Breakfast in bed.

It was a small scene of domestic bliss. Waking to the early morning light shining through the last few ash tree leaves, dappling the wall, I got up, made coffee and went back to bed. Reading A Certain Slant of Light by Laura Whitcomb I sipped coffee. Soon I was joined on the bed by Floss, who is always first to spot the open bedroom door, then Bella and Martha and Pixie and Elmo. A blanket of gingercats purred me a song in praise of morning.
I heard Rosie stir upstairs in Hannah's room and prepared for puppy chaos to disturb our calm, but she jumped on the bed and came around the ginger island and snuggled in to my pillow beside my head, saying a quiet good morning. With her came Maurice, looking pleased with himself. He jumped over the others and pushed himself between my eyes and the words on the page, purred and smiled and then went. More snuffling from Rosie. Then she pulled out a fresh, dead mouse.
Needless to say chaos ensued.
After dead mouse removal we went for a walk in the field of hay bails. Breakfast in bed. Yum.
As I walked I wondered how long mouse had been there. Was he sleeping there all night with me, tucked up in bed with his little mouse head on my pillow? Had he died of fright at the sheer weight of tooth and claw that had come to rest with him? Did he die of outrage that so many others assumed they could just climb into bed with him? Or was he a gift, and if so from who?

St Francis

Sunshine weekend and in between painting dragons we have to take the puppy out walking. Overcome by the cuteness of the puppy ("can't see it myself'"said Maurice through sharp gritted teeth) She has decided to write a puppy book. So with notebook in hand we went off into the fields. But the day was so busy and people kept walking past and stopping to chat.
" You look like St Francis surrounded by gentle animals," one lady said.

Later, on the beach, Rosie went for extra cuteness and ran and dug holes in the sand.

And in between walking and writing She painted dragons and we heard Her muttering.
" Not sure I like being compared to an old, bald monk," She said.

Golden moon

Last night, as we prowled the boundaries before sleep the moon was golden, a harvest moon, the wolf's sun. Low on the horizon, she looked heavy in her cloth of gold, struggling to rise and rule in her court of stars. Now, in the early morning of a blue sky Indian summer day, she still hangs in the sky high above, bone white, cold and glorious. As the sun rises she begins to fade to a pale translucence. Both in the day and in the night she is glorious.

This week I will mostly be growing my ears

"Where has that puppy gone now?" thought Martha, as she moved through the field of stubble with the grace and awareness that only a cat can posses.

"This week I shall mostly be growing my ears", thought Rosie, concentrating hard on being a puppy in a cats' world.

The silver world of night

Around the moon the sky is coloured like a blackbird's egg, pale silver blue. Across the sky the moon reflects off cloud that is silver tabby striped. Between St Davids and home thin fog hangs, light in the air and scenting the night. The only dark is when the aerymice black out the stars with their fast flight. It is a night for the moonshadow cats to prowl, stepping out paw for paw with us into a silver world, to hunt.

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.

A Rosie by any other name.....or why cats are just superior by far to dogs.

Take one puppy.

Mix with a generous amount of fox or badger poo ( both equally pungent and equally pleasing to pup) See behind the collar on left for puppy hair clagged with oily and particularly malodorous deposit through with which puppy has decorated itself.

On return home find dog soap ( from the Soap Shed ) and put puppy in warm, but not too hot, bath.

Paw on water. (Pardon the pun)

Dry puppy and later find someone to snuggle her to test whether any lingering trace of badger (or fox) remains.

A Rosie by any other name would smell as sweet.

It has come to our attention...

..that there are some people who like to paint mice and some who like to paint cats. She seems to have itchy feet and can't keep still even though She has dragons to paint and cats to stroke. She is off again soon to make an exhibition of Herself in Bath. Well, really! At least this time She is sharing space with lots of other people who can colour in, and some of which quite like cats.

Mice are by Paula, cats by Michelle and Leon is by Graham Baker- Smith

Hide and seek

In the wind tangled corn field, and on the high rock above the blue sea, we played hide and seek.

Wild geese fly over head, like arrows in the sky. Swallows gather on wires. Rosehips glow red in the garden and the last of the honeysuckle cascades in a waterfall of flowers. Spiders spin last desperate webs to catch the fading flies of summer and bats fly frantic in twilight. Soon it will be time to light the first fire of autumn.

I am the Rosie dog....

...and when I grow up I want to be just like Floss. I want to run like Floss,

and climb like Floss.

But for now I will quietly grow my legs and tail long and strong and sit and look at the blue, blue sea.

Ginger Cats and Church Mice

Away She went again with Her little bag all packed, leaving us alone and the dogs in prison. And while She was away we were invited to an exhibition of special paintings. In London, which is far far away there is a gallery, and in the gallery there will be paintings from The Church Mouse, by Graham Oakley who can write and draw. The star of his books is a ginger cat.
The exhibition is at The Illustration Cupboard, 16-30 September, and there will be signed copies of the book for sale.
We were pleased to get our invitation with the beautiful ginger, though Kiffer didn't seem too impressed, but then he was concentrating on sleepology.

Rosie's walk

We left the cats at home, eating supper in the kitchen, and walked over the hill to the place where the path wanders through heather. The smell was like honey.

In places the path was not even wide enough for a puppy to walk....

..but luckily I have been taking levitation lessons from Maurice.

Further along I found the wall where the cats pose for photographs, tumbled stones white with lichens and softened by moss, ancient, beautiful.
I am the puppy and I too can walk on the wall.

We Three Sharing