Morning symphony

Blimey, it's a Saturday and I'm awake by 6.00am. Where's the justice? No lie in for me today.
It is lovely that the mornings (and evenings) are getting lighter but it means I naturally wake up earlier and have to creep around in order not to wake my Sleeping Beauty (Luke). This bit of time alone before he is ready for his first coffee of the day is often spent tidying up the house as sadly I'm not one of those to whizz around in the evening, before bed, to straighten cushions and fold throws decoratively. So the morning jobs consist of collecting empty cups and picking up abandoned shoes.
This morning I loaded the dishwasher, filled the washing machine (days off are made up of these chores) then made myself a cup of tea to wander back to bed with (which is where I am now, four pillows propping me up whilst I type). About 7.00am I thought I should open up the hen house and as I walked up the garden I was almost deafened by a cacophony of bird song. From the lone magpie landing in the very bendy  top branch of a gigantic conifer two gardens away, to a cheery "Pip pip" sound from the oak tree, to the flurry of activity when I opened the door and the swaying of the feeders which were hastily abandoned upon my arrival there is a chorus of different bird song and activity all around.

I remember being on a train, late at night, coming back to Milan from Venice and passing within metres of some one's apartment where possibly their children would have been sleeping. It seemed I could almost touch their building with outstretched hands and I thought then how desperately sad that some people work hard all their lives, pay their bills, raise their children and do their best but still don't have the opportunities that others do. Working hard isn't enough; you could work long hard days and still be nowhere near to getting your dream home or enjoying a blow out holiday. Maybe that's not 'your thing', mine is just to be comfortable and not lose track of what's important to me; that's friends and loved ones and how I treat people and things along the way.
But here I am through a mixture of luck, inheritance, work, saving hard and going without lots of things our friends have (annual holidays, meals out, etc), living in a lovely house in a wonderful part of the country. Our mortgage is slightly smaller than the one the people who bought our tiny terraced house in a less salubrious area have. I hope I don't come across as pious; I'm just very grateful to be here, in a house where the first thing we hear on waking is birdsong. I think back to that high rise apartment window by Milan's train station and count my blessings that at ten thirty each night I don't have a train honking it's arrival as it passes.