our mutual friend

 

I love how different species pal up with each other. For instance when the magpie was a baby she was in a space next to the baby rook on the dining room table and within moments squeezed through the bars and sat next to the rook.

Here they are as babies demanding food. They now live out in the wild and yet they are still together. I might look up into the trees and they are both there - their friendship is so heartening.

And Geoffrey the rooster who grew up with  this duck - follows the duck where ever it goes and you can be sure that if the duck has broken into the poly tunnel - Geoffrey is there too.

Rocket sadly doesn't have a mutual friend (though sometimes he and Lenny the greyhound exchange e mails)- he tolerates Nancy and lives by the saying a dog is a man's best friend so he probably assumes I'm his friend.

   Nancy however says that on occasions Rocket could be considered a friend.

As I sit here writing this I hear the death throes of a fly stuck on the paper trap and the helicopter whirring of the European Hornet as it circles over the sink - like something from Apocalypse Now - Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries throbbing from its propellers. And yesterday a hummingbird hawk moth flew in and drew nectar from one of the flowers on the table. Normally Rocket would respond with barking and great excitement at all these insects but now he lies thinking up new jokes.

A woman buys a dog from a locksmith he tells me and as soon as she gets it home it makes a bolt for the door. I laugh and encourage him by clapping my hands.

He was still thinking up jokes when I took him to the nearby village's fete. Our favourite part was the hawk display. Lucy the kestrel dutifully came to the lure sitting pretty on the stand. She flew round the ring then up into the trees where she was joined by a wild kestrel - a male - and looped the loop a few times with him. Cedric the white tailed eagle just flew off. We left before Cedric returned if he ever did.

Nancy on the other hand said she'd been visited by the black cat and that its looming persistent presence drains her energy and steals all joy. 

Don't you mean the black dog? I ask her. She replies that no - if it were a dog it wouldn't loom it would chase her. Rocket says she'd probably just seen herself in the mirror.

The Ghost Pocket morphs into our conversation .  

 You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life. 

he says re-arranging his ears and staring at the mirror.

Albert Camus said that I tell him.

Bertie and I are great friends he informs me. He was a French philosopher, novelist, author,world federalist and political activist.

The Ghost Pocket continues trying to find his reflexion in the mirror as he speaks.

Did you know he says changing the subject that Odysseus built a giant wooden cat and filled it with the best warrior rats who when they entered the city of Troy ate all the cheeses leading to the city's destruction. 

Actually it was a giant wooden horse I tell him.

Bah he replies - I should know because Homer and I are practically joined at the hip and Homie was an ancient Greek poet who is widely credited as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey two epic poems that are foundational works of ancient Greek literature.

He changed it to a horse later as they didn't get on with the Egyptians who as you know worshipped us cats.

What does he think of the new film - Odysseus? I ask.

The Ghost Pocket frowns. Oh we don't talk about the talking picture he says - we only discuss books - proper literature not celluloid.

How’s it going with the ghost writing? I ask the Ghost Pocket instead.

It’s going great guns – he replies giving up on the mirror remember thrice the brindled cat hath mewed ... he smirked.

 I’ve done some re-writes for my friend Will Wagglespeare He’s re-written something called Hamlet and he wanted a memorable quote from it so I’ve suggested

Tabby or not tabby – that is the question …..

 

Along with thousands of other authors I’m waiting to see if the money accrued from the financial settlement with Anthropic for using my book The Dog Ray (also published in USA) to teach AI how to write a children’s book - will actually appear in my bank. Although I never actually wrote it for children it was published as so. The Dog Ray is about a girl who dies in a car crash and comes back to Earth as a dog – though still retaining the knowledge of her twelve year old self. Wonder what AI will come up with. Perhaps it'll be about a dog who dies in a car crash and comes back as a girl ......

 

The village fete

 

 

 

They walked to the fete with jangling pockets.

Carter dragged his whippet round the ring

but did not win best in show.

 

Johnboy threw the wellie into the football net

it took two men to untangle it.

 

Jack’s sister sold her old hairbands on the bric a brac stall

their cousin Keith knocked over coconuts with a cricket ball. 

 

Mr Bundy won the largest onion

as well as the longest runner beans

 

Mrs Fry’s flapjacks won second prize

Mrs Hicks won the cup for her pickles.

 

Sally Fink’s daughter made a fudge monster

which Carter’s whippet ate before it was judged.

 

They ran out of hot dogs and the beer

became too warm to drink.

 

Jessica Brown cried when she didn’t win

the miniature garden on a plate 

but later was allowed to watch TV and stay up late.

 

The hawk in the bird of prey display

flew off across the fields

and wasn’t found until the sun went down.

 

Linda Coggin

from Small Talk

 

lenny the greyhound

 

This is a portrait entitled Home Straight of Lenny, my daughter Phoebe's rescue greyhound, painted by my other daughter Chloe. She has been accepted by the Royal Academy's Summer Exhibition where her limited edition of prints are flying off the wall.

Home Straight is a portrait of Lenny, a beloved, ex-racing greyhound who was rescued in October 2025. In racing, the ‘home straight’ marks the final stretch before the finish line. For Lenny, it represents something different. Whilst he won many races throughout his career, this finish line was the most important- it led him home. Since being rescued, Lenny has shown gratitude in his own quiet way, discovering a life where he is safe, loved and respected. Through his story, the work aims to raise awareness of the many retired racing greyhounds still waiting for their own home straight.

Rocket loves it when Lenny comes to stay but is a bit miffed that Lenny can run faster than him.

Geoffrey is very vocal. Ask not for whom the cock crows, it crows for thee - I try and re-assure my guests. As the alpha male in the flock he bosses the ducks around, rounding them up when it's time for bed. 

You'd hardly believe he looked like this when he first arrived. I had all hopes of him being a hen but he does make me laugh. He has such attitude.

Rocket reminded me of a joke the other day. 

A man wearing a hat goes into a  pub  and the barman's dog jumps up and takes his hat. The barman laughs and the man complains. I don't like your attitude he says. It's not my attitude the barman replies it's your hat he chewed. 

Rocket suppressed a giggle when he told me this and asked if I thought he could do  stand up.

At the moment there are these five jackdaws in the shade tunnel. They are not related but have palled up with each other. There is also a magpie and a crow but in the day I leave the door open and say those who can only walk stay those who can fly go.  The magpie and the crow go only to appear again later clearly knowing where their bread is buttered.

The Ghost Pocket rolls over on the carpet what greater gift than the love of a cat  he says my friend Charlie Dickens said that you know. I ask him how the ghost writing is going for Mr Dickens. Very well indeed he replies I've written a book for him called Bleak Mouse - it serves as a savage critique of the corrupt British legal system. 

And since I've got into writing I'd sentence you to two years for writing poor sentences. I try to explain to him that sometimes I'm using speech when I send text messages as auto correct are alway mis representing me.  Honestly I tell him it refers to our holiday let as the Pink Towel instead of the pink tower and referred to a woman from Auschwitz as a woman from Ipswich. But the Ghost Pocket pays no attention to my grammar pleas.

I've also ghost written a book for my friend Jane he continues.

Jane Austen I enquire? What have you named this one?

He gives me a haughty yet pitying look.

Purrsuasion he replied.

And did you know he then continues that in ancient times cats were worshipped as Gods and we have not forgotten this. 

I nod. I know she was called Bastet wasn't she - is she up there with you? 

Of course he replies washing a stray whisker. 

Are all cats up there with you? 

Of course not he frowns only us important cats. Humphrey the chief mouser at number 10 is here and Felicitte who was the first cat who went to space and Schrodinger's cat of course though sometimes he's there and sometimes he isn't. 

I nod. You do realise he carries on that cats are put on earth to remind us that not everything has a purpose. Oscar Wilde said that I said but he'd gone back to the book shelf to exam  my Dickens collection.

  If man could be crossed with a cat it would improve the man but it would deteriorate the cat he remarked over his shoulder. 

 Mark Twain? I enquired but he'd gone. I noticed he'd disappeared into my copy of Huckleberry Finn.

                                            out the kitchen window

To a black greyhound

by Julian Grenfell 1888-1915

 

Shining black in the shining light,

Inky black in the golden sun,

Graceful as the swallow’s flight,

Light as swallow, winged one;

Swift as driven hurricane –

Double sinewed stretch and spring

Muffled thus of flying feet,

See the black dog galloping

Hear his wild foot-beat

 

See him lie when the day is dead,

Black curves curled on the boarded floor.

Sleepy eyes, my sleepy-head –

Eyes that were aflame before.

Gentle now, they burn no more;

Gentle now, and softly warm,

With the fire that made them bright

Hidden – as when after storm

Softly falls the night.

 

God of Speed, who makes the fire –

God of Peace, who lulls the same –

God who gives the fierce desire,

Lust for blood as fierce as flame –

God who stands in Pity’s name –

Many may ye be or less,

Ye who rule the earth and sun:

Gods of strength and gentleness

Ye are ever one.

why is a raven like a writing desk

So the baby corvids are coming in thick and fast. At the moment  4 jackdaws, a rook and a magpie to be hand fed - the other magpie and three rooks were able to fly away when I opened the door to the shade tunnel for them.

One of the reasons there are so many (and I had to turn down another 6 jackdaws) is because of the heatwave when their nests got so hot they fledged too early and then were picked up by a human or a dog or a cat. Worse is the fact that many birds have taken to nesting behind solar panels on roofs and they became so hot that many scorched to death. Hopefully people will put netting around these panels to stop this happening.
 

I love the way that corvids recognise their own tribe. I had a young magpie next to a young rook in an adjoining 'space' on the kitchen table. Within moments of putting her in she squeezed through the bars to sit next to the rook in his space. They've been inseparable ever since.

There are a few hints and things worth knowing with crows. (An idle collective name sometimes incorporating crows, rooks and ravens though all corvids)

How to stare at crows.

 Don't stare. 

Gaze - use the side of your eyes like a fox in a fable and no sudden moves - crows are not impressed with drama - instead offer silence like a gift wrapped in the wind. Known as mischief makers, shape shifters, tricksters and clowns they have few natural predators. With an impressive IQ, the ability to fly up to 100 miles a day and reach speeds of up to 48 miles per hour -  coming back as a raven couldn't be so bad.

I find the Ghost Pocket lying in the rose petals. Even Ghosts feel the heat apparently. 

Edgar Allan Poe has been telling me about his raven called Nevermore he says, patting a petal out of the way so it doesn't tickle his whiskers. You know Edgar? I ask 

Of course. Eddie and I go back a long way. We have very interesting conversations about ravens with Charlie Dickens who had a raven called Grip.

Oh yes, I reply - he wrote about it in Barnaby Rudge. Ghost Pocket frowned. Barnaby Rudge? Never heard of him - he's not up here with the rest of us writers. Truman was telling me about his raven Lola who stole his guest's false teeth and hid them with a vast cache of stolen objects behind a library edition of Jane Austen. Apparently it was where she kept all her important documents.(Lola not Jane)

Truman Capote? I query. Do they all get on these writer friends of yours up there?

The ghost Pocket smirks.

Yes of course - and I'm doing some ghost writing for Mr Dickens. He tells me he can't think of any more stories and would I write them for him.

He materialises on the book case and browses my collection of Dickens.

A room without books is like a body without a soul he purses his lips.

Cicero? I say but the Ghost Pocket seems to have disappeared inside a copy of  Bleak House.

Rocket says if he can' be a Ghost Writer could he be a sensitivity reader? For people who write about dogs. Really he said I should have worked on your book the Dog Ray and all those other books you've written with dogs in - The Missing of Stanley Ruff, The Way back - really the only book you didn't have a dog in was the Egg Stone oh and the Curiosity of the Black Cat. Did Nancy have a say in that?

The Boy with the Tiger's Heart didn't have a dog in it, I say.

Yes but it had a bear - that's almost like a dog and of course a tiger which is almost a cat - did you consult them? he asks.

Sort of I reply. I spent lots of time with the keepers at a couple of zoos. They told me tigers in zoos were ambassadors for those in the wild that were becoming extinct.

Rocket frowned. Becoming extinct because people keep capturing them and putting them in zoos. He looked very pleased with himself and who was I to argue with him. You're the sort of person who would have had a tiger living at home with you he said. I have a feeling he could have been right. When I was a child my mother used to take me up to London once a year to go to Harrods because they had a zoo on the top floor where you could buy lion cubs as well as the obligatory guinea pigs. I came back on the train with a couple of fancy mice - my mother shook her head at the lion cub. Thank goodness it's all illegal now but as a small child then I had no idea of what went on in the world.

Nancy said she had nothing to do with any book but that she was incredibly hot in her furs and why didn't The Creator put a zip in.

Meanwhile with no desire to be a reader this albino hedgehog came in to the wildlife hospital.

Most of the poems about Ravens (Eddie's in particular) are very long so I am putting up an unrelated and completely irrelevant poem that I wrote very recently.

Things I've never seen before

I have seen a hump back whale

breach in the ocean swell

a tiger prowling in the jungle

with a breath taking roar

but I've never seen a snow leopard

or a green jackdaw.

I have seen a lamb being born

an owl pluck a mouse from the corn

a chair thrown at a passerby

bu I've never seen a pink swamp dog

or heard a brown cliff squirrel sigh.

I have seen things that would make you cry

and I wonder if when I die

these things will flash before me

like a film of my life.

Linda Coggin 

stuff

 

This year's Mrs Magpie baby has arrived. I feed it every hour and swan around in a black and white gown. (not really but perhaps I should). At the moment it has a special mixture made for young parrots that has multiple amounts of goodness in it that you feed on the end of a very tiny paint brush. It's going down well but I daresay if it starts growing green feathers I might worry. It's always an uncertainty if these tiny babes will survive. This like most of them had fallen out of the nest and sometimes weeks later they don't make it due to internal injuries as they hit the ground. I haven't got any concerts lined up for it - when Mrs Magpie was a chick like this I had to take her to a Pattie Smith concert in Cambridge so I could dash out to the car every hour to feed her.

Ghost Pocket fortunately is not interested in small birds any more. You don't take a life when you've already lost yours apparently.

He told me in no uncertain terms though that I had too much stuff. You can't take it with you he said and like me you'll be off soon so get rid of it. Throw it away or sell it -  I think there's a new bill coming out called Assisted Buying to help you clear the decks. He's right of course - I do have some stuff. I remember cycling home with a dress maker's dummy I found abandoned in Baker St. I was once referred to in a national newspaper many years ago as Queen of the Skips in an article entitled a Room of My Own.

What difference does it make how much you have? What you do not have amounts to much more. The Ghost Pocket scans the contents of the room. 

Seneca? I say - Another mate up there? 

He twitches his whiskers.Of course - Senny was a stoic philosopher of Ancient Rome, a statesman and dramatist. It is not that we have a short time to live but that we waste a lot of it. And I must say he continues fixing a beady eye on me he would say that we suffer more in imagination than in reality. Anyway as my mate Herodotus (490BC) Dotty as we like to call him would point out that of all possessions a friend is the most precious.

Rocket wanted to know that as a dog is a man's best friend does he count? And could I make sure I don't throw out his spare beaded collar, the chewed ball and the bear with an eye and both arms missing.

Nancy isn't interested in stuff and anyway as she has Miaowzheimers she can't remember if she had anything anyway. Perhaps there was once a toy mouse with catnip in it but that was all.

This is the time of year when young animals are arriving at the wildlife hospital in droves. Above this gorgeous owl and below with such an anxious little face this fox cub.

I think he's going to be my Thought Fox. An inspiration for creating something as Ted Hughes writes in his poem (see below.) Honestly you just want to cuddle them they are so adorable but we must love them from afar because if they get used to humans then returning to a life in the wild would be near impossible. Imagine if as the farmer approaches him with a gun outside the hen house he rolled over onto his back for  tummy tickle.

The Thought Fox (1957)

I imagine this midnight moment's forest:
Something else is alive
Beside the clock's loneliness
And this blank page where my fingers move.

Through the window I see no star:
Something more near
Though deeper within darkness
Is entering the loneliness:

Cold, delicately as the dark snow
A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
Two eyes serve a movement, that now
And again now, and now, and now

Sets neat prints into the snow
Between trees, and warilly a lame
Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
Of a body that is bold to come

Across clearings, an eye,
A widening deepening greenness,
Brilliantly, concentratedly,
Coming about its own business

Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
It enters the dark hole of the head.
The window is starless still; the clock ticks,
The page is printed.

Ted Hughes.

jackdaw genes

 

The other  day I was sorting out a box load of photos and came across an old black and white picture of my grandfather probably taken more than eighty years ago of him with a jackdaw on his arm. I had never seen this before and now all concerned are dead I could not ask about it but it's clear there must be a jackdaw gene that's been passed down to me. I wish I could talk to him about it but the photo is second best. Maybe somewhere along the line my jackdaw is related to his jackdaw.

He was a sea captain and I gathered he once brought a monkey home from his travels that used to sit on my mother's head when she was a little girl, pull her hair and then pee on her. She understandably hated this monkey. Spending a life at sea he was able to tell the time by the stars and the sun and as children we used to play the what's the time Grandad?with him. Three twenty he'd say and then get out his pocket watch and it was indeed three twenty. He died of a heart attack at my sister's house and his last words were I think it's two minutes to one. Two minutes later the church clock struck one in the morning.

The ghost Pocket has a habit of appearing whilst I'm trying to write and giving me tips.

Writing is easy he says all you have to do is cross out the wrong words.

Mark Twain said that I tell him. Another pal of yours up there? He rolls his eyes - Mark was an American author known for his sharp wit, satire and wisdom. And whilst we're on the subject there are words that convey little added value to writing. Very is one of them. 

Thank you and Mark very much I say.

And another tip when in doubt have a man through the door with a gun.

Raymond Chandler? I enquire - do you have writing workshops up there? Anyway I have writer's block at the moment.

Pah! The ghost Pocket exclaims Writer's block is merely neurotic inhibitions of productivity.

Edmund Bergler? I begin but he has disappeared into the book shelf telling me over his shoulder that the world is a hellish place and bad writing is destroying the quality of our suffering. You know Tom Waits ? I call after him......

Rocket tells me the ghost Pocket had advised him to read the Seven Pillars of Wisdom and that it might be easier to read if he looked like Lawrence of Arabia. Also he wanted to know that now I no longer have horses had I considered getting a camel?

So Nancy and Rocket have taken to occupying my bed. I had to consider sleeping on the sofa which is usually Rocket's go to place. When questioned as to why he would sleep in the same place I sleep he told me it was a Karmic connection. I'm merely offering you protection in a pack mentality sort of way. It's a natural demonstration of trust and affection. Nancy said that was a load of old nonsense - my pillow happens to be more comfortable than the arm chair.

View from the kitchen window. When we first moved up here many years ago we only had a couple of neighbours and the barns were barns and the fields were fields. Then other people moved in and barns became houses and fields became other people's gardens. At that time there was a dog show in the neighbouring village and our first wolf hound Jai won Top Bitch. I considered having a T shirt made with those words emblazoned across the front so the new comers would know exactly where I was coming from.

Dharma

by Billy Collins

The way the dog trots out the front door

every morning

without a hat or an umbrella,

without any money

or the keys to her dog house

never fails to fill the saucer of my heart

with milky admiration.

Who provides a finer example

of a life without encumbrance -

Thoreau in his curtainless hut

with a single plate, a single spoon?

Ghandi with is staff and his wire spectacles?

Off she goes into the material world

with nothing but her brown coat

and her modest blue collar,

following only her wet nose,

the twin portals of her steady breathing,

followed only by the plume of her tail.

If only she did not shove the cat aside

every morning

and eat all his food

what a model of self-containment she would be,

what a paragon of earthly detachment.

If only she were not so eager

for a rub behind the ears,

so acrobatic in her welcomes,

if only I were not her god.

the year of the horse

 

                    This is the year of the Horse in the Chinese Zodiac

and Harry and Trude were our beloved companions for many years - in fact Harry

was with us for at least twenty of them.

I'd say it was always the year of the horse for me - I have loved horses or been one for most of my life. When I was a small child I was in fact a horse - cantering around the garden, jumping over imaginary jumps and even falling off myself. The man who helped in the garden told my parents he thought there may be something wrong with me. Of course if he'd seen I was a horse he wouldn't have thought that.

So lucky for me horses have been in my life for a long time - even being allowed to ride the army horses in Hyde Park every morning on my way to work.  Me and Jack, the Corporal of the Horse used to ride them up the Edgeware Road for a cup of tea at a local cafe and then jump over the park benches on the way back. 

There is a statue of a horse in Westminster and I remember one year a soldier rugged it up and left a pile of horse dung along Whitehall leading up to the horse's rear end. It was very funny but I expect he was court -martialled for it.

The Year of the Rooster is not till 2029 and is supposed to represent diligence, courage and confidence. Geoffrey our hen turned cockerel is all of those things and tried to mate with one of my ducks. I daresay the offspring would have been called a Cuck - which I suspect gives rise to the saying that someone was cuckolded.

Rocket asks when it's his turn to have a year - because if it's not soon he's going to go and live in his favourite pub The Ball and Stick. And did I realise he wanted to know that the reason he sleeps on my bed is that he's preventing unwanted spirits from entering my bedroom and spends his time absorbing negative energies whilst I sleep.

Ghost Pocket informs him he's got a long wait till 2030 in fact. 

I might not live till then he complains. 

That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet the Ghost Pocket replies. 

Emily Dickenson said that I told him - do you converse with her? 

Of course, Emily is one of America's greatest and most original poet of all time. Her poems have a unique style piercing intelligence and wit. 

He curls his tail around his paws. Let us try to recognise the precious nature of each day.

The Dalai Lama? I enjoin but he stares out of the window and informs me he has important things to be getting on with.

If they were hens I'd say this lot were having a hen party but Geoffrey is crowing on top of one of the flower pots and not interested.

Jackdaw has had no luck so far finding a mate - he flies off for a couple of days and then returns for a cuddle and a bit of grub. I hope he/she finds one soon but how he does I've no idea, If he can wait I expect I'll be given some fledgling jackdaws in the Spring that have fallen out of their nest.

I love this horse poem below and

RIP

Harry, Trude, Mark, Simon,Pally, Rosie and Kerry the trumpet horse.

At Grass by Philip Larkin

The eye can hardly pick them out
From the cold shade they shelter in,
Till wind distresses tail and mane;
Then one crops grass, and moves about
- The other seeming to look on -
And stands anonymous again

Yet fifteen years ago, perhaps
Two dozen distances sufficed
To fable them : faint afternoons
Of Cups and Stakes and Handicaps,
Whereby their names were artificed
To inlay faded, classic Junes -

Silks at the start : against the sky
Numbers and parasols : outside,
Squadrons of empty cars, and heat,
And littered grass : then the long cry
Hanging unhushed till it subside
To stop-press columns on the street.

Do memories plague their ears like flies?
They shake their heads. Dusk brims the shadows.
Summer by summer all stole away,
The starting-gates, the crowd and cries -
All but the unmolesting meadows.
Almanacked, their names live; they

Have slipped their names, and stand at ease,
Or gallop for what must be joy,
And not a fieldglass sees them home,
Or curious stop-watch prophesies :
Only the grooms, and the grooms boy,
With bridles in the evening come.