The leaning tower of Cambridge.
I wasn’t going to post this picture because the angle is off. It isn’t really leaning that much, but I’m becoming obsessed.
I see a man with a big mouth and a pointy nose, wearing a cap. I was going to name him…
…but I added another layer and it changed again.
Not a cloud in the sky. Still air. Even early birdsong seemed muted, as all sounds are by snow.
Silence is peace. I reveled in it, drank it in.
For a few moments I could forget everything else.
.
Clearly, I’m attracted to shiny things.
Last night I watched for the moon again.
At first it was the faintest smudge, just a tease:
Then, I turned to go back inside and Ms Lucy shot out onto the porch, demanding to know what was so damn interesting out there. I’d made a detour out the door instead of finding her a treat.
So out into the dark plunged my half blind cat and inserted herself beneath the all-weather furniture.
Lucy is fast and she’s wriggly and she has sharp claws and sharper teeth which she learned to use when she was on the streets of South Park near Seattle.
There I was in my sweatshirt, half frozen, clutching a camera and trying to grab a small ball of fur.
Lucy is a drama queen. The smallest thing makes her sing out “Blue Murder!”, but I was deaf to all of that as I scruffed her and tried to hold her away from my body.
As I got her through the door, she lashed out and got me but in comparison to previous wounds, it was nothing!
Lucy was placated by the treat she’d been hoping for.
She doesn’t hold a grudge.
Just look who’s almost befriended me, finally.
Suddenly, Tinkerbell doesn’t automatically hiss and claw me. She lets me tickle behind her ear.
Now this could have something to do with the proximity of Willow at the time. She dislikes Willow and vice versa.
It’s a very cat thing, to deliberately do something it knows will annoy its nemesis.
The moment I turned around, I saw that Willow had taken herself off. She doesn’t do “huffs”, Willow.
What she does, I think, is the equivalent of thumbing her nose, offering the middle digit.
Although that wouldn’t be lady-like.
Penny took the opportunity to come and tell me that she was sure it must be lunchtime. Who could refuse a look like that?
Patches had to be roused from her usual perch.
Dee Dee (Sasha) was already positioned at the cupboard door, willing it to open.
She was most disturbed that Grant had opened and closed the door, in his search for pasta, and was placing more importance on his lunch.
That was very out-of-order.
So she gave me that look.
“Have you no control?”
“Look at me. I’m fainting from malnourishment!”
She clearly thinks I’m simple, the look she gives me.
A hopeless human.
They all got lunch, of course, Grant substituting potatoes for pasta, so I accepted two tiny ones with butter. Nice.
Meanwhile, I had disturbed the crows lunch.
I spotted them out back and as I had a camera in hand, I pointed it, but before it was focused, they were off.
They sat in a tree staring at me.
“Nope. Not coming down!”
Even when I hid, well out of sight and put the camera down, they refused to return to their lunch.
Everyone knows how smart crows are. I’ve always been especially fond of them. I think Panther was a crow in a cat body. Usually they are not wary but a reader alerted me to the fact that not far from here is a place where there is an annual crow cull.
The place draws huge numbers of crows each winter, which I admit could be problematic, but the thought of a cull makes me sad. There ought to be compromise.
.
Looking out my window now, I have trouble believing there is another snowstorm coming, but the Oracle tells me it will start snowing on Monday afternoon straight through Tuesday.
When the snow plow comes, I do hope he won’t topple my ice tower. I’ve grown attached to it.
Maybe Dee Dee is right.
Love your ice tower and prayer flags. x