Monthly Archives: April 2019

I didn’t have the best day with the camera today: it was fine, but surprisingly cold every time the sun went in – which was often – and therefore not especially conducive to bugs wanting to be out and about. … Continued

Several male Orange Tip butterflies have been quartering the village in search of females for a couple of weeks now. This afternoon I spotted a female – the first I’ve seen here – resting on some cow parsley, and I … Continued

William Shakespeare was baptised on 26th April 1564, and died on 23rd April – St George’s day – in 1616; and every year there’s a festival in Stratford-upon-Avon on the nearest weekend to his baptism date. On the Saturday there’s … Continued

So, it was a good news and bad news sort of day. The bad news was that the boiler man couldn’t find anything wrong with the boiler, suggesting that the fault lies within the territory of our plumber-and-heating-engineer – who … Continued

It was a strange sort of day. Firstly, the boiler broke last night, and the chap who deals with stuff like that for us is away on holiday, so we’ve been having to faff around with portable radiators and immersion … Continued

It was a very strange day, with weather rolling across us in successive waves. I was still trying to get a decent shot of an insect on the apple blossom, but eventually I got tired of dashing out into the … Continued

I was out in the garden at lunch time, happily listening to the chiffchaff – back in the sycamore tree – going: Chiff chaff chiff chaff chiff chaff chiffy chiffy chiffy chaff chaff or sometimes, for variation, Chiff chaff chiff … Continued

To be fair, it wasn’t just this Green Hairstreak that was uncooperative today: almost everything I tried to photograph turned out to have different plans. It’s telling that although I had the macro with me I was never able to … Continued

Well, not exactly cider – but the blossom of our huge old cider apple tree. When I went down into the wild garden this morning, there was such a loud buzzing going on that I initially thought we had a … Continued

R and I went for an early walk at Croome this morning, where the grounds were looking lovely in the misty sunshine. My only disappointment was that I didn’t find an early damsel, though I know that they’re now emerging … Continued