Sunshine and clouds

Between the heavy clouds the sky is blue. Between the rainstorms there is sunshine. Between the houses there is the little bit of heaven, fallen from a story book, that is Mr Griffith's house. If you listen you can hear birds' song and the walls whisper stories of heavy horses, old farm dogs, a childhood wild on the hills.
When there was no work to be done he would take a sandwich packed by his mother, with love, and out onto the hill he would run with friends from St Davids, to the beach at Porthmelgan, and down to the Gessel beach where now there is no path and not even a cat with fine paws and delicate balance could go. Here they would creep into the caves that were said to go far under the land, as far as the Bishop's Palace. And when they got so far under the cliffs where the light was only a pin prick behind them they would turn and run scared from the ghosts of smugglers and pirates, back to the light and the soft calls of buzzard, the falling song of the skylark and the turn of the waves.
He went away for a while when he was older, to Africa, to Europe, but then he came home. And he measured out his life in cats.
Now he is old and the friends of his youth have all died, or moved far away. The bones of the cats lie buried in the garden behind the house with stones that carry their names, Smokey, Daffyd ( a fine and fierce black tomcat as brave as any cat could be), Ewan the ginger. He can run over the hills only in his memory of summers long gone. So we visit and tell him how the old village fares, how the birds are singing, how the seals are back with pups again on the beach.

Meanwhile we hunt, and we hide in the golden wheat field that blends with our pale stripes. We search out the pheasants that hide in the long grass. And when we go home we tell Mr Griffiths what we have seen. We rub ourselves against his legs to let him know that we are there and he strokes our soft backs with his hands that see more than his eyes now can. Sometimes he thinks we are Ewan come back to him. He smiles.