Secret Garden: Resident Robin

(Apparently this is better in large! The one time that I didn't write it...)
There is a little, hidden, out-of-the-way park called Phoenix Gardens just behind St. Giles (between Tottenham Court Road and Covent Garden). It is accessible via small passages and back roads, or through the church yard of St. Giles Church itself. It is a sweet little garden planted with very various flowers and it is all rather overgrown which is appealing. There is still work going on in one corner of the garden, but the part that has been re-planted feels well established and is full of nooks and benches and even has a couple of tiny ponds. The garden is wedged between the surrounding office buildings, units, and the church so feels very enclosed, but it is a great little get-away from the bustle of the surrounding areas.

This is the confident resident robin; it wouldn't let me get very close to it, but certainly didn't seem twitchy or afraid. I'm sure that it'd have come closer if I'd had something to feed it.

It is nice to have my 24-70mm back (I hope that today's soft images were a result of shakiness on my part rather than some adjustment error...): the chap at Fixation (the same one who accused me of causing impact damage) initially assumed that I'd be paying for the work, but on checking the report he realised that under-lubrication is not a form of impact damage and handed over my lens rather resentfully. He seemed very irked, and said "The technician said that this'd be chargeable work when I spoke to him". I assume that the technician initially said that because the chippy chap delivered the lens saying that it had suffered an impact... I don't know what the chip on his shoulder was all about but if he doesn't check it I think it'll cause him heart trouble in the long run...

I also went to see the Travel Photographer of the Year exhibition at the Royal Geographical Society: there were some wonderful photographs on show, and it was curated well and featured some interesting displays about photographers who'd historically been associated with the Royal Geographic Society.