Right place, right time

Today was pretty busy. This morning R and I went to Croome - the first time R has been there in many months - and walked down to the lake. The sum total of the photographically available Odonata was one male Banded Demoiselle, though I did catch distant glimpses of two Migrant Hawkers in flight. Still, it was very overcast. And we got some steps in, and the coffee and snacks were good. On the way home I pulled into the old bridge car park in Pershore, so I could walk down to the river and check the reed beds, where the sum total of photographically available Odonata (you're ahead of me here, I can feel it) was... one Banded Demoiselle. Which did at least make me feel a bit more kindly disposed towards Croome.

This afternoon I had to collect a prescription from our GP's surgery, which is a right faff to get to with Bidford Bridge closed to traffic; and having done that I I went on into Stratford to pick up some more of the lutein supplement my optometrist recommends me to take. After which I walked back along the south side of the river, and happened to arrive at the reed bed by Lucy's Mill Bridge at exactly the same time as this Migrant Hawker. He made two circuits of the reeds and then disappeared, and though I waited quite a while he didn't come back and no other dragons appeared, so it was very much a case of having been in just the right place at exactly the right moment. I'd prefer a little less wing movement here, but the light was poor and I was fighting the exposure triangle - and given that, I'm not too unhappy with the image.

Eventually I ran out of time and had to hot-foot it back to the car, so I could get back home in time to eat something before heading over to Chipping Campden for the first choir rehearsal of the new season. I wasn't able to sing in the summer, and I was surprised at how sad that made me feel, but it was only the second concert I've had to miss since the choir started in 2013, so I guess I feel a bit proprietorial about it. Anyway, it was great to be back, even though it turns out that I don't remember the Fauré Requiem nearly as well as I thought I did. The other piece in December's concert will be Haydn's Little Organ Mass, which I don't know at all, but I love Haydn so I'm very much looking forward to learning that.