Billie's food diary

 

A sweet picture of Billie admiring the nasturtiums. Left to her own devices she would have eaten them.

A while ago I was given a food diary and told to write down everything I ate and drank in a day. I was tempted to fill it with haute cuisine but thought that cheating would be silly so it ended up an uninteresting read - toast - cereal - cheese - tomatoes- red wine ......

Instead I persuaded Billie to keep a food diary. 

Monday - ate dog bed, pair of socks, more poetry, letter from the DVLA.

Tuesday - large cushion with tiny feathers in. Two tea towels. Mum's phone.

Wednesday - another dog bed, three pens and all the newly planted violas in pot by door.

Thursday - Mum's breakfast carelessly left at head height. an odd sock

Friday- one boot. Half of Mum's diary.

Saturday - the review section of the saturday paper

Pocket said Billie had eaten all of his food as well and therefore he was starving and it was at least two months since he'd had a proper meal not counting the mouse last week. He told me he was so hungry he'd taken himself off to the seaside in case he could catch a fish but instead found a message in a bottle. What did it say? I asked. He told me it said I'm alive! They were two bullets short for me and one of the sledge dogs. Am making my way across the ice. signed Mrs Chippy.(polar explorer)

Mrs Chippy! I exclaimed - why he was the cat on the Endeavour. Shackleton had to shoot all the sledge dogs and the cat when they left the ship frozen in the ice.

Pocket said he'd try and find him then and was not put off by the fact it was way over a hundred years ago in 1914 in fact.You wouldn't get eight cats pulling a sledge through snow he muttered. Even though it was so long ago and even a cat with nine lives would not be alive today I was pleased to hear this level-headed quick thinking carpenter's cat might have survived after all. Pocket asked if I could leave the freezer door open so he could experience what Mrs Chippy had gone through.(also there might be some of his food in there which I'd forgotten to give him.)

Rocket thought it was a load of nonsense but hoped I didn't expect him to pull a sledge when the snow came.

A while ago I had a dream whereby I turned one of the stables into a pottery. When I awoke I thought I must learn how to throw a pot.  A dear friend gave me her wheel and someone insulated the stable so it's warmer than our house and I go for lessons. Below are three of my creations. I don't smoke but I now have a load of ashtrays. I'd like to make something more useful - like a bowl to eat out of but I have little success with larger lumps of clay. I still wish when I opened the stable door I'd find a horse in there rather than a lot of very small bowls.

Last dahlia standing.

Snow

BY LOUIS MACNEICE

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was

Spawning snow and pink roses against it

Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:

World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,

Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion

A tangerine and spit the pips and feel

The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world

Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes— 

On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands—

There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.