cranes by the pool

Passive television consumption over here doesn't provide any updates on the UK. There was a picture of a London street and a couple of policemen, captioned London and a sentence about an IED discovery. That's about it.

Instead, the news here is either Trump related or local. As well as several shootings there have been numerous car crashes. I've seen the aftermath of more crashes here in a few weeks than in a couple of years back at home. The speed limits are generally lower, but there's a mix of speeders and stressed family motorists that seem to make for a particularly dangerous mix.

I've noticed a few roads that I prefer not to use, particularly in the evening because of flagrant speeders. I'm used to US driving/right on red/4-way stops/school bus protocol/the under and overtaking mentality and so on, but the lack of defensive driving and non-existent merge courtesy requires adjustment.

I've had a few emails from various groups about the state of Brexit. Nothing seems to have changed except the deadline is closer. Maybe the Tories will somehow shove it through, although I assume they are probably lying by omission about the next several years of renegotiating everything. A new feeding frenzy, with some revised players. Bad for all normal folk.

A different feeding frenzy around here was after the grass had been cut. A couple of 4 feet tall sandhill cranes took a shine to the area just outside the lanai of the pool. It's one of my tick box items, to be by the pool when there's cranes, herons or egrets around.