the road to Norton manor

Spot has been thinking. He is pleased to be a part of the 14th cosmic billennium (abb), and a small part of planet Earth's 5th billennium. As a billenniard (or should that be billionaire) he thinks it is amazing that he should enjoy a four hour walk followed by biscuits, because he is very very small in comparison to some things he has seen at the Galaxy Zoo (link), and yet there is room in the universe for his tiny pleasures. He has taken to thinking about the journey he makes, and has calculated that his life as a fraction of all the time that has passed, is as long as one millimeter on a journey of about a million miles. That is not very far to get, is it? Maybe it is the travelling that counts. And yet American bankers have lost trillions of dollars, and British bankers pay themselves about the same amount per year in pensions. How did they get it all into one suitcase?

more fun at the dentist

even earlier than usual, and some way (about 2 miles upstream) from where we found this unusual plant originally, the ghoulish looking purple toothwort. I think the name may come from the tooth like appearance of the bracts on the buds (see bottom picture). Its cousin, toothwort, is a deathly pale colour, hence its other name of corpse flower. Now that I have found this plant in two widely separated places I am sure it has become naturalised.

more for galanthophiles

we came across this unusual and beautiful snowdrop variant this morning. It appears to have a petal growing through the main axis of the flower. Does it have a name?

And thanks to Derrick for this link , for snowdrop fanatics.

my mum is a portuguese water dog

no, we are not mongrel lurchereivers, I swear we are pure bred pwd's , White House here we come.

perfect snowdrop

we are still searching for the perfect snowdrop picture.

butterbur and snowdrops

It was misty this morning, so we went for a long walk, to the site of the butterbur patch (top photo), where as predictably as ever, the flowers are emerging once more. The colours this year with a mixture of orange (old) and green (new) have been striking. Not far from here we found some otter spraint which suggests that otters are active on this part of the Inny, not that with 4 hounds there is any chance of catching one unawares. We saw one once for about 15 seconds, on the other side of the river, during a great spate, when it had been flooded out of its holt. We remain hopeful that the renegade Gunnislake beaver will move upstream and pay us a visit. At 6 1/2 stones he sounds like quite a character. In the meadows Mole has been very busy, but no sign of Ratty.