Mired and Mithering

Tis many weary weeks to endure afore the winter winds fall still and owr wood is allus dwindled to nowt. There be no shed to keep the timber from the rain so owr hearth be bleak and bare as the ice on the duck pond. I dursn't step out the door for fear of the badgers and they tunnels. If t'wernt so boggy and slithery the tunnels were to be under the floor and we'd be sinking deeper into the pits. Tis no moon at the night and the sounds of the howling Gappergennies are fit to chill the soul to the marrow bones. Then the sign we all been dreading for the years end has appeared. The monstrous red toad has been sighted in the depths of the darkwoods. I scarce can ...

Sore Ailing

The almighty hand be surely turned agin us and ours. Be plagued wi mould inside and out all be covered wi dankness and dire green crusted slime. I be taken bad with the twitchy sickness and canna sleep a wink o nights for the shaking and skin slipping. Can scarce get a grip of the quill to pen this note for the shivers in the finger bones. The waters rise and rise at the door and we seen the first of the frogs even before the month was out. The fruit of the apple tree lays a rotting on the sward with the crows fighting to the end wi the buzzard for the windfalls. Soon all will be wiped and washed away into the ceaseless torrents.

Hapless and Marshfooling

Tis a long weary time since I done get through to the box to send all the missives off. Many a weary yard of bog and mire with the nagging sound of the spectre athwart the trees. The trees theyselves be groaning and straining with every blast of they gales of the north. Then after all days a trudging and slopping the box be all blocked up and nailed down fast. So I have ter go on through the dim dingy evetide till I find a box that be not shut up, a hard finding in these grim days. Then all the letters be damp and moulding from being kept in the wet sack for such a long time. I drops them in the post nevertheless. They may bring some small crumb of cheer to long distant kinfolk over the Yuletide seasons. I can scarce bear to think of them a seated round the festive board wondering where be their letter of bad tidings from Aunt Jude. Then have I to find my long way back though the night wood, scarce daring to breathe out loud lest the beast of the piney copse do hear me and take the pursuit. No man alive has seen the beast but all do say canst hear the scraping sounds as it runs its seven claws down the bark afore it pounces on the weary soul homegoing at the unearthly hour.

Impending Doom

All is not well in the woods of late. The cries of the buzzard are heard in the treetops. The grass is as yellow as an old moon and the taties as green as old grass. Even the moss on the roof is thin and dry, only nettles and brambles abound and flourish. The folks passing by hurry with eyes aside muttering dark tales of an unearthly beast sighted in the spinneys.

Spring to Rights

Well I can scarce bring mysell to believe on it but mebbe tis nearing winters end. Folks do certainly have been acting strange as if the breeze has got between the ears. Twas only the other morning I be standing by the gate and Mrs E do come past. Well she turns round and says 'Be that a bat a landing on your table there?' I could a fallen down with shock, she couldna even see out table across the gate. Well so I turns round and says 'What table, what bat, what can e be meaning?' Turns out she thought a bat be landing on a bit of old wood leaning up out the back. I think to mysell, its not bats landing on our table you want to be worriting yoursell about, Mrs E, it be bats in the belfry. Tis way to early for the bats to be disporting themselves in the daylight. Still the time will soon be a coming in for the Untaping of the Door and the Bearing of the Charred Log away to the summer pit. Amos has already put the fox skull on the back ledge. Soon the time will come.

Wintering with Never an End

Still winter howling and March be near dead and gone. We done burn allus wood and leaves and be grappling for the last sticks and twigs in the copses with them next door. So this is why I canna get to the writing afore as the fingers be turning as black and blue as the crows in the eaves. The woodshed still be unbuilt despite us pleas to the Lord of the Estate. Nought but a heap of bricks facing us whenever us do venture past the back door. The front door still be taped up till the warmer times arrive. Amos said it be the shed of Lilith and he who seeks to rebuild the shed of Lilith will reap his own downfall in the dust and shards. Even nature itsell be giving up the mortal coils in despair. The frogs have all departed, though that be no dire hardship, the cursed creatures they be. There be dead foxes by the road, one with a white winding sheet across its sad remains. And when I go to do the springtide clean in the outside outhouse I nearly flummoxed meself into a collapse with the screaming nadgers as there be a drownded mouse in the pan.

A Cautionary Tale

Folks do say tis the season of merriment and revells so I durst treat mysell down the market. I fished the pond through and dragged out near enough coppers to give over for a batch of they new fangled cloots pegs. But they did splinter to dust in my fingers when I did try to hang the laundry on the barb wire. So I just go back to the old ways and drape the smocks on the thorn bushes.