Migrant

A gentle day ambling across vibrant green fields, following paths up and down swollen rivers. A heron with an identity crisis, perching high in a tree, like a songbird. Curious young cattle, not quite brave enough to step into touching distance. Quiet, dripping woodland. Lone crows on solitary missions. Swathes of decaying butterbur

A mystery fallen acorn with a Daliesque cup - suitable refuge for a rebellious elf. The tree itself - a mighty specimen, centuries old, in a meadow hedgerow - bearing leaves that are similarly unfamiliar. All praise to the Internet: we discover it is a European Turkey Oak, a species apparently imported for its decorative value to aristocratic houses. This one presumably the product of an acorn washed downstream from a 19th century garden, or stolen, buried and forgotten by a jay from generations past

Breakfast conversation took in the South Sea bubble, tulip fever and the BBC's excellent imported German series, set in decadent, hyper-inflationary Berlin. We live in uneasy times