They're back!

I just had the first arrival at my window bird feeder here at Oxford. It is Friday, it has been a tough week, and it sent such a thrill through me. It is a feeling I can't get from finding money in a pocket, or new music, or a free snack - its the unmooring intensity, the tunnel-vision of watching.

My new apartment is up high and flanked by one of Oxford's many canals to both the north and east. I see regularly ducks and the usual moorhens, but also a grey heron. I am pleased by such a radically different ecology amongst the towers, sandstone and otherwise. It is a packed, medieval city - unusual to find this heretical breathing room.