the owl and the pussycat

 Apart from the fact one is dry and one is wet here are two different owls

Above a perfectly clean barn owl at the wildlife hospital who is in for rest and recuperation and below this dear tawny owl that I found sitting in a puddle.

It just doesn't seem to have stopped raining and this poor chap was waterlogged. Their feathers are not waterproofed which enables them to glide silently through the night but he just couldn't get back off the ground. I picked him up (painfully as I wasn't wearing gloves and had forgotten how tightly they grip on with their sharp claws) took him home and dried him with a hairdryer. Later when it got dark and had stopped raining I put him back in a branch of a tree just where I'd found him. In the morning he had gone so hopefully he recovered.

Here are the two pussycats,Nancy above in mid washing session I think or mid demanding for her third breakfast and below the superior Pocket.

Cats, he informs me, obey no commandments, have no ideals and do not experience guilt or remorse or struggle to better themselves. Yes I say I've certainly noticed you have no guilt when you dig your claws into friends who might have popped round for a quiet cuppa.

Forgetting he said, is the greatest source of freedom a person has. Who said that? I asked. I've forgotten he chortled. But I do know that man is the most blighted and frail of all creatures and more over the most given to pride.  That's Montaigne I answer with pride. I forget he purrs. But I do know that where of one cannot speak there of one must be silent. That's Montaigne again I say still with pride. I am silent he replied and so should you be.

In the next door village the starlings have been murmuring  every evening from 5.15  or 17.15 in modern time. I have found it impossible to capture it on film as there are hundreds of them swooping over the trees and the meadow. But what a joyous sight.

Rocket tells me he's forgotten everything and what time was supper?

You can't have a blog without a picture of a hedgehog. Here's one at the wildlife centre perking up as Spring is here so they say. I have a family of them in my stable and someone is certainly awake as all the cat biscuits I put down every day are gone by the next. (tha cats assure me it's not them even though they are their biscuits.)

The daffodils think it's Spring anyway.

My daughters have been applying for new jobs and have spent ages concocting C.V's. I decided to write my own should I need to apply for another job.

See below.

Job Application.

I am applying for this job because

I can cry in ten different languages

and know how to stroke the tail of a dove

without altering its flight path.

I can decline all tenses of Latin 

in one breath

I can send out your correspondence in Haiku

or sonnet form

I am experienced in appreciating woodland fauna

and can name seven different species

of the ranunculus family.

My strength is my good telephone voice and

I can impersonate a jackdaw calling to its mate.

I can sew a hair shirt

and know the correct temperature of coals for

walking barefoot on.

I can tell when it's going to rain by the seaweed 

method

or observing cows lying down.

I can bake humble pie

and eat it if necessary.

Linda Coggin