Rediscovered Pictures

 

Images one, four, five and eight: my sister Ireland, taken by me. Images seven and nine: my sister Jazz, taken by me. Images two and six: me, taken by Jazz. Image three: me, taken by Ireland. Images ten, eleven and twelve: me, taken by my mum. Image thirteen: Ireland and I, taken by Jazz. I can't be sure, but some of these may be edited.

Note: The second-from-the-bottom photo was photoshopped ages ago because the picture showed a lot of spots on my face, I decided to not add it in the post in which the photoshoot that this photo came from was posted because putting up a photoshopped face didn't sit right with me. Looking at it again now, I've decided that I really like the photo (unfortunately I never saved the un-edited version) but just wanted to let you know that my skin doesn't actually look like that.

My laptop has finally been fixed (after my sister's laptop, which I was using before, died) and I now have access to all my photos, so I thought I'd post (just a tad more than) a few of my favourites, of which none besides photo number nine (of my sister Jazz) have appeared on the blog.

Photo taken by my friend Thelma

I was originally going to make this a very quick post, but I realised that I really want to share with you the story of Colin the barn swallow, who made an appearance in my last post. We found Colin to have rather fortunately landed in a box full of fabric, it seemed that her siblings (who we'd seen in the nest the day before) had been taken by something, and her parents never came back for her. We named her a masculine name but addressed her as a she to "balance it out" because we didn't know the gender (I know it sounds a bit wanky, but it made sense to us at the time - when we were both very tired). I was quite annoyed with her at first, but eventually grew affectionate towards her. She seemed comforted by sitting in my hand, so I'd take her out of her makeshift nest regularly so that she got some affection, and sometimes she'd sort of flap a bit and climb up my arm or the front of my shirt, until she got to the crook of my neck and buried herself in my hair, where she proceeded to make soft, content noises (what does it say about my hair if a baby bird things it's a good place to hang out in?). My mum and I started becoming really fond of her.

It was a rather interesting experience once she started flying, as I said in a post on instagram: it "involved her flying onto our ceiling fan and getting upset because she didn't know how to get down - so I had to coax her onto an umbrella (a vintage one, natch); her flying into my face; her flying onto my shoulder and refusing to get off; flying onto my head three times; flapping and climbing up my arm to nestle into the crook of my neck; flying up and perching on the curtain railing; flying onto my EAR and perching there; and quite a lot of awkward flaps in the air in which it seemed that she wasn't sure what to do next." We then took her outside regularly for a fly, which was terrifying, but wonderful as she seemed to really love it. She was a natural (probably because she's a bird, but whatever...).

We had her for 32 days before she left 'the nest' on Tuesday, and it was really just so great seeing her grow from strength to strength in such a short period of time: seeing her fly for the first time, watching her catch a bug midair right in front of me, seeing that she'd found a dam to drink from and bath in (because she came back looking like a drowned rat), and all sorts of wonderful things. It was really quite sweet to have a bird that would fly onto your shoulder (or your hand if you held it out to her). She'd even be quite happy to sit on my thumb as I was texting on my phone. Colin also rather enjoyed waking me up by gently pulling on my eyelashes at five-thirty in the morning, which, despite my annoyance at being woken up so early, actually felt quite nice. She was also quite funny, too: once, she was watching a wasp fly around so intently that she fell off my finger, she also had a tendency to get distracted by watching the ceiling fan - it was quite funny watching her head twirl around as the fan did.
I also realised that her name was quite funny, as well: I gave her nicknames like Colinoscopy and Semi-Colin, and when she took a bath it was a 'Colin cleanse'. I also liked to have her sit on my middle finger so I could give people 'the bird'. Anyway, that's all I can think of right now as I'm very tired (and am writing this because I'm trying to update my blog at least once a month). I do miss having her around, but I would never have put her in a cage and tried to keep her. I'm just hoping that she's safe and has found a nice coliny (see what I did there?) of barn swallows to join. Long live Colin!