For the moment, it is standing where you see it, pretty much in the middle of nowhere, while I ponder where it will finally come to rest. There are two or three spots being argued over by the birds at the moment; the Robins, and various tits and finches all want it close to the feeders by the house; the pigeons and doves want it under one of the Ash trees where they routinely hang out; the Sparrowhawks are pressing for it to go where they can ambush with as little chance of missing their target as possible; and the mallard who come up from the pond (twenty or so at the moment, but many more in the winter months) couldn't care less - they spent some time wandering round it discussing what it might be, and how it might have got here, but then shrugged their pinions and went back to peering in through the doors wondering why I wasn't out there feeding them again!
The Moorhens have already made it clear that they want it used for grain, not water, to give them a feeding place where they don't have to compete with the ducks, but they already use the table outside the kitchen doors anyway.
Regardless of where it will be placed, you can be sure that it will be well used by a host of visitors, and that it is greatly appreciated, both for what it is - and you could not have thought of a better gift - and for what it represents for me.
And what is that?
I have had to ask myself that a few times, and I would not have done that, perhaps, if I did not have the reality of the birdbath looking back at me, and forcing me to answer my own question.
It represents things that easily come to mind, and a few others that are of little consequence now that I no longer 'belong' to whatever I have been a part of for the last eighteen years.
Firstly, of course, it represents those eighteen years.
Some people would find that a major factor in any reflections on their lives, but for me it matters very little whether I have been doing something for one year or fifty so long as I have been doing what I should have been doing. Certainly I have achieved more for myself and discovered more about myself in that time than I did in twenty six years of producing china models for Royal Worcester and then for myself. But everything about those years is of little consequence; I have spent more time already in writing the preceding words than I ever have in thinking about it, and that is how it will continue. Life is a continual series of 'nows', not regrets about the past or any form of nostalgia for it, and nor should it be worries about the future, and least of all a fear of getting older.
Whatever anyone else may think, I have retired under false pretences; my birth certificate may confirm the number of years I have been around, but the truth is that I am not getting any older. I gave that up at about the same time that I stopped smoking - when it dawned on me that neither of them (smoking and ageing) were a particularly good idea.
I now have enough years tucked into my rucksack to fully understand how right my father was when he used to smile on his birthdays while raising his wineglass to love and life, and always giving voice to the same basic truth: "Life is so much better now that I am 70 than it was when I was 60". ..."... at 80 than it was at 70". And so it should be, and can be for all of us. It has little to do with how fit and healthy we are; even less to do with how well off we are, and how important we believe ourselves to be. My father had Parkinson's Disease for the last twenty five years of his life, and it was far from easy for him for the last ten years, but he knew many of life's hidden secrets and was content to the very end. I shall be too, whether that be tomorrow or when the years have totted up to 120! And I shall have your gift to remind me of the times when parts of our lives shared the same path.
Sorry folks, I am getting into other areas of thought here and must drag myself back from blog posting mode. This may be appearing in blog form, but I have set it up purely as a means of sharing a picture of the birdbath and a few one-off words with you, the most important of which is "thankyou"; which is why I have just written it again.
Secondly, it represents the people I have met along the way; not only the names in the card, but all who have been working for the same ends, and, more than anything else, the men and women whose lives have been, and still are, so dependent on people like us for their enrichment.
For me it began with days spent at Dean Hill Hospital in Ross-on-Wye, where I saw how Philip Burcher, Peter Gadiel and S.K. had been living for years before moving into "180". It ended, earlier, and not in the way I had expected, with a slow-motion scattering of a team; a house where four became two, and then none when C.S. and S.L. were moved to Bromsgrove. ... not the way I would have liked to have left things, but ...
Two final thoughts.
I pray that those of you who take to your beds to cry for two days when you are forty (no names) will one day see the light and relax into a smile of contentment. I certainly don't want to think of you as unhappy when you reach 50, 60 and 70!
And the other one? At least one of you will have guessed ... Yes, that's it ... GIVE UP SMOKING !
Apparently I am now retired ...
but then, I always was the retiring type.
Peace be with you all
Paul
