Dunnock - Vice

A frost this morning and it has been very cold all day. I've been searching in vain for a St Mark's fly to post as it's St Mark's Day. I got orange tip butterflies and lambs but have posted those already this spring. 

My pic is of a dunnock, also known as a hedge sparrow, on my father's vice that we brought from my family home when it was sold. It's a hefty old thing, MrQ uses it hold his chain saw when he's sharpening it. The little, brown, boring-looking dunnock has a sex life that would make the Vice Squad blanch. https://scienceisnteverything.wordpress.com/2012/12/18/the-sex-life-of-dunnocks/

Today's poem is The Ideal by James Fenton. https://ablemishisablunder.wordpress.com/2013/05/12/the-ideal-poem-by-james-fenton/

I like this. It's easy to read and the language is simple. Though the poet wrote it for an underground revolutionary who had become disillusioned, it is written in general terms that can be applied to quite different situations.