specs and ducks and rock and roll

So today I joined the ranks of rhe bespectacled and not a moment too soon. Close work has become a real pain in the arse. They will take a bit of getting used to as right now close stuff is great but the distance is a little blurred through them. To be expected I suppose. As for looks, well they are fine. I guess. i don't really know or care as I am not the one who spends much time looking at me.

As for the ducks. I have noticed in a pond in Centennial Park one of the largest, ugliest ducks I have ever seen. It looks like it has been in a fist fight. In fact it looks like it has made a career out of fist fighting and is still going strong but showing the war wounds of it's chosen profession. Sometimes it is paddling on pond, sometimes it just sits on the grass, presumably waiting for someone to spill it's pint. So today, on my ride home I took a slightly different route and went past aforementioned duck's manor and there he - I assume it is a he - was sitting, next to the pond. I decided to get a picture and as I lay the bike down the duck got up, I assumed, to walk away. But no; he waddled right over to me, doing that inquisitive-or-maybe-agressive head wobble thing that birds do. I got a picture but have to confess to feeling somewhat intimidated. By a duck. My brother, for one, may be pleased to hear of my encounter. He has had duck run-ins of his own. As I picked up my bike and made to ride off a large number of birds - coots and moorhens, other ducks, ibis - were swimming, walking and flying towards me and although I know they just wanted food I did have a Hitchcock moment.

Now at home I cannot find the duck - maybe a goose with the head and neck of a turkey - in my Field Guide to the Birds of Australia. Should I be concerned? The blurriness of the picture can be put down to one or more of focussing incorrectly, the subject moving, fear or not having my glasses on.

Lunchtime today and I joined the "Tech Trot" run around the Domain and Botanical Gardens. There was another event on and office-workers-out-for-a-run were heavily outnumbering everyone else combined. But we managed to avoid most of them on our 4.6km route. It was my first time on this run and it was a "mass start" meaning we all go together and not by handicapped position. A couple of the superstars did not show and I came in second, though second because I did not know the route, so sat on the shoulder of the guy out in front and did not think it was sportsmanlike to pip him at the post. I did him - Andy - a favour as he knocked 4sec from his personal best, although he is apprently improving all the time anyway so it might have been nothing to do with me. Anyway, I should now get a handicap. It was good to - finally - be running with some other people. Had I not heard about it too late I'd be in a mass JP Morgan run around Centennial Park in a couple of weeks as part of a Wespac team, but entries closed yesterday. Maybe next year.