Bat and bird norms

This morning before dawn I woke up to hear our nocturnal robin singing quite energetically. I guess it’s not perversity that makes him or her tweet away in the night. I’ve always assumed it was the result of his/her territory being over the road from one of those orange sodium street lights. However I believe that this habit predates cars and electric lights. He's not abnormal. He may not, after all, have been corrupted by our modern culture.

It put me in mind of a story I’ve just come across in a blog article, Turning a Unicorn into a Bat: the post in which we announce the end of our marriage. It's a long and moving article about a gay husband and straight wife divorcing after a long and happy marriage held together by their shared faith. Lolly, wife to Josh, summarises the story like this. “Stellaluna by Janell Cannon. It’s a charming story with beautiful illustrations.

“Stellaluna was a tiny baby fruit bat. One day, Stellaluna’s mother was out flying with Stellaluna, when suddenly an owl attacked them. The owl knocked Stellaluna out of her mother’s grasp, but luckily she ended up safely in a bird’s nest. Stellaluna was allowed to stay in the bird’s nest as long as she acted like a bird. She ended up giving up all of her bat ways—she slept at night, ate bugs, and never hung upside down because Mama Bird told her that those things were wrong. Stellaluna tried very hard to be a good bird, even when it was very difficult.

“One night, Stellaluna ended up finding her bat family who convinced her that her bat ways were not wrong for her—that they were part of who she was. Maybe they were wrong for a bird, but not for a bat. They fed her delicious mango and taught her to fly at night and she realized she never had to eat bugs again. When she finally accepted her identity as a bat, she found happiness she never knew.”

If you want to hear the whole story being read, you can hear it here: Stellaluna read. Full life must include being the way you were made, mustn't it? When we dictate that someone should be like us, we run the danger of killing the real them.

Weekend watching

Perhaps he didn't know St Valentine's Day was over.  That must be his only excuse.  But at 3.45 AM, yes AM, he was at it.  Yes, Romeo's back - not at full throttle, but like an orchestra tuning up.  (By the way, 'throstle' is an old word for 'thrush'.)  My only consolation is that it might be a sign that spring is on its way.  Oddly too, on Radio 3 this morning they played Prokofiev's ballet suite Romeo and Juliet.  


A lot of us with MND are a bit tired of being cooped up by the snow and then the cold.  Spring sunshine and warmth can't come too soon, as far as we're concerned.  All the same I'm enjoying the Winter Olympics, beside my fire!  The less said about the weekend's rugby the better; it wasn't a great spectacle, I thought - though the end of the Wales-Scotland match was unexpectedly dramatic.

Songs of Praise was back to its prissy worst format (red roses, King's Singers in PINK ties...), but was totally redeemed by one interview with Peggy, of The Archers, June Spencer.  In the series, she's married to Jack Wooley who has Alzheimers.  In real life, her husband also had the same disease, and then a stroke:  'I remember saying, "Why me?" and God said, "Because, with my help, you can cope.  And that's it.'  And he did help me, and I did cope, and looking back on it I realise that I couldn't have coped without his help.'  And then she went on to talk about the resurgence of love she experienced in his illness.  It's a wonderful jewel of an interview and well worth listening to.  I hope the BBC repeat it if they do one of their retrospective SoPs in the summer.  (You can find it about 22 minutes into the programme: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00qxypn/Songs_of_Praise_Valentines_Day/).

New look garden

Before


































After

Well, the deed is done. No pain, no gain - as a former PM once said, and as I comforted Jane, when we viewed the scene. It looked rather like a vicious haircut. In fact, we're rather pleased at the job Tom and Mark of Workwood did today. The laburnum was taken down, dogwood gone, hazel coppiced etc - and you can see the result. There'll be replacements shortly, when we dig the holes - and grass, of course. I'm sure you'll be concerned to know how Romeo the robin has reacted. His initial response was favourable; he joined in with the work and enjoyed the pickings. Whether he'll find somewhere to perch to serenade us at night next year remains to be seen....

Meanwhile Sir Terry Tesco has been having a go at schools and teachers. Here we go again. Well, I suppose those immensely generous tokens which schools have to collect by the million to get books and computers give him some right. But come on, Sir Tel, get real. You have more than enough cash to train up your till-keepers, shelf-stackers and trolley-pushers. You could take them to Ph D. You could afford to cash-roll a whole university if you wanted. And I won't comment on how late Rachel got her Tesco home delivery a week or two ago.