in a hammock somewhere

a Noodle tail, under the lighthouse -summer 07

Many family members over the years (most often in an exasperated tone)

“Oh Susan, you’re so serious”

Me “Is that a bad thing ?”

Retired to the nest of down & flannel at a shockingly early hour last evening. A big icy glass of diet ginger ale, fresh flannel pajamas that had been hung on the line and smelled of outside, Winnie Dixon softly snoring beside me, her paw held in my hand, and this book. The copy I read last night is very old and musty smelling (and actually volume two in the trilogy - Birds, Beasts & Relatives), the pages still barely bound together adding to the experience of transporting myself somewhere else, back in time maybe, or to some imaginary place ... to a hammock hung under a big tree at a cottage built on big smooth round rocks on the shore of Lake Ontario. An old dusty paperback found in the cottage bookshelf under a pile of vintage National Geographic magazines and next to an old Monopoly game.

This is the book I read when I want to feel like a child again, when I want to just feel happy and safe and snug. The book that makes me laugh out loud and smile to myself. And it always makes me feel that way and I’ve read it over and over again.

If you love animals, and witty, very descriptive magical writing rush to your favourite secondhand bookstore and pick up a copy of this book or any of the Corfu trilogy.