I shake my head. Well there we are then perhaps you should read it - it's a self help book.

Here he is discussing the contents of his mog's blog with Rocket

I had a word with Harry the horse about the drug smoking incident (see last post) and he assures me it was only grass.

Dear Scout having a let sleeping dogs lie moment.

This year has been amazing for roses and sweet peas, I love bringing them into the house where their perfume fills the room.
 

So I asked Pocket  what photo of himself was going on the dust jacket of his books and he showed me.

I said that's not a photo and he said he'd commissioned it as they only had paintings in Shakespearean times and I said but that's not you it doesn't look anything like you and it's taken from The Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks. Yes he said and the cat shall lie down with the kid. That's taken from Isaiah 11.6. I said, it inspired Mr Hicks to do the painting and it's a leopard shall lie down with the kid. He gave me that don't you know anything sort of look and told me a leopard was a cat and as a diversity reader he could change want he jolly well wanted.

Love After Love by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other's welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.