Epitaph For A Starling

I got up early this morning and looked out the kitchen window and saw a small black object halfway up our back garden. My distance eyesight is not as good as it once was but I thought I could see what looked like a pair of wings and sure enough on walking up the garden I found the body of this poor little starling. 
This image maybe a bit macabre or distressing for some but I did think I had to pay some respect to its life, the fact that not that long ago it had been a living and breathing creature and celebrate what a wonder of nature it really is. 
It didn't want it being left out in the open so I carefully lifted its little body, buried it at the top of our garden and said a little prayer for it. I'm not at all religious but I still felt it deserved an epitaph of some kind no matter how small.

After that rather sombre start to the day I felt I needed to keep active. So I went for another early morning run in the summer sunshine. After such a poor start June has proved to be an exception to the usual rule in being both delightfully sunny and warm.
I got some rather upsetting news yesterday that my friend Renee, who I first met at work over 30 years ago (in fact on my very first day at work), had a stroke a couple of weeks ago. She's in her mid 80's and is fitter than the proverbial fiddle - she normally goes to her local gym at least five times a week. I gave her a ring and she sounded in remarkably good spirits considering what she has been through - she spent a couple of weeks in hospital but is now back home, having physio up to three times a day from her carers and is already itching to get back to the gym. She is truly a one off! All the very best for a speedy recovery Renee!
The rest of the day was spent shopping for and doing the prep for a lemon ricotta tart (well there might have been a bit of telly watching, a glass of wine and a coffee or two reading the local paper as well) which was supposed to be the pudding course for tonight's dinner. I got it in the oven early enough but by the time I went to collect my brother from the station in the evening the filling was still virtually liquid despite being baked for nearly three times the amount of time shown in the recipe! Therefore, we bought a Viennetta (gotta love a retro dessert) on the way home and I continued baking the tart when I got in so it would be ready for tomorrow - fingers crossed!
We wound down the day with another wonderful episode of Later..With Jools Holland - this time featuring Jessie Buckley (love her!) and Bernard Butler, Poppy Ajudha, Confidence Man and Warmduscher and our usual FNKD (Friday Night Kitchen Disco) with some OMD, Kate Bush (in honour  of Running Up That Hill climbing to the top of the charts again over 30 years after its original release), Talk Talk, Nik Kershaw and Human League.