The 2020-21 academic year has been buggered about with, and broken, and (for me) unusually extended — but as of this afternoon, at about 3pm, it is OVER. I am on holiday. Could say ‘feels good’. The reality — more like this.
Our latest chilli plant. It was Clare who christened it ‘Tuco’, after Tuco Salamanca, the ridiculously fiery Mexican in the first couple of seasons of Breaking Bad. Only we have already eaten one of the three fruits it has produced so far, and it turned out to be very mild, so perhaps it’s misnamed. We should call it Jesse Pinkman instead, perhaps.
You wait ages for a small insect and then two turn up in consecutive days. This fly hung around for a while; clearly it has an interest in Ted Nelson’s Literary Machines this afternoon. As did I.
This moth was tiny, barely the size of my thumbnail. Do you know the basic difference between butterflies and moths? I didn’t, until looking it up today — but apparently, all butterflies have little balls at the end of their antennae. As this creature doesn’t have those, it’s a moth. Now you know.
“There’s not enough room up here. You’ll have to stay down there.”
“Ah, come on you jobsworth. Look, Bob’s up there and he’s not even grey.”
A very pleasant summer’s day, the land around feels like it has reached peak fecundity. Nice to look at, although not so good for my nasal membranes, frankly. But that’s the price I pay.
I sometimes feature what I would call ‘cheap cat shots’ on here (see this one for instance) but I don’t think this baby would be cheap at all. This is a challenging look, don’t you think? But I’d give it a go.
The bee is the symbol of the city of Manchester (something to do with ‘industry’), so it seems appropriate that this guy and his colleagues were busying themselves on campus this afternoon — certainly they are showing more industry than the human inhabitants are at the moment.
The Hebden pigeon population is well trained, and anyone who simply sits on a park bench for a few moments of contemplation (as I did this afternoon around 3pm) will soon find themselves the object of curious, food-related enquiries from the local birdlife. Feeling in need of a new approach, I tried putting my camera down amongst them at ground level and (not wishing to join everyone down there myself) firing off the shutter at random a few times. This was the best of the shots that resulted. But it may also be a sign that I need to get out of Hebden a bit more.
The plum tree is bearing a heavy load this year, and needed help. Banyan trees have worked out how to do this kind of thing for themselves, but not yet this species. The working week started with a trip to the builders’ merchants in order to acquire some long, stout bits of wood to prop up the most creaking branches.
Being 42 