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.

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