A couple of visual happies:
1. In mornings, on way to work - flocks of starlings (minimum contents: 50 or 60) zoom about at low enough level to make hearing of flappety wings possible. They settle as one lump on a single roof and go "tweetweetweetweetweetweet-TWEET!" non-stop, until they zoom off en-masse again, disturbed by an unseen (by me) source, circle, then land in groups of a dozen or so on television aerials. This morning I had a flock do a
clever left-right split right over my head, like spitfires peeling off in opposite directions, equal amounts in each group and - impressively - crossing over each other in an eye-confusing but lovely display of not-crashing-into-each-
other.
2. Last night on way home, spectacular lighting effects. Deep black clouds rolled over from the sea, pissed rain everywhere, then rolled off Northwards, creating a heavy black background to the north and a clear open window for the setting sun to glare into. Being low but not so low as to be weak and orange, it lit up anything vertical such as blocks of flats with an intense, er, glare, made all the more dramatic by the black background. Anything colourful looked super saturated and yummy (this effect aided by the clean, dust-free air, courtesy the recent rain).
Just *before* getting really low and orangey, it produced this mad, artificial flourescent light effect of giving a golden sheen to everything, the road in particular. Difficult to describe (for me, duh) and I suspect very tricky to do justice to with a photo. Not that I had my camera with me anyway; I spent the entire bus journey
going: "Wow! Fantastic! Bah! Where's my camera? Wow! Fantastic! Bah! Where's my camera?" etc |
sign a lease this week and move in after a week's hols at the beach - nice...