Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance

It flew into the house today, a perfect tiny starling, and got itself into a panic at the kitchen window. Now it's out and away, no bother.

I'm melancholy right now, unable to set my mind to anything. That teeny bird reminded me life is still out there, sweet, small, very lovely. I don't feel it yet. But I will.

It's something to share the same death day as Dolly Parton, and not entirely inappropriate either. The world lost two magnificent big hearted country girls yesterday. Rest In Peace Mighty Dolly and Thank You XX

Biggie could never have been a total indoor-living cat. She was all about the outside. When we moved house, I tried to keep all the cats in for 5 weeks, just to stop them immediately trying to wander to their old home. This was something she couldn't handle, and would howl like a wolf at the moon, it was the only obdurate thing about her. Her need for the outside was non-negotiable. She'd have been a happy farm cat.
Memories of her; she was a very healthy fast kitten. Like her sister she was obsessed with Ralik, but while Mismatch tried to woo him, snuggling up close and touching his tail with her nose, Dervish just stalked him. Once, he was perched on the arm of a chair and she struggled as she climbed up it towards him, I recall him gazing down at her with what seemed like an amused expression. She was undaunted, determined to reach the Handsome Devil Cat, and carried on. He waited til she had almost reached him then casually swatted her off all the way back down the mountain. She tried again.

I recall accidentally closed him in the dining room with her. I came back to find her on the seat of a chair with him sat directly underneath. She was paffing his head in gatling fashion, paffpaffpaffpaffpaff! He just sat there glowering at me as though this was my fault. It's not as though he couldn't have moved.
But he was always gentle with the kittens, unlike Surya who would box their ears if they so much as looked at her in a funny way, and thoroughly unlike the way they were with each other. They played very rough games including 'Face' which basically meant holding your opponent down and biting their face until... well until your jaws got tired or the opponent wriggled away. Biggie was good at that. Unfortunately, while she grew up and got bored of it, her sister, who has only ever kept about 5 ideas in her head, remembered and attempted rematches all her life.

Biggie grew into a loving and very sweet cat. As well as the outside she loved food. Here is Biggie reminding me about the importance of dinner.



I don't actually have many photos of her, because she seemed not to like cameras. The pink wall pose was a complete one-off. But these two showed our Biggie in her world, demonstrating immortal wisdom; remember to stop and eat the flowers.


Dolly's right of course. Love is like a butterfly... but it's also like a big black cat.

Bye bye my darling.

Mum is all right. She notes that a few tiles fell from one of the bathroom walls, and we talked about the insurance, which according to her is all in good order. She seems calm and unperturbed.
There's been a hospital visit, nice plans cancelled, not very nice plans being brought forward.
Uneasy times but we'll be OK.

Volcanoes and Earthquakes! What a strange year!

My mood was not improved by the sound of a lone curlew flying by the house, ever a sign of ill omen. But maybe it wasn't a curlew. Maybe it was a gull experimenting in falsetto. Anyway, my mood dissolved into sleep with dreams I couldn't remember except for something about an island made of music, and this morning I was fine.

Yesterday's visit to town was fun. The book festival is on as well as the Fringe etc, so we went to see Scott Richardson-Read giving a little half hour talk on hia book, (https://mybook.to/MillDustnDreamingBread). I backed this on Kickstarter, bought the beautiful hardback and (hang your head in shame, Boot!) have not even started reading it. Years back Scott took us to the Tigh Nam Bodach, House of the Old Man/Spectre in a place he calls the Valley of the Cailleach and others call Glen Lyon. He claims this to be the oldest animistic shrine in Scotland. I wrote about it here years ago, but no harm in repeating the story:

Long ago, two giants of fairy kind came to the glen and were welcomed by the folk. They stayed a long time had their son and their daughter here and all was well.But time came when they were going to move on and so they told the people this; that while their house was kept, and the four little stones that stand there yet were respected, the place would be fertile and prosperous. And so it is that at the start of Winter the four stones are moved into the bothy, and at the start of summer they are moved out again. Now here is what you must do if you would like some good advice/help. As you approach the bothy, speak loudly and happily about how wonderful it is to come visit these excellent hosts. Walk around the house three times, I think deosil, again speaking about how great it is to be here, and then settle in with the stones, have a chat about the question on your mind. Carry on with your courteous visit, say your farewells when you will, and after you leave an answer will come to your question, or maybe even a solution if you have a problem.

There's not much visiting here, firstly because it really is in the middle of nowhere, but also because the owners of the nearby North Chesthill estate spend extraordinary amounts of effort and energy trying to weasel around Scotland's right to roam laws.

This is where Scott's emphasis on the working class does make sense. At first I was not sure. He used the phrase 'working class' a lot. If I was the eyerolling type I'd have been staring at the back of my own head ten minutes in; by definition folk magic is the province of the working class*, the upper classes had medicine. The cunning men and women of these islands seldom shared their secrets because such was their trade. The part played by the not-working-but-definitely-writing-class was to collate this information as it faded, and if their part is colonisation/theft, who wrote the archives Scott researched? He didn't get his info from the Muckhart warlocks and he doesn't speak Gaelic.He is part of the process however suspect it is.

On the other pan of the scale, the behaviour of North Chesthill estate is inimical to the rights of 'the working class' to access its history and connect to the land. Curtailing as much as possible, being unfriendly and difficult, trying to establish blanket bans etc, this is where the class divide comes in. The owners count on ordinary folk not knowing their legal rights or not wanting confrontation. Here perhaps is where Scott might have been sharper, but of course his talk was not meant to be sharp per se. He was trying to introduce us to the immanence of belief, about community and belonging. These things are not easy to pin down.

At some time I should write about the magic I know, the Magic of the Traveller. But I won't because I like the liminal and the numinous. Naughty really, expecting Scott to be precise given my own predilection for the obscure!


*I speak of this term only as it pertains to the UK.