Out in the fields with Lyra today I was admiring her running, all windswept fur over really quite powerful muscles, then slowing down to confident, positively Chauserian, sashay of the hips. I thought back to two Alsatian pups we met by the lake a few days ago. Their gait couldn’t have been be more different.Continue reading “Animal Instincts”
Category Archives: musings
Alluvia
I should, of course, have known better. When the answer to the question “what weather are the hills predicting?” is “what hills would those be?” the prudent response is to abandon the walk immediately. Yesterday I ignored the still small voice of landscape based weather prediction (which sounds annoyingly like my mum who is, naturally,Continue reading “Alluvia”
The lure of the infinitesimal white dot
An unfortunate brush with a butter burr on the way home from a tramp around the fields recently necessitated some unscheduled canine hair brushing. Lyra must have realised the dreadful consequences of her decision to explore the undergrowth in the little wood almost immediately as, rather than linger chatting to the coos with me atContinue reading “The lure of the infinitesimal white dot”
The kindly smirr
A gentle smirr of rain has been hanging in the air all day today so I have been gifted a cast iron excuse to keep out of the garden (where I have been labouring in stakhanovite fashion the last few days). As always, initial excitement at the boundless horizon of possible indoor activities caused aContinue reading “The kindly smirr”
Pigeon post
Mum is now confined to barracks. Under extensive forensic cross examination she finally admitted that the sore ankle previously designated as “fine” was actually extremely painful. As she refused to lie on the sofa eating violet creams in the required manner, I gave her the much ignored (other than by moths and one of theContinue reading “Pigeon post”
Not the only fruit
A week or so ago we took delivery of sixteen kilos of organic seville oranges. As you do… Keith, who instigated this foray into wholesale fruit, had first dibs for his marmalade. He lined up a friend to come and enjoy a “marmalade masterclass”. Alas, delivery date confusion meant that Anne’s visit preceded delivery ofContinue reading “Not the only fruit”
Snowdrop time
As the snow dwindled, the frost set in with the melt reforming overnight into hardened pools of ice, grey and strangely rounded, like melted candles. The paths around the fields set into uncomfortably frosty ridges. Mum and I trudged on stoically in the quest for extra steps and fancy camera angles and the family soupContinue reading “Snowdrop time”
What counts
January always seems to bring drifts of numbers. I gather them up into neat daily stacks and string lines between the peaks to observe the trend. The daily kilo count (I stick to metric as it feels less real than imperial) hovers minutely up and down, refusing to transform to a downhill slide. My tallyContinue reading “What counts”
A dryish white season
As we waved off the last visitor of the festive season the members of Team Ruthven all felt a rest from Bacchanalian practices might be in order. Approaches differed. Keith declared the commencement of “Dryish January” and then promptly took Lachlan to the pub for a last hurrah. Mum and I took the moral highContinue reading “A dryish white season”
And so it was Christmas…
Christmas stole rather softly over Ruthven House this year. The bellwether of preparedness that is Monkey’s jumper was competed with 48 hours to spare and by Christmas Eve there was a fridge replete with pigs in blankets and stuffing balls, a lemon meringue pie cooling on the cake stand and, in an unprecedented feat ofContinue reading “And so it was Christmas…”
Live from Ruthven 