Creek Impressionism

Today's image was taken on a micro trip to Faversham. The last couple of days have been exceptionally grey and cloudy with heavy downpours and today was no exception so we decided not to venture too far. This shot is of the creek next to Standard Quay - I was immediately drawn to the upside down reflection of this tree in the water. I thought it had a slightly impressionist feeling to it.
We had a walk around the Quay and then headed back into the town itself only to find that the whole town felt like it was closed. A large percentage of the shops don't open at all on a Monday and there were very few people about. There was also a complete lack of noise - very little traffic, none of the usual hustle and bustle of a town centre - people didn't even seem to be speaking to one another. All quite strange and surreal! It left us feeling quite deflated and we needed a pint on the way home to cheer ourselves up!

Speaking of feeling deflated - it was the day after the night before. England lost on penalties in the final of the Euros. My loyalties will always lie with Scotland but I was still gutted for England.
The team, manager and the fans will all be feeling an acute sense of bitter disappointment. It was a missed opportunity after what they had achieved to get there.
Unfortunately, the game followed almost exactly the same template as the semi-final loss to Croatia at the 2018 World Cup - early goal, lost momentum, retreating into their shell, conservatism and failure to hold on to and gain possession. This is not to denigrate their achievements, which they can be immensely proud of, in reaching a semi- final in a World Cup and a final in a Euros in successive tournaments but they need to be able to take the next step.
I thought Gary Lineker summed it up perfectly in the following quote:
"I think going forward England have to find a way of being more attack minded, braver in possession and throwing more people forward. We have the forward talent to scare teams, at present we seem scared to release that talent".
The one criticism I would have of Gareth Southgate was that he did not make changes early enough to alter the course of the game (I was shouting at the screen at this point, sorry Gareth!) - the wealth of talent on the bench - Jack Grealish, Phil Foden, Jadon Sancho and Marcus Rashford were not used at all in full time with Grealish only being brought on at 99 minutes and Sancho and Rashford only brought on to take penalties.
The BBC chief football writer, Phil McNulty, also had it right "England must be let off the leash to end glorious failures".
Your heart also has to go out to the players who missed the penalties (Rashford, Sancho and Saka). They deserve huge credit for having the bravery to step up and take one. 
The online racist abuse they received as a result of missing those penalties is absolutely disgusting and the Conservative MP Natalie Elphick should be utterly ashamed of her comments that Marcus Rashford should be "perfecting his game" rather than "playing politics", in relation to his high-profile campaign over the provision of free school meals.