Animals of October

A dearth of animal encounters yesterday, largely because I have started a new job and so am chained to my computer and confined to my study. I considered squeezing out a blog-post about the computer mouse (why is it a mouse? What's up with that?), but I doubt anyone really wanted that, least of all me. So, instead, I used Microsoft Excel to help me generate a random number and turned to page 227 of the Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures, as featured in a former post . I landed upon 'Gabriel Hounds', who are deadly cryptids from British mythology who visit the houses of sick people as a sign of imminent death . I therefore present to you this prose-poem thing about the work ethic of these death-beasts and their boss. Views entirely my own. Gabriel Hounds They say hell hath truly arrived when the hounds need a spreadsheet.  When they lope up to Gabriel, tails between legs, and implore him to download Excel. Hell hath truly arrived when Gabriel, normally so supercilious, conced...

We lost a guinea pig yesterday. The lovely Daphne, with her flowing white locks and her haughty vibe, like a Greek Goddess. She actually appeared on this blog a few days ago, on the picture for the post about Zoom meetings . She lived here, in my study, alongside the aforementioned Chuzzlewit and his partner Princess Peach. She was not best mates with these two by any means, but she was a good neighbour. She was also one of our more confident guinea pigs who didn't mind being handled or being stroked on the head or cheek.  She'd had a couple of quiet days where she'd nibbled at her food and resisted the arthritis medication that she usually loves, so we took her to the vet who advised us that her time had come. RIP queen Daphne. We've had a large collection of guinea pigs for the best part of a decade now, so we've grown quite used to their deaths. It's never pleasant, of course, but it happens, and we can comfort ourselves with the lives we provide for them and...

Quick content warning: there's discussion of pet death in the latter half of this post. Not too heavy, but if that's a difficulty for you, maybe skip this post.  This handsome chap is Merlin. He lives at the back-opposite house to ours and spends significant amounts of his time as a sort of feline sentinel for the ginnel between our streets. He stands on the fence, or lies Sphinx-like on the flat top of the shed, and watches the comings and goings of the alleyway. He's not particularly friendly, at least not with me, but I always say hello. He glares at me as if to say; I'm on duty here, I'm a complete professional , and that's fair enough I suppose. We hear him miaow occasionally when his shift is done and he wants to head back inside. It is a loud and proud howling voice very much befitting his stature.  He's a rescue cat from the Manchester & Salford RSPCA and we know this because Hannah did his home visit. This is one of her volunteering roles (durin...

In what has now become a trilogy of posts , I'm here again to write about the RSPCA Badly Drawn Pets fundraiser because last night it was my turn to get sketchy. The fundraiser has done really well, sailing past its 3K target, but that has meant there is a backlog of pets to be badly drawn and the pool of 'artists' has had to be extended. I am now within that pool, bathing in the inks and paints. Well, its more like colouring pencils and felt tips, but you get what I mean. My subject was a black rabbit called Inara (Hittite goddess of wild animals - cool name!) who stands proudly in her picture sticking her ridiculous cartoonish tongue out. I've not posted the full drawing here because I thought it better for the owner-donators to see it first, but this detail shows the aforementioned tongue. It was a fun exercise, taking me back to those heady days of GSCE art where I would gamely reproduce various Still Lives and be awarded Cs for attainment and Bs for effort. But I...

I have a very dominating sweet tooth. I think its the molar behind the right incisor, who sits a little back from the others. It lurks in soft-palate shadows, whispering at the other teeth; a slice of that cake, a biscuit or two, oooh fizzy sweets! It was my last major barrier before going full vegan, although it turns out veganism went full-blown sweet tooth at around the same time I turned, so it didn't turn out to be much of a problem. But back in 2015, when I was taking that step from veggie to veegz, cornershop chocolate bars were my failing, particularly Snickers and Twixes. I had already discovered the M&S veggie Percy Pig sweets, so that satisfied the fruity chew craving, but the prospect of not being able to nip to the shop for a Double Decker was surprisingly powerful. But then I told myself to stop being such a whiny little dick-splash and, besides, we’d discovered Vegos and Mini-Moos to sate the chocolate pangs, and a local deli did the absolute bestest vegan cakes...

I always intended to use this blog for fictional as well as non-fictional writings, so here’s the first attempt at a little story-tale. For guidance, I asked Twitter to supply me with numbers to lead me to an entry in The Element Encyclopedia of Magical Creatures by John & Caitlin Matthews, which I have here on my desk. Grace Fletcher-Hackwood (@msgracefa) and Jo Howard (@joannuski) were the first to respond, selecting Cacus; a fearsome half-spider, half-human, three-headed beast from Greek mythology, and Adar Llwch Gwin; some mighty giant birds from Welsh mythology, whose name translates to 'Dustwine' (for some unexplained reason). The following tale is the result of this mythic mash-up. Big thanks to Grace and Jo!   Quite the Monster?   One head for talking, one for eating, and one for breathing fire. And so, if you cared or dared to look dearest Hercules, that means three entirely different throat structures and, I expect, three separate stomachs; one shriveled...

One of my most treasured possessions is this stamp gifted to me by Hannah some years ago. It’s a wren perched on the words ‘EX LIBRIS David Hartley’ and I use it to stamp the title pages of every book I own that I finish reading. I used it yesterday after closing the last page of Ali Smith’s Winter , book two of her beguiling and fabulous seasons quartet, the one with the disembodied head and the ladies of the Greenham Common protest. I actually saw Smith reading from the book shortly after it was published and was amazed to discover that her writing was right up my street. The covers of her books do not convey the wicked weirdnesses within - quite the opposite. Not only is she one of our finest contemporary writers, she’s superbly skilled at weird fiction, although that might be a genre too far for the literary crowd. Well, let’s not get fall into that pit spikes or you’ll never get me out. The wren has some special significance for me as it forms part of a nickname for my autistic si...