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.