stolen stollen

I have been training Mrs Magpie to deliver my Christmas cards this year - I'm not sure if she'll deliver them to the right places but worth a try.

Like all magpies she likes to hide things - I'm still looking for the tulip bulbs I was planting when she flew off with a couple as well as the pen I was using to remind myself what bulbs I'd planted where. I may be surprised next Spring to find a couple popping up in the compost heap.

                                             a magpie selfie

I'd love to know where she roosts at night - I often see her sitting on top of the old apple tree with a couple of pigeons.  I wonder if she'll build a nest next year - if I find it it'll probably contain the raven feather that the Ravenmaster at the Tower of London gave me, several pens, part of my telephone bill, and a postcard - all of which she has stolen from the house.

"She doesn't seem to mind you Pocket does she?" I say to him.

How do you know but ev'ry Bird that cuts the airy way, is an immense world of delight, close'd by your senses five?

"Oh you've been reading William Blake then" I say to him.  He twitches a whisker

Never heard of him. It's my introduction to my new book Pocket Guide to British Birds.

I frown. "I suppose you also said The tree which moves some to tears of joy is in the eyes of others only a green thing which stands in the way also by a certain W.Blake.

Still never heard of him. that's my introduction to my other new book Pocket Guide to Trees.

Rocket asked if Pocket had also written a Pocket Guide to Dogs and if so was he in it? Pocket said we had to talk to his people.

Pocket does not conform to the usual image of a cat. He looks all sweet curled up on your lap until he decides to sink his sabre teeth into your flesh and he's very demanding. Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd he complains when I finally open the back door which doesn't have a cat flap in. Macbeth again? I comment but he scowls and reminds me that it's Mogbeth. When I suggest he just comes in through the cat flap in the front door he remarks Conformity is a threatening oppressive force that smothers imagination.

Scout looking very innocent with her what me? face but she's not innocent at all. We had a Christmas gathering of poets the other evening and I had especially bought a stollen cake for everyone. I put it on a plate along with the crisps and wine on the table then turned away and put a log on the fire. When I returned there was an empty plate. Scout had stolen the stollen! You'd think after more than twenty years of living with a wolfhound I'd have learnt you can't leave anything out that might be regarded as food.

If I go out I rarely leave the dogs for long or I take Rocket with me  as he has a habit of howling like a lost dog but another other evening I went somewhere he couldn't come. I left the television on in the living room and snuck out the back door in the hope I'd fool him into thinking I was still in the house. I'm also designing a way by which I can ab sail down from the bedroom window when he realises sneaking out the back door means I've left. When I returned ALL the animals were sitting in the room watching a lurid film on the t.v. I wonder who had the channel changer as I thought I'd left the football on.

At the moment as it's so cold all the puddles are frozen over

And here is my xmas wreath - if you look closely you'll see a tiny magpie.

Disillusionment of Ten O'Clock

by Wallace Stevens

The houses are haunted

by white night-gowns.

None are green,

Or purple with green rings,

Or green with yellow rings,

or yellow with blue rings.

None of them are strange,

with socks of lace

and beaded ceintures.

People are not going 

to dream of baboons and periwinkles.

Only here and there, an old sailor,

drunk and asleep in his boots,

catches Tigers

in red weather.

 

Mercies

Mrs Magpie is now helping me with the cleaning. Here she is offering to do the washing up.

She's very particular. For instance she won't come and help or even come near me if I'm wearing a beanie hat or a coat in an unacceptable shade of green.

If she hasn't checked out my wardrobe and wants to come in she sits on the window sill and pecks at the glass. I have to leave the back door open for the dogs and sometimes she enters this way. I always know when she's been in because she leaves pens and pen lids scattered over the floor, bills torn at the edges and then she usually swipes Scouts pills for her joints if they are left out to remind me to give them to Scout.

Before Mrs Magpie came into the house the other bird resident was this duckling who we had to hand rear as it was being attacked by its siblings. It liked swimming in the washing up bowl.

And oh I've just found this picture of Rocket as a puppy - mmmmmm - what went wrong? The dog in this picture would not be barking at all and sundry who walk past the gate or be very particular about what dog food he eats. OR be over zealous with the neighbour's dogs. OR be given a warning from the Dog Warden of Wiltshire.

But here he is - still lovely and unable to grab forty winks on his own.

I asked Pocket if he was still going by the name Rinpoche Pocket but he sighed. I am still of course the precious one but living like a cat means wanting nothing beyond the life you lead. Cats do not need to examine their lives because they do not doubt that life is worth living. My that's very profound I say. You have to understand he went on that nobody is coming to save us from ourselves.

I asked him if these were his own thoughts because I thought that Carl Sagan had said that. He chose to ignore me and went on about sometimes a cigar was just a cigar . Well that was definitely Sigmund Freud I told him and have you ever actually smoked a cigar? He told me not to be so silly and where was he going to get a cigar from as he didn't think the corner shop sold them.

 Nerines and dahlias still standing just about as the wind howls about them like a lost dog.

And talking of lost dogs a friend of mine had to let go of her old dog the other day. I have put this poem on my blog before when we had to let go of one of ours but it's a beautiful poem and still makes me weep.

Mercies

by Don Paterson

She might have had months left of her dog-years,

but to be who? She'd grown light as a nest

and spent the whole day under her long ears

listening to the bad radio in her breast.

On the steel bench, knowing what was taking shape

she tried and tried to stand, as if to sign

that she was still of use, and should escape

our selection. So I turned her face to mine,

and seeing only love there – which, for all

the wolf in her, she knew as well as we did -

she lay back down and let the needle enter.

And love was surely what her eyes conceded

as her stare grew hard, and one bright aerial

quit making its report back to the centre.

a handful of dust

It's been a hundred years since T.S.Eliot wrote The Wasteland.

"I will show you fear in a handful of dust" is exactly what I feel when I look around our house. Dust!Oh the dust and the dog fur that blows across the floor like tumbleweed.

I am so proud of Mrs Magpie - look at those feathers she's like a Wiltshire parrot.

It may be partly to do with the wonderful food she eats - cheese, meal worms and more cheese. She likes to fly in when I'm having my breakfast and often sits on the door with Pocket (quarter Bengal) sitting on the table staring at her. Now Pocket is an arch killer and I've often wondered why he doesn't attack. When I mentioned this to someone they thought it was perhaps because Mrs Magpie doesn't act like she's prey. Actually sometimes she acts like a child. I went on holiday for a week and when I came back she refused to come down and say hello but turned her head away in disgust. She did this for most of the day until finally she flew down onto my shoulder and told me off for going away.

I think we should all be more magpie.

Collect shiny things. Hop happily down the street for no apparent reason. Whatever you eat eat it with joy. Scream loudly when you see your friends.

Nearly time for the hedgehogs to hibernate.

Pocket (above and quarter Bengal) relaxing after a little light shopping. The key to finding a happy balance in modern lives is simplicity he tells me. He then informed me he'd like to be known as Rinpoche Pocket.

Have you given up writing novels I ask.

He smiles. Bring your mind home. Release and relax.

I am hoping this will make him a kinder cat, not only to us but the wildlife he brings in and leaves on the mat. Recycling is good though as Mrs Magpie will take the odd dead mouse off my hands.

Rocket who knows all about relaxing has possibly left his mind elsewhere. Below though he is with his new group of friends at the Sighthound meetings once a month when all these lovely pointy noses race around the field. There he is drinking out of the water trough.

Scout sometimes goes with him but doesn't do much racing.

Because of T.S.Eliot I found this poem I wrote literally years ago - though not quite a hundred. I had read somewhere he had been in a small car crash and I imagined how awful it would have been if he couldn't remember anything.

P.S. T.S

Tom lay on his back and looked

at the crack in the ceiling.

His fingers were curled

by his side - his legs and toes

without feeling.

An unguent furnished the room

he wondered - was he in heaven?

Tuber rose, hyacinth and

the four seven eleven

of the starched nurse.

Turning to her he said

was there a cat?

His head filled with fog

grey door, grey floor, grey bed.

The nurse smiled

and stroked his brow

and in the room below

the women come and go

talking of Michael and Harry and Joe.

I remember a ......

men stood there now

in coats and grave faces

men from distant parts and places

do your toes move?

your legs bend?

yes - is my beginning

in my end?

He said to the nurse

am I being driven in a motorized hearse

or lying etherised?

The room moves

my thoughts won't be still

I remember ... a pill

was popped onto his tongue

and in his head

ten thousand angels sung

yet ... in the room below where the nurses come and go..

can you remember who you are?

what is your name?

were you driving the motor car?

where do you live

and who is Viv?

your name

you must remember your name?

And in the room below

and in the room below

he slowly closed his eyes

and whispered - 

no.
 

when the hurly-burly's done

So Mrs Magpie knows where I live. She has taken to flying onto the doors and from there onto my computer or sampling coffee from my cup, even landing on the telephone for a quick chat.

She is a sweet and engaging companion. She lives outside now and I've no idea where she spends the night but always when I call her name she swoops down from somewhere lands on my shoulder and chirrups in my ear.

She likes to hang out in the yurt too if we are in there. Rocket always suspicious.

When I lived up here before I had a family it was just me and Betty (my black cat back then). Rumour got round the village I was probably a witch. If any of the village folk saw me walking around now with a magpie on my shoulder their beliefs would probably be confirmed. Even my vet called me a mad woman when I showed him pictures of Mrs Magpie.

Surprisingly Pocket is cautious around her. He lolls around in a sort of existential malcontentment. Nothing ever fatigues me but doing what I do not like

he tells me. But you never do things you don't like I tell him. He sighs. Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings.

Have you been reading Mansfield Park by Jane Austen? I ask. 

Never heard of her, he replies but I daresay she's read my new book Purrrrrsuasion.

Yes I daresay she has. Are you working on anything now I ask.

He glares at me a sour look on his face. Yes actually I am. I'm writing about family happiness as the ultimate reward for spiritual suffering.

That sounds very Tolstoy I remark. Has it a title?

Paw and Peace

Here are three sisters at the wildlife hospital. I wonder if they'll stay together when released into the wild. When shall we three meet again? In thunder lightning or in rain? 

When the hurly burly's done I expect.

They're all over now for another year - the roses and sweet peas. Autumn is definitely in the air. The fields are harvested and ploughed - clouds of seagulls following the tractors across the sod. I'm expecting Mrs Magpie to leave soon. I looked up when they leave their family normally and apparently they fly off in the Autumn. I know she doesn't have a normal family but I expect she'll want to find a mate - someone to soar off into the air with which is something I think I'm probably unable to do.

 

The World Is Too Much With Us
BY WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

The world is too much with us; late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—

Little we see in Nature that is ours;

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!

This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;

The winds that will be howling at all hours,

And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;

For this, for everything, we are out of tune;

It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be

A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;

So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,

Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;

Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;

Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

• • 
    

the peace of wild things

 

When despair for the world grows in me ..........I come into the peace of wild things

This poem by Wendell Berry which I will put in its entirety at the end of this post is where I am right now. I love visiting Mrs Magpie in her den where all is peaceful. When she visits me however (she knows where I live) it is not so peaceful. Other animals are lounging around the house and although she is canny and likes to fly in through the window and sit on the table, anxiety creeps in, whereas in her place all is calm. She has a new friend there too - a rook who had been shut in a tiny cage for far too long and anyway can't fly at the moment who I have named Larry, because as soon as I rescued him and set him free he was as happy as - well- Larry. Mrs Magpie swoops down when I call her name and sometimes tries to cache (bird term for hide) her titbits in the fold of my cardigan sleeve which I'm not too keen on and remove when she's not looking. At times I just sit in there with her and talk nonsense with her. She is perfectly capable of talking nonsense back.

                                                     Pocket

Pocket has asked me why I haven't written another story with him in it.

I think I might be suffering from writer's block I say.

You mean neurotic inhibitions of productivity he replies washing behind his ear. Your motivations are flagging.

The thing is, I reply, you can get writer's block if you are depressed but I feel depressed because I'm not writing anything.

You are suffering from The Black Cat as us felines say.

Surely you mean The Black Dog don't you?

                                                 Nancy the black cat.

He changes ears and tells me that I should ask Nancy, who is always telling us the end of the world is nigh. Anyway, he adds, writing is easy - all you have to do is cross out the wrong words.

Mark Twain  said that I told him - have you actually read any of his books? He ignored me, turned to washing the tip of his tail and said 

Don't force a poorly conceived idea onto a blank page. He glared at me. Take my latest novel Of Mice and Cats - that was never a poorly conceived idea.

Don't you mean Of Mice and Men by Steinbeck I correct.  That's a very good book. Have you ever actually read any of his books? He turns his back on me and I hear him murmur there are words that convey little added value to writing. Very is one of them.

The other peaceful place to be is in the yurt that we had to move from the yurt field into the back garden

It had been there for around fifteen years and everyone said it would be nigh on impossible to put back up. How wrong they were! I spent the winter restoring the wooden frame and then met Emily from Millie's Yurts - the most wonderful woman - who made me a new cover and who also with the help of some friends installed it in the garden

                                        Above are some of the friends who helped.

Most yurt makers (of which she is one) don't like to make covers for someone else's yurt but as the man who'd originally made it had turned to planting trees she very obligingly said she would. And what a beautiful job. 

I don't normally advertise on my blog but I want you all to know - dear readers - that if you want a yurt she's your person.

https://milliesyurts.com/

Rocket managed to take us away on a short trip to Devon where he dabbled his paws in the sea and ate an ice cream.

The roses this year have been spectacular. Aren't they beautiful? I tell Pocket as he stretches out on the table.

A rose is a rose is a rose he informs me. Gertrude Stein said that I tell him - have you actually ever read ........oh never mind.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

one flew over the magpie's nest

How the wee magpie has grown.

I have resisted naming her as I know soon she must go into the wild but secretly I call her Morgana - who was Merlin's muse. When I go into the shade tunnel which is her territory now she flies onto my shoulder and chats away, sometimes playing with my earring or sitting on my head. We have a lot to talk about.

The other day I took a friend to meet her and she gave her first warning cry and flew to the other end of the tunnel looking crossly at me. At first I thought it was because there was another human there and I was pleased that when she finally went she wouldn't sit on just anyone's shoulder and play with their earrings.

Some people don't care for magpies.

 However when I visited her again on my own she did the same thing. I was wearing an arterial blood red top and I then remember a friend telling me his pet jackdaw couldn't stand it when he walked in wearing a red jersey. I went away and returned in dull umber brown and she was back to happily sitting on my head and telling me about her life. I don't know what this is about - did she think I was a giant red currant or what? I know bulls are colour blind - at least they don't recognise red so I was intrigued. Perhaps it was just a fashion statement.

Here she is on one of her free form flying trips. If she hears me in the garden or on the track she shouts a welcome and flies down to greet me and then the worse thing is she marches around on the ground following in my footsteps and telling me things. If I sit on the bench she comes and sits with me but we both have to keep a beady eye out for any of the dogs or any of the cats. I don't think this is a Good Thing.

Another baby from the wild life centre to look after - this happy jay with his tiny mohican who loves being hand fed and is completely adorable. He is in the room where the ducks had been before moving into the stable. Ducks in the stable are no substitute for the horses.

Here is Rocket on his first trip to London. The train was very crowded and the compartment between the carriages which I'd hoped to occupy was full of nuns. They looked guilty - as if they'd smuggled an angel in with them and hadn't bought him a ticket.

Here are the errant ducklings enjoying a bath to waterproof their feathers. I have found homes for three of them and are keeping the white one and the tiniest who are both female. I'll put them with the boys in the back garden and hope they all behave themselves.

Pocket who has taken a sneak preview of this blog post asks me what exactly had flown over the magpie's nest. I told him it was just playing around with a book and a film title. A sort of Wings of Desire he asked flapping his arms as if he too had wings.

Well not really I reply though that is one of my most favourite films. 

Ah like me the angel tires of his purely ethereal life of merely overseeing human activity and longs for the joys of physical existence. 

But you don't live a purely ethereal life I tell him. 

What's ethereal about leaving headless mice on the doormat or a pair of rabbit's ears in the bathroom?

  I am not really of this world he replies taking a swipe at Rocket's tail  and if I got rid of my demons I'd lose my angels. 

Tennessee Williams said that I told him. "I didn't know you were familiar with his work. I suppose you might have read Cat on a Hot Tin Roof ?"

 But he just shrugged, told me he had sat on plenty of hot tin roofs and why would he bother to read that, played for a while with a white feather that was on the sofa, gave me a wink and asked what was for dinner.

This year the roses have been amazing

I love this poem by David Harmer. I think the nuns would too. 

At the Nag's Head with Gabriel

 

The place is rammed but I spot him a mile off

to be honest, there are easier pubs round here

to be that different in. Long yellow hair curled

over his shoulders, white shirt, white suit.

Like I say, Mr Trouble is about to barge in,

buy him a drink. Except that doesn't happen.

He's a pillar of calm surrounded by madness.

Two of the nastiest bastards I know, Dekker and Byron,

are laughing at something he's whispered.

They call him Dekker because he likes using drills

Byron because he's a twat. But they're like two kids

in a sweet shop, giggling Thanks for that mate.

He turns, sees me staring as I grab a pint.

His eyes blaze blue, then violet, then black.

Light dazzles around him. It streams

from every pore of his body, like a star exploding.

Then it just switches off and no-one has noticed.

I follow as he nods me outside.

Down the alley at the back of the pub

he leans on a wall, ciggie cupped in his hand

blowing smoke to the clouds. He drains his glass.

I'm off duty he says, as if that explains everything.

Tomorrow I've got some difficult calls

so I thought I'd nick off work, relax with you guys.

You look like a bloke who needs some luck.

I agree, who'd argue with that? He hands me a note.

That's all the horses, 50 to 1 or better, at Donny this week

put all you've got on their snotters

each one of them winners, I guarantee it. He seems

to flicker, shifts from one patch of sun to another.

There's a rustle and a flap of what must be feathers

and he's gone, disappeared. The note just says

Love from Big G, be lucky. I was.

Put a grand on each one, smack on the nose

just like he said, cleaned up the lot.

By David Harmer

 

 

the house of birds

It has been a month of birds inside and out. Outside I have put a feeding station by the kitchen window and find myself washing up -brush in hand - gazing out at all the birds who have discovered our running buffet. Prize bird at the moment is a spotted woodpecker who swings like a pendulum on the peanut feeder. I think he's secretly hypnotizing me. I've no idea where I've suddenly got so much time that I can watch them like a mother hen - proud of their achievements.

I used to spend a lot of time watching the runner ducks in the garden because they make me laugh. I didn't notice however one of them disappearing for twenty one days until one morning I went out and found her proudly leading a string of five ducklings behind her. It's a cruel world the world of ducks - one of our male ducks drowned his female consort mating with her and according to runner duck experts these ducklings would not survive with the other ducks who would more than likely trample on them. So we had to do what we've done before, we had to catch them and bring them inside under a heat lamp. She doesn't seem to have missed them but I worry.

Here are the first two we managed to catch inside someone's hat. Now they are running around in a big box on the table alongside the baby magpie. Oh yes - a teeny magpie which I've been hand feeding now for a week or so. To start with she lived in a bowl lined with fake furry packing stuff - now she's too big for the bowl and anyway needs to learn to use her legs. At the moment she has learnt to use her mouth and squawks whenever she sees me - usually for food.

Now you may be thinking one for sorrow. But fortunately I was given a slightly older magpie as well so we are two for joy. (This is in the shade tunnel and has just learnt to fly so I've let it out and it now sits on the gate watching the pigs. )I haven't told anyone in case they go oh we are back to one for sorrow now are we?

This is the baby also in someone's hat.

Pocket as you can imagine likes to hang out by the bird feeder incase he can sell any of them a Ponzi scheme.

Here is the very dangerous Rocket - as you can see from his snarling face all teeth and foam. Unfortunately he had a fight with a neighbour's dog and we have been reported to the dog warden. I thought it took two to fight but obviously I'm wrong. No one was hurt or injured in any way so telling on us to the Dog Warden seemed a bit extreme Did I hear someone say one for sorrow??

No sorrow here though - the sweet peas are beginning to flourish.
 

Magpies 

by W.H.Davies

I have an orchard near my house, Where poppies spread and corn has grown; It is a holy place for weeds, Where seeds stay on and flower, till blown. Into this orchard, wild and quiet, The Magpie comes, the Owl and Rook: To see one Magpie is not well, But seeing two brings all good luck. If Magpies think the same, and say, 'Two humans bring good luck, not one' – How they must cheer us, Love, together, And tremble when I come alone!