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: wildlife
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”
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”
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”
Low Noon
A little overnight snow brought the temperature up a touch yesterday and today there are signs of a slight thaw. The crackle and crunch as we pass has been replaced by a soft shoe shuffle. Evidence of overnight revels abound. One of the compost heap bunnies has dashed across the frozen pond top, pursued byContinue reading “Low Noon”
We are not alone
We have had two days now of hard frost, following the weekend’s snow. Keith is trudging stoically up and down with barrows of logs, manning the fires and the cats are, as ever, keeping the bed warm. With Lachlan in Edinburgh, filling in time til his exam by acting as our remote shopper (today IContinue reading “We are not alone”
Kindling
It’s getting just a touch cooler. On Monday I lit the log burner in the evening for the first time in ages and today the chimney sweep is coming so we can finally get the living room fire going. Of logs, post Storm Arwen, there is a superabundance but I do rather miss the FinancialContinue reading “Kindling”
A middling type
Autumn, like spring, summer and winter, is definitely my favourite season. Everything just feels so much less frenetic. It is warm and sunny enough to make walking the pooch or pottering in the garden a pleasure, but there’s enough intermittent cloud cover to justify a little indoor sloth and pootering, guilt free. Lyra and IContinue reading “A middling type”
Live from Ruthven 