Sun and mist. The wind rattles in the bones of last years bracken, rust coloured like us. High on the hill we stalk the ginger cows.



The gorse bushes smell. A night time animal has written a message on the bushes on the corner.


The old village smells of juicy mice.

Pixie speaks......

High on the rock above the house we looked out over a sea of cloud and the light played cat-and-mouse over the water and the fields. The other cats were lazy and stayed in the warm, but I walked with my dog.




In the distance the sun shone on St Davids and distant islands.

The weaving tree

Green moss and lichen, perfect to accentuate the beauty of ginger, in the weaving branches of a wind blown tree.

Early morning, evening walking.

In the morning we creep, into Her room where She sleeps. She is alone. She is dirty because She does not groom herself properly. She does not lick her coat clean, but sits in water and pretends to be clean, so we lick Her face, and She purrs to us, She is so pleased. "Get off," She purrs, so we lick her more. "Go away'" She says, so we climb in under the sheets and curl up close.
All day She is tired and grumpy and mutters about painting not going well. In the evening we decide it is time She walked so we put restless thoughts into her mind.


All day we have rested in sun soaked places drinking up the warmth with our fur. It is tiring looking after Her. Now the cold of night nips at the edges of the day. Things hide in bushes. We hear them. We smell them. Together we will get them.






As the sun sinks into the sea again for another day we walk the paths to home.

Evening light, the sun, the moon and shadows.

In the evening the sun sank into clouds. The light was soft, a haze spread across the fields and the sea. Everything was soft and a chill nibbled at the edges of the day. We watched from the top of a high place as the sun sizzled into the sea, and now we wait for the new sun to rise tomorrow.




The moon rides the sky now. Bone white and bright, it throws its moon shadows across the land. The white light of night that calls the colour out of our coats even in the middle of the night. And in the dark we watch also, and wait.

Things that hide in bushes

First we followed the girl who had come to stay, up the green tunnel lane to the rocks at the top of the hill. It was late in the evening, the sun an orange ball in a pink sky. Even the complicated language of birds was silent and the wind was still. Not yet night, but soon the light would fall and the early night time creatures had begun to wake.



They rustled in the bushes, and squeaked and yawned from their day of sleeping, and we could hear them, and we could smell them and our whiskers twitched. But they hid from us, and though we wanted to stay and spend the night hunting high on the hill, to catch them and taste them, She called us. And so we walked home to a warm house and a plate of food and left the wild to the night time creatures. For up here there are other hunters who leave their scent for us to find and wonder at when we walk in the daylight.

Friends

The Wind Cat has gone and the sun is warm. The sky is full of birds. Skylark and stonechat, dunock and wren, flitting in the corner of my eye, leaving behind a pathway of song. Sunshine and shadow and feather flicks of flight.
I wish for wings.

Reading

Blue sky day all day. Evening walking. Pixie being danger cat. Wildcat on a rocky ledge.


She settled down on the high rock to watch the sky and read. She has been grumpy all day and so we thought to help her turn the pages.

Evening paths

Walking paths made by badgers, over lichen covered rocks where mouse trails crossed. Quiet. Still. The world is hushed and every sound seems big. The click of a claw on stone. The brush of a feather on air high above. The birds follow their own paths, soaring high, buzzard and peregrine. In the bushes they flick and flitter, fast flight, jewel bright. Whiskers twitch. The light fades, tipping into twilight. We walk. And we smell the salt sea stirred by the Wind Cat's storms.

The Wind Cat rests.

It is so quiet now on the hill. The wind has blown itself to tiredness. Where does the Wind Cat go to rest? The sky is full of birds set free now that the air is still. She watched a red kite soar in the sky while we sat and listened to the brown buzzard mew like a cat and the skylark song fall from the clouds. A danger walk today, climbing over rocks and fences, jumping over streams.


The on the way back up the hill to home the horses blocked our path. Red horse, red cat, red kite.

In the dark, the wind kitten....

..purrs. For days the Wind Cat has raged, cold and thirsty, he has lapped up all the water from the pathways and fields making the earth hard and dry beneath our feet.
All day it hailed hard balls of ice with floating flakes in between. We stayed curled in the warm until evening, when out we ran. The field of yellow flowers was battered as the cold cat had nibbled at the edges of every flower, pouncing and breaking the stems.
Later in the dark, when we moved as black shadows in the night, the Wind cat had mellowed and purred like a kitten. No stars in the sky, not a glimmer of light, and still the faint soft touch of a falling flake here and there, and the rattle of hail in the fields.

Biting cold.

All day we stayed in, curled round the warmth of the house until evening. She listened to music, a tale about a red cat, and She painted, .
The sun was sharp and the wind was biting. The Wind Cat had called his friend from the North, and the North Wind Cat has claws that are sharper.
But in the evening we walked in bright sunlight to the top of the hill where the horses sheltered from the worst of the wind. On the pathway up to the top of the hill we were watched as we walked, sunshine making a fire of our red-cat fur.

Birds

Today the wind still rages and the sea birds circle overhead. Their cries sound like the mews of lost cats.

Dark and The Wind Cat

It is dull black night outside now and the Wind Cat prowls, waiting for anyone who so much as puts a nose out of the door. Something has made him angry. He is wild. He pushes his paws through the cat flap, and runs across the roof slates, clattering claws, rattling the windows and the doors. He has wiped away the stars and the moon with a blanket of thick, black fur.

Storms and Sunshine

Elmo knew something today when he decided not to come for a walk. Up the hill all seemed well, gorse flowers bright in the sunshine and blue sky. The wind blew so hard our ears were flattened to our heads. Cold wind, cruel wind.


Then the world was bleached of colour and we shone in our orange glory. And stones rained down from the sky. We sheltered behind rocks until the wind blew the hail across the green fields. Then we walked back down the path to the warm house and fire. As we walked the sun again was warm, the sky again was blue, but the distant clouds held another curtain of hail.


And back in the house Elmo was curled warm on a cushion, a smug smile curled on his face.

Look Before You Leap

The blue sky of early morning washed away to a ceiling of gray, which was ashame as another photographer came today to walk with us, and he did not see our splendid ginger coats glow with the light of sunshine. To the top of the hill we went then down to the cliffs, and Elmo decided to see what was over the edge of the steep steep cliff and jumped.
She was worried as She peered over the edge, muttering things about helicopter rescues and lifeboats, and Elmo was nowhere to be seen. Then he climbed up to the path again and peered over the edge to see what everyone was looking for. Danger Cat!
We all took turns climbing up the coast path sign because photographers like that. Good for sharpening claws on.
And when Hannah came home from the vets, or wherever it is she goes in the daytime, she hugged him tight for loving him and having him home and safe.

Neighbours

Next door to the house where we live is a cottage, small and lime washed. Mr Griffiths lives there. He life has been measured out by many cats and in his garden is a cemetery for cats with stones marking the days on which they died. Now he has a black and white cat, Nadolig, fierce and a fighter and Max does not like him. Sometimes we visit Mr Griffiths and he feeds us bits of turkey that he keeps in his pockets.
In our garden cats lie sleeping under the earth too. Bird, and Arthur. On nights when the moon is full we all gather and sing on the stone walls of the ruined cottages, silhouetted against starlight and moonlight, ghost cats and live, we celebrate the dark and praise the shadows of the moon.
We walked to the top of the hill and the day was like a gray cat. Colour washed away in the strange light with heavy clouds like snow, but not.
Tired we stretched out on the sofa and waited for Her to light a fire. She is very slow to care for our comforts on some days.

Warm

On top of the hill we tripped through silver spider threads . The sun was warm and we held it safe in our golden fur. There were butterflies, and noisy birds in the sky. She was not well so we all sat on Her to keep Her warmer still, and covered Her like a ginger blanket.
On the way down the hill we tumbled over each other and pounced and fought, like wildcats.

We are waiting...

...for our supper, and She is not very quick at getting it for us!

Friends

Listening and watching

It seemed like we had to wait all day. She is working, listening to a story while She paints. "The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents". About a cat who can talk. Imagine. Anthropomorphic nonsense if you ask us, though we speak with our tongues firmly in our cheeks!
Yesterday she watched a film, "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter... and Spring". In it a man who is old paints a Buddhist Sutra with a cat's tail. We hope that She does not get any ideas from this!
Finally She put down her brushes and we walked. Too far, and now we are tired.

When She is away

Where does She go? When we go in the car She puts us in a basket and She takes us to the vet and we do not like it. Does She go to the vet? Where does She drive? Why? This time She was away for two sunsets and the woman who lives close came and fed us. When She came back we curled around her legs and were happy but we said that we had had no food for days. And it was cold. There was no fire and no dogs and no one to stroke us or chase us away when we caught mice. And we had to take ourselves out for walks. Why does She leave us? Are we not enough?
Now She is back and She has brought the smelly dogs with Her and if She was at the vets for all that time She looks very well, but is tired and sleeps like a cat curled up. And it is warm again because She has made a fire. So we caught Her a mouse, to say welcome back. But She did not seem pleased.

Big horned ginger cows

Sunshine, birdsong and ginger cows

After days of rain She rises early to take us all walking. The sun shines. The sky is blue. The air tumbles round our ears with the harsh song of skylarks shouting that they are back.
Shadows are long in the early morning light. The ground is muddy from long days of falling rain. On the hill giant ginger cows with huge horns are curious about us.

Rain and the weekend

Over the weekend it rained. Not cats and dogs, but ropes of rain fell from the sky and lashed the ground, like a cat-of-nine-tails. So we stayed in, by the fire, in the warm wonderfulness and slept and dreamed of fast mice. She drew pictures.

Even though it rained...

...we still went for a walk because Clare had come a long way to walk with us. We walked up the hill, though a dragon car came past and frightened us all.
And we walked through the mud, shaking our paws in mid puddle because it made Clare laugh. It rained and rained and when we got home we were wet and muddy so we walked over the table and everywhere we could leaving footprints. Now we rest in the warm and dry. Elmo helps Hannah read a book on the wolf blanket that we all love so very much.