Changes

I’ve heard all the wise words… Nothing stays the same. We should embrace change but I’m not very good at it. New gadgets, new places to visit, even new clothes cause me stress. It takes me weeks before I will actually wear them. Maybe it’s a throwback from when I was little and new clothes were ‘kept for best’. 

Recently I went into the city centre on the bus, my first bus trip since Covid. The bus was fine, no changes there. I just missed one, had to wait an age for the next, the usual stuff… but the city centre was a shock! The huge Marks and Spencers store was gone, the building shuttered with darkened windows, creepy. The open market where Mum and Dad worked for most of their lives was gone, flattened by the council developers and cordoned off. Even the small shops that I used to wander round were gone. I suspect this is a change happening in many UK towns and cities but I found it difficult and upsetting.

Not everything has changed. Daughter is settled and living a few streets away which is a joy. My two cats, Betty and Sophie, are a constant source of amusement. Betty almost removed the vet’s arm last week and Sophie is a sweetie! And twenty years on I’m still doing the annual RSPB Garden Bird count but that has seen a major change too. My bird count was always something to be proud of, including numerous blackbirds, blackcaps, goldfinches, dunnocks, blue tits, robins, coal tits, great tits, pigeons, magpies, chaffinches and greenfinches. This year my bird count totalled four: a blackbird, two blue tits and a coal tit. 

I've read that there’s a national decline in wild birds and I wondered about wild birds in other countries… and this is the point where I come to the biggest and most difficult change of all. Last month my son and family left the UK to move near to his wife’s family. I’m struggling to come to terms with this mammoth change, especially as I'm a poor traveller and may never get to visit them. My only saviour is the communication available through the Internet and so, as my teenage grandson is an avid photographer, I called him and asked if he could have a look-out for birds in his new Mediterranean locality. To my surprise he said he had been taking photographs of local birds that very morning. After a brief discussion about how psychic he obviously is, he sent me some images and, with his permission, I've selected one to share with you.

© A. Kloos

It is a Common Myna, an angry-looking bird that is apparently quite argumentative, rather like our starlings. 

I shall continue doing the RSPB Bird Count even though my numbers have fallen because nothing stays the same. You just have to get used to the changes… even the one about a much-loved grandson who is now living over 3,000 miles away.