The world has entered a strange place with COVID 19 / Corona Virus having taken a hold and closing off meetings / events / travel in a bid to contain or delay the spread of this unpleasant bug.  I and my colleagues are now officially mainly working at home in a bid to minimise mixing with the rest of the ‘great unwashed’ in London and this weekend I skipped physical attendance at couple of other event’s / meetings in favour of virtual presence because I have a bit of a residual ‘tickley’ cough and didn’t want to alarm anyone else at the event.  I have no real issue with ‘WAH’ but it can get a bit claustrophobic after a few days even if I do have every tech convenience for video working and tele-prescence but a click away.    

Anyway, in these curious times, I grabbed the chance yesterday afternoon to pop out and see if the great crested grebes at a local lake were about and in their mating attire (I was a bit late doing this - February is the right time to check).  Well, they are but I wasn’t correctly equipped to take advantage photographically.  That really requires a kayak as a platform well as a camera and I didn’t take the former - just binoculars and the camera this time.  So, having spotted a pair of grebes in fine form, I amused myself by grabbing a few photos of one of our resident herons.  Nothing much in itself but it did remind me once again that getting out into ‘nature’ is of itself very therapeutic and relaxing.  Recommended to be taken at least daily for the next 4 weeks (or in perpetuity, you can’t OD on this); it clears that locked down feeling.