In which I compare myself to a small brown bird.

When my sister Sharon was young, she loved birds. 

She was an expert on all sorts of birds. She was a bird watcher before it was cool.

Anyway I remember her sending me a video once of a bower bird.

It's a dear little bird who decorates their nest to make it pretty

and probably to attract a mate if I remember rightly.

I loved the thought of that little bird and somehow I can identify with the desire 

to make one's nest pretty. I've always been a collector of things

and I love to decorate my space. To be fair, there have been stages

where it bordered on hoarding, but I think we have moved past that.

We have moved around a lot in the last few years but we are settled now

which feels amazing. It does mean that we are currently 

once more decluttering stuff that is sneakily ending up under beds

and (most especially) under our hanging clothes (we don't have wardrobes). 

One of the things I do not want to part with is books. 

I have over the years parted with many and I regret it.

Now I'm at the phase of my life where I'm happy to let them 

build up again, we have books in almost every room

and it's great. There is something so right about picking up a book

and strolling through the pages. And I love walking into a room

that has books on the shelves.

When I left the children's dad, I left all the good children's books

behind for him. Because he was good at reading to the children

and Annie was so little and Rue not much into reading at the time.

But recently I decided that I wanted books for little people back in my life.

Slowly I have been collecting nice board books and stashing

them in Annie's old doll house. It is the perfect size for little books

and it makes me so so happy.

We have been in this house for over three years
and it's the longest time we have been somewhere for a long time.
It feels good to be settled in here
and filling in some of the gaps where things are missing.
It takes a long long time to rebuild your life from scratch,
but it's worth it. Our home might be a bit ramshackle and need some work,
but like the bower bird, we have made it our own and we are happy here.