A trip to the cottage - Luna time...

When we decide to wend our weary way to Wales for the weekend Luna the cat comes with us. Well, she deserves the break and enjoys a couple of days away from it all. Not that her routine differs too much when we are there. She sleeps, eats, sleeps some more, and generally lazes around - it’s what cat do I suppose.

She travels pretty well once she is safely in her travel box, though getting her in it can be quite another matter. It’s almost that she seems to know when we are going and as soon as she gets a whiff of ‘going away’ activity she’s off to hide. We’ve taken to packing the night before and spending the hour or two before we leave whistling and looking casual so as not to drop her the hint. Even so she still seems to know. The funny thing is that she settles to the journey immediately and once we are there seems perfectly happy, so why all horse (or should that be cat) play?

At home Luna roams free outside as long as there is someone at home to look after her. She generally pops back every hour or so, mainly to get a treat stick I think. But the cottage is surrounded by countryside, so when we are there and to avoid her getting lost in the woods or attacked by wild beasts, we keep her on a harness. Again she doesn’t seem to mind and every morning jumps up on her chair and purrs until we strap her harness on. We secure her to the chair on a long leash and then she strolls outside to watch the birds all day.

The leash is long enough for her to have a stretch, but not quite long enough for her to reach the birds on the feeders. She never gives up trying though. The birds for their part seem to know that Luna can’t reach them so happily feed with Luna sitting only three feet away on the roof of the car. It's almost as if the birds are taking the piss. Sometimes she falls asleep there, stretched out to catch the sun, other times she sits on her chair and snoozes the day away dreaming of catching a sparrow or two.

It’s such a hard life for a cat on her hols.

A trip to the cottage - spiders...

I suppose I should start with the Spider, well it does seem a very good place to start.

We arrived at the cottage on Thursday evening just as night was falling and three full days ahead of us to do whatever we chose. At this time of year, mellow fruitfulness and all that, my first duty on arrival is to perform the bath check. This consists of turning on the light and checking the off-white bath for spiders; a task I am not at all bothered by, although I did once have to catch and set fourteen of the little lovelies free outside.

On this occasion there were only five and four of them were deceased, dead, and no longer with us. The remaining spider seemed in fine fettle and very much alive, rearing up on his back legs as if to say ‘come on then if you think you’re hard enough!’ Obviously I was. No spider, not even this gladiator with four kills to his name (I assumed), was ever going to get the better of me.

Now usually I pick them up in my cupped hands and transport to the back door and freedom. There have been times I’ve taken two or three at a time, jiggling my hands up and down in an attempt to stop them tickling me. Not this time though. This time I got a beer glass and a piece of paper – this was one huge spider.

It didn’t take long before he was safely inside my pint pot. I have to say that he didn’t seem pleased, so I quickly and carefully slipped a pound inside the glass for scale and took a couple of pictures. Then, after nervously retrieving my pound, I set him free by dropping him into the dark over the stable door knowing that (like Arnie) he’ll be back. Well, they don't call them house spiders for nothing.

Later that same evening we found another spider almost as big in the living room and again I had to fetch my beer glass. I must be losing my touch. Not Luna though who seemed to enjoy playing with her through the glass of my Old Speckled Hen pint pot.

Back to the future...

So that’s it and I am pleased to say that this great nation of ours remains united - long may it continue.

Of course the whole independence thing is a delusion. Yes, Scotland could have voted themselves out of the United Kingdom but in truth it would have remained interdependent. How could it not? The world is an increasing small place and day by day everyone becomes more and more dependent on each other. What Japan or America or France does effects us all, how could Scotland think that it could ‘break free’? Independence is simply an illusion in an interdependent world of climate change, diminishing resources, and financial indexes.

The good news for the United Kingdom in all of this is that big changes are going to come out of this whole exercise. But then a re-evaluation is long overdue. Westminster is going to have to reinvent itself just like the monarchy has done since the death of Dianna. She was the Royal’s wake up call and the Scottish independence referendum is going to prove to be Parliament’s. The alarm clock has gone off and for once the politicians are going to have to listen.

The more I think about it, the more I think that a kingdom as large as ours run from Westminster is archaic and really not that much different from being ruled by a single monarch. Yes I know we have a democratic government, but in reality what does that mean? Are the needs and views of the Cornish being taken into account? And what about Lincolnshire, or even Yorkshire – although it goes against the grain to give Yorkshire any more big-up than they already give themselves.

Yes, smaller could be beautiful.

Why not a return to the old Anglo-Saxon kingdoms? It strikes me that they were a nice manageable size; small enough to be pretty inclusive, but large enough to manage as an interdependent whole when required. We’d need to sort out what our new kingdoms could control for themselves and what would be managed collectively, but in general it could work and the names conjure up all manner of memories and images: Wessex, East Anglia, Mercia, Wales, Ulster, Northumbria, Caledonia, and of course I’d be happy to have Cornwall and the Scottish Isles as separate kingdoms if they wished - not Essex though.

Each kingdom could have an elected ‘king’, with an elected ‘chief king’ replacing the Prime Minister. I’m sure that we’d all get on swimmingly and if it were to happen I’d be happy to be king for a while. Vote for King Andrewbert the Unprepared!

Of course I’m not serious about the king thing, just letting my imagination run away with me just a little. But I am hoping that Westminster has learnt a long awaited lesson from all of this. We came very close to losing a big part of The United Kingdom; some might even say that although Scotland remains with us (just) we are now less united than ever. Time to start doing something about that and the devolution of England could be the way forward.

We’ll see, but at least we know now what the political parties will be fighting and squabbling about in the lead up to the next election. Perhaps it’s time for them all to start trying harder.

Some more rubbish...

Of course before I left Wales I stood for a while by the field and watched the sun set.

Yes, those sunsets have begun again with the cooling of the evenings and the light fading so much quicker and earlier. I love this place with the long cottage in the distance, the crows sitting on the telephone wires as they caw to the sky above. I love those funny grey clouds bobbing on an ocean of orange-red. It’s a peaceful place, a place where nobody can touch me; somewhere I can be alone with my thoughts if only for a while. A place of refuge and tranquility and when the sun is going down, especially when it leaves behind something as spectacular as this, I stop worrying about the fools and idiots and simply breathe.

The frame is a whimsical notion. It seems to sum up what I feel when I am there. A moment in time like a photograph, a snapshot of a peace I know won't last, but at least I can experience for a moment. A calming moment in a beautiful place, my special place that I often go to even when I'm not physically there.

So, there you have it, some more of my rubbish which you can never understand. I hope that you are reading this.

You won't win.

The end of Summer...

So that’s it, the end of the summer and what a great summer it’s been. I’m sure that we must have had wet days but if we did I seem to have managed to dodge most of them. Of course, sharing my time between Cheshire and our tiny, dusty cottage in North Wales has helped this whole process along and summer has seemed like one long holiday to me. Four days in the shop, three days on the beach, three days in the shop, four days on the beach; all-in-all it worked out pretty well.

With time to do it I suppose I could have cut the hedges, instead we spent our time re-exploring our part of Wales. Going back to beaches and places we haven’t visited for years was a real treat, almost like discovering them all over again. Bardsey Island, Aberdaron, Porth Neigwl, Abersoch, Porth Colman, Bangor Pier, Port Ysgo (the beach in the picture above), Borth-y-Gest… Almost a different beach each day with cowrie searches (you can die if you don’t find one and if you find thirteen you have to stay on the beach until you find another), the watching of waves, the sound of the breeze in the sand. Butterflies, birds, hedgehogs at night, the bright moon in the crisp night sky, and almost twenty years of memories.

Food and alcohol played their part too. Well what would life be without wine? Picnics with hard boiled eggs and home grown tomatoes eaten from benches overlooking the sea, rolled and stuffed breast of welsh lamb roasted crisp in our dilapidated oven and served with roasted potatoes, crab and prawns, bread and soft French cheese, pasta and meatballs, sweet and sour fish, cider and beer, wine and beer, wine and cider, and black coffee – but only when I had to.

Yes, a good summer. One to remember I think in a world where it’s far too easy to forget how beautiful the scenery is and the fun of just walking along a sunny beach. Now it's back to the real world (well realish) with all its routine and getting there on time. Of course we'll still be coming to Wales, but not as frequently as of late; summer has gone you see. So, see you next year summer, here comes the autumn.

Wierd weather at sea...

We went across to Trevor at the weekend. I’ve always thought that Trefor is an odd place - it’s quiet, empty, even a little unsettling, tucked away at the northern entrance to the Llyn. Trefor used to be a quarry town and the quarry buildings still perch on the side of Yr Eifl like a huge, grey fortress in a fantasy novel. The beach is littered with chunks of quarried granite, sometimes we take a drive down to the beach to watch the sea, and that’s what we did this weekend despite the snow and rain. It is just the place for a weird event.

I sat in the car counting the grey waves rolling in and as I watched out over the sea a strange milky white light began to develop. High in the sky at first but moving quite quickly, it seemed to fall into the sea where it hovered just skimming the waves, shimmering and pulsing. Something was happening out at sea, something strange and something that I’d never seen before.

eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeSuddenly I was in a Spielberg film - and it was running in my head as I watched the sea. A UFO had cloaked itself inside a cloud of light so that it could come close to the earth and take up seawater to restock its depleted cooling tanks. The aliens had found a way to power their ship using seawater as both a coolant and a quasar synthesised fuel, but had begun to run dangerously low on their way to Alpha Centauri where they we due to seed a barren asteroid with synthetic sub-lifes. They urgently needed the water to cool the dark matter held within the crystalorator, and were only minutes away from exploding. I held my breath. If they were too late then this would be the end of the world. I watched and waited for the craft to appear from inside the cloud. Streams of vapour spiralled down from the craft and dissipated as the strange white light continued to shimmer, inside the shimmer something started to change as gradually a multi-coloured band of light emerged from the cloud, hanging above the water where it glowed and became stronger with each passing second. It was beautiful. I must have been seeing the light from the engines as they prepared to warp.

“Take me with you. Take me with you. Klaatu barada nikto” I cried!

The skies opened, we were hit by a massive hail storm, and by the time it was over both the light and the spaceship were gone. It must have been the kinetic energy from the ship reaching warp that had caused the storm, I knew that the ice crystals wouldn’t last long and if I was to get one back to my laboratory in time to analyse it I’d have to move fast.

I could have gone on. The movie was still running in my head - but I gave up there. It was time to go, and as I turned the car to drive up the steep road from the beach the credits began to roll. Keifer Sutherland had played me.

Keifer Sutherland, good choice!