I look up

A smartphone makes it so easy to look at email. No dismal slow boot process; I can get straight to the latest spam, grumble, exciting research news. It's so easy to just deal with simple emails over the morning coffee, maybe also glance at news, Twitter, etc. All of a sudden it's time to rush out.

Last Thursday went exactly like this. Noticing the clock I rushed around, pulled on my bike gear, shot out to the garage where my bike is; helmet, bike lock, backpack pulled on, lock the garage again, time to zoom off to work.

The weather here has been cloudy and grey for a couple of weeks. Last Thursday was different. As I turned from locking the garage door a seagull caught my eye, brilliant white drifting leisurely across a featureless blue sky. Higher up two swallows darted about. It struck me that they'd probably been here since April or May without catching my eye until now, at the start of July. I wondered why I don't pause and look up more often.