1. I have lunch – leftover kedgeree – on the balcony. The cats and dog sit together in the soft sunlight.
2. Always on the look out for mushrooms, we find Amethyst Deceivers (Laccaria amethystea) – an amazingly deep, rich purple in the brown leaf litter.
3. As usual, I come home from drama and tell John stories from class. After one story:
Him “it’s just like being back at school”
Me (gushing) “except the cool kids like me!”
1. The heavy rain disrupts my gardening plans. Instead, I curl under a blanket with the dreaming dog and finish reading my book.
2. On the drive to Bingley, John makes poo-hitting-water noises and I can’t help but laugh and laugh.
3. There is just enough time between the rain stopping and night falling for us to do our most important outside chores. I clean out the chicken coop and the girls cluck around me to say thanks.
1. I sneak back into bed and facing each other, we hold hands inbetween our chests. The dog snuggles her nose into the inverted v-shaped space between our arms.
2. I half open my eyes when I feel the cat step off me. I see her use the sleeping dog as a stepping stone to get to her dad. After she’s settled down on the other side of the bed, Lily finally reacts, looking first at the cat then at me. “Yes, I saw it,” I whisper.
3. I finally meet one of our neighbours for the first time. We chat chickens and growing things. A dog bark in the distance calls me away but just before I go, I think to introduce myself. As I walk away, I hear him repeating my name to himself as a memory aid.
4. We – Lily, John & I – take an evening walk in Thackley Woods. The world is still, the only sounds bird call & distant whinnying and over Baildon’s hills, the sunset is a hazy red.
5. The cat has been sleeping in the washing again. When she jumps on my knee, she smells line-fresh.
1. Jake the German Shepherd’s ears are marvellous: when he’s intrigued by something, they not only lift up but bend together to form one giant attentive ear.
2. I say her name and she meows. A few steps then we repeat it again and again. A barrier of nettles, brambles and a steep drop barely navigable in the bare winter keeps me from her so I have to walk back to the garden, down and right around but all the while, I say her name and she meows. This is how we find each other then I carry her home.
3. After an afternoon in the garden, tending to the veg beds & the chickens, I spend the evening playing Harvest Moon DS Cute – tending to my virtual veg beds & virtual chickens.
While John was away at a wedding, Louisa and Lily went for a walk in West Wood.
They found a strange metal pond.
A field.
Remains of buildings.
Interesting mushrooms.
Some cows.
And some mud.
A lot of mud.
1. Around the time of her usual lunchtime walk, her tail starts wagging even though the rest of her is dozing on the sofa. “It’s a warm-up, like stretching,” I tell John.
2. The boxes are coloured to indicate who they’re for – the big cat, the little cat or the dog. The colours – rich raspberry, burnt orange and cool purple – are contrasting complements, and until I see them together in the bag, I didn’t realise spot-on flea treatment packaging could be so pretty.
3. It takes a while for the smell to reach me – the sweet scent frying onions and the garlic – but when it does, I suddenly develop an appetite.
© 2024 Louisa Parry