Like Christopher Smart's famous poem I will consider my cat Jeffrey - I will consider my hen Geoffrey.
For he is the servant of no one and does not serve anyone. For having done no duty and received blessing of the ducks he begins to consider himself.
He still makes me laugh and so reminds me of my father after whom he was named. I don't know why because my father was not a bossy man and in fact was kind and tolerant. He would sit happily in his arm chair reading a book whilst my mother would bang two coconut shells together as I cantered round the living room pretending to be a horse.
Rocket says he needs a job. If he was a border collie he could wrangle sheep, or be the sort of dog that digs for truffles or be a Jack Russell and flush out rats and did I know that Airdale terriers carried first aid to the front line during the war? I hadn't known that but I have always loved them - maybe because they look like the sort of dog you'd push on wheels. I expect my neighbours must have thought I was mad as I had one of those toy push dogs that I bought as an adult and I used to push it down the road to the post box in Camden Town. I was in my late twenties. In fact I joined the Airdale Society and went to a meeting in an airplane hanger somewhere off the M4 where I was in heaven - the only person without one but surrounded by hundreds of Airdales. Funnily when I got a dog I never considered getting one - favouring lurchers and of course wolfhounds. Below one of my favourite pictures of Noa the wolfie when she was a puppy.
Well, I told Rocket - you're very good at interior design - the way you re-arrange all the cushions, rugs and sometimes the furniture. Perhaps you can do some voice over work - you know dog barking in a film or whining for a dog food commercial. Anyway I thought you were doing stand up.
So he tells me his latest joke.
A blind man goes into a shop with his guide dog and once inside starts to whirl it round his head. Can I help you? the shop assistant asks. " No - just looking."he replies.
How's the ghost writing going? I ask the Ghost Pocket. He yawns and stretches out -
I've been working on a novel with Scott. Scott Fitzgerald? I say. Another friend up there?
Yes Scottie and I go way back - he's pleased with what I've written for him - it is a tragic novel set during the Roaring 20's in New York.
What have you called it?
The Great Catsby he replied. After all a book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us.
Kafka? I say. Pocket twiddles his whiskers.
We like to call him Katka. He was a German speaking Bohemian author - a literary genius and a madman. He examines his paws. Writing should inform, entertain and persuade. A great piece of writing is preceded by hours and hours of thinking that I think you do not do.
And may I say - no one who has something original or important to say will willingly run the risk of being misunderstood by deploying flowery language.People who write obscurely are either unskilled in writing or up to mischief.
That's Peter Medawar I said - of course he would be up there with you.
Yes - we call him Sir Peter - he was a Brazilian born biologist who contributed seminal discoveries in immunology.
I don't use flowery language I objected but did you happen to see up there the
lecherous sunrise flaunt itself over a flatulent sea, ripping the obsidian bodice of night asunder? When I saw it my heart beated like a thousand wild horses racing across the plain ......
Nancy and Rocket tend to keep themselves to themselves when the Ghost Pocket is exclaiming. They tell me it looks as if I'm always thinking.
For hours and hours. And that it was true that I did like flowers.
Well the Summer Exhibition at the Royal Academy has come to an end and Chloe's picture (@chloecoggin.art)of Lenny sold its 250 prints very quickly. People have fallen so much for Lenny that someone even asked if he could be in a wedding video for the man's fiancee who loved him(Lenny that is though probably her husband to be too). So they made a film of him wearing a tie with some Love Actually type cards wishing them a great wedding.
Recipe Book
by Linda Coggin.
I made your pastry again today
the recipe from Jane in my book.
I always use it - onion tart or Quiche Lorraine
or sometimes something sweet-
I cook, we eat and I remember you.
And Anne - your recipe for prawns
is there too - I see you cooking
the sauce adorned with thyme
just a squeeze of lime
and of course the cheese
but not too much.
I've kept you both alive
with my cooking.
Dave is there too and of course
you Mum - with thumbed through
slips of paper written in copper plate
recipes for things I'd rather
not eat and have no use - steak au poivre
ham mousse with foie gras
but I keep them just the same.
And Dad - in case you think you are not here
your recipe for a brandy drink in your doctor's scribe
that no one could read
is at the back of the book with the one
for homemade beer that none of us could imbibe.
