To begin.........(again)

OK - let's get one thing straight - I never have and (in all likelihood) never will raise a starling by hand. Well, I would if push came to shove but thankfully, I've found that the starlings raised by me by proxy all have excellent parents who raise them beautifully with a little help from me. I provide food and shelter, along with a starling-friendly environment and they provide me with hours of joy in return.

The title of this blog could just as easily have been "raising yellowhammers", "raising butterflies", "raising buttercups" or "raising apple trees". Basically I've set this up to give myself a voice again while recovering from clinical depression. I'm going to try to concentrate on the things that give nourishment to my soul and "raising starlings" seems like exactly the sort of subject that is about nourishment, nature, nurture and hope.

For five years, I completed a daily blog using pbase as my vehicle. I did my blog religiously, day-in and day-out, no matter whether I felt like it or not, no matter how busy I was and no matter how much of a chore the task sometimes was. One of my reasons for this was that the website is a photographic one and my blog was also a "photo-a-day" and, not wanting to let go of the daily nature of it, I found myself locked into an hour every day photographing and writing. Ultimately I broke the cycle because I was finding the commitment of an hour a day shooting and processing a photo, then writing a piece to accompany it too much in the face of deepening and prolonged depression.

Now I feel ready to "put pen to paper" or perhaps "finger to keyboard" would be a more accurate description as I rarely write with a pen any more other than shopping lists or "ideas".

So, this is the start of a new journey. If you want to see the life, loves, joy and despair of my daily blog on pbase all you have to do is visit www.pbase.com/lindarocks. It's all there, dip in and out or start at the beginning if you like!