JPG

I suppose I should tell the tail....ooops, I mean tale.
I was scouting locations yesterday and whilst looking for a particular place, I spied out of the corner my eye a ramshackle old barn. I screeched to a halt, (much to the annoyance of the car behind) and jumped out and marvelled at the new find.
I climbed over the gate/wall and made my way through the trees...towering oaks and clambering ivy and through a gap I espied another building - BUT a house, a very old house, perhaps 400 years old!!
Well to cut a long story short, Ken is the caretaker of this old place and he me around and told me a little of it's history.....and what a history.
He offered to introduce me to his cat, but warned me that it was 200 years old..... cue raised eyebrows and an urge to flee! But in I went, through the building equipment and general detritus, following the eery orange glow of Ken's arcane torch. The rooms were full of sweet, dark surprises - stone steps leading to different levels of darkness; huge ranges, blackened by centuries of carbonised cookery; shafts of light struggling through cracked, web encrusted mullions.
The upshot of this was a room with decayed floorboards and dusty furniture AND on the far window ledge, a grey svelte feline figure, held for eternity in a posture of twisted pain and fear, shadows from starved ribs dancing in the spotlight of Ken's amused countenance.
I had to see this apparition in daylight to fully believe my eyes, and when we stumbled, blinking into the September sun I saw a sight that not many will ever see - A mummified cat, which had lain between two walls for generations......it's poor little face frozen in agony , perfectly preserved, two whiskers still standing defiantly, it's tongue lolled to one side, craving liquid or oxygen........broken fangs set in a mouth like an ancient graveyard.......and of course I had to photograph the odd couple, strangely similar, like long lost vampyre lovers, reunited in their anachronistic spot in the middle of nobody's existence.