Cloudburst & caterpillars

The heatwave has ended! On Friday, after the hottest week of the year and over a month without rain, the sky darkened, and started to flash in the south west. We went outside hoping the storm would reach us soon. Then five bats – usually we get one or two at a time – started to frantically zoom around the garden, coming very close to us, chasing each other and going round in circles. There was thunder, then strong winds, and at last, rain!  It was a proper deluge and such a relief. We stood and got rained on for a while, then came inside to watch it. It rained all night. Saturday was dry, and now it’s raining a bit again – this is our porch today.

Last week, before it got too hot to be outside much, Brian saw two big and beautiful types of caterpillar.

This is the Swallowtail butterfly caterpillar, the sub-species which only lives in the Norfolk & Suffolk Broads of the UK. They only feed on milk parsley.

Then, the next day, this was found underneath the wooden bridge over our ditch which he was dismantling due to rot.

We knew it was a hawk moth caterpillar, but there are a couple with blue spikes so it needed a bit of looking into. We found out it’s an eyed hawk-moth – if we ever see the adult moth that will be very exciting as they look like this.

We also had this Forest Bug, which we hope means our garden is like a forest.

And this capsid bug looking for aphids on the fleabane. Its name is Deraeocoris Ruber.

These clouds appeared one night last week –  we’d never seen such a regular pattern covering the whole sky.

They are altocumulus floccus – cotton wool clouds.

Clouds also stopped us seeing the lunar eclipse on Friday night, but since they gave us the storm and rain, we didn’t mind. It’s nowhere near enough rain yet – we need a few solid days of heavy rain for it to have any effect on plants and soil – but it is lovely to see something coming out of the sky at last and we’ll be going out for a walk in it very soon!

Library bookshelf:
Michele Forbes – Ghost Moth
Philip Hoare – Risingtidefallingstar
Sebastian Barry – Days Without End
Nick Baker – Re-Wild

Playlist:
Patty Griffin – There Isn’t One Way
Christine & The Queens – Doesn’t Matter
Thomas Dolby – Cloudburst at Shingle Street

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Fruits, fragrance and watery places

Checking the diary, we don’t think it has rained since 2 June. This has been an exceptional heatwave and dry spell. Any rumour of rain is very exciting. Today a bit of rain was predicted on the week ahead forecast – we hope it is true!

With everything so dry, we’ve been enjoying watery places even more than usual as it’s such a relief to see them. Some of the best ones from walks over recent weeks are below!

Water lilies and shimmering reflections 

Sunlight on duckweed creating patterns of brightness

One of six thriving moorhen chicks in a city wildlife pond

In the garden we are enjoying a harvest of the blackcurrants and gooseberries that grow with no intervention from us. A few handfuls of garden fruits with breakfast is an amazing free treat.

We love pollen beetles, and they have been enjoying anything yellow they can land on, such as this native perennial sow thistle, which they are visiting more than anything else. This is the most we’ve seen on any flower.

This summer the jasmine is having its most floriferous year. When the day cools down towards the evening, and we can have a comfortable look round the garden, it’s fragrance is rich and delicious and makes us feel very privileged to be experiencing it.

Library bookshelf:
Sheila Heti – Motherhood
Patrick Ness – More Than This
Michele Forbes – Ghost Moth
Philip Hoare – Risingtidefallingstar
Deborah Levy – Black Vodka

Playlist:
First Aid Kit – Rebel Heart
Van Morrison – Warm Love
The Beta Band – Dry the Rain
Sheryl Crow featuring Annie Clark – Wouldn’t Want to Be Like You

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Summer solstice moth & meadow magic

A few weeks ago we showed the moth pupae that we’d found in the garden. On Friday 22nd June, the first moths were seen, and by Saturday 23rd we could see six or seven of these stunning creatures flying, feeding, resting and mating.

They are Five-Spot Burnet Moths, named because they have five spots on each wing (although their spots are often fused, as in our moths). They appear very strikingly black and crimson, but in certain light their wings have an iridescent greenish shine.

They arrived in our mini-meadow because we had planted a food plant of their larvae (caterpillars), meadow vetchling. The larvae also feed on bird’s foot trefoil. In these photos the adults are feeding on nectar from knapweed. They stayed for a couple of days, and have now gone to find new habitats, but at least two pairs mated and we hope they have left some eggs so we can enjoy the next generation.

Elsewhere in the garden our foxgloves have been busy with bees, as accidentally captured in this photo! In the last week they have mostly finished flowering and have a promising amount of seed pods – we hope for more foxgloves in the future!

We try to keep our garden as wild as possible, actively increasing the food-plants and habitats. This can be done on a larger scale in the wood and meadow, where Brian has now been re-wilding to as great an extent as we can for the size of the site. This view shows the meadow with many willows and alders planted in the last 5 years.

Creating better habitats for wildlife is one way that we can take action and do something with a positive impact. Although we cannot introduce the large herbivores which bigger re-wilding projects use, we have two species of deer moving through the site, and Brian is also acting as a “keystone species” (one that by its natural behaviour makes the site better for lots of other species). Most important is not to over-manage, but to enable the site to be dynamic and changing over time. We get lots of inspiration from the Knepp Estate’s films and posts.

Brian made the annual pilgrimage this week to see a site where he planted many trees as a volunteer in the 1980s-90s. The trees now have real presence, and there is still a large honeybee colony active.  Its not only the trees which have grown – this photo shows an oak tree with a massive ivy growing up it! Ivy does not kill trees and it provides food and habitat for all kinds of wildlife. And a natural wonder for humans to enjoy too, when it grows as big as this!

 

Oak tree with huge woody base of an ivy, known as an ‘ivy bole’ or ‘ivy todd’

 

 

Library bookshelf:
Mark Cocker – Our Place: Can we save Britain’s wildlife before it is too late
Paul Kalanithi – When Breath Becomes Air
Neel Mukherjee – State of Freedom
Sheila Heti – Motherhood
Patrick Ness – Release
Michele Forbes – Ghost Moth

Playlist:
The National – England (It’s not a football song!)
Perfume Genius – Alan
St Vincent – Sugarboy
Nakhane – Clairvoyant
First Aid Kit – Rebel Heart
Van Morrison – Warm Love

 

 

 

Spring weeks packed with nature & treats

There has been so much going on in the Spring! We could hardly keep up over the last couple of weeks.

First, the flowering of snakes head fritillaries which we planted in a nice wet boggy area..

This wonderful misty-morning sunlight was also stunning in the wood…

All the tadpoles are active and growing rapidly….

It wasn’t just nature celebrating the spring, it was also Lucy’s birthday. It rained all weekend, but we enjoyed being indoors…

After eating the banana cake, we went on to invent a new super-rich home-made hot chocolate drink using cocoa powder and chopped dark chocolate melted in milk, and finally perfected Lucy’s everyday breakfast recipe which now = oats and almonds soaked overnight in soya milk, plus a kiwi fruit and some red berries (and some more chopped dark chocolate on most days)!

As the sun and rain shared the skies for a few days, some spectacular shades of blue were seen next to the wild cherry blossom and hawthorn leaves…

Over the last week, with sun and warmth, there has been a bluebell burst….

This hawthorn shield bug was found having a wander about on Brian’s t-shirt, so he placed it onto a log to photograph it…

This bank holiday weekend has been really hot. We had a spontaneous trip to the seaside for the full fish & chips, ice creams and beach experience!

And although its too hot to venture out yet today, yesterday we had three walks (and one picnic), the last one a beautiful evening visit to a local nature reserve….

Library books:
Salley Vickers – The Cleaner of Chartres
Sarah Perry – The Essex Serpent
Sally Rooney – Conversations With Friends
Donal Ryan – All We Shall Know
Arundhati Roy – The Ministry of Utmost Happiness

Playlist:
Siouxie & The Banshees – Dazzle
Grizzly Bear – Sky Took Hold
SuRie – Storm (less than a week until Eurovision!)
Cud – One Giant Love
Massive Attack – Paradise Circus
Joan Armatrading – Down to Zero

 

In the woods and on wheels

Here is a Scarlet Elf Cup fungus which Brian found in the woods. We are definitely not experts on fungi but this one is very distinctive. It isn’t poisonous, and some people consider them edible, but we’ll be leaving it where it is.

After being off-road for the snow week and then while we replaced a broken derailleur, Lucy’s bicycle got back on the road a couple of weeks ago and it was very exciting to be cycling again. Even the return of ‘helmet hair’ was welcome! Its a great time of year to be passing by the verges with their new flowers every day.

 

Brian has been doing a lot in the woodland, to make it as good a site for conservation as possible. These willows have been planted as a renewable firewood resource for us and  future generations. They have been recently pollarded to keep the re-growth out of each of nibbling deer. In a year’s time they will be up to fifteen feet tall.

Now we have a week off together and so far the theme has been: rain. Our ditch is very full and we have lots of frogs – about 18 seen together, lots of spawn, and a newt! This is the wettest Easter we can remember. We just got in from a walk at the university which started as a nice rabbit-watching wander about, but ended with us getting so wet walking back to the car that foam came out of the knees of Brian’s trousers. Most of our clothes are now hanging up over heaters around the house, while we sit and eat chocolate and dry off. We thoroughly enjoyed getting wet knowing that we were going home to a warm, dry house.

What we do for the rest of the week will be guided by the weather a bit, but there’s always something nice we could be doing…such as making a banana cake…and eating it.

Library books:
Salley Vickers – Cousins
Elizabeth McKenzie – The Portable Veblen
George Saunders – Lincoln in the Bardo

Playlist:
Final Fantasy – That’s When the Audience Died
Tegan & Sara – Hang On To the Night
Coldplay – O (Fly On)
REM – Pilgrimage
David Bowie – Loving the Alien

The woods and the snow

While the weather was good in February, Brian spent lots of time in the woods. It probably isn’t easy to figure out what this photograph is of. When one of the poplar trees falls over, its shallow roots lift up a plate of soil and leave a sort of pond. This is where Brian is standing – the water is the pond, and his shadow is cast onto the plate of soil that was previously underground! You can see what it looks like in the below photo.

Another mystery photo below. What caused the marks on this tree branch?

We looked this up online and found that it is caused by woodpeckers in the summer, making holes in willow to get sap. What a lovely thought, that we are providing sweet drinks for woodpeckers on hot days!

On other walks together we visited favourite places which were all wetter than usual, creating some lovely reflections.

And then it snowed! This was the result in our garden of the ‘Beast from the East’. We particularly like the way the teasel heads got covered.

It was lovely while it looked like this and all we had to do was take photos, but it was challenging too, as in this country snow is so rare that we don’t have winter tyres or other preparations. The buses stopped, and when they came back they were unpredictable, so that Lucy ended up walking the last 3 miles home from work one afternoon. Any ideas we may have had before of how great having a White Christmas one year would be are now more realistic!

Other things we have done recently: we got rid of a chair from the bedroom which was being used as a bedside table. We haven’t replaced it with anything, and the empty corner is making cleaning so much easier. Its been a long time since we decluttered an entire piece of furniture, and it was exciting!

In our shopping, we’re trying to eliminate palm oil. Recently documentaries have opened our eyes about how devastating the effects of palm oil cultivation have been. Really, we knew about this already, but needed a kick up the bum to take action. It is in so many products, that avoiding it has made us very mindful shoppers, and the added bonus is we have massively reduced how many biscuits, cakes etc we could buy – now if we want a treat we usually make it ourselves!

 Library books:

Emily Fridlund – The History of Wolves
Virginia Woolf – The Waves
Rabih Alameddine – The Angel of History
Gail Honeyman – Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine
Elizabeth Strout – My Name is Lucy Barton
Anne Tyler – A Patchwork Planet

 Playlist:

Joanna Newsom – ‘81
Radiohead – Present Tense
Patty Griffin – Kite Song
XTC – The Loving
Thomas Dolby – Cruel
David Bowie –Fill Your Heart
James – Don’t Wait That Long
Smiths – Oscillate Wildly
Joan as Police Woman – Tell Me
REM – I’ve Been High

 

Within the Winter

Although this winter hasn’t been especially cold (yet), it has definitely felt like winter, and other seasons have seemed a long way away. There hasn’t been much snow or ice, only a light dusting on a few days. Indoors, our geranium just kept on flowering.

 

 

 

We are fortunate to have that big window in the living room. On a sunny day it brings a lot of warmth and light into the room, often enough to turn off the heating for a while. We have been good at getting outdoors this winter though, on walks and woodland visits.  

We’ve just been enjoying a long weekend with trips into the city for breakfast, and the cinema today to see ‘The Phantom Thread.’ Its a very rare thing for us to go to the cinema so it was a real treat, and made all the more enjoyable by the fact that this morning we got help to fix our television for free, which we were thinking we may have to replace! It had spent the past few days refusing to turn on.

The first signs of Spring are just beginning to come through now: much more daylight and birdsong, buds on trees and bulbs in flower. Lucy has recently changed her working hours to be slightly earlier, from 8am to 4pm. This is just half an hour earlier to finish, but much lighter for more of the year and safer cycling both ways, with less traffic around.

These snowdrops are flowering outside our front door which is a lovely sight every day. Each morning there are more birds singing, and chasing each other around the garden.

 

We have both been inspired in various ways this winter, by nature writing, insightful documentaries, moving stories, and engaging conversations. As each new day begins, it’s exciting to wonder what we will see, hear or do that is special and makes the day unique.

 

Recent reading:

John Lewis-Semple – The Running Hare

Rob Cowan – Common Ground

Claire Morrall – Astonishing Splashes of Colour

John Boyne – The Heart’s Invisible Furies

Rupert Thomson – Divided Kingdom

Anne Tyler – Ladder of Years

Richard Mabey – The Cabaret of Plants

Matt Haig – How to Stop Time

Graham Swift – Mothering Sunday

Joanna Cannon – The Trouble with Goats and Sheep

Brene Brown – Braving the Wilderness

 

 

Recent listening:

The Sundays – I Feel

Elbow & John Grant – Kindling

Aimee Mann – Patient Zero

Madonna – Rebel Heart

St Vincent – Prince Johnny

Radiohead – The Numbers

Benjamin Clementine – Then I Heard a Bachelor’s Cry

Queen – Radio Ga Ga

Tears for Fears – Shout

Santigold – Disparate Youth

 

 

Listening to Trees

This weekend has been very relaxing and restorative. Like many, we were exhausted and paying the price for a week of spending too much time involved in the election: voting in it, watching it, and reading about it afterwards. This is not a political blog but it’s probably obvious that our approach to life wasn’t reflected particularly well!

So, we needed some positivity and peace, and we found it in the woods today when we went to look for bluebells and orchids. It was such a beautiful day, a perfect warm breeze carrying the smells of wild garlic and bluebells.

It felt wonderful to touch the textured barks of different trees and engage with something real and honest. Brian remembered that it was possible to listen to trees and hear their internal sounds – with a stethoscope, which we didn’t have! – but we tried it anyway, pressing our ears to the lovely cool trunks and listening carefully. And we did hear something – it sounded a bit like someone was inside the tree moving furniture, making muffled bumps and knocks with large silences in between. Is this the sound of the tree pumping all the water it takes up? Whatever it was, it was a very calming and soothing experience!

We also saw a big red deer, a holly blue and a green hairstreak butterfly. Being out in nature was exactly what we needed this weekend, and the fact we then came home and ate a big bowl of ice cream each didn’t hurt either!

Holly Blue butterfly on a Bluebell

Wild Garlic – it’s edible and smells amazing

Bluebells and Orchids

Lessons in Living Simply

This week has been packed full of little lessons in living simply. We’ve been swinging from losing ourselves in everyday stress, to returning and residing in a calmer place with appreciation of life’s wonders…before going down the hole of stress again, and so it goes on! Perspective can be really hard to hold on to sometimes. This is partly because we are due a holiday – we will be on staycation in a week, and we’re just tired. This is also traditionally Lucy’s busiest time at work.

One thing we never lose sight of is our privilege and the ‘first world problem’ nature of many of our worries. We are not struggling to survive, house, feed or clothe ourselves. Therefore it is even more important that we value simple pleasures, so that we are less likely to be wasteful or to buy and consume unnecessary things.

Here are some of our simple moments from this week:

Ducks know how to live

On a day out yesterday Lucy and her mum watched this beautiful male mallard duck having a very thorough and exuberant wash, with lots of head-dunking, flapping and feather-smoothing. If you need a boost, seek out a duck!

White chocolate strawberries

Brian made these white lemon chocolate strawberries as a Sunday treat last weekend – simple and perfect!

This week the smell of blossom has been very powerful. Every time we pass some and are hit by the wall of scent we know it’s Spring. On Lucy’s bicycle commutes, a regular blast of blossom aroma keeps her mind in the present moment.

Lucy has been remembering to check out the moon every day. At the moment it’s a daytime and evening moon, and is looking down on us for most of the day.

After the rushed breakfasts of working week days we always try to have some good long weekend breakfasts with radio and magazines. There’s something very relaxing about watching the steam coming off a nice cup of tea!

Simple Springtime Scenes

The sunny weekend got us outdoors for most of the time. It’s wonderful to enjoy again the simple pleasures of feeling the sun on your skin and warm breeze blowing your clothes and hair.

It was perfect weather for drying laundry:

And while Lucy was cutting kindling sticks there were plenty of busy birds around, including this blackbird which appears to be impaled on a piece of bread:

We went out to the garden centre for some compost, and our first plant of the year: some cheerful polyanthus. We also bought a mango chutney barrel because we think we can turn it into a compost toilet! We’ll definitely be writing more on that soon…

In the woods, the early morning sunlight was shining on the mossy logs. A perfect place for a breakfast sausage roll and pastry as enjoyed today by Brian!

The blue skies show up the interesting colours and textures of trees – dead or alive – and it seems amazing to think that soon there will be green leaves everywhere.

The season cycle is greater than any human routines we might try and impose on the world. That is something we’re very grateful for.