I know things are looking up, however I believe we are in a critical stage of the pandemic, and we have to be aware of the danger we are all still exposed to. The government rules are clear, only go out if it is essential, and "if you need to travel you should stay local – meaning avoiding travelling outside of your village, town or the part of a city where you live – and look to reduce the number of journeys you make overall". There are many interpretations of what essential travel is and what the word local means. There are people who still knowingly justify doing what they want to do. I don't want to be one of those people. Therefore, I made the rules even clearer for myself: local means a walking distance. So if I need to go out to do essential food shopping, or to exercise, I will not use the car. I will walk in and out of the house.

With that in mind, I knew it was going to be Bushy Park this week again, the closest open space that I can walk to. On Saturday morning I woke up with hope for a little bit of snowy loveliness that the weather forecast promised us down here. However, that didn't materialise, the predicted snow showers turned out to be rather wet and persistent sleet.

On the positive side, it didn't create the havoc like in other parts of the country, and more importantly, it didn't stop people from getting their potentially life saving vaccination. That far outweighs any wintery wonderland that we could possibly hope for in the wet and windy south east.

Despite the gloomy and damp weather, I was rewarded with a beautiful pre-dawn light, and views that I knew of but only noticed their beauty in the darkness of the night slowly ebbing away. And the rain just added that little bit to the magic that I needed.

When the day started creeping in, it was my time to leave and walk back home. Before the park got crowded again. On the way back I witnessed a spectacle that you can see in the Royal Parks regularly at this time of the year. I don't normally photograph wild life, but it was too tempting and difficult to resist. Especially because I only just bought a new telephoto lens, which really needed to be tested. It is not an amazing capture, just a snapshot of the moment, but I am glad I did it.