Saturday 26 March 2016

hooray ray

It's The Dog, Ray in the news again. 


 Firstly, here is a beautiful drawing of the inspiration for the book, the handsome Beezle, by Durer (my computer can't do the dots above the u} er - by my daughter Chloe. (my computer can't do the dots above the e }And here .......
 is the new beautiful cover for the book to be published in America by Candlewick Press in the Autumn.
Hooray!

 So here at Dog HQ we are very excited and Beezle is jumping for joy. He has been the subject of a 400 word document on being the inspiration for the book to be used in USA publicity. He says he'd like Tom Hiddleston to play him in the film.


 though Pixie can't see what all the fuss is about.



 It's that time of year again - the rooks building their nests. Two weeks ago there were only 6 nests in the rookery and now there are 40. Some of them have built semi-detached nests and they sit there proudly looking as if they are awaiting inspection. One or two of the nests look like something off Grand Designs. The trees are all linked together overhanging the drove and  when you walk underneath them (there's no where else you can walk but underneath) you get rained upon by little twigs. I left Harry the horse's feathers in the field behind them and pleased to see that most of them have gone and must now be lining the more exclusive nests - probably the ones in the gated community in the next door tree which is set slightly apart from the others.


 I'm on a bird theme now. My naughty ducks broke into the polytunnel and ate all my sweet peas that I'd just planted out. I'd been growing them since November and they were looking so good. Gardening can have its heartaches.


At least the shooting of the pheasants have stopped for the season. As Beezle and P.G.Wodehouse would say "The fascination of shooting as a sport depends almost wholly on whether you are at the right or the wrong end of the gun."

I wanted to give this sad Thomas Hardy poem (below) ( thank you Jill )to the new gamekeeper but I think it would be an oxymoron.


 
Happy Easter dear Readers of this blog.


The Puzzled Game-Birds

They are not those who used to feed us 
When we were young—they cannot be - 
These shapes that now bereave and bleed us? 
They are not those who used to feed us, - 
For would they not fair terms concede us? 
- If hearts can house such treachery 
They are not those who used to feed us 

When we were young—they cannot be!

Thomas Hardy.