Anne Louise Avery

@annelouiseavery

Writer and Art Historian. Old Fox stories. Edward M.Bannister catalogue raisonne and research. Reynard the Fox and Fox for All Seasons published by Bodleian Publishing. Oxford & Dorset. Linktree:

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Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· 23d

It was very still & the sky was the dull silver of a mermaid's mirror. The swifts who nested in the thatch were leaving that night, flying to Madrid, then south, south, south across the Sahara, carrying tales of Old Fox’s cottage, tales of love, of sickness, of fear, of hope.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· 27d

Today’s hare having a little supper in her wheat field 🌾

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· 27d

Isengrim the Wolf was tall and rangy and covered in jagged, ragged scars from his many duels and skirmishes. His fur was mottled grey with that reddish tinge which the Flanders wolves were once known for.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· 28d

Mouse was still enfolded in the quiet, hamlet lives of Bear's sisters. She had begun to slowly get better, living in the calm rhythm of the seasons, falling asleep under cold clean lavendered sheets listening to the corn fields settling in the dark & the owls in the woods beyond.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jul 13

Today, a very grand hare came right up to the farm gate to wish me good evening! 🐰

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jul 12

Wolf had grown up in a little Georgian brick house by the river Thames at Greenwich, and as a cub, he used to sit up in bed and watch the glittering lights in the darkness and the spill and moiré of the dawn as the tide heaved about. Much of the time, the water was brown and dirty and stank of sewers and dead fish in warm weather, but sometimes you could smell Sumatran spices or the tar from the docks, or when the weather-vanes spun to the east at the Observatory, the cold salt-hard battering winds of the North Sea, where his father had worked and his father before him, and his father before him and back and back for centuries.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jul 11

Not far from the Bears' Hamlet was a chalk stream, half hidden by trees and water mint and meadowsweet. The water was clear and fast and cold as ice. On maps it had no name, but locally they often called it the Well stream, as it came from some deep, underground place, a place of crystal and dripping walls and the low rumbly growl of dragons so old they had quite forgotten the world of golden wheat fields and singing kettles above.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jul 9

High tide & the Mermaid of Ringstead Bay was idly drifting out by White Nothe, thinking about humans. Old Fox had told her that some were very kind & full of honour, but she didn't believe him, though she'd never tell him that. She loved him fiercely, as she loved the sea & the wind & the nightingales who sang in the tangle of dark thorn along the undercliff when the moon rose like a silver coin over the waves.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jul 8

The Newcomer spun the silver apple in the silver saucer & looked upon the world in miniature. There were the tall creaking ships in the grey Atlantic swell, there were the little children playing in a street in Rotterdam, there were the dear thatched cottages along Old Fox's lane in the depths of Dorset, but there too were the great dark movements of terror, of gunshot & smoke, of unimaginable pain & loss, which shadowed the sphere & dimmed sight of all else.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jul 6

Harvest fields, waning moon 🌖

A hare at the edge of a wheat field. My photo.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jul 3

Midnight. Mouse had blown out her candle & the room was suddenly as strange & silvered as the sea. Smoke & the sweet rich smell of the hay. Over the stubble in the fields, over the solemn hay-ricks, a great harvest moon & the World stilled, heavy in its turning & oh so old.

Hayricks at Dusk, 1899 by Isaak Ilyich Levitan (1860-1900).

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 26

Wolf was so hot he'd gone to lie in the Still Room, where the stone floor was lovely & cool, & Old Fox's herbs honeyed the air. Wake me up at tea time, he called out to Old Fox. Right you are, came the reply, & as Wolf drifted off, he felt a great wave of undemanding happiness.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 25

Ermine & Sea Otter had gone for a dip in the river, close to where it widened into the wildness of the sea. The water was cold & green, & afterwards they bought strawberry ices & sat on the rocks & watched the white-winged Falmouth sloops tacking along the coast.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 24

For sale! One of Koson Ohara's (1877-1945) most famous woodblocks, depicting two honking geese! Very good condition apart from a tiny tear in the top right corner, easily hidden by a mount. Dm or purchase directly from my Etsy shop here! Happy to ship internationally. etsy.com/uk/listing/4...

Two white, honking geese by Koson Ohara's (1877-1945)

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 24

For sale! An exquisite and iconic woodblock print by Koson Ohara (1877-1945) depicting geese in flight. Excellent condition. Dm to buy or purchase directly from my Etsy shop here! Happy to ship internationally. etsy.com/uk/listing/1...

Koson Ohara (1877-1945), Geese in Flight.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 24

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 24

For sale! The most beautiful, cooling Japanese woodblock print of a snipe wading in a marsh. By the artist Seiko Kono (ca.1899 - 1930s). Excellent condition. Dm to buy or purchase directly from my Etsy shop here: etsy.com/uk/listing/4...

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 21

Midsummer was a very busy time for Old Fox. He rose even earlier than usual, long before first light, gathering baskets of flowers & leaves for the cottage wreaths – long fennel & dog daisies, green birch, Maiden’s lily & St John's Wort, wild roses & sweet plumes of meadowsweet.

Dorset Landscape No. 1, Gilbert Spencer (1892–1979), Sheffield Museums

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 20

The Elderly Squirrel woke rather late & idled a long while with a pot of tea, wondering why he felt so oddly happy. Then he remembered. Old Fox had invited him to a little Midsummer party & that dull daily ache of loneliness, of missing out on the great turnings of life, had been banished.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 20

This morning’s hare 🌿

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 19

Dawn hares in the midsummer fields.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 15

It was Old Midsummer and all was quiet and peaceful in the village. The gentle air was scored with the notes of a Dorset June: a distant aeroplane high over Abbotsbury, an occasional motor car or wagon or gig rumbling along the sea road, a cuckoo deep in the Greenwood, the sky larks over the fields, Wolf's portable gramophone playing in the overgrown meadow, the flickered shriek of the swifts along Lace Street. Old Fox's enchanting garden was in full-tangled-bloom by Barnaby day, and the humble-bees were loud there too, drowsily making their way from flower to flower, particularly favouring the fox-gloves, which grew in great abundance, it being a fox's dwelling and a fox of eminence at that.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 15

If you like my stories, why not join my patreon! This week, there's a recipe for Madame Mouse's Midsummer Madeleines, served with yarrow tea in the cool, oak beamed parlour of an ancient Dorset cottage. And when you sign up, Old Fox will even send you a special card. patreon.com/posts/madame...

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 12

🪿If you like my stories, then I'd be so grateful if you'd support my writing & ongoing cancer treatment & buy me a chocolate over on Kofi - ko-fi.com/annelouiseav... or even a little something here on my Etsy shop: etsy.com/shop/Sourisd....

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 10

Bulldozers moved over the ash. In their claws, the weight of souls. In their claws, a child traces her first word, her auntie claps with delight. In their claws, a young doctor graduates at Al Azhar, dreams of the years ahead. In their claws, three mothers eat pistachio ice creams, midst jokes, laughter, gossip, as the sun sinks into the sea. In their claws, an old man reads a book under the well-tended orange trees, turning each page with care, making notes in the margins. In their claws, are fragments of bones so loved that the universe in all its immeasurable immensity will never recover their loss.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 9

Waiting for results from a scan at the moment - and it's so immensely stressful! Can't get anything done!

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 7

How beautiful the water meadows were that long-ago June morning in Old Fox's village! The mists rising from the river, the almond scent of the meadowsweet, the high, damp grasses and the dragonflies, like bright enamel automatons darting between path and thicket and pool.
Hare had walked down to the banks very early, wanting to clear his head before the school exams started. He always worried so for his pupils, that wild maelstrom of scribbling in the gymnasium, as the clock ticked and the flies buzzed and irritated.
Here, there was nothing but the birds and the water. He leant against a fence to listen to their songs: skylarks rising above the barley in the fields beyond, a cuckoo and a nuthatch somewhere in the spinney, a jolly moustacheod reed bunting, a scholarly German blackcap with its fine fluting airs, a thrush singing of her lost love, two blackbirds busy and bright, and the strange reeling peal of the grasshopper warbler.
Hare wrote down a list in his notebook and thought about the noble fowls of Chaucer and how much he wished he knew their languages as Old Fox knew them, for somehow, no other tongue could conjure the beauty of a summer morning in England like a parliament of birds.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 6

On the 82nd anniversary of D-Day, I'm honouring my father, Ronnie Avery. He worked indefatigably on #DDay planning, as the vital Head of Section of Naval Intelligence for France, Holland & Belgium & as HQ Establishment Officer to Mountbatten. His close colleagues included Ian Fleming & Kim Philby.

Letter sent to members of Naval Intelligence on the morning of "D" Day.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 5

If you like my stories, then please support my writing & buy me a chocolate over on Kofi ko-fi.com/annelouiseav.... I can't work full-time, because of ongoing cancer treatment, which gives me lots of awful side effects like severe fatigue & joint pain, so every little bit really does help!

Image by Susan Jeffers of a tiny girl in a Victorian pink gown hugging an enormous blue bird.

Anne Louise Avery@annelouiseavery· Jun 4

Would you like some toast before bed, asked Old Fox. Yes, please, said Pine Marten. Old Fox buttered several rounds & brewed a pot of lemon balm tea & they sat out in the garden under the lilac, watching the dark clouds over Pooksdown Hill. Storm's coming, said Old Fox, not long now.