At the turning of the day

Before the coming of the light we walked, up the green lane to the top of the hill then over the hill and far away.

 

In places pockets of hoar frost still hung on the winter leaves. The great muckle cow had frozen tears of ice. The world was hushed. Only the sound of birds' wings and a waiting.

We walked to the ruins of the village where old cold stones stood and the ghosts of cats long gone prowled. Now the only bright flame in the chimney fawr was the ginger fur of me. Once cats curled and people sat, talking and whittling at Welsh love spoons, gifts for Christmas at a time when the feast would be sparce, for all but the cats whose work it was to keep rats from the winter food stores.

 

On top of the hill the wild ponies were curious.

 

Home again. It had been a walk of winter birds. Snipe and woodcock that flew from thefeet almost at the moment you stepped on them. Ravens corkscrewing the air on ragged black wings. Only the memory of larksong. Wren and linnet, lapwing and curlew, mounrful.

 

Back home, fire lit, time now to curl and dream and run with the ghost cats by their cold ghost fires in the winter stone walls of Maes y Mynydd.

A pool of beauty

In the early evening twilight time of day Elmo discovered that a small patch of sky had tumbled to earth, bringing with it clouds lit by falling sunshine.

Early twilight

Now is the dusk time cooling of the day and in the garden daisies have closed their eyes against the fading light. Moths are flitting through narrow pathways between leaves and flowers where in the daytime the butterflies moved. Overhead aerymice  sing high songs across the sky where earlier the swallows flew. We watch and wait for the fading of the moon and the coming of the stars. Tonight they will be brilliant, a diamond canopy of light thrown up into the velvet dark. No moon. Soon the stars will be falling again.
The air is thick with the scent of honeysuckle and roses and the fading song of birds.

A purfect morning

It was one of those mornings when shadows are softened by cloud as the sun comes up to light a new day. It had not escaped my attention that She had been rising early and taking the dogs for walks, so I kept a whisker wise and watched. Sure enough they headed off up the hill, with me, Elmo, fast behind them. The earth was hard. Across the fields small cloaks of frost silvered the green, but on the hill all was winter bleached. And the sun came up.

Some mornings are just perfect. This one had a stillness and peace wrapped around it. The dogs ran chaotic, reading the scent of night creatures, still fresh on the earth. I prowled, sure foot and cat wise. The world was dressed in beautiful winter colours. Soon there will be skylarks.
In Germany there is a cat magazine, with pictures of us.

A twilight cloak of silvered crystal.

It seemed that it the night the silver moon threw down her beautiful gown to adorne the earth, for in the twilight time we stepped out into a world that sparkled.

Ice and fire, silver and flame, and the earth so quietly wrapped in a shroud of cloud.

We stalked through frost like a burning string of amber and paused to leave paws printed in crystals, to say that we are cats and we have walked this way.

Almost home we laughed to see how Rosie was confused by stone water in the trough. And we marvelled at the beauty of the cow, though Elmo envied her her fierce horns.

Bright spark in a rain darkened landscape.

Cold, with dark and lowering skies, but on the high hill top the grass grows golden. Today my fur looks like frosted ginger. I am the Kiffer Cat, who walks with his head on one side, and by my whiskers and paws I knew that today was a day to walk the hill. So I waited, outside the old man's house, until they came by.

As we walked to the top of the hill I stuck close, so close, with the odd bound ahead to chase the dogs. I could hear the pee-wit call of the white breasted crowned birds across fields. The sky was dark and threatened rain, and sure enough by the time we had crowned the hill cold rain began to fall, cold but light.

Over the hills and far away, across the brittle bones of heather flowers, to a place strewn with feathers from a falcon's kill and we sat and looked and listened. Just before the rain came there was a slight wind as water disturbed air with its falling.

Home across the heather again with sharp gorse spikes and the distant island stretched out in the sea.

As we walked down the hill a great brown buzzard rose with wide wings and lifted into a sky that was so dark now in the early morning light, so dark and so heavy with the weight of water. Look close, for I am the bright cat spark in the centre of the dark land beneath the clouds.

A moment of wild magic in the twilight world of birdsong.

Too long She has been tangled in the bones of the house. Now She is reading The Wild Places and so this morning She rose early and headed out to walk to the top of the hill to watch the world come to light. Past Glyn's house, still sleeping in the early morning, through the farmyard where I, Elmo, called to Her to wait, wait, and ran on fast feet to catch.

In the green lane the night was held, darkness caught between the leaves. Already moths had stilled their night time dance and the birds had begun to sing the sun to rising. Across the valley the sea was an ink dark line biting into the land and the city lights burned.

We walked through the birdsong and the sea began to lighten to pewter gray, the sky to blush, sea reflecting sky reflecting sea in a circle of dancing light. Through it all I shone bright, ginger flame in the twilight world.

Coming down from the hill islands of wren song, so loud a voice for so small a bird, and in the distance the magical island of Ramsey where for a while cats ruled and feasted on wild rabbit and seabirds, undisturbed by man.

A moment of wild magic. Bliss.

Last night

Last night the moon rose huge over the twilight landscape. Pink moon, heavy in the darkening sky, full round. In the long grass of the green lane moths danced like flakes of moon fallen to earth. Last night the wind was resting, the air was kissed with dew, grass flowers bent, aerymice flew and the moonflakes made patterns in the gloaming. Last night as the night became rich with darkness a silver light painted each blade of grass, each flower petal and moonshadows fell in velvet pools. Last night the world belonged only to cats.

Moth dance.

In the late almost dark of twilight gloaming we walked up the hill, shadowcats all. The lane held warmth still from the days sunshine. Once this lane was wide enough for a cart to drive through, but now walls have tumbled and gorse has grown to make a narrow path. As the dogs walk they brush the pollen from the heavy grass flowers and it rises like smoke.
On the way home we pause in the tunnel of trees to listen to the night. Leaves make mosaic patterns against a blue dark sky. Moths dance in their own light, flecks of the moon fallen to earth and their wings makes the faintest moth song in the stillness of early night. We are cupped in the darkness beneath the trees.

The Blossom Moon

The Blossom moon follows close behind the sun so that even as the sun has set the moon has almost completed her path across the sky to set also.
Her crescent hangs so beautiful in the almost night sky with stars and still a faint kiss of light from the sun in the far west.
Aerymice flit, flickering the starlight with dark wings.
In the balance of deep gloaming light we gingers are almost invisible.
In the balance of deep gloaming light the crescent of the Blossom moon glows. We can see the crescent, a cats claw of white, and we can see the whole of the moon. It is beautiful.

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.

White wings, blue sky

Along the narrow green lane that leads to Llanferran, between high banks of bramble bushes that catch and claw, moths in the twilight, fill the air with their moon white wings, and brush against ginger fur,like a sigh, as they glance past and dance against the darkening sky.

Elmo

It is twilight and tonight I walk alone. Damp grass pulls my fur to sharp points where it brushes against my coat. Some light still holds fast to the sky for the night is not quite fallen yet. Few stars shine through and I wait for the whisker thin moon to silver the edges of cloud.
The sheep are restless. Across the fields I can hear new puppies at Janet's farm, excited by the smells of night.
The dogs walk the bounds of the village, as they do every night, and chase away the red fox from the corner where the chickens roost in uneasy sleep. Badgers, the small striped bears of Britain, pad their heavy way between the high hedge banks. Tonight they feast on snail and slug and the firm early blackberries that whisper of autumn. Snakes snooze in the cool and wait for summer to return.
It is quiet. I can hear the flitflak of a bat's wing. Outside the house moths dance by the lamplit windows.
And I wait, for the thinnest moon to rise, for the hushwing owl to stir small birds from their twig-tangled havens, for the angry squeals of mice in the long, wet grass, for the stars to sing.

Early evening walking.

I was curled tight and small when she put on her shoes and called the dogs to walk but I unfurled and stretched and together we walked to the sea.

A steady swell rose and fell and the sea sang as the sun slanted onto ginger, evening sun, still warm, and the sound of the sea an evening song as it sucked and pulled at the shore below.

The tight balled flowers of meadowsweet echoed the salt sea spray, the young flowers still holding tight to their honey perfume.

And the sea shone blue as the cloud bank built far away.

Fresh purple heather and banks of wild thyme scented the paths.

For a while we sat to watch the birds fly as far out to sea a river of shearwaters flew low over the sea.

On the way home the sky still held more of the day than night though the scent of night creatures began to colour the air.