What a stupid no good month this is proving to be. I’m concentrating on my happy places but I’m lucky if I can string together more than 300 words at a time. I suppose I should be thankful it’s not because I want for ideas but rather once I start writing I can’t seem to make any sense of it and my words stale and boring. My mother’s death served as immediate inspiration, my father’s feels exhausting. Like he took my creative drive with him as he exited the Earth. Or maybe I’m just overwhelmed and it’s OK to be overwhelmed and paralysed in front of a keyboard at a time like this.

Merida is a happy place for me, it is truly magical and the first day we were there I was agog at the beauty and spirit of the place. This picture is one of those serendipitous pictures. The light, the subject, the Fstop whatevers were perfect and it is a completely unaltered digital shot. I have no photography training. None. Unless you count reading the Canon manual. I’m surprised this shot turned out so well because I don’t like large groups of birds which could fly into my face at any second. But my fear was trumped by the carefree beauty of the children feeding the birds: throwing the bread into the air so they could watch the birds fly.