Life goes on

It's been a couple of weeks since Sue and I scattered dad's ashes and she is back in Borneo and I'm still in Lincoln.  I've been gradually emptying out his little bungalow of some of his more idiosyncratic personal touches.  Like the clocks everywhere, in wooden boxes with fake pendulums and cheap quartz movements.  Maybe they were his idea of a joke about time passing.  The oddest things make me tearful, such as the plastic model of the USS Constitution that has stood on the living room window ledge for years.  He made it when his hands still worked properly and it must have taken a lot of time and care.  Now it's all dusty and some of its spars are broken, it has no value and I've moved it into the garage to await its fate, probably the recycling bin.  All that time and effort for nothing.

Hanging up my washing I noticed that the pear tree was in bud.  A few years ago dad tried to "make a feature" of it by painting it in creosote and sticking a bird box in the middle.  I thought it was an angry and destructive gesture, but the tree produced a bumper crop of pears the following year and now, thick with plump buds, it's got the last laugh.  Life goes on.

For his ninetieth birthday last September I bought dad a bird feeder.  It doesn't sound like much, but I thought it would be something for him to look out at from his little front conservatory, imprisoned as he was in the house.  He appreciated the gesture, but was sad that no birds seemed to visit it.  In fact the birdseed inside has been consumed steadily over the winter and both I and Bernie have had to refill it.  A few days ago I was delighted and sad to see the sparrows and tits queuing up to take their turn at it.  Life goes on.

Things are not so easy for Sue at the moment either.  She is mourning the loss of her very good friend Keith a couple of months back, as well as my dad and she has her own worries about family.  But, today she posted this picture of hornbills in the woodland near her apartment.  Such weird and gorgeous birds that bark like dogs and on the wing look like flying orchids.  Life goes on and what can we do but try to squeeze the most out of it?