Avoid cute. Much as I like and admire them this advice to myself applies especially where cats are concerned. Mind you cats are less prone to cuteness than most other animals as Kipling adroitly points out in The Cat that Walked by Himself.. Remember: "He is the cat that walks by himself and all places are alike to him. ... he goes out to the Wet Wild Woods or up the Wet Wild Trees or on the Wet Wild Roofs, waving his wild tail and walking by his wild lone."
In a corner of The Grove, unusually, a small flock of seagulls circle and swoop. It is however the corner where, I have once or twice seen them before. They do not alight. Rather they fly low over the snow picking up crusts left by a bird fancier as though they were fish rising to the surface of the sea. The presence of The Grove's resident crow which dives among them from time to time may account for their reluctance to land.
5 comments:
We heard about your snow and the chaos especially at Heathrow. Son-in-law was worried about his flight to London being cancelled but fortunately he made it this morning (Vancouver time). But is staying put in London rather than going north.
It sure is pretty if you don't have to travel in it - love frost photos. Here we have had frost and fog for about a week, with sun for a few afternoon hours. Beats rain.
...and snow, Marja-Leena, when it melts and freezes on unswept pavements and you slip and slide all over the place..
A good mnemonic for avoiding "cute"; amplified it sounds like the gipping noise that precedes a vomit.
Ah, but kittens just can't help being cute. Not that cute was a word we grew up with. Always puzzled me that Americans couldn't seem to manage the 'ew' sound in words like 'duty' but could say it in 'cute'.
I liked Jan Struther's Mrs Miniver talking about someone who bred pointers, that if you had to choose, pointers were better than many, since their faces lacked the sentimentality of other breeds of gundog. I still love spaniels though.
Kittens are comical. Spaniels have a charming melancholy of pose and expression, not cute at all. Walt Disney, no favourite of mine, tends to reduce almost any creature to cuteness.
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