Occasional Scribbles

Since re launching my blog, I’ve been mulling over how to span the intervening time as someone kindly asked what happened through those long long years.

A couple of things stand out. Much about loss of something or another. The loss of darling Skinny two, (Skinny one lived in London with us, our first doggie who died before we moved to our permanent home here.) Skinny two, eventually died young at the age of five, followed by Cat some years later.

But Skinny three & I were really running things closely together on our own. The Other, as readers may recall, took to his bed for years. Everywhere I went, she came too. Every car ride, picking up children from school, watching endless school sports matches as the younger Teen became an excellent Rugby player & his hockey team reached county finals and the Elder Teen also a fine rugby player, became an excellent cricketer too.

Backtracking slightly, we’d moved away from family and settled elsewhere. Another unfortunate story, not for now. But within a year, the Other became ill. Suddenly, I had a new home, new schools for the children and absolutely no support system. Abandoned basically as the Other succumbed to ill health. Not a very courageous person, I literally had to take on every part of our lives, essentially on my own. But I always had my animals and Skinny three played a huge part in being a devoted companion. Her and the chickens I kept for eggs, some Indian runner ducks and mallards, became my escape from illness and abandonment. How I treasured them all.

At some point after years of tedious visits to hospital appointments, the Other, one day more or less rose from his sick bed and began helping to some extent. Things slowly improved. He took on chores he could manage, accompanied me to grumpy teacher meetings as one or other of the Teens ran aground at school and things grew better from therein.

But those years took a toll. I was worn down by lack of money, too much responsibility I’d always expected to share and loser jobs that paid too little.

As the Teens grew older, I wasn’t able to pay enough attention to their growing up. Turns out though, that they’ve grown into delightful, polite, lovely men! Slightly unconventional- neither have set the world on fire, one has a steady job, a wife and child and another on the way in April!
The younger Teen, also grown into a lovely man with a good set of values at his heart, is still with us at home. Time has let him down. It is now so hard for your children to leave the nest, rents & property prices etc being what they are. He deals broadly in antiques, a love we all share. He is also a bit of an entrepreneur with many fantastic ideas, some of which others have brought to market, as we’ve not been able to help him further such possibilities. Just don’t know how to, knowing nothing of business!
But we muddle along together and are close.

My darling animals had to be let go. The fox continued to eat my feathered friends until, it seemed we were only having them to feed the foxes. Earlier on, I’d bought three Indian Runner ducks, the sort that stand tall and upright and brought so much joy. We’d also been given a single Mallard chick by a friend of the boys who’s family bred them for shooting (horrible). But as we literally became his parents, as he strived to keep up with us across the garden, sat on my lap as I emailed and wrote on my computer; we realised as he matured that our love wasn’t enough. He needed some duck companions! We went to get two girls from a lovely man who reared his own out on the marshes.

This is really another story for another time. But in short, I quickly became overwhelmed as wild Mallards joined our three with lots of food and a pond we dug for them. As each new set of ducklings matured, they would find the courage to fly and would do circuits over the property, landing deftly on the water. Lovely to watch.

Unfortunately, the flock became unmanageable and the local gamekeeper offered to ‘rehome’ many of them. I left strict instructions that only the wild ones were to go, not my original Mallards, nor the Runner ducks. To my absolute dismay, I arrived home one day and they’d all been caught and taken, every last one. I rang the gamekeeper to see what had happened explaining that the runners don’t even fly. The response was, if they don’t fly, they won’t be shot. It took me a long time to get over that.

So no more ducks or chickens. My joy in them was lost. I never got anymore. Nowadays, I only have interest in the wild animals that come to the relative safety of my garden. Pheasants, various doves, Muntjack deer, hedgehogs, the foxes even, mice and so on. All are welcome and fed. Several beautiful pheasants have reared their young here and as long as I remember to put the right feed in my bird feeder, a multitude of garden birds visit which gives much joy.

I also have Skinny Four! She’s actually five in age now. Following the death of her predecessor who’d been such a strong and devoted companion, I couldn’t quite decide to replace her. A year went by until my mother, sensing my loss and loneliness in being without such a special part of my life, encouraged me to look for another, kindly offering to help with the purchase since now, what were poachers dog’s, fairly inexpensive, had now become prohibitive.

I looked around, sad at all the constantly bred animals for profit. And after an exhaustive search in my area where I should have found another lurcher but couldn’t , I happened upon the most darling puppy. I fell instantly in love with her. I had to have her. We raced over several counties, far from home and arrived at a shoddy set up. But Skinny was smart. She sat on my lap, her nose settled comfortably in the crook of my warm neck. She was never letting me go! Even the breeder noted that she’d not behaved like this with anyone else! Maybe!

Skinny four, looks like a tiger! She has a fabulous tiger striped coat. She turned out to be quite a lot bigger than our others Lurchers, a real ‘long dog’ as Lurchers are called here. She has a beautiful nature, prefers being with us rather than tearing through the fields as the others had. In fact, she’s so slow, always checking out every blade of grass as she ambles along on walks. Not at all what you’d expect. She’s very keen on routine! Breakfast, ball playing, out for mid morning walk, sleep, afternoon walk, supper, bedtime biscuits and then waiting patiently for me to come up to bed! She puts up with the car as she prefers to come with us, she puts up with The Boy, nearly two, my dear sweet grandchild and she puts up with their dog as they were both puppies together a lot of the time as they’ve grown up together within the two households.

I suppose that broadly brings the years closer from then to now! In the interests of not being too tedious, I’ll leave it there for now.