Right day 12, so you insist on following the past few days and presenting me with yet another grey damp canvas. “Well I’ll show you,” thought I as I wandered onto a rain-soaked moss. “I am going to find some colour and with it we will defy your grey and brighten up this day.”

In truth, I was lucky in my late arrival on the moss (grandchildren school duties morn), which seemed to be perfect timing for grabbing a bit of colour on the track down to Little Woolden Moss Reserve. Here, taking advantage of a glorious ribbon of weeds that line the path as good as any country estates line of poplars, was a family party of bullfinch.

The male was perhaps a bit too shy for my camera’s liking, as were the goldfinch that also spilled colour onto my gaze. But, along with a snatched image of this fleeting bob of red, I also managed to pick out some colour from the weeds.

The rain kept up its constant chatter but it didn’t deter my quest for more of that hidden rainbow of wildlife. Soon I caught up with a male yellow wagtail, which kindly agreed to play the role as the Sun’s substitute for this determinedly grey-looking sky.

Then, to remind me that there are other skies which are often even duller than ours for even more months than we endure, half a dozen dunlin, in their finest summer plumage caught my eye. The wild was written on their wings which will be carrying them up to Iceland or beyond once they have refuelled on our Moss.

Then to offer the final snub to this drab day the wild capped it with the colourful open wings of a shelduck which came into land on a pool. I have no idea where all that water came from, surely not from that colourful sky we painted today?