The Hearth of Mopsus

My journey towards thinking about animals differently didn’t start with Professor Cotillion’s cavaliers, as it really began years ago with m...

Since Professor Cotillion's amazing Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Bartle and Brindle, captured my heart I have discovered more about t...

... it would be easier to say, was the same as nearly every year, except there are always variations on a theme. Every event was better atte...

According to my entries - which are the only entries - in the service register at Smallham Chapel, numbers at the annual Christmas service w...

Every day at the moment I gather up from the indoor tanks a number of tadpoles that have turned into froglets, acquiring their front legs an...

Why was my driveway scattered with dead or at least very unhappy bumblebees when I got back from church this morning? It turned out their ne...

Forget-me-not is clustered all round the bonsai-ed rowan tree, so much that you can't see its pot. There is a lot of forget-me-not in th...

Clarissa, who looks after Gristham church not far away and has kindly heard my confession a couple of times after the Cathedral ceased to be...

It is cold and dry in the garden, and nothing seems very Spring-like. There are some bold primroses about and the daffodils are struggling t...

The name of Byre Cottage – at Dodbury, at Garrigill, near Alston in northeast Cumbria – suggests it used to be essentially a cowshed, but th...

Yesterday morning I was pretty sure the goldfish were in spawning mode. The remaining adult male fish was chasing one of the females around ...

What a lot I managed to do during my week off. Resisting my natural instinct just to lie in a darkened room for five days, I amassed a pleas...

Back in the days when you didn't risk being burned to a crisp when you stepped outdoors, I went for a walk around Frensham Ponds; I comb...