As I wind down here, and get ready for new adventures, I’m looking around me every day and seeing the things I’m really going to miss.

Every morning at sunrise we hear the birds off our balcony. “Bom te ver, bom te ver.”

It means “Good to see you.”

What a happy wake-up call. OK, so I don’t like being woken up at sunrise by anything at all unless it’s bacon, but if some obnoxious bird is going to do it anyway, this is way better than a rooster.

I would shoot a rooster and eat it for breakfast with a smile, but how can you be mad at a bird that tells you it’s so good to see you every morning?

Especially when they’re so bright and pretty?

So I wake up, stumble out of bed and pull the balcony doors all the way open. Even as I stand there with my swollen, sleepy eyes and bed-head, they still say they’re glad to see me.

It’s a good way to start every single day.

I’m really going to miss them.

I have a feeling the birds in Scotland aren’t going to be nearly as cheerful. I have a feeling the northern birds are going to sound a lot more like “Oh, shit. Raining again.”