Category: village life

of bats, bees and bras

All this fuss in the UK free press about a the girl who found a baby bat asleep in the padding of her bra and didn’t immediately realise it. She has my sympathy.

Earlier in the year, I’d washed some jeans and hug them outside to dry. I didn’t notice anything odd when I got them in that night, nor when I gathered them up un-ironed the next morning and pulled them on after my shower. But when I’d got them on, I realised I must have left a hanky in the pocket, so put my hand in to get it out.

How quickly does the mind react?
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Archie

finds a cat-length patch of shade
whisker-wide and hidden
from curious, non-feline eyes.
He dapples into tabby grey.

hai’ku

Full moon over the neighbour’s chimney
Orion reaches
for a slam dunk.

pigging out

It’s Saturday, it’s a public holiday, and I was planning a a long, lazy weekend, starting with a lie-in. Instead, we were woken around 8 a.m. by the sound of a pig being slaughtered.

a cada cerdo le llega su San Martin
a cada cerdo le llega su San Martín

Actually, I’m not sure the pig itself was making the wheezy, squealing noise: it might have been the donkey disturbed by the proceedings. But whatever it was, it woke me; particularly as the general hubbub was augmented by a couple of roosters crowing, another neighbour’s elderly rottweiler baying – presumably excited by the scent of blood – and the vociferous commentary from four generations of the family who had turned out to witness the event.
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summer sport

After a busy evening
listening to cicada orchestras
and dancing with
                grasshoppers
through the weeds,
the cat comes home.

He sniffs the bowl of kibble
then looks up, looks
dissatisfied, as if to say,
“dried cat food’s
                just
                  not
                    cricket.”