Ropes Let Down to the Lost

I went down to the sea late this afternoon. The sun was setting in pools of pink gold behind me, but as I walked around the headland, the sky was a wash of early evening blues and greys and lavender, hazed with clouds, and with a vast moon rising: luminous, silver-gilt, almost full. The mountains behind the bay just lightly sketched - mist on mist.
The sea itself was pale, the way it goes at dusk, strangely colourless, but magical.

I needed some air.
I needed to clear away the weekend's cobwebs, and the dogs were only too happy to keep me company. We went in silence, just the rush of the high tide chasing itself into the bay, the clatter of dragging stones as the big waves receded. Nothing else.
It was cold, but we didn't hurry, it was too beautiful to leave.
I wished I'd taken a camera. Even my phone with its cracked screen.

The crisp breeze soon cleared the tangles in my head. Tangles, mostly, of other peoples' problems - as if my own weren't enough! Cold air is very cleansing. 

And then, into the stillness slipped Mary Oliver.
As she so often does - her words slip in so easily.
She died this week, that wonderful poet.
I hope she is even now considering her eternity 'as another possibility'.

Perhaps standing on the prow of the headland, staring into the darkening, busy waves brought her back to me:

'I go down to the shore in the morning
and depending on the hour the waves
are rolling in or moving out,
and I say, oh, I am miserable,
what shall—
what should I do? And the sea says
in its lovely voice:
Excuse me, I have work to do.'

Or perhaps she was in my mind anyway, having just left us.

With Model Dog leaning her comforting weight against my legs in the long, rough grass, the second thought came swiftly on the heels of the first - how could it not, while I was standing there in the gloaming, with that mauve-brindled sky and the childishly perfect moon.

'Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.'

As I put the dogs back into the car, it was inevitable that, having brought her to mind, her most poignant lines of all echoed through my head, as they often do - so very often, many a time with more than a hint of reproach:

'Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?'   

What indeed?

With time spooling out behind me and all.
But while I try to puzzle that one out, I can only be grateful for what you did with yours, Mary.


'...poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.'


 

The rooks were going to bed by moonlight as I got home

 

You Have Been Loved

She came to us back in the summer of 2000.
I think I remember the date so easily because, not only was it Millennium Year, but also, most of my family were visiting from the UK to celebrate my parents 50th Wedding Anniversary.
The circumstances of how she came were unusual enough to need no aide-memoire.
Three little boys, classmates of my sons, rang the front door bell.
'Is this your kitten?' they asked guilelessly. 'We found it on the bridge.'

So lovable

I didn't think for a moment that they had found her on the bridge, I assumed she was from an unwanted litter, but the bridge is narrow and sees a constant flow of traffic, and would be a very dangerous place for a tiny kitten, so it made a perfect opening gambit.
We had quite a few cats at the time, most of which had been dumped on us, literally dumped. - just left in sacks or boxes somewhere on our property. Everyone knew we were animal-lovers, and back then neutering just didn't happen by and large - especially for cats.
'Have you tried Denise?' I asked hopefully, although I wasn't counting on anything. Denise, who lived at the other end of the bridge, was another cat-lover.
'Yes,' they replied promptly.

I looked at the kitten and knew that the patience of three small boys wouldn't stretch very far. I guess her future hadn't really been in doubt from the moment I opened the door.

My boys fell in love with her straight away

My own two small boys were thrilled to bits, the In-Charge less so, but he's good at bowing to the inevitable.
Dottie was over the moon, but then Dottie loved nothing so much as someone who needed a bit of mothering, and the kitten was only too happy to be mothered.
We named her Pushkin, but mostly she was called Pushy

Beautiful Dottie was a born mother

Even the puppies loved her.
But then, she was a very lovable cat.

She got on with everybody

She rapidly became #1 Son's cat, and - unbeknownst to me - slept in his bed every night.
When I say in his bed, I mean in his bed. Apparently, she wasn't content with curling up in the crook of his knees or anything external, she would crawl under the duvet and lie against him, playing the piano with her little claws against his tummy.
She was quite happy being smothered under the bedclothes, and he adored her.
She disappeared once - while I was out shopping - and we turned the place upside-down, frantically searching for her. Eventually we found her in the bottom of the sleeping bag stuffed underneath his bed, warm and boneless and fast asleep.

SurferSon adored her too

She was quite a small cat. What the In-Charge calls 'a short wheel-base', but she was a demon-hunter nonetheless, and when she'd caught something she'd come to the back door, yowling like a soul in pain until I went out to be presented with her trophy.
I remember one evening, she was curled up on my lap in the Library, when some movement caught my eye. To my horror, a mouse was scurrying along the bottom edge of the bookcase. I don't mind how many mice live in my sheds, but I do not like sharing my living space with them, I'm afraid. As a sort of reflex action, I threw Pushy off my lap. From fast asleep, to - literally - the mouse firmly locked in her jaws was instantaneous. In cars it would be 1-60 in two seconds.
I picked her up gingerly and put her outside the front door and, politely, neither of us mentioned the incident again.

One of her favourite perches - an old ladder propping up the Solanum crispum

The potager was her private garden

She loved the garden. On sunny days she'd always be out in the potager, sleeping on the bench, or stretched out on the warm gravel - highly camouflaged. In really hot weather, I'd find her curled under a shrub.

I nearly trod on her often, lying right beside me, she just disappeared into the gravel

If I was working outside, she'd always come and roll in the flower bed beside me, and many a time she'd take me on a tour of the whole garden if I'd been away for a few days, as if to tell me that she'd looked after everything in my absence.

Rhubarb from her very own potager

In the house, she was the only cat allowed beyond the kitchen door, because she was the only one who could be trusted never to pee in some corner if she got shut in for too long.
These last few years she's had her own little routine. #1 Son has worked abroad for years now, but if SurferSon was home, she'd usually go to bed with him. If not, she'd go outside for the night, spurning the cat beds I have thoughtfully placed in the turf shed in favour of doing who-knows-what, although in the mornings she would generally appear from the direction of the garden.

Breakfast was always on the kitchen window sill, where she could enjoy the sunshine, if there was any, and, from the comfort of her warm seat, watch the birds on the bird-table outside the window, no doubt catching at least a dozen in between mouthfuls of food. The window-sill was her domain, where she could take as long as she liked to eat, as none of the other cats were allowed up there to muscle in on her. Afterwards, she would wait patiently by the door until I let her into the house where she'd spend the entire day either following the sun, or just sleeping on our bed until supper time.
If we were at home, she'd then spend as much of the evening as possible on my lap.

She helped me knit the pole warmer for Beltra Market

She'd not been in great form, the last little while, and I knew she was slipping, but she was still eating well, and sitting in my lap every evening. But finally I took her to the vet to see if there was anything we could do to make her more comfortable.
So soon after losing my little Pixie, I was desperately hoping she'd be all right for a few more months.
It was such a relief to bring her home with antibiotics and a glimmer of hope that I felt a bit light-headed, but by the next morning we knew she wasn't happy, and that is the only signal I ever need.
We took her in together, the In-Charge and I, and held her, and told her how much she'd been loved.


It is the end of an era, to lose someone who has been a part of the family for so long.
Such a quiet, untroublesome little member of the family, too.
It was only when I drove her to the vet's that first day, I realized that I couldn't even remember when she had last left the property. She has never been sick. And she was as good as gold in the car, not making a sound, just staring at me with saucer-wide eyes while I tried to stroke her through the bars of the cat basket.

Even SuperModel loved her, against all her lurcher principles

It is a couple of weeks ago now, that we lost her, but I haven't felt able to put it down in black and white.  It was so hard, after losing my little Pixie just a few weeks ago.
The house seems empty.
My lap is cold and empty night after night.
I miss her. I see her every day in so many places. I go into our room for something and - before I catch myself - I find I am wondering why she's not lying on my bed in the sun. Her blanket is still on the sofa in the drawing room - I've shied away from moving it.

SurferSon came home for her funeral, and wept with us, but #1 Son was far away, doing exams that day, so we didn't tell him until afterwards. Everyone else came too. They usually do, though it's up to them.
Model Dog sat shaking, pressed against me, and then lay down and put her head into the grave. SuperModel danced around the edges and wouldn't come very close, her eyes big and anxious. In the kitchen, when I had left her in her bed for them all to say goodbye, Model Dog had licked her face and SuperModel had nudged her, and nudged her again, as if to try and make her get up.
Hobbes and Henri, who had circled her and sniffed, and stared, sat near us in the orchard and watched, wide-eyed and sombre.
And Hobbes has been restless and upset since she went, walking round the kitchen crying.
He misses her too.
She was only a little cat, and very quiet.
But she's left a huge gap that none of us quite knows how to fill.
 

She didn't take up much space, but she's left a massive gap

A Funeral

This morning I was at the funeral of a friend's husband who died, very suddenly, last Friday.
I don't know how many times I woke up last night, her face in my mind, her loss heavy on me, like too many blankets.

The funeral might have been sooner, possibly, but their beautiful younger son was abroad with his school, and had to be fetched home. A shocking and tragic way for his exchange trip to end and I wonder if either he or his mother will ever want to visit that country again for the associations it must now have.
A whole group of us were there, together, this morning, amongst the packed congregation, to do what little we could to show our love and support for them all.

I felt very conscious of what a tiny thing it is, to be physically there for someone in their loss. How can the presence of another person alleviate your suffering? How lucky I am, not to know first-hand, but I can't help but wonder if, like a wounded animal, you'd rather hide away, curled up in solitary darkness, and howl until the whole infinity of space registers your distress, your fury.
Perhaps that comes later. Perhaps shock, like a local anaesthetic, protects you from yourself for a short while.
But what steel it must take to enter the church yourself, however loving your friends - knowing that the savaged, raw innards of your heart are on public display, on such public display.
It was humbling to see the dignity and courage my friend and her family showed this morning.

And this afternoon it has started to rain.
I think it is what, in literature, is called pathetic fallacy.
We have been cocooned in warmth, sunshine and stillness for the entire month since we returned from Italy. Living in a bubble, almost as if we were still on holiday, living in a borrowed world. A world made robust by sun, sea and mountains, new vistas, old culture.

This morning I also learned that the plane my son was travelling on, returning to Europe from a job in Florida, had to make an emergency landing before reaching its destination. They waited, anxiously no doubt, while technicians flocked to make whatever was wrong safe again.
How strong everything seems, all the elements of our individual worlds; endlessly tensile. But in reality, how fragile it all is. 


The In-Charge is outside splitting logs. I can hear the steady, rhythmic thud and crack as the axe bites into each round.
A satisfyingly physical occupation, the rain at his back.
Perhaps that's what I should be doing.
Instead I'm looking alternately at a screen and out at the grey, wet autumn afternoon, a fire spitting half-heartedly in the stove beside me.
I'm not really seeing any of them.
Mostly I'm seeing my friend's pale face as I hugged her, composed around her grief, her eyes clear and calm, her eyelids still flushed with midnight tears.

Farewell, My Lovely

Pixie learning about cuddles

Long years ago, I was the Editor of a magazine here in the North West, Editor being a euphemistic term as I wrote 90% of the content and most of the ads.
The magazine's office moved from here to there and back again. In 2009 it occupied the ground floor of an old house in Sligo town, its back rooms overlooking a wilderness that might once have been a small garden, and a shed - crammed to the gunnels - that might have been a garage. The wall at the back of the garden was new, 15 feet high, screening off the ring road/N4. There was no access out from the back garden.

On my first day I walked into the dark and dismal kitchen to put the kettle on and found a container of dog food. Uneasily I waved it at Simon, the office manager.
'There's a kitten,' he said apologetically. 'In the garden.'
When I asked how old the kitten was he made a vague gesture with his hands showing something about 6 inches (15cm) long.
My heart sank.
At the first available opportunity I walked round to Tesco and bought kitten milk and food and disposed of the dog biscuits.
'Sorry,' Simon said. 'I don't know anything about cats.'
All the greater blessings on him for caring in that case.

On top of the wall, catching the last rays of sun in her bat-like ears

Simon would go out and leave the milk and kitten food for her, and - much later - we'd find the empty bowls with leaves or litter pulled over to hide them.
'She got something wrong with her eyes,' Simon said. Her mother had left, or died, and so had her siblings. Inevitably I started to feel more anxious about her every day.
'We've got enough cats,' the In-Charge said - rather over-emphatically, I felt., when I shared my concerns.
Anyway his warnings were superfluous. I never saw the kitten.
She was far too shy to come out if 'people' were around. I just caught a fleeting glimpse now and again of a grey, nondescript little creature with runny eyes, but that was it.

She trusted Simon though, and I brought him a ping pong ball to try and entice her out to play. I couldn't bear the loneliness of her. You can't stop kittens playing, normally, but this one never appeared.
Little by little it worked, and he'd sit on a chair and throw it after she'd had her milk. It took her awhile to realise what was going on, but soon she started to run after it, but her eyes were a mess, and I noticed - from the office window - that she could only clock the ball if it moved quite slowly.
It broke my heart that she was so frightened she hid all day in the back of the filthy, dark, crammed shed, with no company and no comfort, becoming more terrified every day as her sight diminished.
One day Simon said he'd seen her sitting in the front window of the derelict house next door, peering out.
I have never been able to pass that window since without thinking of her - locked in and solitary.
Like someone condemned.

Ludicrous Pixie. A favourite position

Easter was looming, and the In-Charge was planning to go to the UK to visit #1 son whose birthday coincided with the bank holiday weekend. I was caught up with the magazine schedule.
Secretly, I made a plan.
'Start picking her up,' I said to Simon. 'When she's near, pick her up and put her straight down again, so she gets used to being handled.'
He looked like I'd asked him to tame a tiger.
'We have to get her to a vet!' I explained desperately. 'The sooner the better, and the bank holiday weekend is D-Day!'

Amazingly it worked.  Pixie - as we had named her - didn't savage him, and every day it was easier to lift her under her plumping little tummy. As soon as the In-Charge had departed, I whisked in to Sligo with the cat basket, Simon enticed her out and into the basket she went.

Even more ludicrous Pixie. Another favourite position

In some ways, that's when the troubles really began.
She went crazy on the long journey home, terrified - frantically trying to escape and screaming the whole way. Her poorly eyes - battered against the wire cage - started to bleed.
Somehow I gritted my teeth and held on, but by the time I'd transferred her into the big 'hospital' cage at home (no mean feat), I knew it wasn't going to be as simple as a quick visit to the vet the next day. I called instead and they gave me antibiotics for her. They said it was almost certainly cat flu and that the prognosis for her eyes wasn't good, with such a long-standing infection.

She lived in the corner of the kitchen, as many other animals have done before and since. Where they are warm, can see and be seen, but feel quite safe from all the other creatures who also live here.
Every day I would lift the lid of the cage and put my hand in to stroke her gently.
She never tried to attack, but every day she dived under the litter in her tray trying to hide rather than be touched.
It broke my heart. I started to wonder if this would be the first cat to defeat me.
I rang the vet again. 'I'm sure she's in pain,' I said. 'Can I give her the dog's pain killer?' I still had some of my beloved Juno's arthritis pain relief in the cupboard.
The vet stressed, and stressed again how little I was to give this tiny scrap - 'Otherwise you will kill her,' she said. She's German and doesn't beat around the bush.

The best way to catch birds, she decided, was lying in wait in the bird bath...

I measured the infinitesimal amount onto some tinned sardine, put the dish in the cage and went away.
When I came back, Pixie was lying flat on her stomach, her chin stretched out on the blanket and two legs sticking out each side, like a cartoon cat. She was out for the count.
She was still like that when I went to bed.
I gulped, checked her breathing and left her to it.

However, when I came down the next morning, she was sitting up in her bed, and when I lifted the lid and reached in carefully to stroke her, she purred and pushed her head up under my hand.
Five minutes later, she was sitting in my lap, purring ecstatically, and she's spent a very considerable amount of time doing just that ever since.
I think it was the first time since her mother had left, months before, that she had slept properly, with no anxiety and no pain. The poor darling, she must have been exhausted.

Most of her life was spent sleeping after she came to us

'I see we've got another cat,' the In-Charge said tonelessly when he returned.
That was, as I recall, the end of that conversation.

Sadly, her eyes didn't recover. She was totally blind in one and had perhaps 40% vision through the scar tissue in the other, so only about 25% overall. 'She'll be fine,' the vet said. 'She just won't climb.'
Oh really?
I came home one day to find her on the roof of our two storey shed, walking along the ridge, and her favourite place to sit in the early days was on top of the courtyard wall in the last of the evening sun, having shimmied up the wooden ladder in Popsicle's wake to get there.
But she never caught birds, although she was beside herself with pride the day she caught a fly.

Peruvian Pixie

She was a quiet little cat. 'Your baby,' the In-Charge always called her. She didn't bother anyone, and she didn't upset me by catching the birds. She loved being cuddled and slept in the back kitchen. Because of her sight we didn't shut her out at night with the others, unless she particularly wanted to go. Every morning she would weave around my ankles and when I said 'Are you rolling for cuddles?' she'd tuck her head down onto the floor and roll over so I could rub her tummy. It was a daft little ritual, but it started both our days with a smile.

On that first morning, when I let her out of the cage, she went off and explored the garden.
I let her go. She would have been about 7 months old by then, tiny, but not a baby any more.
I remember feeling sick when she didn't come back, but I just waited for one hour, two hours... and eventually her little face peered round the corner of the courtyard. I don't know who was more relieved.
She loved the garden and the orchard, and the courtyard, where she could lie in the sun all summer. In the winter she appropriated the little basket underneath the wood burning stove in the kitchen, where she'd bake herself for hours on end.

Sunbathing in the orchard

Until yesterday.
She didn't seem well in the morning. She was breathing rather quickly, although I couldn't see what was wrong. We've been away, and I thought she looked a bit thinner when we got back, but nothing to worry about, and our sweet friend Clare, who'd looked after everyone, hadn't said anything was amiss.
I was out during the day, and in the evening I had to go and find her which is unusual. She was lying outside on a bag of gravel. I brought her in an put her in her bed. She wasn't interested in her supper, and I could hear her breathing - it sounded a bit bubbly.
I gave her some rescue remedy and decided that I'd call the vet today, even though it is Sunday.
But by 10 o'clock last night, I knew I couldn't wait that long.
It's 40 minutes to the vets from our house. She was waiting for me when I arrived and I could tell by her face that it wasn't good news, as soon as she saw Pixie. 'I'm glad you rang,' was all she said.

There wasn't anything she could do. She gave her a sedative to take the pain away and something to ease her breathing, and then she made her a hot water bottle and we wrapped her in a blanket while we talked over all the possibilities, but the awful truth was that she was dying, by painful degrees - and neither of us knew why.
There aren't any poisons that we know about around our property. It's possible that she had some tumour or something going on inside, but basically she seemed to be suffering from some sort of pulmonary thrombosis. There was blood in the spittle bubbling from her mouth, and it was agonising listening to her breathing. She was very cold, as well - the blood was leaving her extremities and flooding her lungs.

It had all happened so quickly and I couldn't bear to let her carry on in such distress and pain.
I held her in my hands. It was the least and the most I could do for her.
And I cried.

You'd recognise those bat-ears anywhere

Just 6 years we've had her.
It's not long, in the scheme of things. But it was such a happy 6 years for her.
Sweet little Pixie. She was my baby 6 days after I first knew about her.
As my mother has often said, animals leave a bigger space behind than they occupy in life.
Pixie took up so little room.
I will miss those little blind eyes, looking at me in total trust.
I'll miss her rolling for cuddles every morning.
I'll just miss her.

Christmas Pixie

The King is Dead, Long Live the King!

I'm feeling very sad today.
Wellington is dead.
He had an eye infection, which we've been treating for the last two weeks with oral antibiotics and ointment, and I thought he seemed much brighter. But last night when I carried him in to the kitchen for his dose, he felt a bit limp. I wondered if he was all right, but I put it down to the lateness of the hour. I'd been out at a meeting, so we didn't get to treat him until nearly midnight, when he would have been well and truly asleep anyway.

Wellington, the King of the Castle

Poor Wellington. He was dead in his bed this morning.
It's the way they go, generally, birds. In the wee, small hours of the night, but I've never got used to finding someone dead in the hen house. Especially not Wellington.

He weighed over nine and a half pounds. I couldn't believe it.
We knew he was a big boy, but I was amazed when I found out how heavy he actually was. We had to weigh him for the medication - our friend the Cement-Sculptor staggered onto the scales holding him firmly in both hands.
Nearly ten pounds. That's four and a half bags of sugar. It's a lot of bird.

We buried him in the orchard this morning.
ModelDog sat very close to my legs and leaned down to peer into his grave.
She doesn't like graves.
SuperModel disliked the whole sorry process so much that she boycotted the funeral - well, almost.
She compromised and lay under the neighbouring apple tree, watching us and yawning self consciously. It was obvious she didn't want to be there.
I wrapped him in a tea towel that had a map of Jersey on it - it seemed appropriate, as he was a Jersey Giant, although he'd never been to the Channel Islands, map or no map.
Perhaps he'll go now. Make his way to his ancestral fields that look to France one way and England the other. I'm sure he'll like it there.

He was a big boy, and looked all spit and polish

I put a bunch of Felicite and Perpetue roses in his grave too, and a sprig of rosemary. I always put rosemary in anyone's grave flowers. 'There’s rosemary, that’s for remembrance. Pray you, love, remember.'
Because I'll always remember.
I nearly picked some fennel too, but not pansies, or columbine. And not rue.
The French boys dug up all my rue and threw it away, so there is no more rue.
Just plenty of rueing.

The French boys dug up all the rue

The In-Charge and I stood in the orchard, trying to remember when we got him, Wellington.
I remember the night well enough. I met a friend up at the lay by in the next village, and he opened up the back of his Landrover and took this huge, black cockerel out of a cage and handed him to me, and in return I gave him a bag of layers pellets.
'There you go,' he said. 'Just wait til your ladies get a sight of him, they won't know themselves!'
He was right. They followed him everywhere, he was a beauty.
A great, gentle giant.

Wellington keeping Napoleon in his place back in the day

As we stood paying our respects, a rather frenetic figure hurried across the grass not far from us.
He paused at regular intervals to crow as loudly as possible.
Heinz von Bitzen.

'The King is dead. Long live the King!' the In-Charge commented dryly

But it will take a while before he assumes the crown in my head.
And none of the hens paid the slightest heed either.
Despite Napoleon, his Imperial grandfather, he just doesn't have the presence.
Perhaps he'll grow into it.

Heinz von Bitzen

  

Farewell, Seamus Heaney

Portrait of Seamus Heaney by Peter Edwards c 1987

I was fortunate enough to hear Seamus Heaney reading his poetry some years ago.
Many, many poets should be prevented at all costs from reading their own work.
Perhaps it is a fear of being overcome by emotion that makes so many writers assume a toneless, deadpan voice when reading, or perhaps they take their work too seriously, but whatever the reason, the results can be dire.


It was not like that with Seamus Heaney.
He sat easily on a stool and talked about growing up in Northern Ireland.
I was just one of an audience, but it felt as if there was no one else in the room, as if his words were in response to some question I had asked.
The images of his home, of relatives and neighbours, of life in Derry during the 40s and 50s, were painted swiftly and vividly and economically, but they were real and three-dimensional and made me feel as if I had known them, or at the very least, visited them for myself.  And he spoke poignantly of his father, and of rural traditions in his local area, and of the Troubles.

Perhaps in consequence of that, his poems, when he read them, seemed to speak of things I was familiar with. They sprang off the page and took life and form in my mind's eye, and even all these years later I remember clearly the pictures conjured by his soft understatement, the emotions that his words never actually stated.

This is one of the poems he read that day:

Mid-Term Break 

I sat all morning in the college sick bay
Counting bells knelling classes to a close.
At two o'clock our neighbours drove me home.

In the porch I met my father crying--
He had always taken funerals in his stride--
And Big Jim Evans saying it was a hard blow.

The baby cooed and laughed and rocked the pram
When I came in, and I was embarrassed
By old men standing up to shake my hand

And tell me they were "sorry for my trouble,"
Whispers informed strangers I was the eldest,
Away at school, as my mother held my hand

In hers and coughed out angry tearless sighs.
At ten o'clock the ambulance arrived
With the corpse, stanched and bandaged by the nurses.

Next morning I went up into the room. Snowdrops
And candles soothed the bedside; I saw him
For the first time in six weeks. Paler now,

Wearing a poppy bruise on his left temple,
He lay in the four foot box as in his cot.
No gaudy scars, the bumper knocked him clear.

A four foot box, a foot for every year.

And here is another:

Thatcher

Bespoke for weeks, he turned up some morning
Unexpectedly, his bicycle slung
With a light ladder and a bag of knives.
He eyed the old rigging, poked at the eaves,

Opened and handled sheaves of lashed wheat-straw.
Next, the bundled rods: hazel and willow
Were flicked for weight, twisted in case they'd snap.
It seemed he spent the morning warming up:

Then fixed the ladder, laid out well honed blades
And snipped at straw and sharpened ends of rods
That, bent in two, made a white-pronged staple
For pinning down his world, handful by handful.

Couchant for days on sods above the rafters,
He shaved and flushed the butts, stitched all together
Into a sloped honeycomb, a stubble patch,
And left them gaping at his Midas touch.

I met him later, at a garden party.

He was affable and friendly, easy to talk to. I remember thinking What do you say to someone who has at his fingertips the words that are only on the tip of your tongue?

I remember him looking at me as if waiting for a question he thought I was about to ask

Meaningful words eluded my fingertips and my tongue.

But we had a pleasant conversation and aside from our chitchat, I did ask him something.

'Of your own books, which is your favourite?'

He looked surprised and after a few moments, he said: 'I suppose I'd have to say Death of a Naturalist.'

I don't know if that was his favourite, but I can understand any writer having an umbilical link to their first book, their first-born.

I have read many of his books since then, and long ago also bought The Rattle Bag which Heaney edited alongside Ted Hughes. I had to buy it, for the simple reason that I was once lucky enough to meet Ted Hughes too.

If a poem is an image, written on the heart with words, then Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes were both truly poets.

It is a sad day when the Earth loses one of her poets, and if a poem is an image, written on the heart with words, then Seamus Heaney - and Ted Hughes - were truly poets. And how badly the Earth needs poets,  someone who speaks for her and of her without guile or sleight of wit, someone who sees beyond what others see, and who, in touching on her truths, adds something, rather than depleting, constantly depleting.

Dermot Blackburn's portrait of Seamus Heaney, 2010

Poems: Mid-Term Break and Thatcher by Seamus Heaney

In Memory

I couldn't live without animals. Literally. It would be a kind of death of the soul.
I suppose it's because I never have. Even though our family moved country every few years, we always had cats and dogs at home - pets that often, sadly - had to be given to new homes when we left, or had to spend time in kennels when we were 'on leave' in the UK.
But they were as much a part of the family as my brothers and sisters.
Just as my animals now are.

In fact, at the risk of sounding judgemental, I think that bringing children up without animals is a deprivation as bad as bringing them up without books, or clothes, or treats. I think they are an essential part of teaching children to love and share with someone outside themselves, of teaching them about caring for others, and becoming aware of the other occupants of our planet.

My biggest problem is in turning a needy animal away, and the In-Charge (also an animal lover) dreads me seeing orphaned kittens, or abandoned dogs, or anything else in distress, as he knows I won't be able to walk away. And things have only got worse in the time I've lived in Ireland, as I've always felt a moral obligation to share the  generous space we have with as many animals as possible.

But I don't think I'd make a good foster-mother, as I'd never want to part with any of the rescues that came through the gates. I wasn't very good at finding homes for the one set of kittens and one litter of puppies born on our property - I practically made any interested parties sit written exams proving how good a home they were offering.
Spanish Inquisition - eat your heart out!

I've often said that if there aren't any animals in heaven, I have no interest in going there.
      And it's true. I'd be completely lost.
      Happily, I think they'll all be lined up, waiting for me - the dogs, heads  cocked, wagging their tales fit to drop off; the cats pretending they just happened to be at the Pearly Gates by chance as I arrived. I expect even the hens will be there, busying themselves somewhere in the background.

It's been a bad year since Pet Remembrance Day last year.
We've lost so many in this twelve-month. The Little Empress died this very time last year,
     And then we lost Napoleon.
We have also lost Henrietta, and Popsicle and - a real blow - the tiny, gloriously beautiful Golden Princess, aka Mrs Smith.

But far and away the worst losses of all were my sweet boys, Top Dog and Under Dog who I still miss every single day.

 But thank goodness we had them at all. They have all, in their own  individual way, made our lives richer and better, more entertaining and more fulfilled. Pets want to be with you all the time, and don't care if you're wearing makeup or just a hessian sack, they hold nothing back, and hold nothing against you, they're sensitive, great company and entertaining and moreover, their love is absolutely unconditional.
How many people would fulfil those criteria?

Tonight I'll be lighting the candles and raising a glass (sadly, of cough mixture and night nurse) to them and all the animals we have loved and lost over the years. A toast in gratitude for ever having had them at all.
And I'll be raising another one to my fabulous Model Dog, and the TeenQueen, to Hobbes and Pushy and Pixie, to Wellington and all his girls - because I love them all and they make every day special.

I hope you'll join me in memory of all the animals you have held, or do hold dear.


It was my blog-friend, IsobelandCat who started this special Pet Remembrance Day, and she and many others all over the world - including Pix, will be saluting their animal friends today.

 Thank heaven for them all, past and present.

Sweet Boys

Oystercatchers on our favourite beach

Yesterday we went to our favourite beach.
It felt like a pilgrimage - difficult. Something to prepare yourself for.
Comforting and painful in equal parts.

The tide was out and oystercatchers clustered on the sand, along with flocks of delicate brown and white birds that I recognise but cannot name. My sister would know what they are.
A lavender grey sky, heavy with rain, paused for us on the horizon, waiting patiently until we left, but the promised wind was already flirting with the dunes, sending scarves of dry sand snaking across the surface of the beach.
No one was there.
No one but ghosts. And us.

Model Dog looked up and down the beach and raced off, but only the wind chased her and finally she walked along tucked between us, the beautiful collar I bought her for Christmas gleaming pink and gold in her camouflage fur. She wasn't sad, just a bit lonely.

We are sad though.
December has been a month full of sorrow, and memories, and gratitude, and loneliness.
We buried Under Dog in the orchard on the 1st of December. He hadn't been well for a long time, and the balance was suddenly tipping the wrong way so that I was no longer sure if enjoyment was uppermost.
We had known it was coming.
It doesn't really help much though, does it - knowing?

We didn't know at the time that it would be our last walk on the beach

But, bad as that was, there was worse to come.

What we didn't know was that Top Dog was only holding on for his brother.
Although I might have known. He's always looked after his twin, right from the start. When they were just little plippys, he'd climb in and lie on top of Under Dog in the basket to keep him safe. (Hence the name, Under Dog.) Such sweet plippys they were. They slept like that for years, until Under Dog had his awful accident and damaged his back. Top Dog never climbed in on top of him again after that.

Thirteen years we had them - and I am grateful for every one, even though time has embedded them so deep in our hearts they can't be removed without taking huge slices of us too.

Sweet plippys

Some unfathomable instinct had warned me that when one of them called time, the other wouldn't want to stay for long on his own. It's why we got Model Dog in May.
But I never dreamed we'd only have ten days grace.

It was very sudden. A quiet, happy Sunday chewing his marrow bone, but then awful pain in the evening which the vet's injections didn't really alleviate. He lay calmly in his basket all night, watching us, obviously uncomfortable, but not distressed. We wondered if he'd swallowed a bit of bone.
We hoped. Too anxious to talk, we just watched and hoped.
The vet met us again at her surgery before first light, and I held his sweet face in my hands as he fell asleep, but the operation only revealed that there was nothing to be done. It wasn't a bit of bone. Our poor Top Dog was bleeding internally from a tumour tangling around his blood vessels and the kindest thing was to kiss him and let him go with our blessing, without waking up.
The kindest thing for him, not for us.

He had seemed so fit and well. Ageing, but fit and well.
But it explained why he hasn't wanted to walk very far recently. Why he'd hide behind my legs when Model Dog was racing and chasing, why he'd handed the responsibility for small jobs over to her - like going out with me to feed the hens.

We buried him next to his brother. Model Dog sat and watched, visibly appalled, as his grave was dug. When we placed him in it, she tried to get in too, and the next day I saw her carry his bone up to the orchard and leave it close to where he lies.

Model Dog and I didn't go to the woods for a week or more afterwards.
I couldn't face it, and still find it difficult. They are there, two black and white ghosts dancing through the trees, racing down every ride, swimming in the river, running along the bank.
They are carefree, full of joy.


Nothing can prepare you for how you will react when something happens. The morning he died, I removed Top Dog's bed from the kitchen because I couldn't bear to see it, perpetually empty. And I sent an email to the family, to my friends, to people I might bump into, because he was so important a figure in our lives that I needed to 'stop the clocks'. Everyone had to be told of his death immediately, so that I wouldn't have to explain later, although I couldn't bring myself to speak to anyone except my own two boys.
But how kind people are. I hadn't thought beyond the ordeal of telling them, and I was more touched than I can say by the kind messages, the texts, cards, emails, even flowers we received during the following days and weeks. Such an outpouring of love and comfort - it has helped so much.

Candles for the Winter Solstice

And on the Winter Solstice - that day when for so many generations our ancestors have reached out from the enclosing darkness to welcome the return of the light - I filled the windowsill with candles in memory of them, in celebration of their years and the joy they brought us, the companionship, the trust, the love - in gratitude for the continuance of them.

They are woven in, woven in. Nothing can remove those we have loved, and truly, it is only ourselves we weep for, not for them, for they 'have slipped the surly bonds of Earth/And danced the skies...' *

But the trouble is, neither of us can quite get used to a world without them.

More than ever, I am grateful for my lovely Model Dog.

A dear friend sent me this poem in the days after Top Dog died.
It made me cry all over again, but it is beautiful, and I think you will like it. It was written by Mary Oliver.

Her Grave  

She would come back, dripping thick water, from the green bog.
She would fall at my feet, she would draw the black skin
from her gums, in a hideous and wonderful smile -
and I would rub my hands over her pricked ears and her cunning elbows,
and I would hug the barrel of her body, amazed at the unassuming
perfect arch of her neck.
                                            

It took four of us to carry her into the woods.
We did not think of music,
but, anyway, it began to rain
slowly.
                                          

Her wolfish, invitational,  half pounce.

Her great and lordly satisfaction at having chased something

My great and lordly satisfaction at her splash
of happiness as she barged
through the pitch pines swiping my face with her
wild, slightly mossy tongue.
                                       

Does the hummingbird think he himself invented his crimson throat?
 He is wiser than that, I think.

A dog lives fifteen years, if you're lucky.

Do the cranes crying out in the high clouds
think it is all their own music?

A dog comes to you and lives with you in your own house, but you
do not therefore own her, as you do not own the rain, or the
trees, or the laws which pertain to them.

Does the bear wandering in the autumn up the side of the hill
think all by herself she has imagined the refuge and the refreshment
of her slumber?

A dog can never tell you what she knows from the
smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know
almost nothing.

Does the water snake with his backbone of diamonds think
the black tunnel on the bank of the pond is a palace
of his own making?

She roved ahead of us through the fields, yet would come back, or

wait for me, or be somewhere

Now she is buried under the pines. 

Nor will I argue it, or pray for anything but modesty, and

not be angry.

Through the trees there is the sound of the wind, palavering.

The smell of the pine needles, what is it but a taste

of the infallible energies?

How strong was her dark body?

How apt is her grave place.

How beautiful is her unshakable sleep.

Finally,

the slick mountains of love break

over us

Mary Oliver

                                  

How apt are their grave places indeed.
It is where they loved to be. It is where I love to be.

My brother wrote:

'What a very special orchard you have now, and for a long time. 

May every season you walk there bring you more peace.

And now you have Model Dog, in the nick of time.

And God's Good Grace, all the time.

Love and love and love.

Sorry I can't offer more but I know you have been blessed and you will be again.'

Amen to that.

Blessed indeed.

Farewell, sweet boys.

* from High Flight by John Gillespie Magee Jr