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Swan Heaven

20 September 2015

I’ll be honest here, I’ve never seen the attraction people have with birds. They have beaks and wings and all seem the same to me. Standing in a wet and cold field to watch a small brown blob sit on a twig seems about as interesting as watching someone make a cake. Mind you, I’ve become strangely addicted to BBC1’s Bake Off, so strange things can happen.

And happen they have. I live next to a river, which is like a kind of slippery bird motorway. We have owls and tits and glorious goldfinches and a little egret and his friend the kingfisher (who sits on the bank and dazzles the fish into submission). I have bird feeders full of nuts and seeds and enjoy watching the long tailed tits perch prettily and nibble away.

The other day the sun was out and as I walked back into the house, after the school run, to begin fighting the paperwork on my desk I stopped and looked. Really looked. The swan couple were chatting to their four, fat, fluffy, grey cygnets and eating juicy stems and paddling about. As the start of a working day goes, it was heaven. Swan heaven. Sun and swans and a glittering river and in that moment I felt calm and serene and happy.

I thought I’d share the happiness with you as it’s easy to be gloomy and miss the magic of life around us as we toil towards retirement. It’s easy to see birds as boring and not notice how they are delicate marvels of precision engineering. We can live in the moment and enjoy that moment for what it is.

This week stop and take time to notice life around you. That brown blob on a twig might be more interesting than you realise!

Next week: The Best Marketing Question In The World?