All Good Things

All good things must come to an end, or so they say. And so: to the last weekend of our holiday. Actually, these photos were all taken on the Friday. The Saturday was rather damp. I still got out for a walk and took lots of photos of a hugely varied selection of fungi, but I must have only had my phone with me and the photos are all hopelessly blurred. On the Sunday, I was out so late that the few photos I took were almost completely dark, but for a thin line of light along the western horizon.

Red Admiral.

On the Friday then, I was out in the garden, drawn out by the butterflies on the Buddleia. A subsequent walk took me past this old postbox on Cove Road…

To The Cove itself…

And thence onto The Lots where I hoped to find…

Autumn Lady’s-tresses flowering.

These are tiny plants, extremely easy to miss, but once you’ve spotted a couple your eye seems to tune in, and pretty soon you’re realising that there are loads dotted about. In ‘Wild Orchids of Great Britain and Ireland’ David Lang says that Autumn Lady’s-tresses are mainly distributed in the southern half of England, so we must be lucky to have them on The Lots and at Jack Scout.

The Latin name is Spiranthes spiralis, the second part of which presumably refers to the way that the flowers spiral around the stem.

Carline Thistle.

Maybe not the most promising flower – a brown thistle, but I’m very fond of them.

As you can probably tell.

Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly.

An Inman Oak.

Rosehips.

Back in the garden, the seedheads on the Staghorn Sumach caught my eye…

Apparently this can be used as a seasoning, and something similar is used in the Middle East – I haven’t plucked up the courage to try it yet.

Earlier in the summer we’d seen a lactating Roe Deer hind on our patio and I wondered if she had hidden a fawn, or fawns, nearby.

Then we had a few visits from a hind, possibly the same one, with two fawns in tow. That’s the hind at the top of the post.

The fawns’ white spots were beginning to disappear, but were still visible.

They came right up under the kitchen windows. I was particularly pleased to catch the mother whilst she was in the sun, because that way you can see the wonderful colour of their summer coats.

They’ve been back since, or at least a similar family have, but now have duller, winter fur and the fawns have completely lost their spots.

I took this photo, as I often do, to remind me to go to the advertised talk. Which, a couple of weeks later, I duly did. Very good it was too.

I’ve seen Brian Yorke talk before. He’s very knowledgable and funny to boot. Unless you live locally, you might not have the chance to to catch up with one of his talks on flowers or ferns or bird migration, but he does have an excellent website where you can keep up with his latest finds and quirky drawings.

Anyway, back to the Friday: in the evening, we met with some friends for a beach bonfire, a chinwag and a few convivial drinks…

I think that it was our good friend G who suggested the event.

I hope it becomes a regular thing.

B seemed to enjoy hunting for driftwood logs to sit on and/or burn.

Sitting around a fire on a beach inevitably has me thinking back nostalgically to happy weekends on the Welsh coast a long time ago, with a different group of friends.

Finally, one last image of a Roe Deer, this time one of the young ones, as it passed through a sunny spot beneath our kitchen window…

Imagine Dragonflies

Eaves Wood – Waterslack – Hawes Water – Gait Barrows – Moss Lane – Red Bridge Lane – The Row – Hagg Wood

Hawes Water.

Cormorant.

Speckled White.

Common Darter.

Eyebright.

Common Darter.

Bryony.

Hart’s-tongue Fern.

Lily-of-the-Valley.

Yew.

Another Speckled Wood.

Sloes.

Haw’s.

Tawny Mining Bee (?) on Devil’s-bit Scabious.

Migrant Hawker.

A lazy, local walk at the tail end of the summer holidays when the hot, sunny conditions recalled the beautiful weather from earlier in the year. Once again, there were huge numbers of Darters about and lots of Speckled Wood butterflies and I took a ridiculous number of photos of both. There were lots of larger dragonflies about too, but, frustratingly, they wouldn’t pose for photos. On several occasions I almost caught one during a brief pause, perched on bracken or a branch, but, somehow or other, always contrived to miss the moment. I’d almost become resigned to failure, when this beauty flew over my shoulder and landed high on a tree ahead of me. I got one chance and then it flew again. But it made my day.

White Coats

Back at home, I redecorated the kitchen. Again. In white. I have a mania for repainting white walls in white. Still, that’s that job done and forgotten about for………at least a month or two. It wasn’t all bad – whilst I was painting, we had several visits from Roe Deer – of which more to follow. I also listened to a great deal of Radio 6 and have become quite addicted to being reminded of great songs I haven’t heard for years, or, better yet, hearing great songs I’ve never heard before.

I also got out for occasional strolls from time to time. This day brought two walks – both organised around errands.

TBH and I walked over to the Silver Sapling Campsite to search for TBH’s missing (new) glasses in amongst all the tents which were drying out from their ordeal at the Red Rose Jamboree.

It was a fruitless search, but there were lots of Common Darters about, so not a complete waste of time.

Later I was in Arnside. I think A must have had a piano lesson. I strolled along the promenade…

…admiring this chap’s kite-surfing skills.

I must admit, it looked like great fun.

He had a small audience and was definitely playing to the crowd, leaping up and using the kite to briefly, but spectacularly, fly through the air. Very clever. I bet his kitchen walls are not a pristine white like ours though.

This is one of those tunes which I would have missed, but for my new found enthusiasm for Radio 6. It seems apposite, or at least the title does. Doesn’t Baxter Dury sound like his dad here?

Doddington Hall -Wagons, a Pyramid and a Pond

After touring the gardens, we wandered a little farther afield and had a poke around in the grounds. Like last time, I was taken with a collection of old wagons, which was housed in a characterful shed…

An arrow straight path runs through the gardens to a ha-ha wall, giving uninterrupted views of the fields beyond. A fainter path continues to a distant focal point…

This pyramidal folly has been added since our previous visit.

We felt we’d like to have a look at it, both outside and in.

But not climb on it obviously.

True to form, the DBs were better at clambering on the pyramid than at reading, or complying with, the stern notice.

Looking back to the Hall.

And a zoomed view from the same spot.

Small White on Common Knapweed.

Bird’s-foot Trefoil.

Deep in conversation.

This is a sculpture which I omitted from the previous post. I took a few photos of it whilst we were in the gardens, but there always seemed to be people close by spoiling the view somewhat, so I tried again as we approached the house on the way back from the pyramid.

My Mum and Dad with their granddaughter. I realised today that, taking their initials in order that they are sat on the bench, they are T, E and A. TEA!

A pond with an elegant bridge in the grounds of the Hall.

Little Grebe or Dabchick.

The bridge again.

Assessing the depth of the pond.

These two benches don’t really belong in this post, but I’ve tacked them on anyway.

I took the photos the day after or visit to Doddington Hall, during a damp walk around the village where my Mum and Dad live.

Cleverly done, I thought.

Doddington Hall – Sculpture Exhibition

As I mentioned in my last post, Doddington Hall has a biennial sculpture exhibition, which was the principal reason that TBH and I were keen to go back there. I’m really glad we did – I really enjoyed viewing all of the works on display in the gardens. I took a huge number of photos, many of which are here, but some of the sculptures which I liked haven’t made it into this selection, simply because my photos haven’t worked too well in some cases.

The extensive gardens were littered with sculptures – some tiny, some huge and all points in between. I think I remember the exhibition brochure saying that there were over 600 works on display. We didn’t see them all – some were ceramic and on display inside somewhere and we didn’t get around to those. We probably missed some in the garden too.

As I say, we had a brochure, but for the most part I don’t remember which artists made these sculptures. These two, above and below, however, must be by Heather Jansch; her horses are so distinctive and well-known. The one above is actually bronze and not wood – an original wooden model has been cast in bronze. I think it was priced at £70,000. We’ve decided to buy three of them. Perhaps.

About the remaining sculptures here I can’t tell you much at all, apart from the fact that they gave me great pleasure.

This one…

…has water flowing down between those three hollows.

The boys were very taken by this enormous seat…

At the back right of this photo…

You can see A and TBH examining this sculpture…

It was mesmerising: a very geometric design which looked quite different from different directions, even slight changes of perspective could create radical shifts in it’s colour and pattern.

I think we all liked it.

I don’t know why Little S wants to box these huge seeds. Perhaps he was taking his lead from this nearby hare?…

There’a a rang tang in my garden, anyone?

I decided, on the day, that if I could take just one statue away with me it would be this one…

As usual, I find it almost impossible to say why. Partly, perhaps, it’s because, like Heather Jansch’s horses, a very lifelike image is created from seemingly unpromising elements. And then there’s a lot going on, both visually and emotionally, in the image: the figures are about to kiss, but are also apparently flying apart; it’s both touching and poignant. Maybe it’s just because it reminded me of a very arresting panel..

…from Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons ‘Watchmen’ comic. Who’s to say?

Presumably, the next show will be in 2020, anybody up for a visit? Better start saving your pennies now.

 

Doddington Hall – Picnic and Gardens

Many moons ago, we toured Doddington Hall with my Mum and Dad. It’s not too far from where they live. On the second day of our trip to Lincolnshire this summer, TBH and I were eager to go again. For some reason, Dad wasn’t so keen, and kept turning up alternatives which he thought might appeal to the kids. He balked however, at the idea of accompanying them on a treetop trek, so in the end Doddington Hall won out.

There was a wedding in the hall that day, so we were restricted to the gardens, but that kept us well occupied beyond the advertised closing time, so it wasn’t really a problem.

Be warned, if you’re planning a visit: there are signs near the entrance forbidding picnics in the gardens. There’s a lot of green space at the back of the carpark though, which was a halfway decent alternative, but a bit rough on my Mum and Dad who prefer not to sit on the ground these days (or prefer not to have to get up again, anyway).

There is a cafe in one of the many estate buildings, which looked to be doing a roaring trade. I’m told that the cakes that some of the party sampled there later in the day were very good. The wasps certainly liked them.

Just by where we picnicked, there was a small pond…

And so some potential for flora and fauna…

Common Darter (I think).

Tachina Fera on Mayweed – both very tentative identifications.

Tachina Fera again.

This photo shows the strong black stripe on an orange abdomen which makes me think that this fly is Tachina Fera. The larvae of this fly parasitise caterpillars.

The plant is Gipsywort…

“Rogues masquerading as itinerant fortune-tellers and magicians used in past centuries to daub their bodies with a strong black dye produced from gipsywort, in order to pass themselves off as Egyptians and Africans. Swarthy looks were supposed to lend greater credibility to these vagabonds when they told fortunes; it was this use that gave the plant its names of gipsywort and Egyptian’s herb.”

Reader’s Digest Field Guide to the Wild Flowers of Britain

Moving into the gardens…

Little S was particularly impressed with the huge…

…squashes, pumpkins? I’m not sure which.

He won’t really remember our last visit, since he was barely a year old at the time.

Small Tortoiseshell.

Large White.

Moorhen.

Another Tortoiseshell.

This bee was absolutely coated in golden pollen, having just emerged…

…from a courgette flower.

Something that really stuck in my memory from our previous visit were these gnarly old Sweet Chestnut Trees.

They predate the hall, making them very, very old indeed.

One more Tortoiseshell.

The gatehouse.

Unicorn topiary.

The Hall is Elizabethan and was built, between 1595 and 1600, by Robert Smythson, who was the master stonemason when Longleat was built and who also designed the highly impressive Hardwick Hall, among others. Apparently, it has never been sold, which must be highly unusual. These days it seems to be the centre of a thriving industry, with several shops in the grounds, as well as the cafe and weddings. Not to mention the biennial sculpture exhibition in the gardens….of which, more to follow…

Baby Drivers

Once the Red Rose camp was over, we headed down to Lincolnshire to visit my Mum and Dad for a couple of days. On our first day there, TBH, A and my Mum went into Lincoln to watch the second Mamma Mia film, Mamma Mia Money, Money, Money*. The DBs and I weren’t so keen. I think it was my Dad who suggested that we go karting, partly because the boys had enjoyed it so much when they tried it in the spring, and partly because I missed out on that occasion and the DBs were eager to show me how much faster than me they could drive.

There were quite a few karting tracks to choose from, but once we’d surveyed the options, we all favoured ELK Motorsport near Newark. It was the 1.2km course which enticed us…

I’ve filched this overhead shot from their website. I hope they won’t mind: I only have nice things to say about the experience. It was terrific, especially since the boys weren’t faster than me after all, although it was a close run thing. Places were allocated on the basis of a fastest lap; mine was just under a minute, which, with a bit of simple arithmetic, translates into an average speed of about 45mph. Not bad, I thought, what with all those tight hairpins, but then I noticed that times posted earlier in the day went as low as 47 seconds for a lap. More practice required, obviously.

The weather was very changeable and the squally showers made for exciting racing conditions. It’s surprisingly easy to spin a kart, I found, as you brake into, or accelerate out of, a corner.

The rest of the photos, taken on my phone, originate from a walk I took after our karting trip. I’d had it all planned out: Dad would drop me off on our way home and I would walk back to their house. In the end, I can’t remember why, I elected not to do that, but to walk after we got back instead. It’s likely that the weather was a factor.

So, I walked from Welton, to Dunholme – the two villages have merged – and hence to the Ashing Lane Nature Reserve. Despite the photos, I actually had glorious sunshine, but I could see this ominous block of very dark cloud which was clearly heading my way and equally clearly dumping a lot of rain not too far from where I was walking.

To my relief, the cloud eventually brought rainbows rather than rain…

Aside from a few odd drops, I had a lucky escape.

Lincolnshire is famously flat, and whilst that isn’t the whole story, there are large parts of the maps of the county which aren’t overburdened with contours.

Which makes for fantastic views when the skies are dramatic…

This…

Seems apposite, plus it’s a cracking tune.

*Or was it ‘Gimme, Gimme, Gimme’?

Terracotta Warriors.

A few less photos in this post compared to the last (mammoth) one. Not that there wasn’t just as much of interest to see at the World Museum in Liverpool, in particular in their Terracotta Warriors exhibition, but it was quite dark in the exhibition, and extremely busy, so I didn’t take many photos and of those I took most are quite blurred.

The exhibition, which covered a substantial period of Chinese history and several generations of royal tomb burials, was absolutely fascinating. I was particularly struck by this huge bronze bowl, which weighs 212kg and was buried on top of a pit filled with terracotta strongmen and acrobats – apparently the bowl would have been lifted by strongmen as part of a performance.

We’ve been to the World Museum before, in fact this was Little S’s fourth visit, since we recommended the Egyptology section of the museum to the local primary school. On this occasion, we were joined by family fried X-Ray who’d expressed an interest in seeing the exhibition way back at the start of the year when we booked the tickets. The World Museum is always a great place to visit and we did the full tour again, including a planetarium show. We were hoping to have time to visit Liverpool’s Central Library again too, and/or the Walker Art Museum, but didn’t, partly due to the all too familiar incompetence of Northern Rail (I’ll spare you the details).

 

Mouse Will Play

Eaves Wood – Arnside Tower – Far Arnside – Park Point – White Creek – Blackstone Point – New Barns – Copridding Wood – Arnside Knott – Redhill Woods – Hagg Wood – Black Dyke – Silverdale Moss – Gait Barrows – Hawes Water – Moss Lane – Redbridge Lane – The Row – Hagg Wood

Big clouds and the beach at Far Arnside.

The best day of my solo week was the Thursday, which was windy and changeable, but which also brought quite a bit of sunshine. Because the forecast wasn’t great, I decided to stay close to home again.

Sloes.

Last autumn, I collected some sloes with a view to making some sloe gin. I was a bit early and the sloes hadn’t had their first frost yet, but I’d read that you can just stick them in the freezer and achieve the same affect, which I duly did. I’m sure that I warned TBH about the sloes. Well, fairly sure. Anyway, she forgot, and added the sloes to her breakfast smoothie one morning, thinking they were frozen blueberries. The resulting smoothie was more crunchy than smooth, being full of bits of the stones from the sloes and it was also mouth-puckeringly tart.

Marooned tree-trunk.

I’ve posted pictures of these fossilised corals from Far Arnside a couple of times before.

They aren’t always easy to find, which doesn’t make much sense, I know, but I was pleased to find them again on this occasion and spent a happy few moments seeking them out on the rocks.

Vervain?

This delicate and inconspicuous plant bears slender spikes of pale lilac flowers. It is hard to understand why our ancestors regarded such a modest and unassuming plant as immensely powerful.

from Hatfield’s Herbal by Gabrielle Hatfield

Can’t think that I’ve noticed this plant before, but there was quite a bit of it blowing about in the stiff wind on the rocks hard by the shore. It was apparently sacred to the Druids, widely regarded as a panacea in the Middle Ages, and thought to be both used by witches and proof against witchcraft.

Looking along the shore towards Grange.

A similar view taken not too much after the previous photo. You can see that the weather was very changeable.

Burnett Rosehip.

The Kent Estuary.

A Tellin. I don’t know whether it’s a Thin Tellin or a Baltic Tellin, but I was interested to read that the creatures which occupy these shells can live beneath the sand at densities of up to 3000 per cubic metre.

A shower on the far bank.

Meathop Fell across the Kent – bathed in sunshine again.

The Kent at New Barns.

Big Clouds over Meathop Fell.

After our stay in the Tarn Gorge, where most flowers seemed to have already gone over to seed, I was on the look-out to see what was still in bloom at home. The refreshing answer was that there was so many things flowering that I soon lost count.

Sea Plantain.

A Hoverfly on a Hawk’s-beard. I wish I could be more specific, but Britain has several species of Hawk’s-beard and over 250 kinds of hoverfly and I can’t be sure about either of these.

Mallards.

Sea Campion.

Another hoverfly – possibly Helophilus Pendulus.

And yet another kind, also unidentified.

Creeping Thistle and, I think, a Mason Bee (22 resident British species).

Mason bees, although closely related to social wasps, are solitary hunters which stock their nests with various insects to feed their larvae.

Sea Aster.

Yet another kind of hoverfly, perhaps a Drone Fly, this time on Yarrow.

And another, on Common Knapweed, I think.

This has been quite a year for fungi, and this walk was no exception, with many different sizes, colours and forms seen.

A rather faded Brown Argus butterfly.

This area is unusual because it’s on the northern limit of the Brown Argus and the southern limit of the Northern Brown Argus, but has both species. I’ve rarely seen either though, so this was a bit of a bonus.

In Greek mythology, Argus was a giant with a hundred eyes.

More fungi.

Bedeguar Galls, home to wasp grubs.

Common Darter, this colouration is typical of older females.

The view from the Knott, excellent though it was, was curtailed somewhat by clouds obscuring the larger hills of the the Lake District, which, to some extent at least, justified my decision not to head for the hills for a walk.

I stopped for half an hour, to sit on a bench and make a brew. I chatted to a couple of chaps I’d met earlier in the walk and was also befriended by a wasp, which was apparently fascinated by my phone and insisted on crawling all over it.

A bumblebee on what looks like Marsh Woundwort, although it wasn’t growing in a remotely marshy spot.

Blackberries – I ate plenty during this walk.

A male Small White (I think).

That bumblebee again. I can’t see any pollen-baskets, so is it a male or a Cuckoo Bee?

Arnside Knott pano (click on this, or nay other, image to see larger version on flickr.

Bittersweet.

Painted Lady.

Leighton Beck.

Greater plantain.

A common plant with many names: Broad-leaved Plantain, Rat’s-tail Plantain, Banjos, Angel’s Harps. To the Anglo-Saxons it was Waybread, one of their nine sacred herbs and another powerful medicinal plant. I remember playing with these as a child – gently pulled away from the plant, a leaf would bring with several long thin fibres – the challenge was to get longer ‘guitar strings’ than your friends. Who needs Fortnite?

It wasn’t only me enjoying the blackberries!

Heron.

Middlebarrow and Arnside Knott.

Unidentified Umbellifer.

Arnside Knott across Silverdale Moss.

Little Egret.

These look like mutant Blackberries, but in fact they are a related species: Dewberries. They have fewer segments and are so juicy that they tend to disintegrate when picked. In my opinion, they’re superior to blackberries. They’re apparently more common in Eastern England, but I now know several spots where they grow.

Speckled Wood.

Orpine.

More fungi.

Grasshopper (possibly Common Green Grasshopper).

This is the field adjacent to the one where I found lots of mushrooms just a couple of days before. All along this track there was a new rash of small mushrooms.

A little later I passed through another field with, if anything, even more mushrooms.

Banded snail.

Of course, mushrooms are fine in the field, but even better with a piece of rump steak and a creamy blue cheese sauce….

Fine way to finish a fine day.

As The Crow Flies

Eaves Wood – Castlebarrow – The Row – Bank Well – Lambert’s Meadow – Burtonwell Wood – The Green – The Clifftop – Woodwell – Bottom’s Wood – The Lots – The Cove.

A dull and damp day, so I didn’t take all that many photos, except of the host of insects which were feeding on a clump of Devil’s-bit Scabious at the edge of Lambert’s Meadow. None of them came out too sharply, but I’ve chosen this one of a hoverfly because I liked the neat pattern on it’s abdomen.

Red Bartsia.

Water Mint.

Speckled Wood.

And finally, not really relevant to this post, but here’s a song by the brilliant Tony Joe White, who died last week…

It seems odd to me that he wasn’t better known.