Hey Diddle Diddle The Cat and The Fiddle

We three cats have been quiet cats for a long time now. She has been busy and we have been curled and hushed. Pixie is not well, with a green sticky sneezing. Maurice struggles to take a breath. So now only I walk. But mostly I sit and guard the house for Mr Griffiths. He is away in a warmer place but news is that he will soon be home. And Nadolig has made himself very comfortable by the fire at the neighbour's house.

As for Max, he has been strutting and posing and sleeping and helping. And I, well, I have been sitting in the bird tree among the bird feeders, waiting. Because I am Elmo and I am bad.

Elmo's day.

Went walking. Hot day. Lay in a shadey spot.

Back home, chilled out with a few friends.

Dragon's nest.

Up the hill in the sunshine, cold in the wind on a bright day in May, Elmo went walking, and climbing, for, in a tangle of twigs in a wind blown tree he found a nest.

On reflection though, careful consideration of the size of the nest, Elmo decided that it probably belonged to a dragon not a bird. And it wasn't that Elmo was afraid, because Elmo's don't get scared, he said. It was more that dragons are sacred to cats. So he paid short homage to the twig pile, and descended once more to the green, that set off his beautiful fire coloured coat. ( Fire, he said, to honour the dragon flames for it would seem, according to Elmo, that ginger cats are sacred to dragons too)

So, after a short but perfect balancing act it was time to take Her back to Her studio. She is painting cats.

Beautiful just.

There is nothing like the low slant of evening sunlight for making a ginger cat look like a star that has fallen to earth, for making the eye of a ginger cat shine like amber, for making a ginger cat look just beautiful.

Painting the moon-eyed, heart-faced hushwing and his bride

So this is how it was. She had slept well and was feeling calm and rested and together we walked to the top of the hill, at first just me and Kiffer and Elmo, but Maurice was hunting by the barns and he came too. We had told Her to leave the camera behind. Just walk. Just rest.
The sun was shining and the wind was cold and it blew patterns in our ginger. Too windy to hear cuckoo call, but all around small birds flew and flowers danced.
At the top of the hill Elmo stood up, as tall as tall as he could on his very tip toes, just like a small man in a cat suit! Then in his usual style and with amazing flair he stood on his head! We could see that She wished for Her camera, so we all four gathered in a small pool of ginger and posed so beautifully, just for Her. And we sat close to Her and She stroked us and we watched the birds fly below our perch on the high rock. The cares and worries blew away on the breeze.
All too soon we headed for home. On the path back down She would look behind, one, two three, four, checking we all followed. One, two, three and four, and yes, we were all there. One, two, three and four, and She is quite good at counting, if they are small numbers. One, two, three and f.......
"Where's Elmo?"
Gone.
She sauntered back up, still relaxed, calling.
No Mo.
The wind was strong so She couldn't hear him calling.
Still no Mo.
She walked down again. Maybe he had run in front, but no Mo.
And back and She waited and She called and She worried. She couldn't leave him there on the hill all day, alone. Time was passing and we could see that She was getting quite worried. No Mo anywhere in sight.
And then all of a sudden, one two, three and ..... four. There he was, wondering what all the fuss was about.
So I went to see and he had found secret tunnels that led through the gorse, and so now of course there were still one, two, three and ...
" Where's Pixie!"
At last we were all together again and back down the hill and then She bundled stuff into the car and off She went to do something called work.
We could hear Her saying, under her breath, "thanks cats. Lovely walk. And now I am late."
Nice that She took the time to say thank you.

A fearful day.

Elmo did not come for supper last night.
Elmo did not come for breakfast this morning.
So, when Elmo did not come for supper again this evening She got very worried.
First call, to see Mr Griffiths. He had said that Nadolig had been away for a few days and sometimes the we take it in turns to stay with him and keep him company.
Glyn was well, enjoying the sunshine, but no, he had not seen a ginger for a few days.
So, with fearful heart She went off to look. She called, and She called, and peered in through a gap in the door of a shed. No sign.
And then She heard it.
Miaow.
She looked around.
No cat.
MIAOW.
From inside the shed, the biggest big shed, the call came.
MIAOW MIAOW MIAOW.
So now She has gone to get Nick or Hannah, to the farm where Fred lives, to get the key to open the door, to let Elmo out. And we are glad, because Elmo will only be hungry when he comes out, and he will still be ginger and beautiful, though a little bit dusty.


An hour later with key in hand and Elmo yowling like an opera singing cat on the other side She opened the door and out he came.

He told Max he had followed a butterfly in there.
He told Maurice he was chased by a monster.
He told Kiffer that a sheep had called to him and when he went inside had shut the door on him.
He told Martha that he was chasing a mouse that ran in.
And he told me that he had wandered in out of Curiosity and then got scared when the farmer came and hid until he went away and then found that the door had disappeared.
And I told him he was lucky, because we all know about Curiosity and what it did to the cat.
But we are all glad to have him back.
Naughty Elmo.

Lessons from cats who are good at climbing trees

Concerned for the children, climbing in the tree to build their nest of twigs, we thought it best to give them a climbing lesson......

....or two.

Chasing jackdaws.

High in the tree prayer flags blow colours and prayers into the sky.

In the slant of early morning sunshine ginger fur glows bright.

Helping paws

The barest whisker of a cat-claw moon hides behind a pelt of thick cloud and only the brightest of stars shines its light on the world, and She is frantic with doodling to try and finish Her book on time. So I, well, I, must rest for her. And this I do well.

Elmo the Bold

In the late evening we walked up the hill, just me and Her, through the farmyard mud to the hill top high where the ponies grazed. The air was still and cold. And while we were away Pixie and Maurice sneaked into Her studio and photographed the other table. Not the one where She works but the one where everything else lives, the pile that grows higher every day, the chaos. She took a moment away from Starlight to paint on some prints, a leopard, curled cat.

Now it is late. All are curled tight or prowling the kitchen hoping for a snack. Outside the wind cat rages and pushes her paw through the cat flap trying to snatch away the warmth from the house. The sliver of moon that remains in the sky gives no light and the light of the moon is once again taken to the land of the shadowcats. The doors and windows rattle and the rain washes over the roof like a wave. Storms are always worse by night.

Lets play squash the cat!

A walk in the evening on a cold Wednesday

Nothing is too steep for the power of ginger, and Elmo always loves to show off his climbing skills.

At the top in the blink of an eye and today the sky is a heavy ceiling of cloud.

In the west the sun is setting. The landscape is a lean winter landscape of russets. Plump pheasants nestle in the bones of bracken.

To the north the lighthouse pulses out its beacon from Strumble Head. At Pen Beri the peregrine sits with feathers fluffed against the cold, swift death waiting and watching on a stone ledge above the sea.

And on the way home we play cat bat in the evening light.

Elmo helping

Today as a steady rain has fallen I have been helping Her with sketches and ideas for paintings and being warm in the house of melting cats.

Follow the arrow

Where ever I go an arrow points at me, so that people know that I am the gingercat with the very special whiskers.

This is a secret

..so listen close and I will tell. The night was dark and stormy and the wind howled and moaned and rattled the windows and pushed its paws beneath the doors and down the chimney fawr. Mr Griffith was alone but for his memories and one orange cat who had gone to visit during a break in the clouds. And now we sat together and he told me about the cats he had shared his life with. He thought I was the ghost of Ewan the Ginger, but even so he put out a dish of food, meat and biscuits, and turned the fire up a bar.

So he told me of Smokey the grey cat, beautiful as a Russian blue, sleek smooth, a hunter. And of Daffyd the Black who wandered the hills from farm to farm, a Cassanova of cats who left behind many a broken hearted queen cat and a litter of kittens that would stretch from here to St Davids.
I sat on his lap and he stroked my fur, which warmed his cold hands, and I did not mind that he called me Ewan as he told of Ebryll, named from the Welsh for April, the month when he came to live with Mr Griffiths, only a few days after Daffyd died, another cat with a reputation for romance and wide ranging territory. Then Nadolig, Named after Christmas, who would visit with Ebryll, his father, until the time when Ebryll was run over by a car near the bear at Treath Mawr. So old he could barely walk and yet when spring came he would go singing his cat love songs.
Outside the wind still howled and beneath its note I thought I could just make out the tender love songs of the pied ghost cat. Glyn was tired. He turned off the fire and went upstairs to his small bed beneath the eaves of his cold white cottage and step for step I followed. Then as he laid down his head and pulled up the blankets I curled beside him to purr a song of thanks to a man who all his life has cared for cats.
And all the next day I stayed with him. When I returned home I was greeted with great hugs and more food, so obviously She appreciated the fact that while She has been so wrapped up in Her work for so long that She has not even had time to call round and see how Glyn was keeping as winter draws close someone had time for him. And it is good to be home.
Elmo.

Today I will be mostly...

...hiding in heather.

Elmo says.....

...two heads are better than one!

Elmo's head

You down there, has anyone seen my head? It seems to have fallen off again!

Looking for Dragons

The Dragonlady came to visit yesterday and she walked with us to the top of the hill where it was hot. She lives in another country and knows a wild lynx who lives in a cage. And she paints too, lots of dragons.

On top of the hill Pixie and Elmo shared a pool of shade.

The on the way back Pixie played with the sunshine and fern patterns.

Later Elmo didn't come home. He wasn't back for supper and he wasn't back for bed, and when She woke in the night from troubled dreams there was only Pixie and Maurice on the sofa of cats. No sign of Elmo anywhere.
She was so worried as we seldom stay away from home for so long. But then early in the morning, with a curling of his whiskers, in walks Elmo with not a care in the world, tired as only a cat can be from a long night of adventure.
When we asked him where he had been he smiled.
"Looking for dragons, " he said.
When we asked if he found any he just purred, fast asleep and dreaming.

King of the Tree

Evening tree climbing. Dusk light falling. Air traced by tracks of bat wing flitter.

One by one the stars blink through the fading daylight. Orange cats glow bright in the setting sun, fireglow against violet sky.

Only a cat can climb so high and together they test the thinnest of branches then fight to be King of the Tree.