Observations placeholder

There had been massive gales, do you remember the massive gales? hundreds of miles an hour out at sea, and I went down to our seaside house to do some clearing up, because I knew it might have ripped off branches and things or even slates off the roof.  F [the dog] came too and E [her son’s] cat because I was looking after it whilst E was away.

Well I got there and the wind had died down a bit and the damage wasn’t too bad, but it did need me to clear up all the twigs and things in the garden.  Well I was out there and this beautiful sea bird came and landed on the lawn.  I’ve never seen one like it before, it was like a tern [I said maybe a storm tern?] yes maybe it was, it wasn’t that big but it had a lovely beak and was black and white well mostly white from what I remember – do you know I can’t remember the colour that well, I just remember the bird because I’d never seen one like it before.

It was totally bombed out, shocked from the storm, [I said wrecked because that is supposed to be the name given to birds taking refuge from storms] – yes wrecked - I suppose it must have ridden the wind and been buffeted to smithereens by all the gales, I looked it up in the bird book and the only bird I could find that looked remotely like it flew round south America and the south at this time of year, so it had been blown one heck of a long way if this was true.

It just seemed to need rest.  It had some water I put out, but no food.  It looked dazed and disorientated.  [a long pause] I know you will be sympathetic with me when I tell you this, I wouldn’t tell anyone else, but do you know I got this sense it was J [her dead husband].  It was such a strong sense that it was him that I wanted to pick the little thing up and stroke it and say it will all be alright.  I did stroke it and it didn’t move, made no attempt to get away.  F [the dog] went up and sat by it and neither the bird nor the dog moved as if they knew one another.

Then disaster.  E’s cat got out.  He had been in all day and somehow managed to get out through the upstairs window and I thought oh my god, the end of the bird and worse worse the end of J.  It’s bad enough losing J once but to lose him again was too much.  But the cat did nothing to this bird.  Nothing.  I couldn’t believe it.  E’s cat is normally a hunter of everything but it did nothing, just looked at the bird and went off [to poo I suspect].

Do you think I’ve gone mad? [I said no, that the Hindus in particular believed that the bird was the next incarnation for us in the round of things, so it was perfectly feasible for J to have come back as a bird, especially as he loved the sea so much.]

He stayed for a few days, as if to see we were alright and then left.  I’ve not seen him since.

[Away with the winds I said – flying free with the wind.]