Tuesday 09 March
So, I did it! This morning I honestly surprised myself by plucking myself out of bed at 6am. I tugged on my jogging gear, fumbled with my trainers. Then, creeping downstairs, past the dog, I made my way through of the front door and walked out into the dull but steadily lightening outdoors.
It was really refreshing being out that early. I saw and heard no one until I got to the main road, and then it was just transit vans making their way speedily to the jobs they had on. Only the larger birds were noticeable as dark blobs in my peripheral vision. It’s a strange and unmistakable light just after dawn, before sunrise. Not quite at the start of the new day, but also not fully let go of the night before.
And I did feel alot better by the time I got in the car to head to work. The traffic on the A12 is getting back to pre lockdown levels, the past two days I have been held up in traffic. But I didn’t get frustrated or anxious, I already felt like my morning had started simply by having that run. Those fifteen little minutes, connecting with the outdoors and the cool fresh air was doing it’s stuff already.
I had a training course session this morning. It’s about the adolescent brain and is fascinating. We already know the brain develops by making connections across its multiple ‘parts’ but these develop well into adult life. And, in the adolescent brain, the amygdala, the emotional part of the brain develops at a sprint, whilst the rest of the brain plods along. Thus, the emotional teenager!
And finally, I heard one of the most amazing awe and wonder news stories whilst driving to work today. As I sat stationary on the southbound lanes of the A12 between Kelvedon and Marks Tey. A couple of fragments of a fireball meteorite landed and were found in Gloucestershire. On someone’s front garden. Rock billions of years old, travelling from way out in our solar system fell on someone’s doorstep. Only a few years ago Japan spent millions of pounds to get the same results by launching a rocket.
So, I discovered that an asteroid is a large rocky object orbiting the sun, a meteoroid are smaller fragments orbiting the sun. And if any bits of these enter the earth’s atmosphere and survive the journey, when they land on the earth’s surface they are meteorites. What a day!
The Bald Birder 