Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

It was that dispiriting time of year when winter was not quite over but had gone on quite long enough and spring hadn’t quite arrived. The riverbank animals were restless and grumpy. It had been a hard winter; they had lost a few old friends, including Granny Wytcher who had “gone upstream” during the cold months, closely followed by her beloved hound, Tiny. Farmcat said that he wanted to keep her company and they all sympathised. There were not many humans who understood their animal neighbours like she had. The farm now housed one of her litter, a woman who had her mother’s gift for empathy. She took to walking with her small dog by the riverbanks just as Granny Wytcher had done with Tiny and was soon assimilated into the everyday comings and goings of the waterside even if the small dog needed a few lessons in neighborliness. Unlike her…