where eagles dare

 A friend of mine(you know who you are) sent me a series of photographs of this thirteen year old Mongolian girl who is the only female hunter in her country. I think they are sensational and liberating pictures and I'd love to be this girl in another life. I've moved on from wanting a tapir and now would like a golden eagle. In fact the pictures have so inspired me that I feel another story lurking in the distance and have immediately booked an appointment with the golden eagle man at the hawk conservancy. More on that at a later blog. Is this a cliff hanger?

 Meanwhile, not in Mongolia, we had a wet Easter and we were unable to do the Easter egg hunt in the garden for the first time ever. The weather has never stopped us before. The blazing sun might have melted a few of the eggs, Pixie might have found a few before we did - but we have always carried on regardless. I exclude myself from this because I hide them - but even I forget where I put them sometimes and have discovered them whilst gardening later in the year around June or July.We attempted a small hunt in the house but as each room is full of clutter it was n't worth hiding them in mysterious places or no one would find them and when the heating comes back on in the winter there'd be a lot of melted dust covered chocolate. We did have an Easter bunny though that Pocket (quarter Bengal) or Nancy brought in - but only the ears and tail.

 I'm very happy with these miniature tulips called Candy stripe. They shut up in the evening and open up like lilies in the day showing a white interior. The picture below was meant to show them opened up but that eagle has flown into the frame again so I might have to put them up on the next blog.{perhaps with news from the hawk conservancy}

I don't think the farmers around us would be too pleased if I had a golden eagle of course. I have images of lambs being brought home which take up a lot more room than rabbits. Also I'm not sure that cats would be too safe. Still, as Beezle and Nietzsche would say "that which does not kill us makes us stronger."

The Eagle



He clasps the crag with crooked hands;
Close to the sun in lonely lands,
Ring'd with the azure world, he stands.

The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls;
He watches from his mountain walls
And like a thunderbolt he falls.


Alfred, Lord Tennyson

rhinos on the lawn

 Spring stroke Summer is here in the garden now - the magnolia is in full bloom along with the tulips -some of which have already gone past. Spring might be late but looks as if Summer may be early. However what isn't in my garden right now are  couple of white rhinos grazing on the lawn.

 I wanted to do some research on an idea I have for a new book and went to the Cotswold Wild Life Park which is owned and run by a friend of a friend of a ...... It is the most fabulous place - none of the animals are caged and like these rhinos you can get up quite close without being tossed into the air by one of those horns - as if you were a hat that a coat peg took a dislike to.
Now what I really want is a tapir.

 I just had to take a photo of this bizarre tulip - called Pirand - which I hadn't wanted and wouldn't grow again but it opened up like a waterlily and was the size of my hand span. That vase is not a thimble by the way. Actually I don't know why I wasted my camera battery taking a picture of a tulip - what I meant to photograph was my first egg! Well not mine personally, but the first egg of the year laid by the clever white lady duck in the polytunnel area. They are all girls there now, four of them, all different colours like a box of assorted chocolates. There's brown and white, white and brown, a black one and a white one. Last year after their mate died they stopped laying and I was beginning to wonder if unlike hens they needed a male duck before they laid but I'm happy to say they don't because I still can't bring myself to split the two boys up who live in the garden. I had to put one of them on bed rest for a fortnight because he had some trauma in his leg.( that's vet speak and very expensive it was too.)
He just stayed in the wendy house which is their sleeping quarters but it's very nice and has two pairs of green gingham curtains and a small blackboard incase they want to practice their numbers. They spent most of the day talking to each other over the stable type door. The one not on bed rest running round the garden then occasionally popping back to the wendy house for a chat with the patient.

Beezle and Pocket.

 There's such a lot of activity out there now, birds busy with their nest building and also laying their first egg I have no doubt. Insects buzzing, horses shedding their coats, hedgehogs trying to dismantle their GPS collars, but in the house there seems to be an awful lot of sleeping. Most spare area has something asleep on it. Either a cat of some sort or a dog. But as Beezle and Nietzsche would say "Every man's an artist when he dreams."

Narcissi Thalia now in abundance

Meanwhile as the woods are holding their breath for the eruption of the bluebells people are in there with their chainsaw stockpiling wood for WINTER! I don't think that's very Zen. What about living (or sleeping) in the moment?


'This is the first thing."


This is the first thing
I have understood:
Time is the echo of an axe
Within a wood.




Philip Larkin