Monday 23 November
Today started with the two cats scratching to be let outside. Wells and Walssie are getting on a bit now but are very healthy. They come in and out of the house through our bathroom window, the one that looks out on to our back garden. They have been spending more time indoors over the last year or so.
Then, as the morning sun broke, I left the house to make my car journey to work. But this journey would be an eventful one. Well, I thought it was eventful. Because, now when stuff happens, even small, glimpsing stuff, I notice the significance of it to me.
I probably need to explain. Yesterday, I went walking with my family and our dog. We took a couple of different turns, down tracks we hadn’t taken before. It ultimately led us to the same destination but the vista had added interest because it was new.
Today, I was heading to work as usual but, because the A12 was fully closed for maintenance, the satnav took me a different way. It was a beautiful crisp winter’s morning. Sunny, cold, enough to demand a scraping of the windscreen before I set off. Through town, past other ‘essential journey’ makers; from green and foggy through tarmac and stone, to green and foggy again on the other side.
The route took me past Abberton Reservoir, which is also a wildlife trust bird reserve. Driving down past Layer the views were nothing short of spectacular. The early morning fog was still draped over the water, with the sun thinning it minute by minute. A pair of Canada geese pulled themselves over the top of my car, tracking my path just meters above me, as they made their way to, or from, the water.
A little further, past the water now, deep in the middle of arable farmland, the brief shadow of a Buzzard swooped over me. This time from the opposite direction. It was long enough for me to make our the patches of white against the darker plumage. And the broad primaries protruding from the tips of the wings like strong fingers, outstretched feeling the wind gushing between them.
And then, on the radio, they announced a third vaccination has been trialled successfully. This is the UK one, developed by Oxford University and Astra-Zenica. It’s also the one that pledged not to make profit from poorer countries buying it.
You take a different route and you never know what you might discover.
The Bald Birder 