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.

As we move towards summer.

Today a speckled brown butterfly threaded a random flight across the path. Today She rescued the brightest lizard from a curious cat, placed it in the safety of an old stone wall. Bright frogs move in the grass, wait under primrose flowers, watch from the safety of emerald shadows and covet the warm places. Soon there will be snakes.

We curl in the sunshine on slates warmed to  soft smoothness by the distant fire way off in the sky.

Tonight is the fresh of the darknight. No moon. Only star light. And how they shine in a million brilliant shades of bright. Tonight there are aerymice, flit flicker and flash, darker shapes in a dark sky, silhouettes in starlight. And owls slow flap hunting the hedges.

A purfect morning

It was one of those mornings when shadows are softened by cloud as the sun comes up to light a new day. It had not escaped my attention that She had been rising early and taking the dogs for walks, so I kept a whisker wise and watched. Sure enough they headed off up the hill, with me, Elmo, fast behind them. The earth was hard. Across the fields small cloaks of frost silvered the green, but on the hill all was winter bleached. And the sun came up.

Some mornings are just perfect. This one had a stillness and peace wrapped around it. The dogs ran chaotic, reading the scent of night creatures, still fresh on the earth. I prowled, sure foot and cat wise. The world was dressed in beautiful winter colours. Soon there will be skylarks.
In Germany there is a cat magazine, with pictures of us.

Spring

Autumn

These things are early autumn.
The harvest moon in a clear sky.
Orion the hunter and his dog on the eastern horizon.
Red rose hips .
Black berries in bird filled bushes.
Swallows on lines in the sky.
Blue sky and sunshine warmer than summer.
Spider webs heavy with dew beads.
Seal song and pups on the stone beach.
The scent of winter.
Hay bales and stubble fields, gold in the evening sun.
Bright pheasants.
Arrows of geese high in the blue.
And the bracken dresses itself in ginger.

And even though She walked to the seal beach she forgot the lense that makes the seals look closer. But we did see Glyn today and her looked so well in the warm sunshine that was warmer than any of the days of summer.
Soon it will be his birthday.

As time goes by

Many of the paths that criss cross the hillside, paths made by badgers and foxes and ponies, have been lost to time and sunshine and rain, overgrown green tunnels jeweled with butterflies, today bent low with the weight of water. Yesterday was a lizard day, sunshine and tail flick and shadow patterns as lizard tail disappeared under zig zag ferns. Today is a slug and snail day and tonight the toads and frogs will be happy.
Rain is coming through the places where the roof is not finished. We dream of the fire as autumn creeps nearer with its chill kiss.

Blue sky, early morning, seal pup day.

A blue sky morning. Up the green lane, a tree tunnel to the high hill top. Today we go to look for seals. And sure enough, on the pebble beach, one pup, wrapped in white fur with a sooty nose. And in the water, his mother, lifting to the gentle toss and sway of the sea.

And the sea and the sky so blue.

A long walk, along the early morning coastal path. Out at sea the gannets dive, pure white arrows. Below them porpoise rise to cut through the roof of the sea. For a while I ride on shoulders, then down to walk through the honey scented purple heather.

On the way home I walk the bone white lichen covered wall that leads along the green road to Maes y Mynydd where the ghost cats dwell.

A good walk. A long walk. And good to know that the wheel of the year is turning with heather and seal pups and porpoise and harebells.

May

It is May, early morning dew drop scattered May. As we walk together up the green lane to the high hill top we are thinking of cuckoos. The swallows came a while back, the swifts are here too now and on the walls wheatears are dancing. Whitethroats sing in the gorse, skylarks throw down song from on high and everywhere stonechats chip chip. Chiff chaff and wren fill hedges with their sound, but so far we have not heard one cuckoo.
We walk and the dew drops drip and cling to our fur and the scent of the gorse is the thin early morning before the sunshine scent.
Then there, right on the edge of hearing, so faint that it might not even have been, cuckoo. Was it real? Was it an echo of a memory of the call of the cuckoo. But no, again, still faint, cuckoo. Somewhere, away, over the moor, a cuckoo calls.
It is May.

Night of the foxes.

There is something about a chill spring night that differs from an autumn one. Maybe it is the memory of the warmth of the day, maybe the scent of spring flowers held in frozen air.
Tonight the world is full of night song. Lambs are calling in fields all around and the dogs are hunting swift. Foxes call and Fred bark to join the chase across at the daffodil farm. His bark closes the distance. Rosie pricks up her ears and calls back. Foxes. A night full of foxes.
On the pond the Canada geese rise, calling and a coot shrills sharp. An owl is also hunting, flying low along the hedge banks.
Stars shine, new moon swelling in dark sky. Moonshadows dark as black velvet.
Heaven.

Outside, inside.

Outside it is dark. A paw has thrown up few stars to glitter the night sky and they caste little light. The moon is the thinest sliver not yet riding the velvet dark sky. You cannot see even a whisker in front of your face. The wind is rising and bushes blow, bending into dark monsters, cold, biting.
Inside cats curl in every corner, on every cushion. The fire glows with red and gold light. The wind rattles at windows and doors, night monsters wanting to come join us, to curl in the warm and settle to this most peaceful of nights. We keep the doors and windows closed and listen to their wind-singing.

Later we walk the bounds of the village with Her and the dogs, before they curl into bed. There are no street lights here. Nothing to light the way but the moon and stars and if it is possible it has become darker still in the depth of night. The wind turns and twists the few dry leaves left clinging to the winter bones of the trees. The sky sparkles stars, and the clouds are lit bright white against the black, dark sky. Where the light comes from we do not know. Maybe from the clouds themselves. The wind nips at our bright fur and we are glad to be back in the haven of the house, where we curl again before the fire, to dream the night away and wait for day to dawn again. Winter comes.

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.

Autumn moon

The sky is half pale stars half moonlight and the stone road around the village is a silver path. The moonshadows are as deep as the moonlight is bright. The whole world is silver, silver ripples on the spring that rises on the stone road and flows and pools its way down towards the sea. Only the cornfield at night is moongold, warmer. The air is still and across the fields all around the dogs are starlight barking. You can hear the cat claw clack on the hard road, the sigh of the sea. The warmth of a blue sky day has gone and the air has a promise of winter, a chill, a bite. Beneath the moon the smallest of clouds catches falling light.

The Little People of the air

In the green lane that leads to the top of the hill the light is emerald. Grass and fern trap the warm air and hold it tight, filling the lane with heat and the subtle scent.

All the way to the top of the hill a wren chattered angry song at the walking cats that trod her territory.

Insects made a background melody, butterfly wings, mayfly buzz and the steady drone of the bee, heavy laden with pollen. Grasshoppers added to the symphony of summer.

Hunting spiders spun soft webs to catch the plenty that filled the lane, the little people of the air.

At the top of the hill the air was cooler. We sat a while in the golden grass, then headed home.

Later in the twilight the lane to Llanferan was again filled with tiny white moths like the ashes of the moon.

Sunshine through ginger ears

The sun shines warm though the wind is cold.

On top of the hill we walk together while a great buzzard wheels and mews then hangs on the edge of the wind. I wish for wings.

The rock is becoming a stage for flowers. Foxgloves grow tall and bees dip in and out of their speckled purple cups.

Stars of purple-blue squil still hold a reminder of spring. Soon the cuckoo will be quiet again, then away for another year. For now the sky is stitched with a pattern of swifts in flight. We sit on the cusp of summer.