A few days ago I noticed two ducks in the marina and I wondered what type of duck they were. Accordingly, I spent some time Googling “grey duck” and coming up empty.

Yesterday, I decided to take some pictures and do a reverse image search. In the photos they look more brown than grey, so now I don’t trust my colour perception any more. And, guess what? They aren’t ducks at all. They are seagulls. Glaucous Gulls, to be precise. Except that these seagulls behave more like ducks than birds.

I didn’t see them flying in all the time I watched them over several days. They seemed to just spend all their time paddling about with their webbed feet, and occasionally dipping their heads in the water for food. Just like ducks.

Adding to my considerable lack of knowledge over those same few days was the completely unrelated fact that I have been unsuccessfully trying to get my printer to connect with the wi-fi here. I tried everything I could think of and more. I downloaded the printer’s manual, I consulted my computer’s chat bots, I read all sorts of advice from all sorts of online tech sources, I put the printer right next to the router, and I still couldn’t get the darned thing to work.

Finally, today, after many frustrating hours, I got it figured out. I had to buy a cable to connect my computer to the printer and then, with the help of an app from the printer’s website, the printer was able to find the wifi. After that, I was able to disconnect the two and test it out. At long last, I could print something out via the wifi. As my eldest son said, when I told him of my success, they had to hold hands before they could talk to each other. Isn’t that sweet?

As I write, my printer is behaving like a best friend, my seagulls continue to behave like ducks, and all is right with the world. I now feel a little more knowledgable about ducks, seagulls, and printers than I did a week ago.