Not forgotten.

She went away and returned with a mirror, so now we can see our reflected glory. Beautiful ginger, we glow like firecats. 
This morning the ground was crisp white with a shawl that the moon had thrown down and spread across the fields. As the sun rose into the morning sky she stole away its bone white beauty and warmed the land but when evening came the cold bit again at the air.
Inside the house is warm. We melt in ginger pools across soft cushions.
The house seems a little lost still without Martha. The people sometimes stop when walking across a room and look around as if they have lost something, until they find it is only the memory of her fragile beauty that has slipped their minds for a moment.

 

Outside is windsong, cold and dark. Inside embers glow.

Cold and the night.

This morning the moon faded slowly as sunlight filled a new day. Now she is late to rise. Once more the darkness is pinned to the night with a million million stars, high above, far away. Cold, beautiful night. We are all of a curl and a soft fall of fur by the fire's side. Dreaming cats.

Borrowed words.

Things that are wild.
The west wind. Waves at sea. Flames. Distant stars, so many. The bone white moon. Hawk flight. Firelight in a cat's eyes.

Things that are tame.
Being inside, listening to the wind outside. A still shore. Rainsong on a roof. The smell of baking bread. Firelight in a cat's eye.

Guests

It is not just because Daf is a catcher of fishes that we, the ginger-clan love him. (Even Maurice sits on Daf and allows him to stroke him!) It is not because Daf has a beard that is the same colour as our fine fur. It is just because. So this afternoon we let him sit by our fire.

Fire cats, fire dogs.

Dancing firecat of ginger flames warms the house once again. So good, so warm. Outside a wren shouts at the dark bruised sky. It has been a day of rainbows and the world shines like a wet pebble. Beautiful.
We are warm.

Cold rain is falling.

Rain beats hard on the roof. All cats gather together, a pool of warm ginger. We wait for Her to light the fire, but so far She does not.
Maurice continues to breath like a bagpipe playing a fast tune. We will know more on Thursday.
At least we now have a roof for the rain to beat on!

This is how we spend our days

In the light of an early morning, when night time was reluctant to allow the day to start, we walked up the hill, past Mr Griffith's house where a light shone out of the tiny window.

The wind was rising, and there were snipe and curlew and lapwing and bright pheasants like flames. Beneath the music of the wind we thought we could hear the wind cat calling, but maybe it was just the buzzard mewing.

In a field we found tiny ponies, hair all blown about, hooves so small, almost as small as a cats paw.

At home She stirred up the fire and took out the ashes and fed more fuel into it and the sleeping dragon there began to glow again and send out warmth. We rested by the fire while She went into Her studio to scribble and scrawl and colour things in and watch the bright birds dance outside Her window.

Rosie wanted to share Kiffer's chair.

Martha, being the oldest and wisest, took up residence above the fire.

Night games

Outside the night is dark. The sky has more stars that there are cats in the world. A river of stars sweeps across the darkness. The Dark Night Moon does not show her face yet.

Inside, warm. A green tree with lights scents the house and we play the game of 'how many gingers can you fit on the sofa'. Today, four, and one over the fire.

Summer, autumn, winter

Inside the house all is calm, quiet. We gather on the sofa of gingercats. For the first time this year She has made a fire, cleaning out the coal and dust from last year and taking newspaper and kindling and coal and striking a ginger flame to the paper. The flames leap and play and now the whole house is cosy warm and filled with peace.
Outside the windcat has brought his whole pride to run and rattle the doors and the windows. Their soft fur blocks out the stars and the sliver of new moon. They climb over the roof, push claws under the slates, follow the smoke into the sky and make mischief. Their claws are sharp and cold. It seems as if they have stolen summer, chased away the autumn, carrying with it the bright fallen leaves, and taken us straight into winter.

Hide and seek

In the wind tangled corn field, and on the high rock above the blue sea, we played hide and seek.

Wild geese fly over head, like arrows in the sky. Swallows gather on wires. Rosehips glow red in the garden and the last of the honeysuckle cascades in a waterfall of flowers. Spiders spin last desperate webs to catch the fading flies of summer and bats fly frantic in twilight. Soon it will be time to light the first fire of autumn.

The warmest place

In the kitchen on top of the radiator, behind the bench, is one of the warmest places.

Elmo's Fire

Tom's birthday and the house in the morning had wonderful paper from presents to play with. Later it filled up with people, so many that we could not walk across the floor, and dogs too, Larry and Weasel, the small one and Pitta, the black one.
I do not like too many people in the house so I went outside. Here Tom and his friend Jake had a fire in the garden. I watched from the dark distance as the flames danced in the dark.
There were patterned cats and dancers and dragon's breath and monsters, mermaids and firebirds and firewolves and tiger's eyes, faces and firehorses and faeries and imps all dancing in the ginger flames in the darkness. So warm, sparks flying, mesmeric, beguiling.
Then all the people spilled out and began to move around with strange sticks with sparks, drawing patterns in the night, and then, and then, the world began to crack and bang and the sky filled with light and I ran, round the back of the house and away from the sky monsters and their noise and the hair stood up on my tail and back, and all the gingers ran from the house.
It did not last long. One great flower of fire filled the sky and faded down then all was silent again, but for the odd call of a bat, and the mice rustling in the hedges, an owl across on the common, a rat squeak by the well. The others went back into the house and they all settled by the fire, a tangle of people and dogs and cats. But I would not go. I stayed out in the night, high on the wall of the ruined house and watched the world turn and the stars move in a pattern of light. And wondered, did the last flowering rocket leave some of its sparks in the sky? Were there new stars there now? Is that how they get there?
All night I kept watch until the sun began to climb into the sky and the fire in the garden was blackened ash, and then I went home, and She was so pleased to see me. Sometimes it is worth hiding away for a while to get a good welcome home.
And Tom, he had a good birthday.

The first fire of winter.

The cloak of the night, adorned with stars, spreads across the cold and sleeping earth. The bright half moon is caught in the bone branches of the winter tree, stripped of its leaves by the wind's hand. A pathway of silver stretches over the sea, and tonight the sea sings loud as waves ride to the shore in sets of seven, crisp and turning and silver in the moon's brightness.
Outside the smell of the coal and the wood fire hang in the still air. Inside the house is warm and cosy. The first fire of the winter.
Tonight it is the other side of the moon that shines its silver light in the ink dark sky.