Blue sky, buzzards and lapwings

Across ground sprinkled with snow we walked together to the hilltop high. So quiet the day that you could hear a cat paw on frozen snow, a flapwing flight of a flock of lapwing and the crunch munch of cows grazing bracken. Light and snow, winter, a sky filled with birds. Paradise.

At home we greeted Mr Griffiths. So cold in his house, but he seemed quite well, with Nadolig held tight in his arms.

Frost and a world of promise and hope.

New year, bright, early morning light as we walked up and over the hill to far away.

In such bright light Kiffer looked like a frosted ginger.

The day was still as we watched distant skeins of birds decorate the sky with wings and flight, frost shadows and pockets. A day such as this holds a world of promise.

The wishing song of falling stars.

Even though the sky is a sea of clouds with islands of stars clear between, even though the beam from Strumble Head lighthouse sweeps a warning for miles across the sky, still it is possible to see the stars falling. And all day, although sunlight obscured the view, still the shower fell, a rain of stars and we slept, curled in warm places, dreaming to the song of the fallen ones.

Song of the copper bear

Tonight the wind cat plays with the copper bear that flies above the house. The dogs go to the door. It is dark, time to walk the village bounds before sleep. She rises to go and as She opens the door some of the night rushes into the house. Moonshadow fingers of winterbone trees dapple the ground with dark and silver. I slip through the door, out from the light and into the night, to follow.
She turns. " Go back. It's cold. Stay warm in the house," She says.
But I jump up, into Her arms, a ginger scarf and gloves of bright fur to warm Her as they walk. She pushes Her face into flame fur and we warm each other as She carries me around beneath star and sky and bright moon. As we near the house again its lights shine out a welcome. She breathes in the scent of cat and sighs, holding me close.
" I love you, Maurice."
We close the door on the darkness.
Outside the wind cat still plays with the copper bear. In the wind, the copper bear sings.

One evening in Treleddyd Fawr: or the cushion cats

Outside rain drums on the roof. Patter patter pitter patter. Inside flames curl orange bright. We are cushion cats.

Snow Song

In the night, while the Ice Moon hung blurred in the cold sky, snow fell and settled on the land. When morning came the world had a brightness to it. We went walking.

Up the green lane, now white and the trees were etched with white thorns, to the top of the hill where the snow crunched under our feet and all around the world sang like a winter music box. Lapwings flew up from cold fields crying their pee-whit call and flashing white wings against snow.

Even as we walked a cold grey fog spread over the land. Pockets of sunshine still glinted through in the black and white world where ginger glows bright.

We found delicate trails of fox prints written on the paths, and we wrote our prints into the path for others to find.

Elmo jumped from rock to distant rock, flying cat.

In the distance Ramsey Island rose up from a slate grey sea. We sat for a while and listened, then walked home to the warm with the snow crystals singing beneath our cold paws.

Back home we curled again in the warm and outside the snow began to fall and tumble from the sky in heavy flakes.

On the edge of the rain, walking

It was a blue sky morning and so we went walking, past the studio where She should have been working and through the farmyard which was mud mud mud.

In the green lane that leads to the top of the hill fragile mosaics of broken snail shell still lay on the saturated surface of the path. To one side of the path blue sky, on the other side the sky held a weight of water. Even as we walked the wind began to rise again, but the world was still all sunshine and sharp shadows.

On top of the hill we looked across the landscape. Everywhere bright pools silvered the land. In the sky a darkness was coming, bruising the heavens to inky blue. The air began to thicken with water. We turned for home, and all the way back were on the edge, the very edge, of the storm.

We could hear the rain falling in heavy drops dripping, we could hear the wind beginning to roar, we could hear as it rattled and ran through the black thorn bushes. But we were sheltered in the green lane and though the storm chased us through the farmyard mud we made it home to the cosy house, safe and dry.

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.

A night, like any other

The stars seem very far apart this night. The bright moon castes deep shadows and is circled by a halo of ice and light. The grass rustles like paper, frosted and dry as it is. There is a warm smell of wood smoke hanging in the stillness of the air. Tonight the foxes will skitter and skit across the frozen ponds to the cold and sleeping ducks and snatch them from their dreams. Tonight the owl's wings will haunt the hedges, but mice will huddle safe in clusters, close together for safety and warmth. In holes in the wall, in hedges and trees wrens will form feather balls, packed in tight. They will sleep soundly in the safety of numbers, quiet as quiet, so that the stalking weasel will not hear.
And we will sleep draped over arm chairs and fire and bed, warm in the house where the dragon fire slumbers, while She dreams and reads and the dogs snore and remember in their moonlit slumber a dim and distant past when they were wolves.

Clouds like lions rage across the night sky.

Only the brightest of heaven's lamps shines through tonight. The path is silvered by moonlight, and the clouds run like lions across the sky. North wind brings cold. In the lea of the wind there is stillness. In the shadows of the moon the dark is deep as the shadowcat again bides his time, and all the time the moon grows.

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.

Resting in colour

For along time now we have been resting, saving our energy for a walk in the sunshine. The wind blew hard for a while and then it was still, but it had been hungry and first it ate the phone line and not satisfied with that it ate the electricity.

So we waited, curled in warm places that made us look beautiful as we like to be aesthetically pleasing when we are dreaming.

Elmo stretched on the beanbag with his toes curled and a hook in his tail. His whiskers twitched as he dreamed of trees.

Pixie curled on the red cushion that shows her fur at its finest. Later Her and Robin watched a film with singing and we hid behind him and played at being big ginger rabbit ears to make him look silly. I don't think he saw us.
We have a phone line again now so we can blog, and electricity, for now anyway.

Black cat shadows.

By day the moon has hung in the sky, translucent white against a rich , clear blue.
Tonight Orion wears a cloak of silver and the sky is bleached of stars by the bright light of the moon. Only our moonshadow-black cats give us away this eve as we move through the pale light. The winding path to the house is silvered with the moonlight and fragments of ice from the moon sprinkle the grasses and leaves edging them with white frosting. Ice creaks on still water. It is cold. Whispered waves sound close in the crisp air.
Inside the house is warm, a fire glows again. We sing a short song to the moon and hope for clear skies.

After a long walk in the early morning....

....what could be better than to relax with friends,

stretch out,

and just relax, while outside the weather builds and the rain falls. Inside is warm and cosy by the fire, and we wonder, should we have invited the ginger cow home?