Late on Saturday Morning

We have had enough rain and wind this month – February fill-dyke – to make a few patches of glorious mud where people like to walk. And where dogs like to walk, run and chase each other.

This morning I was walking home during a half-hour respite from the rain and noticed four dogs out with their male humans, careering about and enjoying themselves while getting very muddy.

Mrs Turnstone wondered what reception they would be getting when they arrived home. Had men and dogs been sent out while someone else was cleaning the floors? Was there an old towel by the back door for rubbing down paws and underbelly? So long as it didn’t mean a bath, the dogs would not mind, but ‘Keep him off the armchair!‘

You won’t catch the builder’s dog going near mud!

Crrrrroak

The motorbike was loud and persistent. So was the frog who heard it and replied. Frog had the last croak.

Storm? What storm?

No matter how grey the sky, as soon as it’s safe to take off the gulls will be aloft, quartering the estuary, the fields or the rubbish dump. And first thing tomorrow morning, before the Labradors and spaniels take their walks, they will be checking the park for worms, crane fly larvae and other invertebrates drawn to the surface by the rain. Oh, and shouting from the chimney stacks and the skies, shaming stayabed humans on half-term timetables!

The first croak

Mrs T has been so busy with grandchildren that she has had no time to worry about the frogs that enjoy life in our pond enough to lay their eggs with us every year. And No Worries this year, because when she went out into the garden, between the showers today, she heard a croak, followed by a splash. Let’s hope he has an amphibious Valentine waiting to meet up with him.

This leopard frog was in Canada.

To the Almshouse.

Dear Simon,

We were sorry to hear that you and Ruth have divorced after so many years. We were unaware of the difficulties in your relationship which do sound beyond human repair. But if you can conserve a friendship then who knows what might not be built on the foundations of the love that brought you together in the first place? And of course, however imperfect the lovers, however imperfect the love, much good has come of your time together. Between you, you sustained two fine young people through to where they are now.

Do you enjoy living in the almshouse? Is there a community feel to the place? I well remember, soon after our George was born, a friend called Kathy came over from Canada, and was just visiting Canterbury for one day, so a quick personal guided tour of the city was required. All the main sights, of course, but also a few of my hidden favourites. We went down Hospital Lane towards the Poor Priests’ Hospital, and of course you cannot really miss the almshouses, which may originate as far back as the 12th Century.

Kathy absolutely fell in love with the idea of almshouses, which provide secure, if compact homes for senior citizens. These days someone in an overlarge rented house might free that property in favour of a family, and receive a handy place in the centre of town. I suspect that when Kathy leaves Planet Earth she’ll not have the money to leave to establish almshouses in Nova Scotia under her name. And nor will we.

The old ones were not built for the likes of me all 6ft 3½ of me— but I gather your place is a 21st Century built apartment, warm, convenient, comfortable. Rest and be thankful!

Will.

Mediæval Monsters

Once Henry VIII let the forces of destruction loose on the churches of England all manner of beauties were lost to hammer blows. Think of Thomas Becket’s shrine in Canterbury, but also spare a thought for the many little splendours that were smashed by self-righteous iconoclasts.

These fellows are no manner of beauty at all, but they avoided the storm, perhaps because they are out of the way. Even the tympanum – the semi-circular composition over the door – survived, though a similar one at nearby Patrixbourne did not escape. The figures around the edge provided designs for mosaics when L’Arche was based here in Barfrestone: my favourite was the gardener at the top, but the mermaid, just below Christ’s knee, was also popular. But we gave Archbishop Coggan a mosaic in green and mustardy gold, based on the happy, lower right-hand monster above.

Winter mud.

Why soap and water were invented.

Those pigeons again.

One of the pigeons has discovered the feeder by our kitchen door. Not that the bird has learnt to alight on the narrow perch and peck grain from the trough, but this morning, when the door curtain was drawn back, and more than once since, it was pecking up the seeds dropped by sparrows, who can be messy eaters.

Is it the lengthening days that led the pigeons to be paired off in the two trees, lime and birch, sitting closer together and calling to each other? The views of the ground feeder at our door reveal how splendid their plumage is.