WordPress have come up with a brand new challenge which can be incorporated into post a day / post a week.

Each week they will set a theme for a photo idea, and bloggers are invited to interpret said theme in their own individual way.

The very first theme is “Boundaries” which immediately conjured up images of our newest family member, Charlie, who I introduced here last August. The story of how Charlie became part of the family can be read here…

Charlie has made it abundantly clear that he has his own set of boundaries. His cage is his castle. At first we would leave his cage door open, inviting him to come out from behind the bars and join us in our lives of freely roaming around the house.

He wouldn’t have a bar of it! After he lost his footing on his perch a couple of times and accidently fell out of his cage while the door was open, I decided to keep the door closed. He’s happier that way.

I didn’t want to put him through the sheer terror he experienced when he left his safe place.

As much as I would love to hold him, he’s scared of my hands. Spending months in a pet shop, being handled only by rough hands wearing gloves has not given him any confidence in people.

Apparently it takes time to tame a bird that hasn’t been handled gently from a young age. And that’s okay. If he needs time, I can be patient.

Charlie lets me stroke his beak and hand feed him small pieces of food, such as sunflower seeds, through the bars of his cage. He will even hesitantly take larger pieces of food, such as carrot pieces from me when I open the door and offer them to him directly.

Then he scurries away.

He has made it crystal clear where his boundaries lie. And that is apparently just the way he wants things to be.

I guess Charlie isn’t much different to people really. We all have our boundaries, our point of limitation, that invisible line that we never wish to cross over, no matter what.

Charlie just seems to be far more honest about his boundaries than most people usually are.

And whilst living within his boundaries, Charlie leads a very happy existence.