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Common Lizard

I’ve always been interested in natural history. Recently I’ve been more aware of the effect of nature on me.

When I was in my twenties I worked in a zoo and alway presumed I continue to work outside and with nature somehow.

That didn’t really happen.

As I get towards the other end of my working life I find I am bringing nature into my classroom and talking my pupils out a lot more. The push for outdoor learning is helping as is the school I am currently working in.

I am also spending more of my weekends outside after a couple of decades of ‘spare’ time in front of a computer.

I notice a shift in my interest and attention, I now see things l must have passed many times in my youth, flora, small creatures and signs of their passing. I was always on the looked for these, but in the last couple of years I seem to be getting better at it.

I’ve seen half a dozen lizards this year in places I’ve been visiting for years without a sighting. I sometimes am aware of the depth of space around me as insects come in and out of focus. Colours, clouds and landscapes take on not much meaning but better a definition of sorts.

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Read Sorry, Being Born Rich Still Leads to Success More Than Working Hard in School
Sweeping education reforms have done very little to change the fact that in the UK, being born well is by far the surest route to prosperity. Since the 1980s, the degree of social fluidity in Britain has plummeted with more people experiencing descent than ascent.

Not particularly surprising, but worth keeping in mind.

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What a topic for a lazy Sunday.

The temptation to delve deep would lead to a failure to finish this post. After a short while my thoughts become jumbled and apprehensive.

Then there is the education and business cliche of learning from failure and the Dylan koen. On the education side I am ambivalent about the idea. #nowrongpath, although many folk I admire take part, makes me feel a little uneasy. I think I’ll skip these too.

Or I could go meta and look at my failure to meet on line challenges like this one, photo a day and a variety of voluntary courses. This might loop back to the personal and get messy too.

So I think I’ll continue my successful 3 day streak with blogvember by failing to get to grips with failure and hit publish.

This post was inspired by Andrew Canion’s Blogvember Prompt List. This arrived in micro.blog at he same time as #mbnov, microblogvember.

Is there now a problem sending webmentions to micro.blog or I have I done something wrong? I’ve done it before but this post didn’t sent a mention to, or it didn’t arrive at https://micro.blog/claylowe/6241937 I tried using curl as well…

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Gannet on Bass Rock

Over a year ago I started looking for a new camera. A few weeks ago I finally bought one. The compromise was the lack of a view finder.

I used the camera for a week then sent it back. The first time I’ve every done that!

There was a lot to like about it. It was the same size as my old PowerShot SX10 IS. Fitted in its case but was lighter.

Some of the photos I took were as good as I could hope for. I don’t really think or know much about photography. The idea was to have a zoom for when things were to far away for my phone.

Unfortunately the lack of a view finder made taking photos completely hit or miss. Even in fairly dull days I couldn’t see through the screen. When the zoom was out this got worse. I pointed half-depressed the shutter to hopefully focus and clicked! This was too auto even for me.

So back it went. I am now trying to make my mind up about an alternative that suits my budget. I’ve not had much luck reading reviews which seem to be aimed at a more technical reader and not really opinionated. If there was a SX 540 with a view finder I’d get that.

This post was inspired by Andrew Canion’s Blogvember Prompt List. This arrived in micro.blog at he same time as #mbnov, microblogvember.