Recollections

Yesterday a late Xmas card arrived in the post.  It was a dear friend from the village.  I haven't talked about the village because leaving it was a great loss in my life.  As the pandemic went on I was alone for the two years in the house.  But I had my little feral cat to feed, and Lucy to walk plus two little bantams  Then Lucy had a stroke, and that was the end for her, I found a place for my little cat and then the  bantams up at this farm where we are holding a barbecue.

When Rosalie came with her husband and the Range Rover and truck, it was as if a part of my life always having animals had gone.  Apart from the fact I had spent a fortune on the housing and runs but I had loved having my two little bantams running around the lawn followed by the cat who seemed to have fallen in love with them.  Lucy ignored them as she ignored Green Eyes the cat and any other animal that came into the garden.

J had told me of the death of someone's wife across the road from the cottage.  Then I remembered how N had figured in our lives.  Gentle and kind he would look after my hens if we went away.  He had a little menagerie of his own, he had about two acres of land, with several sheds which he was always mending. Several sheep, Jacobs I think, a couple of goats, hens and ducks and a big rescue dog. His land followed the road with a big hedgerow and often you would see him, his wheelbarrow placed firmly in the road, the stepladders out as he cut the hedge for 'browse' for his little flock.

In the morning when walking Lucy (who hated walking by the way) we would meet him a plastic bag over his shoulder, he had been collecting trimmings down where the willows grow  by the river.  Also yesterday someone had put a photo on F/B of the two otters they had spotted in the River Seven, which must be in a state of flood by now.

J also had a little animal kingdom, she and her husband were in their 80s, and had been together since children in India.  A mother feral cat had four kittens which she deposited in their barn and J adopted them and they still live in the barn, bushy tailed and healthy.  She also had a blind old sheep and an old pony called Charlie who would occasionally be harnessed to a cart for a ride round the country lanes.

J would come along to chat and we would discuss the plague of feral cats that seemed to have appeared over night in the village.  I managed to catch three for neutering but it was not easy.

Green eyes of course settled down in the smallholding she went to, two dogs and another cat and settled in quite comfortably to a 'tame' life.

Chasing 🦋 

I realised when I read the card how I had pushed a great part of my life away with the people I had known in the village, the barbecue which was held up in the barn, was organised by several of us.  I did money, which meant going round and selling tickets, making sure the number of people at the barbecue tallied with the money I had, yes maybe there were several free loaders.  The food was organised by someone else and the reason we had it up at the farm that year was because of the weather.

We organised three events a year, Paul loved it, often they took place in the pub, but I was always reminded by people that the barbecue had taken place on the small field on which our house had been built.