Being Kind: Colour on a dull day

Colour on a dull day makes us all smile, even if it's just the way light becomes luminescent across a field or after dawn looking out of the bedroom window.

Colour can, of course, also be a chance encounter with an old friend, the joy of seeing someone you've not seen for an age and we all know how that feels over the past couple of years.

It can be easy to be swallowed up by the dull days however, the colour around us tends to disappear and we can become, so easily, blind to it.  It's at these times that it's also difficult to help loved ones to see the colour when they are down.

Simple things like cooking a side meal or going for a walk can help.  But sometimes it can be "just" a hug, a smile or holding a hand.

A small act of kindness can bring a significant piece of colour to someone's day. Whether someone you know or not.  

A short early evening walk a few weeks ago through my local pocket park on the way to a shop for supplies, I saw a trans man incredibly sad, on the brink of tears walking the opposite way.  I smiled and asked if he was okay and his expression changed.   First in disbelief that a stranger would take the time to ask but secondly, that someone had noticed he was sad and was willing to ask.  

It had simply been a rough day, he said, combined with having recently have moved to the area, it had made him realise how alone he was. The fact that I had reached out had reassured him and we spoke for while and I described the area, the friendly coffee shops, the LGBTQI friendly pub on the corner and what the pocket park was like in the summer (friendly community events including a large screen showing films and the Wimbledon tennis for all to see).

A simple bit of colour, a small act of kindness, is sometimes the only gift we need to give.

The best thing: looking forward

As winter keeps knocking at our door it's so easy to live in the here and now.

The simplist remedy, for me at least, was watching the robin outside my window playing in the sun.  It reminded me that spring is only weeks away.  Warmer rays of sunshine, blossom and heady smells of fresh growth. 

What a way to make us smile.

Definition: Determination

When all you see is your goal in front of you and nothing else...

Alfie, determined, focused (hosted on tiktok)

The zen of Saturday breakfast, with bird

It's Saturday. Since our adoption of the bird I have gotten into the routine of uncovering his cage, going to the kitchen and making a coffee, then returning to our sitting room to have a catch-up of the news.  

Sometimes on the TV but mainly through the quiet tap of my phone, reading the depressing lines from the broadsheets in electronic form or relying on Google to pick out the seemingly random items for my feed.

During this review of the world, three things happen, first I'm aware on sitting down that the room is warmer than the rest of the flat (the oil radiator that we leave on the "*" spoke of the dial for the bird explains that - after all our personal logic tells us, he's from northern Australia and must need the extra degree or so in the middle of our Winter, it's also not unusual for one of us to wake in the night if it feels extra cold to turn it up a notch), secondly the birds outside with their morning song and finally the shuffling in the cage as Alfie wakes up properly and decides that company with one of his humans is due and will come out of his cage, make a few short chirping sounds to warn me he's coming and a wing stroke or two later is happily on my head and roosting.

I go back to reading, Alfie sometimes tweets if something particularly colourful appears on my screen, but that's how we stay for an hour or so.

It's when I start swearing or making loud Humpf noises at the government's approach to Covid, no 10 parties, or general post brexit activities that the zen like peace is disturbed.  Alfie then moves to my shoulder and pecks my ear or starts snuggling into my neck in an attempt to bring me back. 

It works, everyone should have a bird when reading the news.

Step one: Thinking like a bird

First, a short introduction, this blog is the first I've published in a while so please bear with me whilst re-engage my habit for writing. 

My intention is that it will contain random thoughts and has been inspired by a little bird who I and my partner have adopted over the past year or so.

Alfie loves plump green beans, going asleep on my shoulder, being jealous of my calls when working from home, playing with paper (a particular favourite by the way) and also has a penchant for approximating the sounds of blowing kisses and calling out pretty boy when he wants attention.

And what do you ask is the relevance of this for a 50 something man? In the UK we are facing a new period of the pandemic, uncertainty has been with us all for quite a while now and although noises of the future are optimistic so, taking my lead from a certain yellow bird who at the moment is quite happy roosting on my shoulder and who only minutes ago was answering the calls of the birds outside our living room window, I thought a mixture of posts, random or related would be a good way of starting the new year.