Chip Tolson

The cat looks at me in wide-eyed amazement that I am not pleased with the live and dead stock it brings into the house. However much I show, and voice, my displeasure it goes out and pursues another poor wee beast to present to me.

Shishi taking possession of one of Canna, the dog’s, toys

The cat turned up two summers ago, watching the house and grateful for the food we put out for it. Uncertain of its gender we christened it ‘Heshe’.

That is until she was followed across the yard by three small kittens.

We found her lair in the woodshed. The Cats’ Protection League re-homed the kittens and ‘Shishi’ – the name of those carved stone cats that guard the doorways of Chinese temples – after a trip to the vet for a microchip and neutering, came to live here.

Shishi adopted us, not the other way around. She made her choice; she might have chosen to move on. She made the house her own and insists on regular meal times while she takes up self-appointed precedence over Canna, our dog. Canna finds it easier to go along with it and avoid the hassle of resisting. But then so do I.

I heard experts on the radio talking about the phenomena of massive prices paid at auction for artworks. It was suggested that if a much sought after artist wanted possesion of a chateau, they might do a drawing of it to sell, and buy the chateau with the proceeds.

If only that might work for a writer – a short story written and on the proceeds the jewel, or the country estate, the racehorse, even the Picasso is yours. Keep dreaming.

Excitement in Yeovil – in July, on the twelth, a roving play performance takes place in Ninesprings Park with eight short plays being acted out by a youthful cast at locations round the park.

Yeovil Creative Writers Present ‘Plays in the Park’

On Sunday 12 July at 11am & 2pm Plays in the Park comes to Ninesprings, Yeovil.

Written by Yeovil Creative Writers, Plays in the Park features eight short plays inspired by Ninesprings. They tell stories of past and present, of people and of the place, of fact and fiction and they are being performed all over the park.

Meet some teenagers, a ninety year old, and a friendship tested by war. See the meeting of strangers, the tricks of ghosts and a baffled cyclist. And so much more.

Somerset’s Wassail Theatre Company has brought together a cast of amazing local young actors to bring the plays to life in beautiful surroundings.

Join us on this 1.5 mile walk around Ninesprings. There is always another story around the corner. Free trail starts at Ninesprings Café. Suggested ages 6+.

The Plays

A Lost Soul by Marie-Louise Green

The Diggers by Christopher Usher

The Tree by Bob Shepherd

The Blue Vase by Sue Yockney

A Pie in The Oven by Liz Pike

The Haunted Swan by Sandra Snelling

A Date in the Park by Gareth Jenkins

Lives Pass By by Chip Tolson

This morning, well before five o’clock, there was a hearty dawn chorus. This was not the medllow calls of the bird world; it was a bovine chorus. The bulls, happy in the fields on either side of our valley, boasting their pride in their harems with this year’s calves at foot, calling over to tell their rivals  that their’s was the best herd in the county. It didn’t wake me; I was already awake… and at my desk. From five until breakfast is the best time in the day to write.

As is apparent to any visitor these comments are a work-in-progress, the big bugbear being having to work with low speed broadband. We live at the end of an ancient phone line on rural Exmoor. The feed is minimal speed, cut-outs are frequent and frustration rules. One day… it is always in the future that upgrades will be available.