Mrs Magpie has now stolen so many things that I suspect she's set up a road side stall to sell off all my pens and silver teaspoons.
She loves roses (see above as do I) but her thieving has meant I have had to put all paperwork in a box with a secure fitting lid and to absolutely not leave any food around. Yesterday she flew off with half a block of parmesan cheese and today I saw her running across the floor with a cellophane wrapped bunch of basil in her beak. She has taken most of my cutlery. I think she is measuring out my life with coffee spoons. If cornered she squeaks then coughs (imitating me) then makes a loud clattering noise. She's become quite porky and for some reason has lost her beautiful long tail feathers so the over all effect is one of stubborn stubbyness.
A clattering is also the collective name for jackdaws of which I now seem to have quite a few.
This is Peggotty. Peggotty is a tiny fledgling jackdaw given to me by the wildlife hospital. A friend said he looked as if he was just back from the barbers and wasn't happy with the result.. But I've decided she may be a girl. Really I should have called Mrs Magpie Peggotty because the other day I saw she had unclipped and broken all the wooden pegs holding up my washing resulting in the towels and the broken pegs lying in a neat line on the ground. Admittedly they were cheap pegs and might not have broken so readily if I'd spent a bit more on them but even so.
The other jackdaws of which there are four like to fly back in to the poly tunnel as the door is now open in the belief that I'll feed them. When they see me coming they fly down from whichever tree they are in and squawking with excitement line up like pegs on the fence. Meanwhile the young raven is still in recovery. I have named him Stanley for now and greet him with a "Stanley I presume?" He looks at me with his huge black opal eyes and I stroke him with a feather which I think he likes.
Pocket tells me that from now on he wishes to be identified as
a cat. "But you are a cat" I tell him. He asks me not to disturb him as he was having
The Sleep of Reason. The Sleep of Reason produces Monsters I tell him. It's a Goya painting .
Oy vey I hear him mumble and he twitches and jigs his paws as if he's in some Rotterdam techno dungeon.
Rocket on the other hand thought he'd write a book.
It's set during the French Revolution he tells me
about a street dog who rescues all the aristocrats' toy dogs that were wandering around the streets of Paris whilst their owners were losing their heads. "What are you going to call it?" I ask.
The Scarlet Pupernell. He looks pleased with himself. "It starts -
It was the best of times it was the worst of times." I told him that had already been taken in The Tale of two Cities but he insisted his was
The Tail of Two Cities. I told him it was a really good idea and perhaps I could write it for him. He looked at me in horror and told me I couldn't write it as I'm not a dog and these days in the publishing world you can't write as someone if you are not them and it would involve sensitivity readers. "Are they dogs?" I ask. He assures me they are and he doesn't as a debut author want to be
cancelled. Do you have a pen name? I asked.
Baron Rockzy he replies
and I may well need a wig and lace cuffs to write in for authenticity. I told him I'd look on the Pets at Home website.
Lillies in the house are now cunningly disguising the smell of wet dogs.
As there's been a lot about the Titanic recently I was drawn to Thomas Hardy's poem The Convergence of the Twain in which he contrasts the materialism of mankind with the beauty of Nature.
In a solitude of the sea
deep from human vanity
and the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches
she.
Steel chambers, late the pyres
of her salamandrine fires,
cold currents thrid and turn to rhythmic tidal lyres.
over the mirrors meant
to glass the opulent
the sea-worms crawl - grotesque, slimed, dumb
indifferent.
Jewels in joy designed
to ravish the sensuous mind
lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and
blind.
Dim moon-eyed fishes near
gaze at the gilded gear
and query "What does this vaingloriousness down
here?"
Well: while was fashioning
this creature of cleaving wing
The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything
prepared a sinister mate
For her- -so gaily great -
A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate.
and as the smart ship grew
In stature grace and hue
In shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too.
Alin they seemed to be
no mortal eye could see
the intimate welding of their later history.
or sign that they were bent
by paths coincident
on being anon twin halves of one august event
till the Spinner of Years
said "Now!" and each one hears
and consummation comes and jars two hemispheres.
