Waders, ducks and other birds.

6th April, Mrs Turnstone and I were in Woodbridge, Suffolk, for a change of air and scene. A walk across a little level crossing brought us out of town to a bench with an untidy patch of willow scrub behind us and the estuary before us; that was where we were looking, with shelduck, gulls, crows and many different waders. I used to be more confident in identifying these when I could count on using my beach-side lunch breaks from work; however today there were knots, redshanks, oystercatchers, curlews and a whimbrel, as well as oystercatchers, an egret and a few crows.

I would have left the bench happy to have seen these, but there was something else behind us. Not the goldfinches that were highlighted by the pollen-laden pussy willow, but a real singer, a nightingale, happy to have arrived here safely.

Will he and his mate spend the summer in this – to many human eyes – scruffy eyesore? It would be good to think many people will hear him. Mrs T and I are glad to have heard him, newly arrived from the South, just as many of the birds on the mud were preparing to fly to their Northern summer homes.

How Japanese people revealed an unconsidered treasure in Canterbury.

In the years before Lockdown, we in Canterbury grew accustomed to the sight of Japanese people taking pictures of each other in front of the sites: the Cathedral, the crooked bookshop, or the Westgate Towers. With the Japanese Chaucer College closed, not to mention national borders, such activity ceased. Until today. A small group were taking turns to snap each other by an ugly public toilet within a few metres of Westgate Towers. Here they can be seen comparing their pictures, but whatever … ?

It wasn’t the toilet, of course, that had roused their interest and glee, but the nearby spreading cherry tree, covered in blossom. They were so happy to see it, brightening a dismal corner of the city, and they opened my eyes to one of our city’s treasures. A remarkable tree that deserves to be celebrated by Canterbury people as well as Japanese.

Going viral XVIII: an unprecedented opportunity to create some new ‘normals’.

Gwen Riley Jones is a computer imaging member of the John Rylands library staff. Since the team cannot get into the library, they are working from home, imagining rather than just imaging. William Blake would approve.

Enjoy the walk!