CUCKOO AND A PAPER WASP DISASTER

Look who I saw this afternoon as I came home with the dogs, drenched from a torrential shower whilst wearing what I thought was a waterproof smock thing. It was like wearing tissue paper and I had to get back....glad I did or I wouldn't have seen Young Cuckoo here.

 

Last Thursday, we noticed a football sized paper wasps' nest in OB's play house, or 'den' as he'd rather it was called these days. It was right next to the gate into the garden so potentially really dangerous; we have a friend with an epipen. We had to make the difficult decision to call someone to deal with it. He turned up at 8.00am on Friday morning, stuck something long and nozzley into the nest and ran for it. £30.00 for the privilege. This is what was left on the ceiling after it fell off:

And this is what fell to the floor. Very sad but fascinating to see its structure and the beauty of the paper they make with wood pulp and saliva.

My 50th birthday rose is flowering; it smells divine:

 Woundwort, which I like to cultivate in the garden:

Geranium Splish Splash:

Astrantia Major now in full flower and falling over:

Red Astrantia of some kind....

Sword Thistle:

Heath Spotted Orchid:

Keeled Skimmer female; I was falling off a tussock in the marsh as I took this so it could be better. They're much more difficult to see or capture than the blue males:

Four Spotted Chaser Dragonfly:

Wandering Glider Dragonfly I think - great name:

A new foal, the colour of biscuit, so that's its name. Female I think. 

Tertia scratching her tummy on gorse. This ritual went on for a while:

Diamond:

 Very late lamb born out on the moor:

Calf with mother's nose. I nearly cropped the nose off but thought better of it.

The juvenile Blackbird from the last post:

Stonechat with quarry:

Singing having eaten it:

The Pipit of the post:

We go the Great Ormond Street on Thursday so are travelling up and staying with an old college friend of mine in the Barbican. The dogs are staying with friends on their farm. A long drive but worth it I hope. I'll report once we get back so, until that next time, here are the dogs in show poses, like they'd ever win anything. 

POST #216

Busyness overload has rendered me incapable of thinking of any kind of title, let alone something pithy or witty, so I thought it best not even to try. I don't know what's happened since we got back from holiday but I seem to be trying, and failing, to catch up all the time. So many apologies if I haven't been commenting on your blogs if you write them; I am reading as much as I can but I realised I hadn't posted for a week so am getting down to it tonight. I have a small window as Great Ormond Street Hospital have sent through a MASS of forms and questionnaires to fill in that have to be sent back quickly - we're off there in two weeks so M and I are sitting every night wrestling over the questions. Poor OB has six to fill in by himself! Well - at least they're being thorough and trying to get a full and rounded picture of him. More than I can say for any institution we've come up against so far. We're suitably impressed, if a little overwhelmed by the paperwork. 

The weather is still absolutely amazing and there are Dragonflies darting around my favourite little boggy pond, which is getting close to drying out. Isn't this Four Spotted Chaser a beauty? 

Keeled Skimmers mating:

Post coital rest?

I took a picture of these clouds yesterday as I hadn't seen one for so long:

Trigger is home and leaving a lot of stuff in the paddock uneaten. We'll see in winter....

Meadow Brown in the morning dew, sullying the picture slightly by sitting on a bit of poo:

Ponies hiding in the early shade of the rocks:

Nib:

Scut:

Obligatory Meadow Pipits:

As well as fooling most tourists here that they are Skylarks by rising up into the air singing, this one is affecting the tufty headed look too.....

...........ha ha - only the wind.

Stonechat giving me the cold shoulder this morning. No sun but it came out this afternoon having not rained...AGAIN:

Evening sunshine walking up to feed Trigger:

So many grasses in flower and not enough paper hankies in the world to blow my nose:

Cuckoo Spit. In case you don't know, which I'm sure most of you do, Cuckoo Spit is plant sap, frothed up by the nymphs of Froghoppers in which they can bury themselves to stop from dehydrating, getting too hot or cold or to hide from predators. I didn't poke about to see who was inside: 

All that hay has been baled now:

Navelwort, which grows out of every crack in every wall round these parts, seems to be sending out much taller and many more flower spikes this year, as if these conditions are exactly what it likes. I wonder if anyone else has noticed more of a profusion this year or whether it's my imagination:

An online questionnaire for GOSH, which they estimate will take us at least an hour and a half to complete, is calling me, so I'd better get on with it. At least I didn't have to take OB to the pool tonight. I convinced him that it was going to rain when we discussed it this morning so he got the bus home and I actually got some housework done after taking my mum to Waitrose. They're doing it up within an inch of its life and every time we go, a new fashionable edifice has appeared, this time the fish counter which is verging on the Selfridges food hall. I peeked behind a hoarding and saw what will be the new coffee shop and thought I was on the Piccadilly Line of the London Underground, such was the tiling. I'm procrastinating. So, until next time, here are those hot dogs, managing to keep their tongues from lolling.