short stories
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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.
In the shadowed wilds
In the shadowed wilds of mature deciduous woodland where the trees are throttled by the ivy, the wood anemones now steal the show, cloaking the ground and blooming like a galaxy of stars. The random clumps of snow piercers (snowdrops) their white beauty now faded have provided a much needed food supply for the early bees.
A Show of Summer Softness
In a small enclave of a wooded copse is a place so delightful and yet so often goes unnoticed and unsung. Here is a place to see wonders great and small; it is the little puzzles and magical ploys it presents to us, where adventures are to be experienced and secrets discovered where no eyes can follow
An Oasis of Calm
In the heart of every winter is a quivering spring and with the rain now shrunk to a drizzle, the limpid grey clouds are brighter and clearer for my sake.
A Lovely Dawn
The sun was streaking the dawn sky pink and mauve, with the perfect light catching the dew on the ears of whiskered barley. With a pair of watching eyes, I marvelled at the majestic flight and mesmeric sound of the seagulls as they rose into the sun, clipping the misty air. As Maverick and I ambled along the narrow lane, I began to reflect on how I had enjoyed the ariel display of the swifts screaming eagerly for the sunset and their mystical star games when we last visited this place.
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.
JUNE-Flaming June
It is now early June, and the sky was full of gold, painting the little lane with summer magic. The air was alive and humming with bees collecting sweetness from the daisied fields. I love the luxuriant profusion and mad scatter of our wonderful wildflowers, and the vast array of male hoverflies carousing around them.
A Bouquet of Dreams
It was a beautiful golden day in May, lapped in light and the heat of noon. The gulls were cleaving the sky with their echoing cries; the wind wandered by the beech and the willows stirring their branches as they softly sighed. The hawthorn too looked sweet and fresh, like apples in rain. The blooming mayflowers that were now sprinkling their floral delights from every spray would soon be fading, as in Autumn they will become laden with a rich bounty of bright red shiny peggles. Maverick and I lingered a while to quaff its heady fragrance, when keen from her lair a spider leaned to procure the many tiny white flies that visited the flowers. I watched the many butterflies’ wings open and close like a hinge, sun blessed as they basked in the warmth of the sun, the bees too were droning their sounds rising as gradual as a lute, becoming almost meditative.
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.
A symphony of feelings
The lazy mist crept on its journey slow, I’m glad I shrugged off the hibernal gloom, the sky was blue, the clouds like cotton balls, it was a beautiful day banishing the gloom and the morning felt fresh minted. In the corner of my vision a skylark rose singing a torrent of bubbling music. With his silver chain of song, I listened tentatively to those blended notes telling me that spring had returned once more. I marvelled at the exhausting energy of it all as the music deftly wooed. With Maverick’s new palette of sniffs, we headed for the trees, as we entered the nook of the wood something caught my eye, a man sat on a fallen log with a large dog by his side. His vowels were as rich and confident as Victorian furniture, his hands seemed to wander without reference to what he said. When I tried to speak my voice went unheard, my words were rejected and counted for nothing, I therefore refrained from the spoken word, his presence diluted the reverence as I disconnected our conversation. Maverick’s eyes were locked in on them both, we wandered on and left this place, heading for the edgeland of the fields.
Looking for Beauty
As winter drifted into spring, the colds’ great bearhug that had embraced all had now released her grip and forsaken us. The bird songs are melodious and multitudinous in the burgeoning dawn of a glorious new day. As I ambled through soft green pastures where cleft-born wildflowers were soaking up the heat from the sun, a timorous hare leapt forth to feed on a rich supply of variable grasses.
Lost in Wonder
The sun’s great orange disc was well above the horizon and my lengthening shadow diminished as it stretched far across the meadow. The bucolic landscape here has a great attraction, with dense hedgerows and irregular fields framed by precipitous peaks, where its people contain the quality of the place. As I took my distance again and ambled over the long hummocky fields, I spied a fluffle of baby rabbits feeding and frolicking. I couldn’t help feeling a delicious shiver of excitement as I spotted the white flash of their scuts as they quickly disappeared beneath the tangled hedgerows, where the green of brambles and nettles was well advanced.
Out of the Shadows
It had been a cold and very frosty January night, the nipping air stole my breath, the fog had settled on sub-zero surfaces and the pelt of frost had accreted crystals upon crystals. The sky being velvet black was spangled with a myriad of twinkling stars, which were as numberless as days. The stalactite-like icicles suspended in silent grace, the moon was at its full round shine, and where the tree’s shadows were blackly stretching across the land, it captured my heart. My eyes were fixed like a ruby rock, leaving me spellbound, as the moon rained out her beams on the birch trees, transfiguring them in silvery brightness.
In the Parlance of Time
A storm had gathered during the night with torrential rain, the lightning illuminating the clouds. Through closed eyelids, the on off of the lightning gave a near continuous picture followed with snake-like wriggles spilling and tumbling in a couple-coloured sky. In the parlance of time, I had longed for scenes like this, as I in childhood sweetly slept, full of thoughts unborn. By mid-morning the storm had ceased, and the sun began to split the clouds, I could hear the rustle of the wind in the trees close by and the land with rain was now rinsed. As I followed the sounds everything was descending earthwards, leaves, twigs and acorns, across the cedrous bank the old mossed cottage trees were bent with apples, their fragrance and ripeness filled to the core.
Moon Sparrow
Hurrying along life’s thoroughfare, we pass him by but unaware For I could see his merry eyes, bright and shining,
they caught my stare A tiny sparrow, oh so small Now all alone when the night did fall Unlike the birds of bright voice, plume and flight Spadger the moon sparrow sings late into the night Where clouds of starlings passed his way Now every sound is hushed away
Moses’ Call to adventure
How privileged I felt watching him, he snuffled as he suckled, letting go of his mother’s teat momentarily and whimpered as he sought to regain it, I knew then that he was the one.
Several weeks later he left his mother and siblings from the dimly lit barn and came to a bright and happy home. He settled in quickly and in no time at all had formed a strong inseparable bond with Maverick. Moses quickly became a curious and playful ginger kitten, always ready to explore the world around him.
A Lovely Dawn
The sun was streaking the dawn sky pink and mauve, with the perfect light catching the dew on the ears of whiskered barley. With a pair of watching eyes, I marvelled at the majestic flight and mesmeric sound of the seagulls as they rose into the sun, clipping the misty air. As Maverick and I ambled along the narrow lane, I began to reflect on how I had enjoyed the ariel display of the swifts screaming eagerly for the sunset and their mystical star games when we last visited this place.
One Moonlit Night
Through a little gate at the bottom of the garden is a buttercup meadow, where a fox I named Finbar often frequented. He was aware of my presence as I felt his stare, but knowing my scent had no fear of me. I watched as he stretched out his length in the sunshine, I could see his long ears and his elliptical eyes. I named him Finbar, for a name makes a difference, be it a person or an animal, don’t deal with them as strangers.