Where has the day gone?.. exotic birds and warm duvets…

How often do we find ourselves struggling to beat the clock as we rush around like headless chickens, ensuring a reversal of any gains we may have made, instead of taking a deep breath and calmly resolving to plan ahead in future? Effective time management is a skill I do not possess and as someone attempting to make a living as a writer [tongue in cheek!!] deadlines seem to come around faster than I can get the words down. Proofreading and editing can be time-consuming and any tips to speed up my schedule will be much appreciated.

Discovering Christmas decorations on the shelves of our local store this morning left me in a panic as I frantically worked out that the time for saving up had come and gone!

My thoughts whilst gazing out the window in search of inspiration recently, found me pausing to gape upon two Southern African hadeda ibis on my deck. They resemble miniature feathered pterodactyls and their raucous screech on take-off would awaken the dead! There they were, burying their ferocious-looking beaks into pots of summer bulbs, disturbing the roots and probably rendering them useless. Giving me an irritated backward glance at my incessant clapping to try and scare them, they flew off, alighting further down the lawn.

It got me thinking about the habitats of the exotic birds that frequent our communal garden. The crested and black-collared barbets, red-billed hoopoes, glossy starlings, mousebirds and our new visitors – rose-ringed parakeets, are all very much at home in the urban gardens, in what can only be described as one of the biggest man-made forests in the world.

Between the hadedas and the geese, I’m assured of a noisy, early rise when all I want is quietude and a return to the warmth of the duvet. There are many benefits to rising early and I must admit to scurrying through a project in record time before my first coffee of the day and with Summer’s arrival In the Southern Hemisphere; hope springs eternal. The duvet will be discarded and my writing schedule will commence with alacrity ..but perhaps I choose to live by the immortalised words of the great poet and playwright, Oscar Wilde “Be yourself; everyone else is already taken” and surely five more minutes won’t make any difference…will it…??