One of the things I love, about my house: I live in the heart of the inner city, and yet we can go for a two-hour country walk, starting right outside my door and never being more than fifteen minutes' stroll from home, never retrace our steps and not have more than a hundred yards of road-work all told.
Newcastle is not by any means a garden city, but the Town Moor, a great tract of common land (with its own Wikipedia entry, yay!), cuts like a cake-slice into the city centre. And my house stands on one of its margins.
We had Simon's Weimeraner, Theo, with us. The cats watched us from the windows as we set off: Mac in a curious, excited, "that's a very big ugly cat! why don't you bring him in to play?" sort of way, Barry all hunched-up with a dark and baleful glare.
Later, on TV, I saw a falcon mantle over its food, and thought "yup, that's exactly what Baz does with his supper, only without the wings." He crouches above it and hunches his shoulders against the world, and if you get too close he growls. He can growl and swallow at the same time; he's very gifted.
Newcastle is not by any means a garden city, but the Town Moor, a great tract of common land (with its own Wikipedia entry, yay!), cuts like a cake-slice into the city centre. And my house stands on one of its margins.
We had Simon's Weimeraner, Theo, with us. The cats watched us from the windows as we set off: Mac in a curious, excited, "that's a very big ugly cat! why don't you bring him in to play?" sort of way, Barry all hunched-up with a dark and baleful glare.
Later, on TV, I saw a falcon mantle over its food, and thought "yup, that's exactly what Baz does with his supper, only without the wings." He crouches above it and hunches his shoulders against the world, and if you get too close he growls. He can growl and swallow at the same time; he's very gifted.