On the alert

How else to feel, in the face of today's gobsmacking Covid/Omicron numbers?  Somewhere north of 78,000 new cases reported today, the wrong kind of record to achieve.

The best way forward, I feel, is in focusing on the huge efforts being made in the NHS, and elsewhere - schools, pharmacies, local authorities, the devolved administrations - to get through this as best we can.   That way lies sanity rather than madness.  As for the Westminster govt... the less said about that shameful shambles, the better.

I felt better today than I have done since last week, and got out for a morning walk in today's fabulous sunshine. I went looking for kingfishers, at a known spot in a local park. No luck this morning; there was just one other photographer, pacing the path rather disconsolately. He glimpsed the colourful resident once, but then the said resident scarpered into deeper cover. I don't blame him/her.

The heron, on the other hand, calmed me thoroughly by standing stock still in the middle of the little river than runs through the park. The morning light was shifting over the bird's plumage. We regarded each other for some time - I wasn't counting - and even the occasional shutter click didn't unsettle anything.