Sunflowers....Stream Clearing...Kitchen Drawers and What's the Point?

I've been watching it grow taller and taller over the last few weeks. This sunflower, which sprung up between  two stone slabs at the base of the bird feeder finally hit the plastic dome of the squirrel baffle and  I had to gently pull it out so it could grow beyond it.

I didn't dream it would actually produce flowers but it has  - lots of them.....

it feels like a little miracle...steadily growing up...

reaching for the sun....and all from a  tiny seed discarded from a bird's beak.....

fallen down a crack ...taken root in the grass....

giving me so much pleasure...and providing shelter and a landing spot for the birds. I love the tenacity and abundance of it.

This morning I take a plastic carrier bag with me,

and walk beyond the footpath, staying on the road,

keeping my eyes peeled for litter and the Red Bull cans I collected the other day.

I find them ......and more  - chocolate bar wrappers, beer bottles, blue plastic rope, a pink cat collar -and come home with a bulging bag for my re-cycling bin.

 This afternoon I take  fork and spade and wheelbarrow down to the far end of the stream and accompanied by a sweet robin singing in the branch of a hazel tree above me, I  start to clear the banks with all the overhanging foliage - brambles, nettles, cow parsley and long dead grasses - letting in the light, letting the small trickle of muddy water flow more smoothly.....

till my back hurts and my hands are sore with all the wrenching and cutting and making huge piles of weeds and stream sludge.

Later sitting in a kitchen showroom, pouring over the plans with the man who is designing my new kitchen, I feel the nettle stings burning through my jeans and I find grass seeds and twigs in my hair that I didn't realise were there.

But I carry on discussing work surfaces and sinks and cupboard doors  and the benefits of keeping your plates and cups and food supplies in drawers. An idea I rejected at first but I'm  coming round to now. So much has changed in kitchen choice since Robin and I planned ours 15 years ago. 

And now the curtains are being sucked back into the open windows with the wind trying to blow into the bedroom....the door is banging, the owls are calling in the dark, my eyes are tired sore...this morning seems like a lifetime ago.

I'm just grateful I have survived another day....without surcumbing too often to the question I never find an answer to...

What's the point of all this without Robin?