nine months later

...if you look at the November archive pictures you will see this lovely scene in a very different light. Kit Hill in far background, and Stoke church to the left.

wall brown

this elusive butterfly will never keep still for long. The sun has just come out after a longish period of cloud and it was trying to warm up. 

bouncing boy back

the pack watch in amazement as boy jumps over fence into waiting boots, and is rejected by Mother Earth on grounds that he is a teenager.

tortoiseshell

last of the summer wine at the Old Butterfly and Bush, Buddleia. 

armchair philosopher's mission statement

my leitmotif is to give you an ersatz zeitgeist, the weltanschauung from my rucksak, to blitz you with my wanderlust. I am no dumbkopf but a wunderkind of dobermen, a meister hund; this is no bildungsroman but a festschrift of canine schmalz. Donne und blitzen (as the comics used to say)! I am off for some bratwurst and riesling, and gesundheit meine freunde, while I abseil off the planet before I am overwhelmed by my torschlusspanik (no, I haven't heard of this one either but I've got it) .

All this induced by one visit to the vet

black berrying

... and this is very odd too, Dad says he has never seen a dog eating blackberries, but mum, who is very like a medium sized black bear any way, has taken to eating blackberries by picking them off very gently with her lips. Has anyone else got a berry eating dog?

dragonflies

this is a very odd photo. This dragonfly flew into Jane Parry Davies' house and died. It has a bizarre face which reminds me of the illustrations in a book called the water Babies.