A Time Of Mellow Fruitfulness

Today's image was taken in my back garden and is a combination of some baby kilner jars, some past their sell by date strawberries that I had left out for the local birdlife and yellowing leaves that have fallen off our rather ancient and gnarled apple tree.

Yesterday the number of new daily positive Covid tests in the UK hit 52,009 and yet our useless government still refuses to instigate their so called "Plan B".  They appear to have learnt no lessons whatsoever from their past mistakes and will not act yet again until it is too late.
They have set a demonstrably poor example by now suggesting people should consider wearing face masks in crowded public spaces but almost none of their MP's are wearing masks in the heavily populated environment of the Commons. 
I have noticed fewer and fewer people wearing masks in shops in particular and when I continue to wear one have been given wearying looks by some people who appear to be under assumption we are now in a post Covid era already and that this has no chance of affecting them in any way, and in some ways who came blame them when the standards are being set by our complacent government.
I'm not saying face masks are the answer to everything, far from it, but if all you need to do to help stop spreading the virus is wear a piece of cloth across your nose and mouth when you are crowded spaces (medical issues permitting) surely that is not too much to ask.

On a happier note my favourite story in the news today was that scientists find ivory poaching has led, in some cases, to the evolution of tuskless elephants which in turn has caused a reduction in poaching. A previously rare genetic mutation causing tusklessness has become very common in some groups of African elephants after a period in which many were killed for their tusks, according to a study published in the journal Science.
A leading scientist (Robert Pringle from the department of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University) has commented that "There's such a blizzard of depressing news about biodiversity and humans in the environment and I think it's important to emphasise that there are some bright spots in that picture".