Time for Bed.

I think it is time for bed.

I no longer swallow the wine I am drinking but hold it in my mouth until I know that I want to spit it out.

And the cat has appeared, he does so when he thinks I should be asleep.

His name is Pablo.

He may be named after a painter, perhaps after a Columbian drug lord. It is also possible that it is not his real name.

He tells me that snow is not far away. 

“In time?” I ask.

“Or distance?”

“Miaow,” he replies.

I open the door of the house and stick my head outside. Only my head, the rest of my body remains against the radiator.

It is glacial.

The outside.

The radiator is welcoming.

The bed promises to be warm, once I have lain down and added my body warmth.

Once the cat has settled alongside.

It is not mid-winter yet, the shortest day a week or more away, Christmas lights in the villagers only now making show.

The Christmas tree is still in the ground.

Thoughts of digging it up, taking root in my mind.

Not tonight though.

Now.... I think it’s time for bed.

Butter Cups and Clover

There’s a fire, a soft fire, in a pit next to a stone wall.

The fire crackles.

Spits.

Hums.

A bird in a tree sings on the other side of the wall.

Whistles. 

Calls.

Trills.

The sun is setting.

Has set.

Is set.

There is still enough light to see the shadows that are waiting to surprise anyone not expecting them. The fire doesn’t care about the shadows.

It banishes them to somewhere else.

Perhaps in the orange of the ochre touched sky.

More probably among the trees on the other side of the fire.

Where the bird has fallen silent.

Or moved.

Someone has thrown coffee grinds on the fire, they say it keeps the mosquitoes at bay.

But there is no aroma of roasting bean.

The bird has started singing again.

Or moved back.

And the fire is softly dying.

Someone walks across the field and picks up fallen branches.

They walk around the daisies that are growing there.

The buttercups.

The clover.