The blackbird

It has been a quiet week at Hepworth Towers. I’ve been painting and Dave’s been digging, and yesterday, family came to visit. The elder fabulous grandson is taller now than Dave, and Dave is 6 foot tall. Amazing. How time passes. Soon he’ll be off to Uni. 

It feels different seeing a grandchild grow from birth to adulthood, from seeing one’s own child do the same. I think it’s the distance from the everyday struggles that makes for a diffferent perspective. I say this because I don’t recall looking at my own near-adult children about to leave home and thinking back to their babyhood and thinking ‘Where did it go?’ because the struggles and worries were still so immediate, and also there was another much younger fledgling needing everything, so there was no space to detach and consider. 

I hadn’t planned on writing the above, I’d planned on telling you about our blackbird.

He woke me up at 4.52 this morning. Had it been a person or a pet waking me up at that time I’d have been cross, seriously bad tempered. But the blackbird makes me smile. I listen, and usually I drop back into sleep.

When I’m watering plants in the garden after tea and he sings from the chimney I talk to him, because when he sings he brings me joy.

He doesn’t think ‘I’ll cheer Sue up,’ he just sits and sings because that’s who he is. He is himself, and in just being himself, he spreads happiness.

I’m having a break from trying. I’m having a break from the world. I’m relaxing and just being me, having a holiday from caring so much about everything that’s wrong out there. 

I started a huge painting yesterday. It’s yellow. I don’t know where it’s going but today I might find out.

I hope you have a good day, being yourself.

And here are a few of our tulips.