This blog has been silent for two months. Pressures of work and an impending house move inhibited both the writing and the photography here, but now it’s over. The change has been drastic. No longer can I see an urban skyline out of my window, no longer can cheerful drunken voices be heard every Friday night (or rather Saturday morning — for pubs in this blessed country close way after midnight). I have traded both in for the starry skies and the dawn chorus of the English countryside.

Welcome to rural Bedfordshire. Yes there is a church. (Can you put a mile between yourself and the nearest church in England? hardly. This one is All Saints in Little Staughton.) But look at it! It stands apart amid gorgeous crops sliding down the hill like a thick green foam.

Fujifilm X-T30, ISO 400, 1/320s f/9 67mm (100mm equiv) handheld.

In this day and age when all of us are a click away from each other wherever we are, when in-person grocery shopping (and many other kinds of shopping) have been made redundant by delivery companies that charge next to nothing — in this day and age city life is grossly overrated. My university decided to give its academics the freedom to choose to work on campus or at home, and I mean after the Covid troubles are over.

Jump the ship while you still can. Get some acreage. It’s quite affordable now if you move a good distance away from “where it is at”.

You see, it doesn’t matter anymore. “Where it is at” is — home.