Post Tenebras Lux

Norfolk, Egypt and Guernica May 30, 2010

I went to Chatteris AND saw a linnet.

It all makes sense, really it does.  Somehow, during the madness of revision and exam seasons I managed to sneak away for a short break to Norfolk. A propos exam season, why do I have tutees that think that they can wander into my office, ask me questions about a subject on which I do not teach, nor know anything about, and expect that the pearls of wisdom I cast before the swine will get them through the exam they have in two hours time?  I like their flattery, but not their delusions.

Anyhow, it was a welcome break. Ostensibly it was to watch an ex-Velvet recreate Paris 1919 – Endless Plain of Fortune and Half Past France complete with strings were both breathtaking.  Nevertheless, I must be getting old. Norfolk offers some good birding locations and I managed to catch a bit of twitching on the side. Whilst out on the broads, there were greylag geese aplenty.  It was also the first time I have (knowingly) seen an egyptian goose in the wild.  These are ugly beasts.

The egyptian goose is not a goose, but a shelduck (and there were plenty of those too). Whomsoever brought these things to the UK had a taste that can be described as doubtful.  That said, having watched them, and heard them, they reminded me of something.  W.N. Herbert wrote excellent The Guernica Duck, presumably not after a weekend in Wroxham, but there is a passing similarity.

“Look at me: I’m frightened too!”