On another day of restricted horizons, the choice of pictures came down to this new bud, or a storm/sun combination shot from the afternoon. As I sometimes do, I asked Clare which her preference was, and she chose this one, considering “the optimism of spring” preferable. So yes, why not. Spring should be a time of optimism, even if just in little ways.
How many of these peas will eventually sprout edible small green products remains to be seen: getting them started by the living room window is always the easy bit, each year. But we try.
Don’t expect much in the way of variety of scene over the next few days. I spent all the month’s money in Cornwall, and payday is keenly awaited. Even the pigeon turns away somewhat disdainfully from the camera as I try to inject some interest.
The house pooch of the Star Inn, Penzance, doesn’t necessarily take his guard dog duties all that seriously, at least not where the breakfast buffet is concerned. Then again I was the only guest, so presumably he’d decided I was legitimate.
I have developed some druidic powers. I can, fairly reliably, summon a robin. It’s quite easy actually — simply go up to the garden, dig over part of it, and wait five minutes. One will usually appear to check over the bounty that has been revealed. This one was quite unperturbed by the presence of both myself and Clare, and has a look on his face that suggests he thinks we should be doing more digging — I reckon robins are evolving to use humans as manual labour, in fact. Perhaps they will be our overlords in a few dozen millennia,
These have to be among the world’s most stoic horses. The poles in this field are one end of the series of guidance beacons for one of the runways at Heathrow. Gigantic flying machines like the one seen here are coming into land every few minutes, and the noise is incredible. But they don’t seem all that bothered.
Curiosity, and the need to stretch my legs during a day sat working on a report, took me down the road to investigate the old flax mill that stands there, a relic of just one of many attempts to institute some kind of working cash crop economy on St Helena — doomed from the point in the 1960s when the Royal Mail decided it no longer wanted to use string to tie up its parcels and would instead rely henceforth on nylon. Now the place seems to be used as a cow byre: but the dairy industry here didn’t survive regulations on hygiene, or was it something else? Laws and practices developed for quite different contexts have never really gone down very well in this remote and distinctive place.
Let it be said that I find bananas to be possibly the most revolting of all natural foods: I really cannot stand them. If they were the only foodstuff that I had access to, I’d starve to death. Which is a shame, because bunches — literally — of them grow all over St Helena, including many in Gareth’s garden, as shown here. And I quite like their strange, purple flower/appendages, dangling down like strange alien tongues. But even after they ripen, I’m not going to eat any, I can assure you.
I’m fairly certain these are juvenile common waxbills (Estrilda astrild), a member of the finch family. They don’t yet have the bright red bill that gives the species its name (as it looks like it has been dipped in sealing wax) but everything else about them matches the description, particularly the red stripe through the eye. The one on the lower branch flew off the instant I pressed the shutter, and is fluffing himself up ready to make the jump. Taken on my walk to the summit of the island, Diana’s Peak — more photos from the day can be seen on my other blog.
Jamestown is one of only three places on St Helena where it is fairly easy to get down to the sea, and that is where I was standing at the end of my day’s work when I looked down and was faintly revolted when a whole sqaudron of these little black crabs scuttled out from just below me and headed for the water. They looked rather plain and black from above but I got the camera out anyway. On uploading the pictures it was pleasing to see the detail on this one, the spots, the red and the blue. Perhaps there is beauty in all things. (Except jellyfish, which really are disgusting.) This specimen can become the first of its biological order (Brachyura) to make the blog.
Being 42 