aviary

This is the aviary in Cannizaro Park.  I could tell you an untrue story, and say that this is where I use to be taken to look at the birds when I was still in my pram and than my pushchair - and indeed, the little grassy spot where I first walked (I was a late walker, so I can remember that momentous day) is just round the corner.  But the birds, then, were very suburban budgerigars, with the occasional quasi-exotic canary; that aviary was rebuilt in, I think, 1976 in the form of Pisa Cathedral (why?) and stocked with abandoned finches and cockatiels and others.  It's much classier now, though I'm fondly nostalgic of the old un-architectural glory that I knew.

In other news, (a) I'd underestimated how badly English midsummer pollen still gets to me, and (b) none of you want to know about the one-body problem, when ailing humans need one person - genuinely need the one, same person - on different sides of the Atlantic, simultaneously.  I was deeply grateful to be able to get out for a walk, today, even if the nearest bench to the aviary was occupied by two men who seemed to be drinking cider from large flagons in Sainsbury's plastic bags, singing along to 70s hits on the radio.