Bedtime Stories
Snuggle up and get ready for sleep with these enchanting bedtime stories for your delight.
Natural history has evidently been the writers principal study throughout his life. With his matchless patience and understanding of nature he has the ability to have a profound affect on anyone who reads his stories.
If these little stories delight your mind or you have found some beauty in any word or line then please could you spare a moment to place a comment with your thoughts.
Kind regards, afarawayfellow
The Nature of Flight
Being fully awake and with the soft magic of the half-light dissolved like mist, I stare in slack mouthed silence as squirrels hurriedly ripple across my path, their spines undulating like waves along a skipping rope. They have become startled by the rooks alighting in the great oak tree. Rooks have a more discerning scent and lead a flock of starlings to an area rich in food. They have a more delicate feel in their beaks enabling them to detect food from a greater distance so have formed a beneficial relationship with the starlings, the rooks also acting as a ‘look out’ for predators on open ground which can be readily observed.
the nature of time
I have often wondered about the nature of time, we can’t see it or touch it, yet it’s there every moment of our lives. Time is the most precious thing we are given on earth.
against all odds
When we enter a beautiful woodland setting, we are then caught in a moment of admiration; one that is capable of lifting our spirits, touching emotions that lie deeper and are more meaningful to us than almost anything else in life.
little boy blue
On many of our adventures whether on pathless woods or where the waves break on a low sandy shore, Blue and I would settle a while. Blue is my trusty Blue Roan Cocker Spaniel. He would sit on his haunches with a morose appearance watching his master. A watchful sleepy eye would appear and analyse the footsteps, creaks and sounds around him. Blue stood slack but ready, his smooth narrow head flickered as he shifted his gaze, his growls grew more menacing, his eyes becoming fixed in their stare.
against all odds
When we enter a beautiful woodland setting, we are then caught in a moment of admiration; one that is capable of lifting our spirits, touching emotions that lie deeper and are more meaningful to us than almost anything else in life.
Blue’s Countryside Adventures
As Blue and I enter a narrow country lane where finger posts and forgotten milestones are half hidden amongst the wild grasses and where dandelions are blowing abound with seed, Blue relishes the incomparable pleasure of discovery. As I look up at the watery sky I watch the blue arrows team of swallows swerving and swooping picking off insects as they go. I can hear in the distance the sound of ‘Great Tom’ the famous church bell of St. Thomas and The Holy Rood, what a wonderful sound he makes with a head, shoulder, a waist, a lip and a mouth but also a wonderful voice.
Thunderheads and Lightning
It was now early July, the morning was fine, the sky blue, and the clouds below like fluffy white balls of cotton. The lane was awash with the great willowherb, a splash of pinkish mauve amongst the tall umbellifers. There was an abundance of golden yellow ragwort, this plant being the distain of many, but not for the ephemeral wings of the cinnabar moth who rears her yellow and black striped caterpillars on this tenacious plant.
robin’s betrothal
Our beautiful robins become engaged in January and marry at the end of March. The male presents her with a courtship present, a tiny grub, a love gift to prove his feelings for her. If she accepts his gift the days of engagement are over and the serious work of married life begins.
galleries and umtitumps
In the early summer, when the hedgerows are white with May (the blossom of the hawthorn), the scent of which is heavy upon the breeze, and the birds singing lustily above, the spirit of the times is felt even underground by the mole—the blind miner whose senses are so keen it triggers him to start breeding in earnest.
AUGUST – The Mute Season
It is now early August, the lanes and the woods are silent, without the pellucid sound of birds singing. Only the yellowhammers in the hedgerows are with song. In the skies above the cries of the buzzards can be heard. This is the time when birds begin their summer moult to replace their suit of feathers ready for the harshness of winter.
Our Distant and Day Long Rambles (Copy)
Beneath the flailed clippings of a hawthorn hedge is the home of Fidget and her little friend Piccolo. This is the place where Bob and his trusty spaniel Blue would frequent every morning, a little lane which winds like loose string baffling your sense of direction.
The seaside Adventures Of Woodrow the Woodlouse
Woody the woodlouse makes his way home from school one day; He couldn’t wait to tell his mum what Mr. Slater his teacher what he had taught him in the classroom. .
Woodrow and Friends’ Woodland Adventure
Woodrow came home from school and handed a letter to his mum, it was from Mr. Slater his teacher. The letter was about a school trip with an overnight stay in Gribble Woods. As Winnie Woody’s mum reads the letter Woody could not contain his excitement and cries out “Can I go mum, please, the place is whispery with good ghosts’ mum, and Mr. Slater is a wonderful storyteller.” Winnie asks about his teacher, “Is he married Woody, what does he look like?”
Dougie the Dunnock
All the other birds were so busy that they didn’t notice Dougie all alone, he had no-one. He would regularly visit the Cuddlewick’s garden, and whilst Gracie and her pappy were digging in the vegetable patch Dougie would often settle on the spade.
buttercups & rainbows
Nature is a majestic artwork that is constantly changing and surprising us. There is always something new to see and appreciate in nature. I believe we can all get carried away with modern technology that we can all too easily forget the beauty and the wonders to be found around us in ordinary situations.
the endless charm of spike the hedgehog
Spike came under my watchful eye on the 20th November, 2016. This gave me a further opportunity to expand my observations and knowledge on his mode of life. Spike was not the first hedgehog I had reared over the years.