This is Wolf on the fells in Tarset. He is so lovely, so beautiful, lean and fit and has the kindest brown eyes. We love him.
We had some gorgeous walks with him. Sadly we had to part. He and the cats did not find harmony together. Au contraire.
Sunday, 14 June 2009
Wolf-less
This is Wolf on the fells in Tarset. He is so lovely, so beautiful, lean and fit and has the kindest brown eyes. We love him.
We had some gorgeous walks with him. Sadly we had to part. He and the cats did not find harmony together. Au contraire.
Friday, 12 June 2009
Back from Dublin Writers Festival
It has been a lively time since the return from Dublin so I have not had time to write about it as yet. Here goes...
The first evening I was there Anne Michaels read from her new book The Winter Vault. You may know her previous book Fugitive Pieces: a Novel, which is now a film due out any day.
I was stunned. Anne M had just arrived from the airport in Dublin from Canada, she lives in Toronto, nevertheless she was sharp and an excellent reader. Focussed, thoughtful, wise and humane. The kind of person I would love to be and to have as a friend!
It was such a special treat to be abe to go to here reading first thing.
The next day it was work time...I filmed a poet in Dalkey who lived in a wonderfully quirky house up a lane which looked like it could have been in the country in France. She had some lovely cats, a huge feline family; grandmother, uncles, mother and kittens all together...She also prepared an amazingly delicious lunch complete with strawberries and cream. The filming went very well at the top of the house with views from the windows of Dublin Bay.
Taking the DART to Booterstown afterwards we spent the afternoon visiting friends there. They live in a light filled house which looks like an ordinary suburban domecile from the outside but once you step inside it is transformed. A Japanese feeling pervades with an inner courtyard of rocks and green plantings which is somehow also internal. Windows to see through to the green garden from rooms through rooms. It is a house where inside and outside interface and the light fills it up and plants can be seen from every point. There is also a wonderful art collection to enjoy. They are lovely people and it was such a pleasure to be able to spend some real time with them.
The following day it rained cats and dogs all day long and it was really quite cold.
On the Sunday Brendan Kennelly was going to launch his latest book Reservoir Voices and give a reading chaired by Micheal O'Siadhiall at the Abbey Theatre. It was the highlight of the festival at least for me. He got a standing ovation!
I was filming it and it came out well and I am very glad for that.
Friends from England were also there and Brendans' family and close friends too. All in all it was a splendid event and I feel very grateful that I could be there. He is marvellous!
The first evening I was there Anne Michaels read from her new book The Winter Vault. You may know her previous book Fugitive Pieces: a Novel, which is now a film due out any day.
I was stunned. Anne M had just arrived from the airport in Dublin from Canada, she lives in Toronto, nevertheless she was sharp and an excellent reader. Focussed, thoughtful, wise and humane. The kind of person I would love to be and to have as a friend!
It was such a special treat to be abe to go to here reading first thing.
The next day it was work time...I filmed a poet in Dalkey who lived in a wonderfully quirky house up a lane which looked like it could have been in the country in France. She had some lovely cats, a huge feline family; grandmother, uncles, mother and kittens all together...She also prepared an amazingly delicious lunch complete with strawberries and cream. The filming went very well at the top of the house with views from the windows of Dublin Bay.
Taking the DART to Booterstown afterwards we spent the afternoon visiting friends there. They live in a light filled house which looks like an ordinary suburban domecile from the outside but once you step inside it is transformed. A Japanese feeling pervades with an inner courtyard of rocks and green plantings which is somehow also internal. Windows to see through to the green garden from rooms through rooms. It is a house where inside and outside interface and the light fills it up and plants can be seen from every point. There is also a wonderful art collection to enjoy. They are lovely people and it was such a pleasure to be able to spend some real time with them.
The following day it rained cats and dogs all day long and it was really quite cold.
On the Sunday Brendan Kennelly was going to launch his latest book Reservoir Voices and give a reading chaired by Micheal O'Siadhiall at the Abbey Theatre. It was the highlight of the festival at least for me. He got a standing ovation!
I was filming it and it came out well and I am very glad for that.
Friends from England were also there and Brendans' family and close friends too. All in all it was a splendid event and I feel very grateful that I could be there. He is marvellous!
Tuesday, 9 June 2009
Wolf
Wolf has arrived at Sheep Cottage!
He is coming to live here because his humans had too many dogs for where they are living now. They train gundogs (hunting still goes on here) and could not give Wolf enough attention, he is a GSD aka an Alsatian. He will be seven in September on the Equinox.
Wolf is so full of joie de vivre. He is lovely! With brown velvety eyes and a sparkle for life. We are in love with him.
I sat on the lawn chair sipping my morning tea while he lay in the grass next to me and we were waking up together. He licked my free hand and lay on his back exposing his belly and rubbing his back, paws folded. I scratched his chest and under his chin.
Morning love.
One day and one night and he seems to be settling in very smoothely indeed.
The cats are cautious but with time they will get used to him and his zest for life!
As soon as I have a good pic I shall post it.
That was what was missing here; a wolf, surrounded by sheep and lambs and Red Riding Hood living in Sheep Cottage...
He is coming to live here because his humans had too many dogs for where they are living now. They train gundogs (hunting still goes on here) and could not give Wolf enough attention, he is a GSD aka an Alsatian. He will be seven in September on the Equinox.
Wolf is so full of joie de vivre. He is lovely! With brown velvety eyes and a sparkle for life. We are in love with him.
I sat on the lawn chair sipping my morning tea while he lay in the grass next to me and we were waking up together. He licked my free hand and lay on his back exposing his belly and rubbing his back, paws folded. I scratched his chest and under his chin.
Morning love.
One day and one night and he seems to be settling in very smoothely indeed.
The cats are cautious but with time they will get used to him and his zest for life!
As soon as I have a good pic I shall post it.
That was what was missing here; a wolf, surrounded by sheep and lambs and Red Riding Hood living in Sheep Cottage...
Monday, 8 June 2009
Penny flying!
My sister sent this out to family and friends recently.
I realise how little I know of her dreams. She had wished to do something like this and got her wish granted this summer.
Several years ago she went rafting on the Zambesi river and being a horse woman I expect she is often performing amazing jumps. Penny is an adventurer. I miss her very much, have not see her in ages,
Wednesday, 3 June 2009
Dublin calling
This time tomorrow I shall be in Dublin since a whole day!
Cornucopia, walk around, soak in the atmosphere and the many tongues spoken there and the many faces from all over.
It is the Dublin Writers Festival and I am going to see friends and also to film performances.
Dublin calls about once a year...wish it was more often, but there is only so much time for all and everything.
Today I had my hair sorted out. It was one big birdsnest rasta horsetail! It took the kind women two hours to untangle! Now it is all straight, and two inches off length and fringe. The civilised look is for Dublin. Around here it does not really matter!
Seriously it doesn't, the sheep have the same coiffure as I!
Cornucopia, walk around, soak in the atmosphere and the many tongues spoken there and the many faces from all over.
It is the Dublin Writers Festival and I am going to see friends and also to film performances.
Dublin calls about once a year...wish it was more often, but there is only so much time for all and everything.
Today I had my hair sorted out. It was one big birdsnest rasta horsetail! It took the kind women two hours to untangle! Now it is all straight, and two inches off length and fringe. The civilised look is for Dublin. Around here it does not really matter!
Seriously it doesn't, the sheep have the same coiffure as I!
Tuesday, 2 June 2009
Slaughter house
These long summery days do bring a wave of killing with them. That is very hard to deal with.
Our three cats are continiuosly hunting, baby bunnies and rodents mostly but occasionally a bird too.
It breaks my heart.
Myles is an awesome hunter and often shares his spoil with either Fergus or Luna. Whoever gets to the death room first. That is the back porch. We also have a killing chair where at night when we are asleep they go to crunch rodents.
The next day there is clean-up! We have by now quite a collection of bunny tails. Should I make a hat for winter?
This is the other side of having cats. We love them so much and they have a good life here but the wildlife around us do not.
After his feasting Myles usually has a very long digesting nap...before he is at it again. He even had a Daddy Longlegs for a wee snack the other day as he was lying in the shade.
I am enjoying this weather immensely given that the two previous summers were more like rainy winters. But the slaughtering...
Our three cats are continiuosly hunting, baby bunnies and rodents mostly but occasionally a bird too.
It breaks my heart.
Myles is an awesome hunter and often shares his spoil with either Fergus or Luna. Whoever gets to the death room first. That is the back porch. We also have a killing chair where at night when we are asleep they go to crunch rodents.
The next day there is clean-up! We have by now quite a collection of bunny tails. Should I make a hat for winter?
This is the other side of having cats. We love them so much and they have a good life here but the wildlife around us do not.
After his feasting Myles usually has a very long digesting nap...before he is at it again. He even had a Daddy Longlegs for a wee snack the other day as he was lying in the shade.
I am enjoying this weather immensely given that the two previous summers were more like rainy winters. But the slaughtering...
Sunday, 31 May 2009
The last day of the Merry Month of May
Today was the most beautiful day of the year so far!
Like a summer day, it unfolded from a warm sunny morning under a blue sky to a long day of blue and sun and a zephyr breeze.
The birds were ecstatic, the blue tits in the slate birdhouse were actively feeding their young and I discovered by chance that coal tits had a nest in an old rusty drainpipe by Robert the shepherds' sheep field. I thought they were in a gooseberry bush but it was in fact hiding the pipe!
A halcyon summer day if ever there was one. We did some laundry so it could line dry in the breeze and hot sun.
The cats were out all day and did not sleep for hours on end which they do during inclement weather.
I planted some calendula and lobelias, my Mormors favourites, along the path to the door. I also planted other plants that needed to go in now. The seeds are growing in leaps and bounds. I watered in the evening after the heat of the sun.
However the evening was light until way past 10 pm!
Lying under a tree looking up at the canopy and thinking/day dreaming I felt as though I was on vacation!
The lambs and the ewes have this sing song going on where the lamb first baas and then the ewe replies. It is really special to listen to because all the baas are different!
Once in a while I heard the horse down the lane make a sound like a humph, that and the pheasants, the dogs barking from other farms around and an occasional rooster crow made me feel like I was in heaven. Pure heaven on earth.
What a place this is! I love it when it is summery.
Yesterday I went to an oldfashioned village fete at Humshaugh at the Vicarage! The Vicar presided with the help of the local MP and wife. There were plenty of raffles, a plant sale, a rubber ducky pool, a book stall, bric a brac, cake competitions, and delicious teas on the Vicarage lawn surrounded by shrubs like lilacs and rhododendrons. I bought a euphorbia for a shady spot and three good books for a pound! A folk group named Canny Crack played Northumbrian music and children had their faces painted and danced. It was so much like the "Miss Marple world" I was practically waiting for the call and the hush after a body was discovered in the church or village hall. The Vicars wife was wearing periwinkle blue and a white hat and shoes. It was really a sweet afternoon apart from one oddity. There was a ferret run where children were supposed to guess which plastic pipe it would come out of. They were numbered and the sand coloured rather chubby ferret was first placed in a drum like thing and then the owner beat on the drum and the ferret started scrambling. Poor little thing and in that heat and noise.
I bet that ferret could not wait for the fete to be over.
Like a summer day, it unfolded from a warm sunny morning under a blue sky to a long day of blue and sun and a zephyr breeze.
The birds were ecstatic, the blue tits in the slate birdhouse were actively feeding their young and I discovered by chance that coal tits had a nest in an old rusty drainpipe by Robert the shepherds' sheep field. I thought they were in a gooseberry bush but it was in fact hiding the pipe!
A halcyon summer day if ever there was one. We did some laundry so it could line dry in the breeze and hot sun.
The cats were out all day and did not sleep for hours on end which they do during inclement weather.
I planted some calendula and lobelias, my Mormors favourites, along the path to the door. I also planted other plants that needed to go in now. The seeds are growing in leaps and bounds. I watered in the evening after the heat of the sun.
However the evening was light until way past 10 pm!
Lying under a tree looking up at the canopy and thinking/day dreaming I felt as though I was on vacation!
The lambs and the ewes have this sing song going on where the lamb first baas and then the ewe replies. It is really special to listen to because all the baas are different!
Once in a while I heard the horse down the lane make a sound like a humph, that and the pheasants, the dogs barking from other farms around and an occasional rooster crow made me feel like I was in heaven. Pure heaven on earth.
What a place this is! I love it when it is summery.
Yesterday I went to an oldfashioned village fete at Humshaugh at the Vicarage! The Vicar presided with the help of the local MP and wife. There were plenty of raffles, a plant sale, a rubber ducky pool, a book stall, bric a brac, cake competitions, and delicious teas on the Vicarage lawn surrounded by shrubs like lilacs and rhododendrons. I bought a euphorbia for a shady spot and three good books for a pound! A folk group named Canny Crack played Northumbrian music and children had their faces painted and danced. It was so much like the "Miss Marple world" I was practically waiting for the call and the hush after a body was discovered in the church or village hall. The Vicars wife was wearing periwinkle blue and a white hat and shoes. It was really a sweet afternoon apart from one oddity. There was a ferret run where children were supposed to guess which plastic pipe it would come out of. They were numbered and the sand coloured rather chubby ferret was first placed in a drum like thing and then the owner beat on the drum and the ferret started scrambling. Poor little thing and in that heat and noise.
I bet that ferret could not wait for the fete to be over.
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