Meet our own little nanotech expert

As the beech leaves fall in all their legion colours and float on the garden pond or lie on the bottom like a bright mosaic under the clear water, whirligigs scud about on the surface like little, black, four-legged ice skaters or sometimes rest on slowly-floating leaves that are half submerged.

The beauty of the leaves underwater cannot but make me think of something Japanese and delicate, perhaps a wallpaper or a kimono pattern. There is an oriental quality to the fallen leaves, so vibrant in their dying colours. And when I look out at the pond with our semi-resident grey heron standing at its edge, I see that the whole picture might well be oriental and a thousand years old.

Bird, leaves, water in winter sunlight, a timeless scene. How important are the first two commas in that sentence; without them it would be “Bird leaves water in winter sunlight“, an example suitable for entry in the best-selling book on punctuation, Eats, Shoots & Leaves.