It wasn’t all bad

Over 20 million flowers will be sown in the Tower of London’s moat this spring, to mark the Queen’s platinum jubilee. Nearly 30 different species have been selected by horticulture experts at Sheffield University, to ensure the plants attract pollinators, and bloom from June to September, changing in character and balance as the months go by. The moat should begin as a riot of whites and pinks in June, before turning blue and purple, then gold, yellow and orange.

Bird watchers have flocked to a quiet culde-sac in Eastbourne to glimpse an American robin that may have got lost while flying from North to South America for the winter. Britain’s first recorded sighting of an American robin – which is about twice the size of its European cousin – was in 1952. There have been just 28 sightings since, though an American robin did slip into the 1964 film Mary Poppins.

David Campbell, the county recorder for the Sussex Ornithological Society, said the robin was the “last thing” he’d expected to see. “It really does inject something special into your routine.”

The online puzzle Wordle has been credited with saving the life of a woman in Chicago who was imprisoned in her home for 20 hours. The 80-year-old had got into the habit of texting her score to her eldest daughter every day. When she failed to text one morning – the day’s five-letter solution was “skill” – her daughter alerted a neighbour, who got no answer at the door. The police were called and found the woman in a bathroom, where an intruder had locked her in. The suspect has since been charged with assault and home invasion.