Thursday in the Garden - after the rain

We finally made it out into the garden! Its been too wet claims Mrs H. But the honest truth is that after Darcy made a run for it over the garden wall and got himself lost, only to be discovered by the inscrutable Mr H, cowering in an alley way hours later... she has been a bit jumpy about us going out (she has also got us some weird contraption to wear around our necks, which we hate)

so, it was fab to be able to chew the grass again...

sniff the air ...

... and stalk some birdies. This is us discreetly behind the bush planning our jump up the wall to meet the birdies whisker to beak.

Its always impawtant to tread the boundry...

especially the bit behind the shed ...

.. we like to leave our calling card (below)

 ...or simply just keep hidden in case the birdies fancy sitting on the alababa

Darcy checks on the neighbours in his role as Guard Cat

delusions

OK... you or me ...to tell her that it's stuffed

forget not

I travelled down to Cornwall this last weekend. A blend of pleasure and of pain. The beautiful Cornish coast, the pleasure. Visiting my Aunty in her dementia ward, the pain. For this visit I must find a way to collect myself, gather myself up. There seems no graduation and it never fails to turn the key on all the perplexities that make mental illness so wretched. My Aunt. I know she is there; but I cannot know what it is now burning, or might burn within her mind. She is dislocated from life, and almost from me and it blunts things. And then, amidst all the shouting and distraction, she looks deep into my eyes with sudden unexpected smiles assembling themselves into a pattern of extraordinary charm. There she is all over again. The Aunt I know and love.

darkness

 light

    but still enjoying her tea

Afterwards, I go with my husband and we stand surveying the beautiful shore of Constantine beach.

  flint patterns

Visits to Padstow, Edgecombe, Cawsand and Fowey all a delight.

Fowey

Walks through snowdrop lined tree avenues near Duloe ...

  a beautiful fish chandelier (want)

Then the long journey home again... with Bingley and Darcy in tow.

 Bing conducting car survey (or is that - eye spy with my little eye?!)

Darcy - "...are we there yet..?"

kitchen chores

"I can hear her but I can't see her, can you?

... soon as she has gone, we can squeeze over the side into the food cupboard".

Super Stardom

Stardom comes at a price... and in our case it is a whole lot of grooming! Sigh

Today is Special - primrose glory

when its dreary out there... you can't beat a primrose

Special.

the ultimate accolade

Tour Bus up date - featuring the Birman Boys

Life is to be lived, and while Darcy is on the film-set I have gone out and embraced as much of the American experience as I can. I particularly love some of the 'gear' - reckon I would make a great cow boy tom (Mrs H says she has never seen one dressed quite like me, but that's cos I'm unique!)

But it is not all 'me, me, me..' Its really more about Darcy.

HE WON AN OSCAR!

But this is not the best of it...

... his biggest fan is Barack!

So, yes, I would say 'Mission Accomplished' with our grand tour 

Homeward bound tomorrow

Oh, and Darcy says he has found fame a constant effort and is looking forward to getting back to normal. In the words of Clive James ..

"life without fame can be a good life, but fame without a life is no life at all"

a taste of Hollywood

Tour bus up date: The Birman Boys

Well, its been all go here. The big sports have all featured Darcy...

... despite being just the 'brother', I still got out there on the streets 

.. and while I was out feeling the groove, this lovely lady spotted me and created a pavement painting of ME (not Darcy)!

Meanwhile, Darcy is even more famous now than Simon Cowell... he is literally everywhere.. people LOVE him (though most haven't met me yet)

I have to be true to myself, as his closest critic, I DON'T actually like the new film he stars in (Mrs H and I ... well to be honest, we prefer love stories, is that so bad?)

taking America by storm

Tour Bus up date  - featuring the Birman Boys

It is the day after our 1st Birthday (thank you for all your lovely comments). Being stars, we don't have as much time to write up our blog during the grand tour, but here is the latest. Its all about Darcy at the moment - he is the leading star ! (Purrr hum). As his brother, I am ensuring his terms are met and generally being a bit of a 'bouncer' (Mrs H says I am certainly big and fluffy enough for the job)

 (I chose the dark glasses at duty-free myself!)

Darcy's poster board went up the very same day we arrived. Look at those workmen handling those heights (taken a leaf out of our book, but you can't beat a tree)

Darcy's face is now pretty much everywhere in the States...

... its off to the film studios next...

Valentine

Well here we are, one of those so called special days. The day of ‘love’, valentine.

a gift from Mr H :-)

Irrespective of having a valentine or not, it is a day to wear exceptionally vivid colours – scarlet, flame, or emerald green, or kingfisher blue. To lean towards vividness, to be provocative. Consign black things to the fire (well not quite – what would I wear to work?!).

I know about this ‘love thing’, happily married, as I am. But how lovely it has been to meet with a dear friend recently, in the build up to this day, and find it is newly so for her. To be struck by her face, a quality that has less to do with colouring or bone structure (or indeed vivid clothes) than with a kind of inner brightness and anticipation, the look of someone who has hardly begun to discover what life has to offer, and who is in love. As she talked about him I gave her a straight inquisitive yet concerned look – as good friends are want to do. She yielded with a sudden smile, and relieved, I could see it was going to be just fine. When I then met him, her man, I found him tall, placid, gentle and generous of nature, not particularly stirred to spontaneous speech yet in the most lovely of ways, clearly the friend and playfellow of children, for whom he has a clumsy tenderness, perhaps himself still a bit of a child (as they with subtle intuition know). What better way to mark valentine’s day, than to celebrate them both in the words of Sarah Bernhardt …

“Carry me off into the blue skies of tender loves, roll me in dark clouds, trample me with thunder storms. But love me”.

Let us celebrate

We send you purrs, fluffy belly rubs and plenty of LOVE on Valentines Day

But, there is something else most SPECIAL about today

It is our 1st Birthday!

The crowds are out celebrating out there... the party for US has begun! (let me hasten to remind you that we are currently in America on our tour bus...)

Before we let our fur (totally) down, let us wind back the clock to the very first day we arrived at Haven House (our forever home)

one minute in: not tired, just shy...

three minutes in: coaxed out by a strange thingy...

approaching Mrs H for the first time...

Bing

finding our claws...(practise is the best of all instructors)

something incredible waiting to be known...

Bing

success is largely a matter of hanging on...

Darcy

there are many ways of going forward, but only one way of lying still

its always too early to quit - or is it?

we may not have gone where we intended, but we think we ended up where we wanted to be!

With love from the Birthday Boys

XX