A bird in the bush... It feels weird going for a walk with only one dog in tow.  Even Emily keeps looking behind her and waiting, as if half-expecting Ygraine to emerge from behind a clump of long grass.  Emily's missing her life-long buddy too.  And the heap of old jumpers between the wall and my computer desk feels very empty.  Ygraine always snoozed there while I worked.  I have begun compiling short stories for the forthcoming sequel to Dark Tides , which I've called Dark Waters .  However, since planning these two short story collections I have re-released the two Amazon Shorts ebooks, A Wirral Otherkin Trilogy and Quiet Lives , thinking that as they were already in publishable condition it would be silly to leave them gathering dust on a shelf.  A bird in the hand..., etc.  Compiling Dark Waters, I realised that too many of the stories which I'd earmarked for that project already feature in those.  So this project will have to slow down a bit until I'v

Ygraine My Little Princess Pedigree name: Santosha White Earl 11th April 2000 - 2nd May 2012 

Emily keeping her visitor company. It was furry and had a face.  That's all Emily knew.  Furry things with faces are toys, aren't they? So there I was, making cups of tea while my neice told me how she hoped she'd done in her end-of-second-year university exams, when I happened to glance out of the window to see Emily wrestling with a grey furry thing.  "Er, Catherine, isn't that your bag?" Of course it was. So we sprinted out of the house and into the garden.  Sitting proudly on the lawn was Emily, merrily wagging her stumpy tail as she chewed a hole in the corner of Cat's Japanese monster bag.  We ran one way, Emily ran the other, round and round the thorniest tree in the garden (as Cat's forehead can attest), saying stuff like, "Emily put it down!", "Emily, drop it!", "Emily, no!"  True to the nature of a Jack Russell having a fine old game, she ignored this completely and continued running rings round the pair o

Don't look, it's a dream! What's this white stuff? How to get dry - puppy style! Emily with her late Uncle Mutley Ygraine, circa 2007. Tidying up old files on my computer, I came across these old photos of some of my pets.  Enjoy!   

A rugged path leads to the summit of Caldy Hill. This morning promised a glorious spring day, and so I went for a walk over Caldy Hill.  My two dogs kept me company, of course, as the likelihood of any human member of this household being able to head out for a walk without taking Emily and Ygraine along too is pretty slim.  Not unless you'd want to endure hours of grumpy yapping and sad-eyed sulking, that is.  The light wasn't too good for photography, really - Wales, on the opposite bank of the River Dee,  was totally obscured by haze - but the golden-yellow gorse is looking too lovely for me not to attempt a few shots.  It's a pity readers of this blog can't share the gorse's perfume...  Think of warm honey, with a dash of sharp lemon and you'll have a reasonable idea of the fragrance hanging on every slight breeze.   Most of the trees here are deciduous and it's still too early in the season for leaves, but every branch is covered in buds.  Daffodil

Emily, enjoying today's spring sunshine. Joyce, Felicity and Penelope pottering around the garden today. If you're wondering how the leather tuffet found its way onto the patio, ask the Jack Russell who has sat on it since mid-morning.  Never let it be said that Emily doesn't use initiative. Mum and Evelyn were here on Sunday, bringing some more of Mum's family history research with them, including some old photos.  I haven't had time to look at it properly yet.  Most of the loose notes concern the Caslin and Corrigan branches of the family.  There are also some letters from the Meaghers in New York State, America - the writer being Mum's second cousin who also has an interest in genealogy. This arrival synchronises neatly with my Aunt Mary's further researches into the McGowan family, which she mailed to me this week.  Much of this information is of too recent a date to share online, but Mary has done a lot of detailed research.  It will all be safely

A glorious afternoon tempted me into the front garden, hedge strimmer in hand.  Ours hadn't been pruned since mid-autumn, so it was looking straggly.  When I get a Round Tuit, I want to redesign the front garden.  There are a few camelias - my favourite white one's coming into bloom now - and a lovely white rose that I want to keep, but the shrubs and "ivy cascade" (ie. tangled mound with tentacles) can go.  As things stand, it looks like the design didn't turn out quite according to plan - which is an accurate assessment.  It was supposed to be easy-care but everything grew like crazy and took over, but not in an interesting way.  In the back garden, in the Grove, everything went wild too but that looks and feels wonderful, but then this fits the context. One of the things I plan to install is a pond, as we get quite a lot of amphibians here.  Putting a pond in the back garden would invite disaster as Ygraine loves paddling, and her favourite way of getting d

My two young silver-laced wyandottes, Felicity Kendal and Penelope Keith, both laid their first eggs this morning!  The third, smaller, egg in the dish was laid by my older hen, Joyce Grenfell, who is an ISA Brown. You can watch them on this video:   

Penelope and Felicity are eighteen-weeks old silver laced wyandottes. They arrived this morning in a cat carrier, and are now pottering around in the chicken coup in my garden. Our older hen, Joyce, who's an ISA brown, is a bit stroppy right now - marching up and down the run and clucking loudly - but she'll settle down once the pecking order has been negotiated.   

"Lie-zee Sandai Arrffta-noon, Oi Got Nah Toym-tah Warree...!" Well it's all right for some, snoozing the day away.  Unlike the rest of this household, I've been wielding the red pen on what was a 5,000-word story; so far I've cut out 500 words.  That's a lot of editing by my usual standards, but this may be because I don't write much sci-fi and  School is (more or less) a sci-fi story.  It's a sci-fi/fantasy hybrid, really, destined for inclusion in Dark Tides .  I was reading the submission guidelines for an anthology yesterday.  The requested subject matter sounded like my kind of thing.  The editors did not accept email submissions, and planned to pay $0.01 USD a word if they used a story, (which is not unusual, unfortunately).  So for a 1,000-word story they'd pay $10 USD.  At today's exchange rate, that works out at £6.33.  Deduct a third for UK tax, and that leaves £4.22.  Postage for a light MS from England to America

  Hattie Jacques Died in her sleep. 18th September 2011. And here are Hattie and Joyce (Grenfell) in the garden...   

In the eleven years we've lived here, we've gone through four lawn mowers.  Whatever happened to electrical goods whose life extended long after the manufacterers' guarantees expired?  These-days products seem to be made as cheaply as possible in the full knowledge that items will develop faults sooner rather than later.  Perhaps it's a deliberate method of keeping the economy turning over, in that goods are made to break down so people will keep buying more of the same.  Repairs cost nearly as much as a new product, assuming spare parts are even available.  This is one contributing factor to the planet's ever-growing rubbish tips. It's also rather annoying.  Our high-pressure waterjet patio cleaner, for example, lasted one season before the plastic handle split, meaning all pressure was lost and water was pouring over the electric wiring.  Could a new handle be bought?  Of course not.  Our fairly new bread-making machine went on fire.  Our deep-fat fryer, o

You'd think that planning a small family get-together would be easy.  Most of us don't live in the same areas and we all have busy schedules.  Some are available some days but not on others, and each person's timetable has little correspondence to anyone else's.  Consequently I'm still trying to get people to settle on a meeting date, even.  Our get-together celebrates two forthcoming birthdays - Mum's 83rd and Vikkey's 25th - and also the news that Vikkey and Peter are expecting their first child.  Just don't address me as Great-Aunt Adele.  I have no objection to being ancient, (or, more accurately, ageless), being the dyed-in-the-wool Immortalist that I am.  It's just that it doesn't seem too long ago since little Victoria was gurgling happily while daubing paints and obsessing about Roland Rat.   His name was her first words - though she said something more like 'Woland Wat', and would squeal with delight whenever his maniacal grey

Saffron Silky Princess 1996 - 27th April 2011

Emily, Killer of Garden Gnomes  Mutley and Poppy  Jazzy and toy mouse  Rolly-polly Saffron  Ygraine in the Grove I've been tidying up photos on my hard-drive and transfering them onto disc.  Here are a few of my favourites. 

“The more we have the courage to walk new paths the more we must remain rooted in our own tradition, open to others who let us know that we are not alone and permit us to acquire a wider vision of reality.” - Raimon Panikkar . Bright sunlight filtered through the curly leaves of the contorted hazel tree to cast green-gold dapples over the Grove. I’d been meditating for a while, trying to fend off the hen which kept pecking at the beads on my sandals. And the dog whose nose was edging ever-closer to my cup of tea. Ah, blessed solitude. No wonder the Buddha didn’t have a menagerie with him beneath the Bodhi tree. Or maybe he did, hmm? My fluffy and feathered buddies follow me around the house and garden, constant companions who demand to join in with everything. They tread the same ground beneath the same sky as me, but who really knows how a chicken, cat or dog views the world? How do human lives seem to them - magical, perhaps? Godlike? Bewildering? Largely irrelevant so long as

“You have a refrigeration problem,” said the fridge repair man. Hence the overwhelming lack of chill, hmm? The madly-gurgling contraption was barely two years old. We are not pleased. Certainly we will not be purchasing that brand again. The repair man said he could try re-gassing it but the likelihood of this lasting more than a day or so was slim to anorexic. Fortunately the modest freezer section wasn’t full to capacity. There were several tubs of home-made soups and Bolognese sauces which are now on the compost heap. And there was one lone samosa lurking in a corner. Last night’s meal was a bacon feast. We’ll be having roast chicken tonight, and again tomorrow night. Well, these things can’t be refrozen…. And the kitchen bin is filled with ice-cream (sugary poison anyway) and a spectacularly vile apple strudel whose twin was mostly fed to the dogs at New Year. Emily buried her share in the garden. To the best of my knowledge she’s yet to dig it up again. Our new fridge-fr

I have decided I won’t be moving to the Arctic Zone. We’ve had one week of freezing temperatures here in Wirral and already the novelty has worn off. Snow-gowned landscapes look enchanting in photographs, but the trouble with the real McCoy is that anyone brave enough to venture outside needs to be an ice-skater of Olympic status in order to navigate our treacherous pavements. Even my dogs are bored with it now. When their shiny brown eyes first feasted on their new flawless white world they couldn’t wait to hurtle through it, pouncing and digging and having a merry doggy time. Now they keep looking at the bright sunshine and wondering why the outside temperatures don’t equate. Fortunately our chickens are largely protected by their coop and run. Inside the coop is plenty of dry, clean hay and straw, and it’s surprising how warm it gets in there. They’ve not even stopped laying their daily egg each, which is a big tell-tale sign that all is well with them. Maybe I should try pu

Our hallway is blocked by two huge boxes containing the new chicken house. The blurb insists it will take between ten and fifteen minutes to convert these two flat-packs into the house and run but having experienced the joys of self-assembly before, I remain sceptical. The chicken house which Mum gave me is made from re-used wood and isn’t as watertight as it needs to be. It soaks up water from beneath, which is very bad for the birds’ health. Plus we wanted to give them a bigger run anyway. So I scoured the internet and found something much better. All I have to do now is assemble it then we can have our hall back and Hattie and Joyce can move house (again!) I’m just back from a trip into the village. There’s an icy wind coming off the sea today but it’s pleasant once you get walking. I’d tackle the flat-packs now but the light will be fading soon, and so instead I’ll update this blog. So what’s new? Well, I’ve now completed the first draft of Bethany Rose , and am happy with