Dear Readers, since lockdown started in 2020 I reckon I’ve had at least ten Zoom calls per week for work, which makes nearly a thousand calls in the past two years. Good heavens! There are so many decisions to make about what works as a background when making these calls.  I certainly can’t show the ziggurat of tumbling books and papers that is actually behind me, for fear that I’ll look like a slattern, but on the other hand I don’t want to just blur it all because it looks as if I have something to hide (which I do, clearly, but the rest of the organisation doesn’t need to know that).

And so I turn to the natural world to give me a picture to stick my head in front of. But again, what works? You don’t want to be upstaged by a cute fox looking over your head, or, worse, have its ears sticking out on either side of your face like some peculiar furry outgrowths. It wouldn’t do to be distracted from the serious business of budgets and forecasts, after all.

Delightful but much too distracting

Landscapes are always good, especially if peaceful…

…but they’re also a bit, well, restrained.

Howsabout this one?

or this one?

Well I like them, but they are a bit bright. I have had a favourable reaction to this one, of raywood ash trees in the cemetery, though people are sometimes a little freaked out by the gravestones.

This one is suitably moody…excellent if the budget is running short and there’s that awkward 5% of a project manager to pay for….

And this one is good for a project where time is passing and nothing’s getting done so we might need an extension….

And then there’s this one, which is just, well, beautiful. Plus if I lean a little to the right I can give myself a halo.

But just recently, the one that always gets the comments, and which people seem to love, is this one. In fact, if I swap it for something more seasonal, like my snowdrops, everyone complains. So I suppose that rainbows are an enduring delight for everyone, and a sign of hope. And who doesn’t need both those things?

Double Rainbow over East Finchley