🦊🌿Competition time! To celebrate May Day and the longed-for coming of summer, I'm giving away a signed edition of my 'Reynard the Fox', a copy of the accompanying gold-tipped 'A Fox for All Seasons' journal, both with map endpapers & fine ribbons, packets of Dorset red butter crumb biscuits and Dorset tea to honour my other main vulpine character, the West Country dwelling 'Old Fox,' & a charming & extremely fluffy fox companion! Simply like, retweet & follow to enter! A winner will be picked on May Day. 🌿🦊
Late afternoon on Sunday. Old Fox had scrubbed the oak table in the kitchen and placed a vase of the first daffodils in the centre. He sat down on a chair by the range and poured himself a little snifter of Coltsfoot Wine for his chest. The rain had stopped for a little while and a sudden shaft of light fell through the ancient crown glass windows and all was golden, his fur and the wine and the flowers and the very air itself.
Lady in the slipper shop said to me “literally everybody has gone up at least one shoe size in the pandemic” and I think I have found the one thing that was not on my list of known knowns of pandemic harms
We’ve been sold out, fellow doctors. We never agreed that PAs could be doctor **substitutes** but looking at these excerpts ⬇️ it seems NHSE had planned that all along. Some senior doctors are enabling it, undermining our profession & future of doctor-led NHS medical services.
Huge respect for Shazia Saddiq, a former sub-postmistress from Newcastle, who sat with her legal team & stared down Stephen Bradshaw at today’s inquiry. The inquiry was told how he hounded her with threatening phone calls, on one occasion calling her a “bitch”
That poor woman had to flee her home with her children after being abused & assaulted in the street. Shame on anyone who believed these lies & forced her to leave her home town.
🖤🤍 #PostOfficeInquiry #HorizonScandal
The Twenty-fourth Window. It was just after tea and whilst everyone was having a little rest before dinner, tucked under eiderdowns or snoozing by the fire, the Doctor had driven Old Fox to the Sheep Church, the lonely chapel-of-ease on the downs by the sea. It was dark and empty, lit by a single oil lamp. Whispering to each other in the hushed holy quietude of Christmas Eve, they lit the last candle in the Advent wreath. The flame flickered and then held and above, the carved lord with his falcon and the carved lady with her finery were suddenly pierced in frail light.
For Peace, the Doctor told the ghosts of that place, for Peace.
The Twenty-second Window. Wolf was sitting in his warm bedroom surrounded by his Christmas shopping - perfumes and talcs and soaps and books and fountain pens and diaries and boxes of chocolates. He sat there and looked at them and he simply couldn't remember who they were for. He began to feel the familiar undertow of panic, of searching for something in a dark field at night, when he noticed that each present had a paper luggage label attached with the name of the recipient in the Doctor's handwriting, printed to make it less medical and more legible to Wolf. He'd also written why Wolf had bought each present - "Babcia's favourite perfume", "Pine Marten loves jigsaw puzzles", Miss Rabbit needed some new woollen mittens."
And the panic ebbed, the winter light fell golden on the rug, and he was Wolf again and he was safe from the darkness.
The Seventeenth Window. Eleven o'clock & they were having their coffee & chocolate biscuits in the Morning Room. The winter sky was very blue that day, the blue of one of Ermine's paintings of the fields around Zennor, which she'd sent Old Fox during the height of the Great Sickness. It hung over the oak sideboard, and felt like a step-window into the salt-air and sea-light of a Cornish summer.
If you are interested in the way politicians try and influence the decisions that NICE takes about what drugs to approve, and what general practice does, and how evidence is regarded. please do read this. (I cannot tell you how many hours this took. What we found was shocking.)
This is incredible - Fairytale of New York as you’ve never seen it before…. and what looks like a fabulous send off for the man who co-wrote it and whose voice we hear singing it every December.
During 2021’s spring lockdown, Benjamin Zephaniah contributed this short reading for our online event.
It was a gift then. And now.
People will always need people 🦋
So sad that we have lost the most beautiful Benjamin Zephaniah it feels as if the lights are going out all over the world some days but we were so lucky to have him for a while and he leaves a wonderful legacy behind him of both his poetry and his inclusive opinions
The Fifth Window. St. Nicholas' Eve & all was quiet. Outside, the snow was still falling & the stormy, busy world with all its doings seemed very far away from their little corner of Dorsetshire. Old Fox had spent the day cleaning & scrubbing & polishing & tidying & generally making ready for the Great Tree, which he would fetch with the Doctor the next morning at first light. By suppertime, the cottage was gleaming & everywhere was the sweet kindly scent of the beeswax polish used in those ancient rooms for many, many hundreds of years.
The Third Window. Advent Sunday. Very early that morning, battling through the sleet, Old Fox had taken a beautiful wreath of holly & ivy & laurel leaves to the Sheep Church, a Chapel of Ease up on the Downs, a lonely, wild place close to the sea. It was very dark in the church & when he lit the first candle, the light was miracular; golden and vast in the quiet shadows. It is for Hope, he told the ghosts there, for Hope.
The First Window. It was a freezing morning, frost on the thatch, on the apple trees in the orchard, on the long, sloping fields across the lane. Old Fox had been up for hours, lighting fires & oil lamps & making a special breakfast for the beginning of December. Buttered rye toast & brown cheese, meadowsweet tea made in the tall Measham pot, & a warm amber pudding, round & honeyed as the sun.
The First Window. Mørketiden, Polar Night, the Dark Times. Somewhere in the far, far North, a high angel, great feathered wings creaking, folding sky-light like wedding linen, initials silk-green & rose looped. On they journey, far, far over the tabored mountain of Rumbbučohkka, over the ports & the little villages & the towns, the fjords & the forests & the frozen rivers, the wolves & the bears & the children with their morning milk. They see all, guard all. Nothing is beneath or above their love or their notice.
Thank you yes it is. Everything in the British Museum is British because we said so after we took them. Just like my cousin’s coat is now mine thank you 🙏