Return of the wren

For some reason the local wrens don't spend a lot of time in my garden. Every other species of bird does including sparrowhawks and kestrels. I suspect it's the bounty of small birds that bring the birds of prey. But wrens come and go, never staying too long. This week the wren has come back. Who knows for how long. I did manage to get a photo though and managed to draw this graphite pencil piece.

Update

I had an incident with a wren this afternoon. It decided to have a holiday in my living room. Not the most welcome visitor when I've just had new carpet laid. Feisty little bleeder too. I couldn't catch it despite using my softest voice to tell it everything was going to be OK. It finally found its way out via the door. Hope it isn't away to tell its siblings about the new carpet.

Update on my news: I finished my Open University course - thank goodness. Not the most inspired course I have taken. As the old school reports often say, 'Could do better'. Just waiting for the results now. I have also been getting alot of greetings card work to do. Handmade cards seem to be very popular. Time to expand the line a bit I think but I am not sure which way I will go. I also took part in an exhibition, sold all my pieces and was invited to do another one at the end of August.

On the downside my online shop was shut down through no fault of my own. The guy running them just decided to finish up with them. The trouble is he didn't tell anyone and I found out by chance that they were gone. So now I have to think of a new idea for selling online without having to spend alot of money on it. My stuff does not sell on Ebay but Etsy seems to be popular. The trouble is that Etsy only sells in dollars - not handy for my UK based customers. I still have not managed to update my art web site due to lack of web publishing applications and I am getting really concerned about that. I might just shut it down and use Art Wanted as my base. So much to think about.

Sing a song of sixpence...

There is a wren who comes to my garden every evening. He is singing even as I write. For such a small bird he sure does have a great set of lungs. He sits on the branches of the bushes and trees, shuffles a little then opens his beak and a flurry of the most beautiful notes comes out. The wren is Britain's smallest bird, dull and drab brown and a serial bigamist to boot but that voice more than makes up for it. I think he comes to keep me company, to spread his beauty and flood the house with song during my dark days. As many of you know the last 18 months have been very bad for me but the wren's presence seems to be his way of telling me that there is still something beautiful and worthwhile in the world.