We are gathered together

In the dark time of a winter night we are gathered together to make a spell, a dream, for a caged cat far away.




This cannot be done by one cat alone, but needs a collective effort of deep sleep, warm fur and a hint of wildness.




And so we sleep and as we sleep we weave a spell of dreaming.

After Christmas

Up the hill in the quiet and the pearly light of the day after Christmas. Billy came for a walk and Claire and Daf.




And Claire carried me and Daf made a good viewing point and I taught Billy how to sit on the rock and look majestic and handsome. Behind the sky was dappled with cloud. Beautiful.

A change in the weather

The bright cold has turned to mild and wet and where days ago the landscape was painted with frost now water drops hang in the blackthorn bushes like bright beads.
We have been Furr-and-Purred and would like to say thank you. Many cats walk with us in spirit. Soon we will send a dream to a caged cat far away, a present for Christmas.

The silver dapples of the moon

Cold. Night time walking and the moon is so bright the shadows fall like dappled mosaic through the black bone branches of winter trees. Half of the sky is bleached by silver moonlight. In the other half the dark is pinned to the night with stars. All is hushed. The murmur of the surf a distant sea song lullaby of lazy waves.

Early morning light

In the early morning light Mr Griffiths next door was arleady up and about, a light shining from his window. We worry. Is he cold? The wind blows hard through his house and neither house nor man are young anymore.




As we neared the top of the hill the early morning sun made us glow. The sky still held tight to a few stars.




The sun came up like a glorious ginger fire. The frost held sway in corners, dusting bracken with white ice crystals. But the sky was on fire with daylight.
Distant hills. Planes writing lines on a pure, new day.

Stalking gingers

On the high hill the ginger cows munch coarse grass and golden flowers. We find their wool hanging like ginger washing on the fences where they have scratched themselves against the wire. Huge, woolly and medieval with horns like spears we stalk carefully around them. But they seem like gentle beasts.




Curious to know what we are, the young ones come closer, but we are wary and stalk past like leopards. And the winter sun shines on our dappled coats and makes them shine.

Black dog walking and the wild fox

Sunshine and gray sky. Walking with Pitta and Ffion. Black dog shines in the sunlight. The dogs picked up exciting messages and then on the rock we saw a fox, watching, keeping his distance, clear against the skyline. A wild thing.



We watched for a while and the fox watched us.




Later Pixie let Ffion carry her a little way and she chewed her fingers and kept her warm and made her smile.

Wishes are born

On this night the sky is brim-full of stars. Too pale a light to make a star-shadow but in the dark they seem to shine a light of claw-prick brightness. No moon, not even a sliver. Across the sky a streak of burning light as a star falls. Everywhere, around the world, where star gazers look up wishes are born.

Walking in the ginger sunshine

At last we have sunshine after the wind and the rain. The fields are full of small swift snipe, the sky is patched with racing clouds and the bracken is beautiful ginger.




We walk, and the gorse bush still has golden flowers. Life is sweet. In the sky a peregrine with swift wings and sharp claws and slate dark feathers cuts across the sky like a knife, chasing snipe.




Winter sun shines low and lights the grass with gold, a halo around ginger fur.




On the journey home I am lifted high, the better to see the view. And the world looks beautiful.

Circus cats and Moon jars

Today the wind cat is pushing paws and claws into the house through the catflap. All night he has raged. He wants to warm himself on our fire, he wants to curl on our wolf blanket, he wants to sleep on a warm, clean bed.
Yesterday She was away all day again and it seems that She was signing books in our name for people who who walk with us through our rambling writing.
And it seems that in the exhibition there are big moon jars like the one Elmo was made in and we wonder, at night, do cats come out of these? Can you make other things with them, other creatures, bats and rats and clouded leopards? And would they all have as little sense as Elmo, the amazing performing circus cat.

Elmo's tree

In my tree bright birds sit like chiming golden fruits. I climb into the tree through the green and twisted branches, calling to the bright birds, asking them to be my friend, to come to me and sit on my claw.




But they do not come. They fly away. And so I melt down from the tree and away. Birds have little faith in cats.

The Science of Sleep

Now She is home. She has lit a fire and the house is warm and we can sleep again knowing tat She is safe.




Last night Maurice crept into the bedroom and hid and then stretched himself out to lie beside Her, against Her back. And all night long he sang a sleeping song of purrs and chased away bad dreams. At some point She woke and found him and wrapped Her arms around him to cuddle close. And now we all forgive her.




Today is a busy day as all the paintings are hung in the exhibition space and the show opens. We have been catching mice for Her to put on cocktail sticks, refreshments for the visitors. But She said they do not want mice, that there is a restaurant there and they do not cook mouse pie.
At least we have made sure that She has had a good nights sleep.

A certain silence

We, all five of us, are not talking to her. She went away for too long. We were left here, with no fire to keep us warm and no one to come for walks and no one to feed the birds to keep us entertained. Only someone who came and went and fed us.
Even when She came back She has been too busy to walk with us. The dogs have walked on the beach and She has been carrying paintings out to the car and away all day and we don't know where and then home and working away on the computer, and each day She has taken the camera.
But this evening She has made the house warm and a fire glows in the hearth and the children sleep in warm beds and we drip and melt in comfort on the sofa, a sofa of sleeping cats. No more to huddle in cold corners. She is back, and we, we are glad.
Soon we may even talk to Her again. But we will not, no we will never, let Her know that we might have missed Her.
Just a little.

Rainbow

This morning the wind up high was carding the clouds, pulling them down in feathers, and the sun painted the early morning cloud with yellow light. Over St Davids Head a rainbow hung, bright and painted.
She is gone now. She packed a bag or two and bustled around and stroked heads and then left and the dogs howled.
And She has taken the camera with Her.
And now Gayle has come to stay, and we will tell her that we need more food, that we are always allowed to sleep on the bed, that we have to walk for at least two hours a day, that fresh fish is best but frozen will do, and if she is good we will catch her a mouse and let her sleep in the bed too.
And we will wait for Her to come home.

Looking at the moon.

The moon rides in the sky in the daytime and nighttime now. At night the light over all is silver. As the dark gives way to the light the bright bone white of the moon fades to a translucent disc in the clear blue, a paler shade of white.




So far away. The sunlight hides us from the universe, the moonlight lets us see the distant stars, the miracle of space. We stand in the garden at night, look up at the stars and glory in our own small insignificance in the universe. Moon cat, star cat.

Full moon, restless spirit, unquiet dreams.

The week has been busy, many mice, days passing in painting and walking. New cups arrived and when She leaves them dotted around the house after cups of tea they look like art and not dirty washing up.
The moon has swelled to fullness and tonight the sky has a cover of cloud that smooths the moon shadows. At moments when she shines through all is bathed in the marvelous light of silver and only ginger cats glow red with colour in an otherwise monochrome world.
We know that She is going away. There is a restlessness in the house and we have filled Her head with unquiet dreams. She should not go away, we need Her here to smooth and stroke and feed and purr to us, to make the fire that is so warm, that glows so red, where dragons sleep, and we need to care for Her as only we can. She has been tired, so we have blanketed Her in the mornings with our purring ginger fur. But unquiet dreams do not persuade Her to stay.
And there have been other things happening too. Painting have come in and been stored away in the house all wrapped in bubbles. And prints too, new pictures in colours that shine. All is busy and bustle.
She will go away. But She will be back, and all will be well.

Too Early

It is early , dark night still holds sway. Outside the rain falls heavy from a still dark sky. Max has returned home covered in the water-beads.
The fire sleeps, covered in a blanket of ashes and needs to be stirred to life. She is awake, troubled by restless dragons. Winter creeps ever closer with its promise of snow.

To walk in the rain

Last night the clouds attacked the house, threw spears of rain and stones at the roof. This morning the world was washed clean and gentle rain was falling when we walked.




Between the high walls of the ancient path that leads to the top of the hill everything shone with a green glow. Beads of light were held trapped in water berries on the purple branches of the sharp blackthorn, and dripping from the russet heather. Small worlds of water.




On the top of the hill, although it was a light rain falling, the weight of water kept the birds huddled and sheltering in bushes. Last night we feared for these small and fragile creatures, outside in the cold and the fierce storm. We would have asked them to come in for shelter. But they would not have come.




Walking back our fur was pulled to sharp points by the rain. On top of the hill the bracken seemed purple. The heather has lost all its colour.
Home in the warm the fire was welcome and we curled around each other, good to walk in the rain, better to be home again.

The Achievement of the Cat

All day the wind has been rising, and now, in the dark, it rips the clouds from the sky and dashes them to the ground, fierce spears of rain. It pushes its paws through the cat flap, through the smallest spaces around the windows, under doors and tries to steal our fire. We can hear its footfall as it washes over the roof, wave upon wave of rain. We can feel the house shake to its roots. But we are warm, curled ammonite tight in our cat dreams by the golden glow of firelight.
She read us a story. The Achievement of the Cat. Among other things it says
" It is, indeed, no small triumph to have combined the untrammelled liberty of primeval savagery with the luxury which only a highly developed civilization can command; to be lapped in the soft stuffs that commerce has gathered from the far ends of the world, to bask in the warmth that labour and industry have dragged from the bowels of the earth; to banquet on the dainties that wealth has bespoken for its table, and withal to be a free son of nature, a mighty hunter, a spiller of life-blood. This is the victory of the cat."
Miaow!

Even after...

..all the lifetimes we have lived, each of us through our nine lives, that stretch from the ancient days of Egypt until now, even until now, we still marvel each night when we walk out from the house and into the night.
We marvel at the night sky, at the river of stars that runs across dividing one side from another. We marvel at the endless infinity of lights, at the calm and quiet that comes again and again after a storm, and most of all we marvel at our own small and radiant insignificance in the depth of the wide multiverse.

Wild Pixie and the Ginger Cows

Some days are made for walking and this is one. Pearl light from the early morning sun bleaching out the distant landscape and bringing close up into focus with bright colour. The air is still and the distant cathedral bell calls across the valley. Closer the dry feathers of small birds rattle in the autumn air and smaller bell tones of light, bright linnets and blackbird song complete the symphony of this morning song.
Walking up the hill we find an anvil stone where yellow beaked blackbirds and speckled thrush break the fragile shell of unlucky snails to pluck out the meat.




And on the side of the hill in the autumn rusted bracken we find that the longhorns are back, medieval beasts with curving horns and thick coats of such beautiful colour.




Some days are good.

Do you recognize this cat?

We were sent pictures of a ginger cat engaged in the feline practice of luxuriating in clean laundry. Well done that cat! Should anyone recognize him or her, keep the secret, find your own clean laundry and let it all hang out!

This night

The stars are smurred tonight. It is cold and the moon has set already. The sea whispers in the distance. The lighthouse sweeps the sky and moisture hangs high in the sky blurring the light from the lamps of the stars.
Each night when we walk now there are badgers or foxes prowling the paths of the village.
The house is warm and safe. Outside is cold and wild and crystal. One star fell from the sky and hung in the tree. Make a wish......

What kind of creature is this!

With many legs but no head!

Where we live

Where we live now there are a cluster of cottages on the side of a hill. On three sides there is sea, and when the storms come you can hear the waves break on the wide beach. You can smell the salt sea. The air is clear and clean and fresh.
Our cottage is small and tatty and held together by the webs of spiders. The garden is wild and full of bright birds. The house is warm. At night lights shine from the windows, and you can hear music and sometimes laughter. Smoke rises from the chimney and when the door is open there is a smell of cooking.
At one time over 100 people lived here with their cats, children, dogs and horses. There were two chapels and even a school house. The cottages were small and poor and farm workers kept the fires burning.
There was a well where the women would meet to talk and draw water and exchange news.





Now the well is dry. Some of the houses have people living in them, but more than half have no one. No lights at night. The windows stare out blindly on the world. No smoke from the chimneys, no voices of children, no cats or dogs. They stand like cold empty shells devoid of all life other than the odd scuttle of mouse. We think it is sad. They would make good homes for more cats.




And there are ruins that once were cottages, small and low, one roomed and full of life. Now they have ivy for walls and the sky for a roof. This is where the ghost cats sing.
Tonight the sharp claw moon rides again in a clear sky. All is stillness outside, except for the flutter of late bats who should be at their winter sleep. Not even a sound from the calm sea.
Peace.

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.