My wife Caroline and I live next to the Woodberry Down Wetlands Centre in North Hackney which was closed during the first lockdown. As a 72-year-old with health issues, I regularly walked our dog along the nearby River New footpath for exercise and to raise my spirits. In Spring the diverse local community became obsessed with the wellbeing of a pair of nesting swans, with a degree of intensity way above that in a ‘normal’ year as if their successful breeding could mitigate our anxiety and give us all cause for hope. Rituals emerged as we learned to make adjustments for social distancing while seeking prime positions to observe the swans. I drafted, and constantly re-drafted, the sonnet ‘Swannet’ to try and evoke something of the swans’ activities and struggles, while exploring the behaviour of our community of watchers.