There is a baby sparrow our garden fence. It has been there for more than an hour and I keep going to check on it. It inches a few steps one way and then back and it is alternately cheeping and twisting its head to look up into the sky.

The Great Fire of London burned for 4 days from Sunday 2nd of September 1666 until Thursday 6th by which point the medieval city had been destroyed though its embers still smouldered. Rain on Sunday 9th finally extinguished the last of the fires and traumatised Londoners were able to assess the damage.

Gordon lives two doors away from us. He turned eighty a fortnight ago and one of his retirement pastimes is wood-turning. Periodically, he brings us scraps of wood from his workshop to use as kindling for our wood-burner. One of these kindling bags contained the two halves of this beautiful sycamore bowl.