Four (or, if you count like the St Helena Government, three) days into quarantine and I already have enemies — namely these little ants that seem able to get into sealed boxes and packets of food, march across my ceiling (as here) in regimented lines, turn up anywhere and everywhere. They’re irritating rather than harmful but I am still on a war of extermination. It gives me something to do, anyway,
I reckon there are five or six decent shots available that between them will encompass the view from my place of quarantine. This is the left-hand-most of them all, if you see what I mean. We are here looking west; while not very apparent on this shot, on the top of the hill is an old fort, dating from the 18th century. To the right (north), a spectacular view over Jamestown to the ocean, but you can see that another day.
While I do resent having to spend time in quarantine, particularly as I was tested not only before I flew, but at the airport, and came up (inevitably) negative both times — I accept there are worse places to do time.
I’m in quarantine, meaning I know that for another week, I can photograph only what is within, or seen from, the house I occupy. It’s a very nice house, with a superb view, but still, I have pretty much already worked out what shots might be worth trying, and will just have to pick my way through them, in a kind of drip-feed way. For a start, I am not putting up the view just yet, because today was cloudy, and there’s no sense blowing that one until the light is at its best.
Therefore, we’ll start today with some of the local fauna. My talents as a naturalist are not great but I’m 99% sure these are mynah birds — if they’re not, they’re doing a damn good impression of them. The one on the right fluffs himself up dramatically, as they check out the new human on the block.
Is this working? Hmmm, seems to be.
OK then, I am successfully online on one of the world’s most remote islands, 1,200 miles from the nearest other land. The landing — on a bare airstrip perched on top of piles of volcanic cinder — was not as rough as I’d been led to believe it might be. Ten days of quarantine await, however; you and I both will have plenty of opportunities to inspect my accommodation between now and my release on Friday 19th.
Nothing happened today at all, except for the news — still unofficial, but it’s looking most promising — that I will be heading off to this rather remote spot at some point in the next few months, for a research project. We got the ‘yeah, OK, we’ll fund that’ email today. And very good news that is too, for all sorts of reasons.
Being 42 