9th May, 2017.

No sign of the ducklings or goslings, am thinking they may have died of hypothermia, unable to endure the unrelenting cold east and north winds of late and the lack of warmth from sunshine. If so their corpses have probably been ‘hovered-up’ by local foxes that live in local reed-beds and have their own young to feed. Very sad.

Illustration = ‘Tower of the Winds’, Athens (from internet). Boreas, the north wind, symbolised by the figure on the left. Tomorrow may bring milder conditions with a change of wind direction – Zephyrus was the classical god of the west wind.

When I started teaching in a secondary modern school each form had a name from classical times (the headmaster had been a classics student), mine was Boreas – I will always remember, the classroom was bitterly cold!