Back in the saddle

This is sunrise over the very spot where Kemo Sabe fell yesterday – an astonishing burst of light, as comforting as egg, blessing our morning routine. While the shot was being taken, we three stood still beside the trail of hidden rock which did for her in the murk and nastiness of a morn from which the sun had apparently fled, and with it our hope. One can hardly credit it, but it was only yesterday.  Yet today the sun is clear, big and bright as August ninepence, the air warm and the wind resting in some cave somewhere, getting its breath back I suppose, until summoned forth again by the whirligig of time. Being a small spaniel whose life and heart are full, I know that good follows bad, light follows darkness: that there were steak pies for us all at dinner time in honour of Barbaby’s feast day and fresh salad leaves for Jo, when last night he eventually climbed out of his nest as we were on the way to ours. We must keep faith and think of the seal babies basking on the islands, and tiny Nicholas growing and growling and greeting his myriad relatives in the joy of such newness of life.