Gremlin

Oops, I think I just published a blog post with nothing on it. In fact, it's a miracle I'm posting anything at all. The computer has a gremlin.

It's OK. It's not the sort of gremlin that posts rude remarks in somebody else's name, or tries to spend a lot of money. It's just some sort of gremlin that makes the computer slow and sulky, and won't let me into my own blog. I'm only here now because I crept in through a side door that the gremlin didn't know about. Don't tell it, will you? Oh, how I need Captain Lugg to settle it for me.

It may be the same gremlin that made rain come sluicing down yesterday when we were taking Mum and Dad for a trip round Warkworth and Alnmouth. It is quite possibly the gremlin that left a bag of candles just where Tony would trip over it. It also hid most of the poetry books, but I found them.

This was important, because now and again a few of us from the village and round about - maybe seven or eight of us - get together to share lunch and poems. The theme for tomorrow is 'hope'. This is by one of my favourite poets, Kenneth C Steven, a poet from the Western Isles of Scotland. The collection is called IONA, an this is -

LAMB

I found a lamb
Tugged by the guyropes of the wind
Trying so hard to get up.

It was no more than a trembling bundle
A bag of bones and wet wool
A voice made of crying, like a child's.

What a beginning, what a fall,
To be born on the edge of the world
Between the sea and America.

Lamb, out of this island of stone
Yellow is coming, golden promises,
The buttery sunlight of spring.

snow bears

It has snowed steadily for five hours. On the garden it is thick and smooth, but it settled unevenly on the holly hedge, falling and gathering into mounds. It looks as if a snow bear is trying to climb over beside the gate, and another two have fallen asleep on the top. Captain Padra now has a robe, and five inches of snow have covered his circlet.

The road outside is roughed up with white, the way my mum used to do the icing on the Christmas cake. Two hours ago, when I was looking down from the bedroom window, two people came past with a dog, something of the collie sort. Oh, it's good to see a dog as happy as that. I've got my people! I've got snow! I've got a stick! Oh, wow, life is so good! Look at this - if it's downloaded OK - Tony took it about half an hour ago in the back garden.

Crispin

What a joy to be on the island today! On a day like this the young moles and squirrels love a good snowball fight. Squirrels are very sharp at dodging behind tree trunks, and a young mole can pop up from the ground and vanish again before you can say 'Duck!'

Otters and hedgehogs can take it or leave it. They're not so quick at getting out of the way. The little hedgehogs are rolling in snowdrifts and saying, 'look at me, I'm a snow hog!'. Padra's family are building snow otters, Swanfeather made a slide and Fingal's started on an igloo. (I know somebody who might be able to help him with that.) Catkin tried to organise a a snowball fight with the tower animals but without much success, because Oakleaf took a stack of ammunition up to the Gathering Chamber and pelted her from a safe distance. Not safe for long, my son.

So I informed my family that the Gathering Chamber was out of bounds, dragged Urchin away from whatever he was doing, and did a quick patrol of Anenome Wood. The littlies had discovered that they were tired and cold and very wet and snow wan't fun any more, so we got a fire going in a burrow and rustled up some hot drinks. We were just about to round them all up and usher them in when Apple apperaed with an enormous bottle and a big smile, and you've never seen squirrels move so fast in your life. In fact, afer half a second you couldn't see a squirrel at all.

Urchin sent Apple off on a mission of mercy somewhere else, and we all sat and had a hot cordials and stories party round the fire. Worth getting cold and wet for.

Pawprints

Pawprints and little bird claw prints, too. The snow is laced with them.

There are big sole-of-the-bootprints, too, because I went down yesterday to feed the one solitary duck on the river. However, I think he'd already been fed. Frequently and a lot. A chef would have taken one look at him and written a menu. (Not for me, by the way, I'm vegetarian.) Anyway, I stood at the bottom of the garden with a pot of proper duck food (the real thing, from Barnitts of York) and he didn't even flap.

There are little bird tracks everywhere, and Captain Padra had snow on his head so I arranged into a circlet. There is a snowman in a garden at the end of the road, and all day children have been sledging down the hills. Daughter in Cardiff loves snow but her little car does not, so she's walking or cycling to work every day.

I have a problem. I am an author, and have to be sensible and get down to some serious hard work in the morning. But I am a children's author, and, as C S Lewis said, it's the silliest children who are the most childish and the silliest grown-ups who are the most grown-up. So maybe an important part of my job is to lie in wait for Tony with a pile of snowballs.

You may like to know that Biryani was an angel cat yesterday. She went in and out of her box quite calmly and didn't bite anyone, even the vet.

I've just realised that I've made a big mistake with the post.

Tony reads it. And his aim is better than mine.

Second Round

Last Saturday was a decisive win for Biryani. (Thanks, Sam!) Since then LYS has been teaching Biri that going in the basket means food, and she has been eating her dinner in the cat basket with her back legs sticking out. Tomorrow they should be able to get her to the V - E - T, and she may never forgive them. Or the basket. Or the V - E - T.

Then again, it's been snowing so much they may not get her there at all, and they'd have to postpone the match until next week. I've just texted Lady Sunshine to see what Biri thinks of snow. She much prefers the radiator.

Of my other animal friends, the older dog who lives with daughter says that snow is a very bad idea and he will only go out when he really, really must. The puppy has never seen snow before, and adores it. And my little terrier friend Oz has a poorly paw and it's no fun walking in the snow with a poorly paw, so he will just lie quietly by the fire while his mummy makes him better. He would like some boots, please, to keep his paw cosy.

Oz is adorable. If he's a bit of a wuss, I don't suppose it matters.

Cat

Thank you to Tony and Much for covering the blog on Monday. Much can't be seen on that photograph, and may be indignant. But I'm glad you've seen the river.

Most of my journey home today was on a train from Newcastle to York. I tried to write, but as we rushed through County Durham in the winter afternoon light I put down the pen and stared out of the window. Field after field was resting under soft snow and a pale sky. A plantation of fir trees stood tall and patient with snow on their branches. Snow had made everything still and quiet.

Unlike the Sunshine's house this week.

Biryani was due to visit the V - E - T for her J - A - B - S, which meant putting her in a basket. Now Biri, as you know, is a rescue cat who has been moved around a lot, so perhaps she has bad associations with being in a basket. Or maybe she was just being a cat.

It started with a mild skirmish, and one-nil to Biri. Leaping into the air to celebrate a triumph is fair enough. Lacerating my son on the way down is not. The blood stains are off the furniture now and we think LOS will live. But, last I heard, Biri was peering reproachfully out at them from the middle of a bramble bush. I've been away for three days, so as far as I know she might still be in there.

Any advice on how to get B- I- R - I to the V -E - T?

Snow. Much snow.

As in "enough snow to make Much complain." Well, it doesn't take much to make Much complain. If you see what I mean... It started early this morning, just a few flurries of small flakes, then it decided to go for it and started with really big flakes. And it kept on going, all morning, until the whole world was white and fluffy. The Hairy Bloke thought it looked nice, so took a few photos of the garden and the snowy hills. The Lovely Lady of the Stories was on a train, heading Up North to visit her parents. And Much was grumbling. He had snow on his head, and snow over his feet - he could still see over the top of it, but he was grumbling (well, that's what Much does...) Then the sun came out, and it began to melt. And Much was grumbling, because it was turning all wet and slushy. Then it began to freeze, so it stopped getting all wet and slushy. Yes, you've guessed it - Much was grumbling because it was freezing. I think he's only happy when he's got something to grumble about: it's being so miserable that keeps him cheerful.

Years ago, when we lived in Northumberland, we had an American student stay with us over Christmas. She arrived the day before Christmas Eve, and was a bit bemused by the fact that we were all getting very excited about the possibility of a white Christmas. I explained that it doesn't often snow at Christmas, so we get excited when it does, and the weather man said it was going to. She explained that where she lived, it snowed in November and melted in March, and you could set your calendar by it.

When we got up the next morning, it had snowed during the night - but not in the valley bottom. We were in the green and wet, and halfway up the hillsides it turned to white. I had promised to take her into town, so we went the pretty way, up the hill and along the top of the valley. THere is a road there which is built where the Roman Wall once stood, and a field halfway along where King Oswald of Northumbria defeated a pagan king and his army, so was free to ask the monks on Iona to send him someone to help spread the Christian faith in his Kingdom. That is one of those places where world history changed. The road was originally built by an English general to deploy troops in the years after the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion (our Scottish ancestry doesn't like that part of the story very much, but it is part of the story). So, in one short drive, we touched Roman history, Anglo-Saxon history, and 18th C British history - about 2,000 years in one morning. She was suitably impressed, and had a whale of a time.

But what impressed her almost as much was the way we could drive from a green world to a white world and back to a green world in just 5 miles, and when we were up there in the white world, we could see the green world of the river valley snaking along below us. And the sun shone, and we enjoyed the day, and it was the beginning of a wonderful Christmas.

This was the view this morning from the front of the house.

And this was the view from the back garden, looking over the river. Lovely.