The white dots that speckle this whole image are not the result of some camera fault. They are dandelion seeds, storms of which blew over Hebden Bridge this evening, as they have for a few days now. The warm, dry weather is bringing them out but also, this year, there are not so many lawns being mowed regularly — not the public ones, anyway. Perfect conditions for them, then. There will be some allergies being born at the moment I can tell you.
Another day celebrating green-ness, for there is not a great deal else to see at the moment. At least the sun is back out.
Well, OK, perhaps it is ambitious to expect that this caterpillar will manage to complete all 300+ miles of the Pennine Way, but if you’ve never been near it, it’s done more of it than you. And it also becomes the blog’s first caterpillar, a singular honour.
So, there went April 2020, spent entirely under a form of house arrest for reasons that I am finding increasingly hard to understand — ostensibly to protect me from a disease that I may well have already had, but really because having dug ourselves into this hole, we now have no idea how to get back out of it. And I’m not just pointing the finger at the British government here. Six weeks ago everyone panicked, and it’s now, ‘OK, now what?’. A question to which no one seems to have a very plausible answer.
Meanwhile, as we look forward with no joy at all to what is very likely to be an equally dismal May, I have to point my camera out of the window and capture the small part of the world that is permitted me. Hello jackdaw. Enjoy your freedom.
Peacock butterfly, that is. This specimen positively batted its eyes at me, clearly it wanted its close-ups doing; but then again, with a pair of eyes like that, who wouldn’t. It seems to be a good spring for butterflies, there are plenty of them about. Maybe it’s because we humans aren’t disturbing them so much this year, but more likely is just that it’s been warm and sunny.
I may have already said this — like in Groundhog Day, there is a sense of repetition — but there are a couple of things whose value has been emphatically demonstrated during the last few weeks. Firstly that the topography of my life still provides legitimate reasons to leave the house on a regular basis. Second that there is attractive woodland just over the road that I can reasonably walk through in order to get from one part of this topography to others, which at least provides regular photo opportunities. These gnarly roots (brushed here and there by strands of gossamer) caught my eye this morning: this is the earliest shot on a day since February.
At the moment, some pictures just need saving up for a day when there’s nothing else to show. The bluebells have been out for a few days now. Is there a flower with a more appropriate name? Beyond the fact that they don’t make a sound, it’s hard to fault it.
It is three years and a bit, or more precisely, 1,112 days, since I went to Japan and commented on that nation’s obsessive interest in cherry blossom, which they call sakura. It is certainly a sign of full spring, and so ephemeral that I wonder if the Japanese are getting their spiritual money’s worth from the sakura in this rather odd springtime. I will at least report that Hebden’s own cherry/cheery trees are in full blossom right now.
More fauna: it came down to a choice between this rodent and a butterfly today, as nature gets on with its stuff while we’re all stuck at home. I like this squirrel’s happy little face — it looks a bit like the way aliens are often depicted, with its big eyes and pointy nose.
Happily, the sun has come out. Sadly, the people have not. So here is more birdlife: there is little else to bring variety at this time. This jackdaw was determined to get the best vantage point in his immediate area, and seems to have succeeded.
Being 42 