The Wise Woman Of the Town, The Wise Man of the Woods And Gentle Mistress Blue

Hello, Hello, Hello

Well we have just come back from a damp walk in the local field. I had to push my Mistress off the sofa for a trot after hearing of the terrible events that happened to Mistress Blue. I find walking a good way of getting my Mistress to settle her thoughts. In many aspects it is a scrub land out there but with the steady tread of our feet and the constant chorus of bird song to accompany them it makes thinking much easier in such circumstances

We were going to try for pictures on the blog today but in light of what has happened these seem minor things that can wait. Since this evening Mistress Blue and my mistress have decided to have a telephone one to one in a little while in the meantime my mistress and I will be practicing taking photo's for you all to see. While I think about it, our greetings to Archie and Agather. Archie is working on smell o vision a fine cause for a blog - and a dog!

Mistress Winter and I have been sitting quietly thinking of Mistress Blue hardly knowing how to express our feelings of horror at the events and sympathy to our dear friend. Like many of you Mistress Winter and I have known such a dark side of life. Some like me were born into it others fall into it.Most of us manage to get out of such times and places but others never do and they are the ones who often attach themselves in one way or another to such gentle souls as my Mistress Blue. There are few things sensible that one can say at such times but only extend our affection to help and protect Mistress Blue as much as possible.

Photo's have made an interesting dimension to our walks these days. Until now my mistress has never been that interested in taking pictures. Unless of people or events, my mistress finds that scenic pictures quite often only interests those who have taken them for they have particular memories of such places.In the last week though we have been out taking photos and learning lessons about such matters. The first of these is, if you are going to take photos for others to see then you need an actual camera, not as in my mistress's case a phone. She managed to take some photos of the secret bit of herb bed in the park and some of the park itself and some of me but a phone doth not a camera make!. The second lesson we found was that taking photos actually make you look at what you are taking. When Mistress Winter described the herb bed to me, such was her excitement that it seemed much fuller than it was. Looking at the photos of it, it was not half as impressive. My mistress was tempted to do a little furtive gardening of her own there - I would help with the digging of course. We'll have these pictures with you soon.

Our walks this week have been most helpful for calming my Mistress's mind in such busy times -and make my life calmer too for like all dogs I pick up on my Mistress's worry in a way only animals can. You will remember last weeks Friday walk, I forgot to tell you the fascination of watching a thrush bashing seven bells out of a snail that my Mistress found which was only tinged a little with some regret for the snail. The relief of mind just watching this tiny bird so intent on his meal was something new to my Mistress. It made her more awhere of birds than she had ever been before. So much so that for a few minutes standing somewhere, so mundane as a bus que in town, she watched a pigeon pecking away on a dropped cookie. The biscuit was too big for the bird to fly away with but so sure he was to make the best of this excellent meal that he went at it again and again, strutting away when people dashed by disturbing his work and then darting back to peck at it again. For a few minutes my mistress told me that she was completely fixed by this birds absolute determination to get this food. When she looked up again for her bus she felt that she had actually rested.

Something else to think of. Where my mistress works she meets many many people,.Most good and ordinary, some difficult and demanding others just plain bonkers, it's the way of the job but just occasionally she meets someone who is truly magical. This was so with a young man who walked in with a calm all of his own. He asked for some herbs that my mistress served him and as she did so he spoke of the neckless that she was wearing. My mistress often wears a little pendent of The White Horse of Uffington, a great carving made thousands of years ago into the chalk hillside of, I think Wiltshire. Such a place is older than old with a wisdom that cannot be described only felt when there. The writer Terry Pratchet sums up the carving beautifully by describing it as the movement of a horse rather than the physical accuracy of a picture of a horse. While looking at this pendant the man suggested that she was a wise woman and seemed surprised to find such in the city. My mistress smiled and said you could find such folk everywhere if you looked hard enough. The man said that he lived near the great horse in the woods there and could never live in the town. I know that my mistress has always been a towns woman but for one brief moment something far older in her soul that had walked the hills and wood of her land looked out at the wise man of the woods and the soul of the woods man nodded back in acknowledgement - for one perfect moment there was understanding. Then he smiled, paid his monies and left. No romance, no flirtation just that split moment of encounter that leaves one quiet for a while. Please note, all those who are reaching for matches as I tell you this that my Mistress has only one god and that is God.

Well that is it for this week. I am off for my usual pre sleep nap for this evening

TTFN


Samwise