Here’s what I came up with for Saturdays birdhouse picture 🙂
George lay down his chisel and admired his work. The small plain pine birdhouse lay in front of him on the kitchen table.
“What colour should we paint this one Sam?”
The black Labrador laying at his feet looked up when he heard his name. Then immediately put his head back down on his paws.
George eased his elderly frame out of the chair and bent, rummaging in the cupboard for his paints. He groaned as he tried to straighten.
“I think this one should be red don’t you? Mum liked red didn’t she.”
Sam scratched his ear and rolled over.
;
Several hours later George sat back and stretched. “This is a good one Sam, she’ll like this one. We’ll just have a cuppa, give it time to dry, then we’ll go for a nice walk.”
He filled the kettle and looked out onto the small green below the flats. Memories of his wife standing on the grass, throwing seed to the sparrows as she’d done every morning, played in his mind. She’d hated moving to this flat. They’d both missed their garden, the one they’d tended for over forty years. The one with the birdhouse George had lovingly made for Eileen, just after they’d moved in. Year after year they’d watched the sparrows raise their babies.
How long had he been alone now? Ten Months? Eleven? The tears welled in his tired grey eyes. He preferred remembering her like that. Not how she’d been in the final months of her life, when the cancer had taken hold.
;
Arriving at work that morning, Clare found her colleague Diane standing outside smoking a cigarette.
“Hi Clare…..look!”
Clare spun round and looked at the wall Diane was pointing to.
“Is that the bosses idea of brightening the place up?” Clare laughed.
“No, Jim doesn’t know anything about it. It wasn’t here before the weekend that’s for sure. My mate Sue told me about this, apparently they’re cropping up all over town, have been for about a year now.”
The two women stood, both deep in thought, looking at the small red box. They held their breath and watched as a tiny male sparrow alighted on the roof. It chirped and then was joined by a female.
Photo from Wikipedia taken by Fir0002
Well, I tried, ok, it was sort of happy, but sad at the same time lol 😉 It must be awful when your spouse dies, when you’ve been together that long 😦
Ok, I’m depressing myself, and probably you lot too lol. I actually got quite upset writing this 😦
Let’s pretend that if I continued this story, George’s son calls him, they’ve just moved into a huge house and it’s got a lovely garden. They want George and Sam to go and live with them and look after the garden. Oh, and he’ll have his own granny flat. Better? 😉
The View Outside 