Overcast and cool.  A male fig bird, pale and insipid without his scarlet  breeding season eye patch, plucks green caterpillars from the poinciana tree outside the window.  The fig birds are working hard.   Newly fledged youngsters shimmy shake and squawk for food.  Continuously.  Must be hard to be a bird parent. 

Richard returns today.  Have missed him but have also enjoyed the solitude.  Do know that I sleep better alone.  He snores and talks and often crowds onto my side of the bed.  It seems I am always asking him to turn or move over.  Loving couples should be loving couples in bed too but I am beginning to understand, even desire, the restful oasis of twin beds.  But I'll never ask him.  Some things you just have to put up with and interrupted sleep is one of them.

Another thing which erupts here without Richard is singing and dancing.  Just leapt up to Placido Domingo's Granada and earlier swayed around the living room to The Girl from Impanema.   Have always sung, always danced as an expression of irrepressible joy not because I'm any good at either of them.  But for that degree of freedom of expression to flow, no audience allowed.  Or even the prospect of a surprise audience.

Have been scratching away at a drawing but am not inspired.  If it works it will be a miracle.  No plan at all, just a line here a bit of shading there.  Love how graphite builds mass.  Without the distraction of colour, graphite defines form in a way that I find very satisfying.  It has bulk, it has mood, it has a dark energy that is independent of the illusionary life created by the vibrancy of colour.  Graphite is meaty.  And this from a vegan.