Why is it I sleep well on days off and badly on days I've worked? I'm tired enough. I hit the pillow and think sweet oblivion will wrap me in slumber. I can feel it happening; the thoughts that are like flights of birds, birds that are without a compass and dive and sweep just for the sheer enjoyment. Then suddenly, without reason, I am yanked back into every day alertness and sleep has disappeared over some far horizon.

I stuck it out for an hour then decided to get up and do yoga. After forty minutes I was relaxed with that nice unobtrusive tingle which comes from yoga and still sleep eluded me. When I awoke it was nearly seven and the day felt like it had started for the train without me. I still feel that way. I've done the housework and the big push to get through the verandah (birds can do a lot of pooping in two days and that pooping takes alot of hands and knees scrubbing!) but I am without energy and have a tangible lassitude in my thinking, like cheesecloth makes a curtain between what I am capable of thinking and what I actually am thinking.

Had a great session with Dimitri on Sunday. We've just been working on targeting with him taking seeed from a small coop cup (he's so clever. I used to fill the coop cup but before taking it away he'd take a huge mouthfull of seed which would take minutes to eat. Now I use a shallow layer and he has to be content with a few seeds at a time). Anyway, we'd been working on that for awhile and I decided to try the retrieve again. I'm back chaining which means I put the wooden peg into the bowl and try and click when he picks it upand and drops it back in. He doesn't understand yet but just the fact that I wasn't clicking for when he dropped it out of the bowl and there was so much activity going on with clicks and treats and hands and movement he got quite (for him) blase with the exercise. I was very proud of him.

Even today while I was on hands and knees scrubbing the floor and he was in his 'penthouse' (a narrow 3' tall ex-compost bin with light and entrance holes cut in the sides with a ladder leading to a cocky cage with an entrance hole cut out the bottom) he didn't mind me being so close. He even preened himself! (His penthouse, now that he's learned to use it, has been very nice for him. He's up high and can see out and about yet he cannot fall and hurt himself. He had high perches before but if he got a fright he'd attempt to fly and would of course crash to the ground so this creation of R's has been a nice safe compromise).

There's a little budgie at work, handraised by K from the featherless stage. He's called Tony and is now old enough to fly. I was thinking about him on the way home the other day. I don't think his life at the vet surgery is ideal as he can get lost in the busy-ness of the day and not get time out for flying and one on one attention. Tonys valiant forgiving little heart brought tears to my eyes. Here's this bird, one of tens of thousands baby budgies bred and sold every day, often not regarded as more than a passing fancy, who is so sweet, so smart and so much a big BIG being it seems criminal the he and others like him are not lauded and loved more than they are. I know there are exceptions, many exceptions but they are out-numbered by the 'it's just a budgie' majority. But Tony is not 'just a budgie'. Neither is Cornelius. They are truly incredible creatures. I've love to 'rescue' Tony but of course I can't - and his life isn't bad. He's fed and watered. I brought him tree branches and showed how his cage could be lined with multiple papers on TOP of the wires so that a set could be removed each day and he would always have a sort of clean cage (budgies fossick on the ground like galahs and cockatiels). Still, for the most part he lives in the windowless tea room and only gets attention when someone has time - and in a busy vet surgery there isn't much.