Some days....

Some days it's difficult to find the words to blog with. Other days there isn't enough time to write it all down. Sometimes enjoyable, other times a chore. Relentlessly I plug away, bashing the keys and allowing thoughts to become tangible.

Today is an easy day.

I'm recording some programmes from my Sky+ machine onto some DVD discs - namely a bunch of Doctor Who series two episodes. It's about six thirty in the evening. Inbetween babysitting the recording sessions, I go to make coffee.

Outside it's grey. Drizzly rain, pale grey clouds, wet stone slabs. The kettle is boiling, and in the interim period (where I am sure I would have smoked a cigarette in a previous incarnation) I pick up a bamboo skewer and rake it across the metal of a kitchen draining device. An improvised percussive instrument.

Outside the window, in the shrubs and ferns of my garden, I fix my eyes, searching for the tell tale shudders that indicate the presence of a feathered friend. I watch a sparrow fly under a shrub and turn and fly straight back out again. Something or someone disagreed with the little chap. I drop the bamboo skewer and crane my neck and strain my eyes for a sign of what else could be in there.

The smallest of garden birds comes into view. About the size of a very small mouse, and the same colour, it's the wren. My favourite garden visitor (besides the hedgehogs of course). I watch the little wren as it perches on a plant pot and takes a sip of rainwater. It drops down onto the slimy Yorkshire stone flags in front of my kitchen window. Out of sight.

I move across to the end of the windows, and see the bird on the floor. The wren is taking a bath in a small pool of water that's collected in the worn corner of a stone paving slab. The water no deeper than a couple of millimetres is ample for this tiny creature.

Awesome. Priceless.

The bird finishes its bath and hops up onto a ladder. Feathers puffed out, it's now about the size of a golfball. I can see the little spots on the feathers and a droplet of water on the end of her beak. She shudders the spray of water off and flies away.