Christmas Day

Lovely Christmas Day under the cat's eye at Fluffs house. Lots of Blueberry wine and party games.
All went well until I tried to takes Fluff's Photo;  they are very quick these tiny things!
Merry Christmas all!

Tiny

Cats eyes

I got into a very interesting conversation with Ginge, the Furzey cat.  I found him sleeping in the sun under a large oak tree, and made the throw away remark of it being all right for some. Ginge replied that  he had spent a fortnight working, when he was a kitten and that was quite enough for him!
Thinking Ginge was pulling my leg, I asked him what he had worked at that left him so exhausted.
The cat told me that kittens where employed in early times to operate the cats eyes on the first fairy roads. They would run up and down tunnels built under the tiny roads and when a vehicle approached they would stick there heads up through the road and look through the cats eye. Well, apparently kittens being kittens, this did not last long.  First, balls with bells were pushed about the tunnels, then fluffy mice and finally balls of wool, were chased round and round the tunnels. The kittens ended up having to be cut free by fairies with scissors and the project failed.

A group of tiny things agreed to taking over the duty of manning the cats eyes, but only on the Trans New Forest Road and they cut the cats eyes down to four.  I enclose a photo of the over-grown lane as it is today, with its last little cats eye.
I visited this quiet place today and knocked on the rubber top as Ginge had instructed me.
To my surprise, the top opened and revealed a tiny thing called Fluff. 'Come in!' she said.

Following Fluff down the little ladder, (with a bit of magic), the chill of the damp day was driven back up the ladder shaft, to be replaced by such a warm feeling.  I stepped into a magic room where a fire burned in the hearth and the smells of pine and roses wrapped themselves around my cold body.
Fluff was the last Cats Eyes Keeper and still listens for approaching traffic. Should it appear up her ladder she goes and shines her little light for all to see.

I got on so well with Fluff; she told me many tales and of her little shop, 'Fluffs Stuff', a very important place for all tiny things. After several glasses of blueberry wine, I felt I should be going, and as I was climbing the ladder, my hopes were answered when Fluff asked if I would like to come to her home for Christmas.
She said a few tiny things were coming to her little home.  Joy! Joy! but how did she know I was on my own for that most loverly time of the year?
Merry Christmas!
Tiny

That's Not A Bridge, This Is A Bridge!

Now that December is here, my thoughts turn to friends near and far. With the soaring cost of stamps I am not sending as many Christmas cards.  A tiny postman (or woman, I am not sure), Trudy, will be busy delivering messages.

Last year I offered to help Trudy with the parcels, as the snow was quite deep.
Trudy is a vole with a very rusty bike.

Trudy had to be careful of the bridge as it got older

 She, like most tiny things, is not paid for her work, but all tiny things just seem to know their roll in life. Knowing how hard Trudy works at Christmas time, I made the mistake of asking what she would do when she could not manage this work. The little vole looked up with tears in her eyes; 'but I wouldn't be Trudy!' she replied. Trudy tried to explain that for tiny things it was all or nothing. I was then told another tiny tale;  apparently, there was a tiny thing who lived in the woods above Brook. This little thing ran a hospital where he cared for all the little birds that had been pushed out of nests by baby cuckoo chicks. He collected them up in a little cart, kissing them when they cried. He gently pushed them back to his home where he cared for them until they could fly. This little thing never judged the cuckoo chicks, the mother cuckoo or the duped mother bird. He just put his little head down and did his best.
Well, one day the log he used to cross the stream, was washed away in a storm and the tiny thing could not cross the water. He had built his home far from the cuckoos haunt, and logic would suggest it was time to move to the other side of the stream. But 'no!' said Trudy. The tiny thing might not be himself if he moved. He might decide not to care for the little orphan birds if he was in another home. All the tiny things knew that he would rather swim with the fluffy babies than change. So they rallied together and built him a wonderful bridge for him to cross ragging winter torrents and laughing summer trickles.  I followed Trudy on her bike today to see this wonderful site.  It stands on columns of the most magic acorns. They balance, supported by love and tradition. When I went to see it I had no idea I was about to see the 'third wonder' of the tiny world.  Long may the balance continue.

Regards,
Tiny

Tiny Tours

I went to find Hubert the snail this morning, to ask him all about the mechanical bird.  I found him eating a bus ticket with one of his brothers. When I mentioned a mechanical bird they both stared at me with a blank expression, but when I added, 'Tiny Tours', well, I thought they would both die of laughter! I don't know if any of you have ever seen a snail laugh, but let me tell you, it's not a pretty sight!
Their skin wobbles up and down and in and out of their shell; bubbles of slime pop from their mouths and in this case, bits of regurgitated bus ticket flowed like larva onto the ground. Finally when the slimy tears had cleared from Hubert's eyes, he told me a very funny tale...
Lady Daphney was a tiny thing with vast wealth. Apparently she felt it quite unbecoming to fly under her own steam and thought it her duty to convert the 'tiny world' to this way of thinking. What caused this thinking was an incident that occurred when she was a young thing;  an elf had looked up her skirt while she flew over head. This little elf was a dab hand with a pencil and managed to immortalise this moment with a sketch. It was hung for a short time behind a radiator in the art gallery at Furzey.  Lady Daphney had the picture stolen by a gang of cut-throat lady birds, and a turf war broke out between elf and lady birds. That awful time ended with the re-seeding of the main lawn.  Lady Daphney then offered a ten thousand shiny things reward for any clever tiny thing that could build a flying machine, and low and behold, Teddy dragonfly stepped into the breach. He had studied the giant flying machines of the human world and had designed a similar thing.

The shape, Hubert admitted, was magnificent;  built out of twigs, moss and spiders webs, but when Teddy started stealing birds feathers, Hubert could see the project going a little awry.
Teddy, you see had a simple approach -  if it looked the part, it would work. His reasoning was thus:
1.   If it resembled the shape of the human craft, that's a start.
2.   If it had feathers, it would fly...... Bingo!
Only it did not!  Teddy had to know more about the workings of human machines.  He flew many days to a little airport called Hurn and observed the comings and goings of the giant metal craft.  He managed to hide on the human craft and watched flaps being opened in the sides of these craft.  What he saw within, filled him with dread;  the machines were full of fearful cogs, pipes, wires and lights.  None of this he understood.  He was in a scrape now, but in Teddy style, he decided that if he could find similar looking tiny things and fit them in his bird, all would be well.

Teddy borrowed, stole and made all manor of complicated things and threw them in the bird.
As the mess became bigger he became more confident, until, on a Spring day, he announced 'Tiny Tours' were ready for business.
Tiny tours made 8 flights in all.
The first was a publicity flight around Minstead and Emery Down.
The forty 'tiny things' that boarded where so excited that little did they know it was 'tiny excitement' that kept the bird in the sky!

I am so glad the tiny things from furzey gardens aren't going to chelsea flower show in this

Subsequent flights were all kept in the air by varying levels of enthusiasm, (little things buzz when exited).
But the last flight was full of very depressed and hung-over stag beetles, returning to Holly Hatch after a stag night. Their glum faces and fear of their wives wrath brought the little aircraft down with a bump .

The bird flew no more, but it's wreckage is still there, and I went to find it with Hubert.  A very proud 'tiny thing' has made her home in the warm fuselage, and it is lovely to see things not going to waste.

Regards Tiny