There are the precious moments, the ones in which we stop and look and pay attention. I knew that there were a pair for I’d seen their young of the last year feeding from the bird feeders on our neighbours balcony. And suddenly there was one then the other bathing in the big puddle that gathers in the wasteland (for want of a better word) beneath my bedroom window. They are such magnificent birds, plump, robust and with those glorious flashes of blue and white on their wings. We stood together at my window watching them dip and then throw the water over their bodies. He was as delighted as I was. Thank you, he said.
