The Owl and the Pussycat

A ditty*

The Owl and the Pussy-cat went to sea

In a beautiful pea-green boat,

They took some honey, and plenty of money,

Wrapped up in a five-pound note.

The Owl looked up to the stars above,

And sang to a small guitar,

“O lovely Pussy! O Pussy, my love,

What a beautiful Pussy you are,

You are,

You are!

What a beautiful Pussy you are!”

Pussy said to the Owl, “You elegant fowl!

How charmingly sweet you sing!

O let us be married! too long we have tarried:

But what shall we do for a ring?”

They sailed away, for a year and a day,

To the land where the Bong-Tree grows

And there in a wood a Piggy-wig stood

With a ring at the end of his nose,

His nose,

With a ring at the end of his nose.

III

“Dear Pig, are you willing to sell for one shilling

Your ring?” Said the Piggy, “I will.”

So they took it away, and were married next day

By the Turkey who lives on the hill.

They dined on mince, and slices of quince,

Which they ate with a runcible spoon**;

And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand,

They danced by the light of the moon,

The moon,

They danced by the light of the moon.

By Edward Lear.

*Ditty – Noun. A short, simple song.

** A spoon with three wide tines one of which has a sharpened edge for cutting.

Well my little story about owls and pussycats starts with some more pictures of the owls who visit my garden at dusk. All three still come but now the young one has developed some self confidence and doesn’t hang around Mum and Dad so much, he’s starting to spot his own prey. At night my garden must be alive with little creatures because all three owls find plenty to eat and so do a couple of my cats, or maybe it’s the phase of the moon, at the moment the moon is a thin sliver but waxing with the first quarter on Thursday night and full in a week’s time after that, which is a complicated way of saying the moon is getting brighter every night for the next ten days and will be full on the twenty seventh. That probably means the owls will be seeing their prey more easily.

I’m afraid I can’t tell one from another yet, unless they’re perching in a row, so I’m not going to try to tell you which one this is because I have no idea.

Nor this one ….

nor this one….

What I will say is that they provide me with evenings full of interest and a good way to practice my flash photography, even if I do forget to put the batteries in the flash once in a while (ahem!).

The pussycat part comes with the arrival, after about three months absence, of my little cat Defne. The little sister of big Deniz she has been missing, nearly presumed lost, and I had almost given up ever seeing her again. She is such a small skinny little thing that I do feel very protective towards her. While looking at the owls the other night I heard a little “miaow” and turned to see her trotting towards me.

She has obviously been getting some food from somewhere, in fact that might be a clue to why so many times in recent weeks I have come down in the morning to find the cat food bowl empty, she might have been a nightime visitor. Well she got a big bowl of meat to tuck into and a saucer of goat’s milk to help it down.

I’m very glad that she’s back.

Last month the wheat in the valley bottom was harvested and then the stalks chopped for bedding, here is a picture of my neighbours having theirs chopped ready to store for the winter.