Category: Nature

My Cat Jeoffrey

9/3/2016

Actually, my cat is called Rufus, but I have always had a soft spot for an 18th century cat called Jeoffrey. He belonged to the poet Christopher Smart. Smart was considered crazy, was said to suffer from a kind of religious mania and was locked away in an asylum for a while, but he wrote some stunning poetry. His best known work is probably ‘Jubilate Agno, as part of it was set to music by Benjamin Britten, and titled as ‘Rejoice in the Lamb’. Smart also had a kind of writing alter ego as Mrs Mary Midnight, when he published a magazine called ‘The Midwife’. His poem about his cat Jeoffrey though is the most tender, and closely observed portrait of a cat that I know.

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffrey.
For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.
For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.
For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.
For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.
For he rolls upon prank to work it in.
For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.
For this he performs in ten degrees.
For first he looks upon his fore-paws to see if they are clean.
For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.
For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the fore-paws extended.
For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.
For fifthly he washes himself.
For Sixthly he rolls upon wash.
For Seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.
For Eighthly he rubs himself against a post.
For Ninthly he looks up for his instructions.
For Tenthly he goes in quest of food.
For having consider’d God and himself he will consider his neighbour.
For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.
For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it chance.
For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.
For when his day’s work is done his business more properly begins.
For he keeps the Lord’s watch in the night against the adversary.
For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.
For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life.
For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.
For he is of the tribe of Tiger.
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.
For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.
For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.
For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he’s a good Cat.
For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.
For every house is incompleat without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.
For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.
For every family had one cat at least in the bag.
For the English Cats are the best in Europe.
For he is the cleanest in the use of his fore-paws of any quadrupede.
For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.
For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.
For he is tenacious of his point.
For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.
For he knows that God is his Saviour.
For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.
For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.
For he is of the Lord’s poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually – Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.
For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.
For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in compleat cat.
For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in musick.
For he is docile and can learn certain things.
For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.
For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.
For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.
For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.
For he can jump from an eminence into his master’s bosom.
For he can catch the cork and toss it again.
For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.
For the former is affraid of detection.
For the latter refuses the charge.
For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.
For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly,
For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.
For he killed the Ichneumon-rat very pernicious by land.
For his ears are so acute that they sting again.
For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.
For by stroaking of him I have found out electricity.
For I perceived God’s light about him both wax and fire.
For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.
For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.
For, though he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.
For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadrupede.
For he can tread to all the measures upon the musick.
For he can swim for life.
For he can creep.
Christopher Smart (1722-1771)

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Soap and snowdrops

2/2/2014

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Soap and snowdrops

I believe that everyone is entitled to one soap which they can be as addicted to as they like. No one should be criticised for one harmless addiction – more than that, and the phrase ‘get a life’ might rear its ugly head.

My soap is ‘The Archers’. I have an excuse since three of my best friends have written for it over the years: now Mary Cutler, old schoolfriend and skilled dramatist, is the longest-serving scriptwriter on it.

Anyway, I was delighted to hear a beautiful poem on the Archers the other day, The Darkling Thrush by Thomas Hardy. Is it their first foray into poetry? It gave the right hint of hope in in this dark wet month. Here in Amblerley we have snowdrops too to cheer us up. Now, what was the poem I learned about them at school….? They say you never forget poetry learnt in childhood. I wish it was true. So I’m copying the Hardy poem here, while I still have it in my mind. Happy Spring, everyone!

The Darkling Thrush
by Thomas Hardy

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-grey,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
      The weakening eye of day.
The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
      Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
      Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seemed to be
      The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
      The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
      Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
      Seemed fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
      The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
      Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
      In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
      Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carolings
      Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
      Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
      His happy good-night air
Some blessed Hope, whereof he knew
      And I was unaware.

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The Unexpected View

26/10/2013

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The unexpected view

Strange views from Devon – the writer is always on the look-out for surprises. Something that doesn’t quite fit the expected view of people or places. It can be a mini-moment of ecstasy when you encounter one – if it’s a nice one, that is. Perhaps even the less pleasant revelations act as a useful stimulus, shaking up fixed ideas, stirring the imagination.

I was lucky enough to have at least two (pleasant) such jolts on our recent visit to the Topsham area. It was our first encounter with the village of Lympstone, and it gave me one of the most magical of surprises. The village is on the Exe estuary but actually looks as though it’s in the sea. Water washes the base of the shoreline cottages, and it must be one of the few places in England where people dry their laundry on the beach. What the photo can’t show you is the gorgeous array of maroons and purples on the washing line, the first time I saw this startling sight. (Sometimes the best moments just don’t make it onto camera.) Then there were puzzling reflections of us in the silvery sculpture globes in the centre of Exeter. Grandma (me), granddaughter Martha, daughter Jess. Who is who, and where are we all?

Now I just need to find ways of writing about all this. A poem, a reflective memoir, a water fantasy. Water often does it for me, as a writer – sitting by a fast flowing, shallow river, or walking by winter waves on the sea shore. The chatter in my mind ebbs away, and the experience of the infinite complexity of moving water takes its place. Currents, patterns, swirls – water parting round rocks, whirling into pools, streams joining.

What will it be this time?

Egret on the Exe Estuary

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Butterfly, Dragonfly: Life writing in France

14/9/2013

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Butterfly, Dragonfly: Life writing in France

A late summer morning in the Limousin. At Chateau La Creuzette, shafts of sharp sunlight pierce the tree canopies – the grand old cedar, oaks and chestnuts – and set the dewdrops on the lawn sparkling. Fire and water meet, an ancient symbol of alchemy. Will our class achieve this same kind of fusion, turning life experience into gleaming, golden words?

Over the reedy pond, an enormous dragonfly hovers, bulbous, an iridescent deep blue. This too is an old emblem of transformation, and there will be many more dragonflies coming and going during the week, bringing their own particular touch of magic in the garden. And as the day warms and the sun strokes the petals of the flowers, butterflies appear in the gardens to bask there: lemon, gold, cream and rust, mottled and marbled in colour. They alight, pause, and flutter on. Symbols of the soul. Libelulle and papillon, alchemy and the soul, dragonfly and butterfly.

At ten o’clock, our writing group gathers in the ‘cave’ – that means cellar in French , (it’s subterranean) but it might as well be an alchemist’s cave, a place where we prepare, brew and distill our word potions during the week. (take a look at the photo gallery at the end!) We’re here on a kind of quest, a journey of life writing. Some of the eight members have flown half way round the world to be here to take this course. It’s a big responsibility. so I’d better be alert – watchful like the dragonfly, sensitive like the butterfly. Will I be able to offer them what they need? Alchemy says: ‘Start with what you have, with what is often overlooked and thrown away.’ This is the way real transformation begins: making gold from what might be seen as dust. So we start with childhood memories; everyone has them, but they have a potency like nothing else. Find them in depths, fish them up and write them. Simplicity is best. Don’t elaborate, just let them be revealed in the light. Then they’ll sparkle like those dewdrops in the sun. We work thus at the dawn of the world, our personal world, where the seeds of creation are stored.

Later, we trek through the terrain of adult years, charting chronology, recording its peaks, its troughs, its moments of joy and terror. As a British tutor working with eight South Africans, I am in shock when some of them write about being hijacked, robbed, or having a gun put to their heads. But the dragonfly has to keep on hovering, not dip in the pool and drown. I too am learning from this. And so do they. The implicit question as people continue to write down their experiences, is, ‘Where am I in all this?’ Life writing is nothing without a degree of personal reflection. But, I teach them, a little goes a long way, like a powerful spice. Let the main ingredients – events, encounters, experiences – do the work of the telling, but add your own touches of philosophical reflection to give it that special flavour.

Life writing isn’t just about recording events, but is also a process of seeking knowledge. It can change the way we view our lives.

Our lives intermesh with others, and these too come into the scope of life writing, sometimes with intense significance. One of our number, Annette, is on a quest to understand the short life of her daughter, an accomplished, beautiful woman who died in her prime:

"Like a butterfly, freeing itself from its cocoon, she came into this world, gasping for air and struggling to free herself from the birth canal.......With the same effort to be born, it took three days for her to leave this world, slowly spinning herself away. On her birthday, 42 years later, almost to the hour, we lay her body in the ground. Her life as short as that of butterflies. My butterfly was flying freely."

She wants to write a tribute to her, and this butterfly symbol begins to take on its own life in the course. As the week flows on, we see butterflies everywhere –not only in the garden but at dinner, a (paper) butterfly clipped onto every napkin, in one of the astonishing table settings created nightly at La Creuzette dinners, and flying colourfully on scarves and jewellery and designs around us. There is no escaping the butterfly, and its implication of soul. The group becomes closely bonded, unafraid to share personal revelations, but always putting the writing and the journey first.

By the end of the week, I know for sure that life writing can be work for the soul. I have taught many classes of life writing, but the chance to bring a small group of committed people together, in these glorious surroundings (not essential, but it helps!) to connect and work together recording some of the most intense experiences of their lives, shows me that the process can be truly transformative. And the participants do this work for themselves. I am only the guide, frowning over my route maps, steering them along the way. I help them to keep walking on, but each person takes those steps independently.

Yes, there is a touch of magic to it, symbolised by the sorcerer dragonfly with his uncanny presence, and the delicacy of the butterfly with her elusive beauty of the soul.

At the end of the course, Annette buys herself a butterfly necklace. She knows her direction now, and is ready to travel further – quite literally, in one sense, on a Silk Road trip, which her daughter always wanted to do. And the class gives me a gift – a dragonfly pendant. I am wearing it now, as I write this.

Next year at La Creuzette, it will be a different journey, with different travellers. I will be unrolling my maps, but aware that even with the terrain marked out ahead of us, it will always be a venture into the unknown. And my job will be to help the group take this trip, moving forward as one. We will work together, as this year, dividing our time between the soothing dim light of our ‘cave’ at La Creuzette, and the brilliance of nature and sunlight around us, butterflies and dragonflies gracing the garden, when we step out to take the air.

The 2014 Life Writing with Cherry Gilchrist course will take place from Oct 19th – 25th at Chateau La Creuzette, Boussac, France. Please see www.lacreuzette.com for details.

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Everyone has a Laurie Lee story...

7/4/2013

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On Swifts Hill, opposite Slad (more photos below)

Everyone round here has a Laurie Lee story...do you have one to add?

I first fell in love with Laurie Lee’s poetry when I was still at school. It carried the sensuous qualities of nature along with a strong dash of romance, the two elements which were closest to my heart at the time. I still have the edition of ‘Pocket Poets’, marked to indicate my favourite verses, for instance:

                                When red-haired girls scamper like roses                                                 over the rain-green grass,
                                 and the sun drips honey.
                                             ('Day of these Days')

It seemed to me that he understood the magnetic pull of the English landscape, something I felt intensely from early years, and which perhaps has kept me here ever since. Even though I have had the travel bug, England is home, and I’ve always felt that I can’t give up the bluebells and the dew on the grass and the village fetes on a hot summer’s afternoon. In those days, I hadn’t travelled much, mostly by boat and train which was the norm then, but when Laurie Lee wrote about coming home across the Channel, I recognised what he was talking about. In the poem 'Home from Abroad', he says that Kent is merely a ‘gawky girl’, a pale shadow of the sultry wonders he has discovered abroad. But within a short time, her presence is transformed into ‘the green-haired queen of love’ whose ‘rolling tidal landscape’ drowns foreign memories in ‘a dusky stream’. The subtler charms of England have lured him back again.

Now we live near Laurie’s old stomping ground, the Slad Valley in Gloucestershire, barely fifteen minutes’ drive from the place he wrote about in such a compelling way in Cider with Rosie and in his poetry. And it often seems that he’s not quite gone from there. We are relative newcomers to the area, but practically everyone who’s been around Stroud for longer has a tale to tell about him. Just recently we watched the play of Cider with Rosie at the Everyman Theatre, Cheltenham. Two well-dressed middle-aged ladies in the row behind us were discussing him:

‘So did you see Laurie Lee often, then?’

‘Oh yes! I used to meet him about twice a week, at the Imperial.’

Hmm.

My acupuncturist mentioned casually that he was once her landlord, a musician friend related how he used to perform with him, and a local, now well-established writer, revealed that she’d marched up to his front door when she was still a teenager, asking if she needed to go to university in order to become a writer. ‘You don’t need all that,’ he told her, and it seems he was right.

So, as one who is always late to the party (metaphorically speaking), I never met Laurie Lee, but I can still revel in the legacy he left and the landscape he inhabited. Yesterday, in brilliant sunshine, we walked up Swift’s Hill which lies on the other side of the steep Slad Valley. Ponies were basking in the sun, a buzzard or two soared overhead, and the primroses were out in the hedgerows. We looked across to Slad, picking out the phone box, the pub, and the cottage we thought Laurie had lived in. (Rose Cottage, at the end of his life; the cottage from 'Cider with Rosie' is still there too.) There was curling woodsmoke in the air – ‘having a bonnie’ as the garden owner told us later - which added a touch of the old-world to the panorama. As we continued our walk, tracing the contours of the valley, we admired the charming, steep-gabled grey stone houses that were sprinkled across the hillside, ranging from tiny cottages like something out of a nursery rhyme to grander dwellings with many eaves. This local Gloucestershire architecture is my favourite of allEnglish styles; no two houses seem alike, and their quirky individuality seems to be a feature of people who live in the area, too.

Back in Slad later, we paid a visit to the Woolsack pub, Laurie's old watering hole, taking a look at the Laurie Lee bar, but hoping we wouldn’t get mistaken for tourists. Which in one way we were, of course – but maybe we were more pilgrims for an afternoon, on the L.L. trail. We found his tombstone in the churchyard, and later I looked up his poem ‘The Wild Trees’, which begins with the following lines:

                                               O the wild trees of my home,
                                            forests of blue dividing the pink moon,
                                            the iron blue of those ancient branches
                                            with their berries of vermilion stars

            and ends:                    Let me return at last….
                                              to sleep with the coiled fern leaves
                                            in your heart’s live stone

Do you have a Laurie Lee story? Please post it as a comment here, and if we get a few, I'll create a separate blog post for them.

Interviews with Laurie Lee can be downloaded at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/gloucestershire/focus/2003/07/laurielee1.shtml

An album of Johnny Coppin with Laurie Lee, 'Edge of Day' (1989) can be purchased via http://www.johnnycoppin.co.uk

I have included these quotations in good faith that they don’t breach copyright due to their brevity, and hope that those in charge of Laurie Lee’s estate will consider this permissible use, but if not, please contact me and I will remove them.

I’ve covered another legendary local writer, W. H. Davies, in an earlier blog of July 26th 2012. Select ‘poetry’ in topics to find it.

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Riding the White Horses of the Camargue

11/9/2012

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Do take a look at the previous blog post – a short homage to the horses in the form of three haiku poems

‘All we know is that when man first came to the Camargue, there were white horses and black bulls.’

So says Brenda, an Englishwoman who has been breeding Camargue horses for many years, and she should know. The white horses are almost the trademark of the area, groups of mares and foals left to roam over wide stretches of salt marshes, which are fringed with reeds, copses of pines, and at this time of late summer are covered in a froth of pale mauve sea lavender. Carefully selected stallions service the mares, while those not chosen for breeding are likely to be gelded and used for riding. The ‘guardians’ are the real riding elite here, the men who tend the bulls and tame the horses, but ordinary horse-trekking is where we’re at, in a group of riders ready to set off for the sea, some ten miles distant.

Has our recent riding prepared us for an all-day trek? Are bottoms, backs and thighs strong enough to withstand around six hours in the saddle? Even the most experienced rider (I’m making a come-back, Robert is putting in his training hours) can end up sore if out of practice. We’ll see.

We help to catch and groom our mounts, Loulevain and Garrigan, along with half a dozen other riders from different parts of France. Saddles are Western-style, which means you ride ‘long’ in the stirrups and loose with the reins, using only one hand. The horses are bred bigger than they used to be, and can go up to 15 hands or so, to cope with modern-sized riders, while still keeping the Camargue stamina, colour and character.

Our leader Caroline (pronounced Caroleen), gives us a brief explanation of the riding style, and warns us that horses may eat before, after, but never during the ride. We must go single file along roads and when cantering, and if anyone is in trouble they are to shout the universal command ‘Stop’!

‘Do not hang onto the reins, if you are afraid,’ she says. ‘Non. You have a thick mane to hold onto.’

She speaks in French unless we ask her to repeat in English. Good for improving my French, but I’m sometimes a touch confused when she releases a string of commands, each one faster than the last.

The ride takes us first along tracks sheltered by tall bamboo and fronded reeds, and through open flat fields that remind me of East Anglian fens. The difference being that here we pass herds of black bulls, and see white egrets take off in flight as we approach, sometimes followed by the majestic upward sweep of a heron’s wings. We follow dykes and small canals, trace old paths along a watery margin or sometimes have to ride single file by the side of busy roads – my least favourite part. French drivers seem to give horses little quarter. But off the main road, drivers slow, smile, and wave as we go by. Everyone wants to see white horses in the Camargue! The horses go steadily, with confidence; they must be ridden well but can be trusted to do their job

The biggest surprise of the day: we take the horses on a car ferry! Leading them onto the roll on/off flat bottomed boat, the Bac de Sauvage, we become stars for a while. Astonished passengers whip out their cameras. The horses stand placidly as we cross the Petit Rhone, and then form a beautiful cavalcade once more as we re-mount, white manes and tails flowing, necks strong and flexed, hooves neatly lifted in walk, trot, or a ‘galop’ – there is no specific French word for ‘canter’.

‘Avancez! Avancez!’

Sebastien’s horse is pounding the water with his front hoof. We’re riding through a shallow lagoon, the safe track marked out by long poles plunged at intervals into the mud. This may look like a charming circus trick, but the rider is inexperienced and does not know that this is horse talk for, ‘Water! Great – I’m going to roll in it.’ The cries of, Caroline, urging the rider to move on, are in vain. The horse drops onto its front knees like a camel, back legs following and Sebastien has no choice but to bale out in the water. Luckily, all he gets is a dousing, and the horse is brought back onto his feet before he has a chance to roll and, potentially, break the all-important ‘tree’ that holds the whole saddle together.

Now we’re into the real ‘marais’, with its marsh, mud flats and shallow ‘etangs’ such as the one we’ve just ridden through. There is a sense of primitive wildness, and a kind of collective awe descends on our company as we near our destination. We are trekking onto a private beach to which only local residents can get access. The view now opens up; the scene changes from one of eerie stretches of reed, mud and water, to Sunday picnic time on a Mediterranean beach. Not crowded, but not empty. Brenda is already there with a pick-up truck and a trailer that blossoms into a kind of snack bar; from its counter she dispenses couscous, ham, cheese and apples, along with cool, cool water – it’s hot out here – and wine rose and red for those who wish. But always see to your animals first. The horses are tied up in a long double row, girths slackened, bridles off, where they can doze during a well-earned rest. It’s been nearly three hours getting here.

Swim, eat, swap stories, and mount again for the – aagh – three hours back again. Actually, it is not so bad until just a few miles from home when some prefer to dismount and walk and others of us try to flex and stretch our stiff thighs. The girl in front of me is a comedienne, trained in theatre arts; she does a series of acrobatic poses on her pony to exercise her muscles. Robert takes his right foot out of the stirrup to ease cramp.

‘Non, non, non,’ barks Caroline crossly. ‘I want that you come back alive. Garrigan, he is bit stupid in the head.’

Robert, I think, has settled Garrigan remarkably well. He may not be the most experienced rider, but his calm and relaxed attitude goes down well with horses, and Garrigan has changed from being a fretful head-tosser to a steady and gentle ride over the last couple of days. We are all glad to have had a two hour ‘balade’ yesterday, a warm-up in preparation for the all-day ‘randonee’ today.

My horse, Loulevain, has been excellent. He is willing and reliable. His only bad habit is that he’s an accomplished thief, snatching an illicit bite to eat when my focus is elsewhere. I have had to pull a whole leafy bamboo cane out his mouth at one point. In the same way that cats wait until your attention is elsewhere before they jump on your lap, so Loulevain bides his time till I am dreaming or chatting to my neighbour. Then he lunges towards the verge and has a mouth stuffed with leaves before I’ve a chance to shorten the reins and kick him on. Still, I’m glad he isn’t totally predictable.

We amble through the small, charmingly ramshackle village of Astouin, a cluster of cottages in the Camargue fens, and then we’re back. Drink, horses – you’ve earned it. And so have we.

Next day we are a little stiff, but nothing terrible. The only battle scars on us both are where the mosquitos have managed to bite us through jodphurs and jeans respectively; we’ll spray every inch of ourselves in future.

Ride at Brenda’s (local farm, with accommodation and equestrian centre) at http://www.brendatourismeequestre.com/. Takes novices and experienced riders, also bring your own horse. Our two day stay cost around 214 euros per person, including two nights b&b, plus dinners and a picnic lunch, a two hour ride and an all-day ride.

The next post has my haiku homage to the horses. Too much alliteration already! But please do take a look.

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July 26th, 2012

26/7/2012

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I was musing further on the sight of the deer among the poppies (see my previous post) and remembered a wonderful and wonder-ing poem by W H Davies, our ‘local’ poet as those of us who live in the Nailsworth area like to think. Davies was an extraordinary man, a self-styled ‘supertramp’, an émigré from Wales and late settler in Watledge, on the edge of Nailsworth, where he lived in contentment with his much younger wife, a former prostitute. At last there are signs that his old cottage is being restored – we need a local literary landmark!

See how the restoration is going at http://www.stroudpeople.co.uk/work-restore-Glendower/story-14455261-detail/story.html

More on that, perhaps, later. For now, here’s the poem. The confluence of deer and poppies echoes the rapture that Davies felt when experiencing the cuckoo’s song and the rainbow at the same time.

A Great Time

Sweet Chance, that led my steps abroad,
Beyond the town, where wild flowers grow --
A rainbow and a cuckoo, Lord,
How rich and great the times are now!
Know, all ye sheep
And cows, that keep
On staring that I stand so long
In grass that's wet from heavy rain --
A rainbow and a cuckoo's song
May never come together again;
May never come
This side the tomb.

William Henry Davies 1871-1940

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Deer among the poppies

23/7/2012

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Rarely do I have the camera, the view and a stopping place for the car all together at the right time. But on the busy A46 road we had just that yesterday. We were on our way to Westonbirt Arboretum when our attention was arrested by a scarlet streak of poppies in the field opposite. I took several photos of the field, so that Robert can paint it (he does a mean poppy scene) and then we spotted movement in the poppies themselves. Two small deer were out to play, so far away we could hardly see them. But with the magic of the zoom lens, I could capture them, and with some trimming of the pictures back at home the playful courtship of male and female revealed, as they danced, skimmed and frisked in the poppies. I’ll set the pictures up so that you can see how they were discovered.
Don't forget to click on main pic to start slide show!

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Do chickens eat ice cream?

31/5/2012

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Yes, chickens do eat ice cream! Here’s the proof. It happened one summer’s day in Derbyshire….

While watching the programmes about Chatsworth House on TV recently, I remembered the frenzy of delight with which the Duchess’s famous free range hens seized my ice cream cone. They had the best ducal manners too, and waited till it was offered - no snatching. It was enormous, probably the most generously-sized cornet I’d ever had.

Well, I hope it put a gloss on their feathers.

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The Cows are Out!

18/5/2012

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Every year on or about May 13th, our life changes radically. No, it’s not necessarily off with woolly jumpers and on with the suncream , but it’s time to keep the gates shut and watch where we tread when we step out into the lane. The cows are out again.

We live in a Gloucestershire village bordering a huge stretch of common land, owned by the National Trust. Apparently it has always been common land, and remained as such because the locals were a fierce lot who refused to be subdued when the Enclosures Acts, which began in 1750, forced England’s open spaces into private ownership. The villagers around the common (then known as The Wasteland) probably gave any officials a good trouncing, and so they were eventually left alone. It also had a reputation for highwaymen, but that’s another story.

So the commoners’ rights to graze their livestock have never been usurped. Among the deeds for our house, which backs onto the common, is permission from the County Council for us to keep ‘two beasts’ there. We are still considering this. Not absolutely every animal is a cow. Last year, four ponies appeared though, much to everyone’s delight. So will we choose something exotic? Llamas? Horses? Camels? Goats? Once, while out for a walk, I was thrilled to see two grey goats tethered there; when I got closer, however, they turned out to be rocks. I had gone out without my glasses that day. But whatever we choose, they aren’t allowed up there in winter, so stabling them could be something of a problem. May 13th is the magic day, the first of the grazing season.

At this time, the common is covered with an amazing carpet of cowslips, buttercups and purple orchids. Luckily, it takes quite a while for the 500 or so cows, released in herds small or large by a variety of farmers, to munch their way through these. The National Trust takes good care of the land, and it’s now known for its different species of flowers. I have found a bee orchid, Star of Bethlehem, yellow rattle, milkwort and plenty more.

The cows are not confined to the common but roam as far as they can, through a number of lanes and villages, stopping to trim the ivy from the walls and, if they can force the gate, to strip our neighbour’s pear tree. Good defences are essential, and although we find the roaming herds utterly charming, we will change our minds if they manage to get into our garden one day.

There are black cows, brown and white cows, mottled cows, striped cows (I have named my favourite Tiger), white cows, fawn cows, red cows and every combination imaginable. My theory is that some farmers buy ‘bin end’ cows at market, the odd-looking ones, and use their free grazing rights to fatten them up over the summer. Fate unknown. Actually, we do know the fate of the Belted Galloways, the ones that look like furry black and white humbugs. The National Trust owns two herds, one of which is ‘thinned out’ at the end of each season. We collect a box full of delicious organic steaks, joints and stewing beef from the NT each November. Some cows meet a sadder end, hit by cars or lorries. Despite warning signs and speed limits, motorists don’t always manage to brake in time and around 6 or 7 each year die in this way. Not very good for the vehicle, either.

Some cows give birth on the common, apparently without needing barns or vets, and then you’ll see a wobbly chestnut or milk-white calf staggering after its mum through the tall grasses. Speaking of milk, none of the cows are in milk, in the sense of needing to be milked. Once turned out, they’re in residence for the season, which usually ends in late October. Car drivers who don’t know the area shout at the lumbering beasts when they lurch, in slow motion, across the road. Shouting does nothing. Most things do nothing, in fact. When a cow wants to move, it does so, slowly and irrevocably. The only thing you can try is winding down the window and banging the side of the car.

Golfers have to contend with ambling cows dropping messy splats on the greens. Yes, there’s a golf course on the common – a shame, I always think, but then it’s not my idea of fun, and I console myself by remembering that it’s very historic, dating from the late 19th century, long before the National Trust took over. But walkers and cows co-exist peacefully, as long as you don’t try as one woman did, to reunite a calf with its mother when they became separated by a road. She was buffeted and bruised for her pains.

By the end of the season I guess that most of us are relieved that we can leave our gates open if we want to, and don’t have to worry about meeting a black cow on a dark road. But we miss them too, when they go. At the beginning of May, the now famous village Cow Hunt gets us in the mood again. We’re not looking for real cows then though, only dressed up wooden cows with silly names like Romeo and Mooliet, Moonet the artist, and Pirates of the Cowibbean. Then there’s tea and fabulous cakes on the common – something that would be impossible to enjoy to two weeks later, when the real cows are out.