A tidings of magpies seems to have taken up residence in the area - several times I day I see them bickering across the rooftops and in the gutters which my computer looks out over (hmmm… I hadn’t thought of that… Gill is planning to move my office downstairs, if she does I’ll miss out on communing with the birds, but then I guess the kitchen is supposed to be moving up here so at least I’ll be able to carry on my ornithological studies while I cook).

I love magpies, might even go so far as to say they’re my favourite bird. In fact, I love pretty much everything that the word “pied” might be applied to (when I was 17 I used to wear one yellow fingerless glove and one red, and dreamt of owning a costume like the pied piper’s). The sharp contrast between pure white and oily blue-black-green is so visually stunning. And also they remind me of the protagonists of Sanjida’s excellent book, Angel Bird (which I really ought to review for Amazon one of these days).