brimstone at the trough

a male brimstone butterfly, refuelling on knapweed. I find the detail in the wing fascinating, it looks so exactly like a leaf.

canine snigging

doing a Spot of snigging, while those who should be snigging plod wearily home

blue bees and angelica

a striking blue and black bee, feeding on wild angelica. I am not sure what sort of bee it is but there are a lot of them in the woods at present. Angelica seems to attract a very wide range of flying insects. There also appears to be a minute winged insect sitting on the bee's left wing.

lynher valley white water surfing

here we are shooting down the Lynher, which is usually quite a quiet river. Even Harriet had a go, and then tried drowning


and had to be rescued by her heroic brother (me, Spot that is).



Afterwards the girls posed for a photo; mum is wearing her swimming costume, and Hari is just quivering in the background.

bien pensees (no accents?)

On photography


I have learnt to look without seeing,
Always through glass,
Distanced, but not darkly.
Peppered by the sprinkled words of conversations unheard
Surrounded by the actors caught
Frozen in my photographs.

Always absent but there; behind, not in,
Dot and pixellated
Photon by photon
Until one drowns
In the waves of
Every moment of the moment caught,
On, not forgettable.

Oh for the light amnesia,
And warmth of memory's gentle caress,
For the organic software that does
Blur, edit or elide,
And kindly sharpens only that beyond the sight
Of photographs.



Spot

(through a glass "darkly":-The phrase is interpreted to mean that humans have an imperfect perception of reality). And dogs?

wild angelica

luscious wild angelica, about to erupt forth into a froth of small white flowers flushed with purple and much loved by insects of all sorts. Culpeper (Nicholas, that is) recommends angelica for all epidemical diseases, which is just about everything so give it a try (usually to be found crystallized on top of expensive cakes).