Being 42

Sunday 29th January 2017, 11.40am (day 1,984)

A lack of cheap hotel rooms in the centre of London led to us staying last night in Stratford, on the doorstep of Olympic Park, venue for the 2012 Games. We went on a walk round there this morning. This counts as East rather than Central London, but is more than urban enough and, as is obvious from this picture, sees the occasional football fan now and again (though not this weekend).

When I first saw this cormorant perched on a post beside the unseen River Lea below, I genuinely thought it was a fake, put there as some vaguely cute piece of urban design when all this was built a few years ago. Then it moved. I wish I could have got a better photo of it — I had another one, a close-up, which made the wings look amazing but the head was out of focus and it didn’t locate it in this bizarre geographical context. I guess if birds like this can turn up in central London we may occasionally be doing something right with the environment.