Life and work continues more or less as normal for another week of the lockdown in an ambience of crystalline silence that can almost be deafening at times.

Thank goodness for the occasional drone of distant lawnmowers and the caws of the resident clattering of jackdaws.

Jackdaws, unjustly maligned for killing smaller birds, are the smallest of the corvid or crow family of birds.

They are very sociable creatures and I’ve come to know members of the local clattering extremely well over the years. Some have taken a particular liking to my chimney and often drop into the house, albeit uninvited, for a chat.