We are possessed — we tumble out of bed at the first ray of sunlight, Bill to rush out and be electrocuted in the morning dew, forgetting to switch off the mains before moving the sodden leads so that he can see what he has caught in his moth trap!
I follow, not to resuscitate but because the one thing I hate more than early mornings is being left out! And it’s like Christmas — you just don’t know what you will get!
Antler moth artistically posing on my rhubarb.
Buff arches
Black Arches Moth
Brown china mark
Canary shouldered thorn
Feathered gothic
Large emerald
Garden tiger moth
Gypsy moth male — slightly battered — not surprising, possibly blown from Europe.
Just a few of the 100 plus species of moth we have photographed since July — you can’t say they are dull!
But these are what gets me tip-toeing down the dewy track as the sun peeps over the hill!
Baby lizards
There seems to be a family of 7 or 8 babies and at least one adult that bask in the morning sun on the corrugated iron that we have put by the bench where we bask. They are charming and very brave — are they going to become accustomed to us and remain so as adults — I do hope so. We have made them an air-raid shelter but at the moment they seem to prefer to hide in the grass.
Last week we exhausted ourselves in the heat, tramping around Frampton Marsh on the Wash looking for yellow wagtails. In the distance we could see the only landmark in this flat landscape — Boston stump — the tall tower of Boston’s St Botolph’s medieval parish church . After lunch we went to have a closer look.
I had always thought that this was a cathedral but no, it is a humble parish church!
As you step into the nave, the vastness of it knocks you back and you wonder how this little town in Lincolnshire could possible have mustered the resources back in the 1309 to start such a mammoth project. It took the best part of a century and the tower was added later, by the late 1500s.
The view from the river gives a hint. The River Witham has a short course to the sea and is tidal — Boston, in its day was a major port, serving a rich agricultural area and the merchants were wealthy.
Boston in Lincolnshire, on the Wash — that great bite from the map of Eastern England, was the port from which many Puritans left Britain, notably those in 1630 in the reign of James I, bound for the Massachusetts Bay colony, frustrated by the lack of change in the Church of England — parted from Rome by Henry VIII, but not purged of much that was still Catholic. They took the town’s name with them and were soon followed by their own vicar, John Cotton who became known as the Puritan Patriarch of New England. 166 of his Boston, Lincolnshire parishioners made it to New England.
1660 was the year that marked the end of the Puritan rule of Oliver Cromwell that followed the Civil War and the restoration of the monarchy. Charles II ruled for 30 uneasy years but in 1685 when he died his younger brother James II, personally a committed Catholic, was again a threat to stability and within 3 years the powers-that-be, facing the prospect of another Civil War, invited William (protestant king of the Netherlands) and his queen, Mary ( James II’s daughter) to assume the crown. James’s army deserted him and he fled to France. In 1690 he tried to regain his throne but was beaten at the Battle of the Boyne in Ireland and the rest, as they say, is history — which goes on and on!
These were turbulent years in England. And not much fun for this schoolboy I spotted being beaten — seen on a misericord in the choir.
When I walk the pavements of the terraced streets of Kettering, where the mature lime trees seem to have pushed themselves up through the Tarmacadam, the thing that amazes me is all the life that emanates from the cracks. As if the countryside, on which our ancestors built this industrial shoe town, is still there underneath, escaping whenever and wherever it can– sometimes with evil intent. Above is green alkanet growing today in a crack with hemlock! I must remember not to buy flat-leafed parsley from the corner shop!
These houses are dated and most built about 125 years ago — the last time there were barley fields. In fact the predominant species are invasive like this rock fumewort (yellow corydalis) — it likes the well drained mortar of the old walls and has settled here from its home in the foothills of the Italian alps.
I love these hardy hangers on — maiden hair spleenwort, a fern that thrives in rocky crevices
Despite the best endeavors of householders Nature fights hard to assert herself forcing her way through plastic membranes and squeezing between paving slabs. Here with the buddleia and the feral snap dragons is red valerian, in the vanguard of the battle, it quite likes the lime mortar in old stone walls and knocks them down in no time!
While exploring the biodiversity at the foot of a street tree a man rushed over the road to me, anxiously demanding to know why I was photographing his car — I was more discrete after that — recording biodiversity is not without its risks.
Have you noticed? There is a lot of illicit exercise going on in the United Kingdom.
If you venture out when the streets are supposed to be empty, just after dawn you will be baffled if not run over by track-suited parents in trainers, jogging up and down, getting out before the kids are up — mustering their endorphins to face the day! Elderly gentlemen in shorts and cricket hats flash past you as you try to photograph a timid warbler. Ladies on bikes, dragging reluctant dogs, get tied up in leads and bump into post boxes to the alarm of the knitted figures sitting on top. Bicyclists shoot across in front of you as you wonder if you can make it through the lights on amber.
I guess it all started during Covid and has been exacerbated by the Olympics– it must be a good thing.
But what’s this? Lady in a wet suit in a park in St Neots — a long way from the sea.
Hang on — here are some more, bobbing around in the river.
Someone blows a whistle and they are off!
Suddenly, all thrashing about — like spawning fish in an upland pool, but they are whizzing along — after about 400 yards they all turn round and come back again. Only when they reach the shore can I categorize them — mainly young men, well young to me, but some young women and one man with a long white beard struggling as he runs along, to reach a string swinging down his back to unzip his wet-suit.
There is someone I know, in transition — nothing to worry about — just changing into her bicycling gear.
Only 25 kilometers — not even enough time for me to get a cup of coffee. Lots of riders struggle to get their feet attached to the pedals while riding as fast as they can up hill, one man in splendid electric blue shoes falls into a bed of nettles — that will sooth the pain in his joints.
After a 5 kilometre run Fran is triumphant!
In remarkable shape on the hottest day of the year, best times ever, and looking forward to the next sprint-triathlon! I feel fitter just from watching!
dianaashworth 