NHM: Swanling Song

This is the exhibit that I most love/hate at the NHM: it is a swan family scene with two parents and their five cygnets. This one is riding on the back of one of its parents. It is adorable, touching, tragic, and painful. Every morning, I'd walk past them and say "hullo hullo" as if they were alive little creatures, but they're behind glass and stuffed. I'll miss them, which is sad...

I found today really tough... It started badly: I discovered that my 24-70mm wasn't working. The zoom mechanism is damaged, probably by an innocent-seeming tumble (it didn't seem dramatic, far, or heavy) that my bag took in a café. It really threw me: it throws my sense of balance, my "plan" (as if they ever work...), and leaves me without an ally and defence mechanism (photography as a calming sense of purpose).
I left work immediately (reacting badly) and took my camera in to Fixation: they now have both my camera (to check whether its lens-mount is OK, given that the lens was mounted at the time...) and my lens. It won't be ready in time for my return to Oxford.
This is a phone shot; I took it on my return to the museum, and it is a second attempt at the shot that I intended to take when I first took my camera out and discovered the fault

I found today tough: I didn't get past (haven't got past) that, and it makes a difficult period of change seem all the more trying. It was sad to say so many goodbyes today, and it was difficult trying to seem OK and trying to be present and deal with the day rather than the camera crisis. I dread the estimate...

Goodbye swanlings, for now.