As my sabbatical comes to a sad end, I decided to come in to catch up and start thinking of next year’s teaching. When suddenly I started hearing continuous high squeaking from outside the window. It seemed there was a duck in distress – and I promptly phoned Campus Security for their help. They joined the few people trying to help but couldn’t do anything and left. From my office I could see people were trying to prod the pond with sticks, so I went down with a long poster-tube to see if that would help. An adventurous passer-by was able to use the tube to get a duckling out of the bad spot it was in! The scenes of the duckling swimming to join its mom and siblings were wonderful..
Now, back to work. I am preparing to teach a new module on Project Management for Computer Scientists. I am really looking forward to this! Though not sure exactly what to include.
Here are some photos from the afternoon drama. (The crane you can see in the photo is working on the new Mathematical Sciences extension, where DCS, the Mathematics Institute and Stats are going to share a large new building.