Lovely

For someone I suppose.

We battened down the hatches and hoped it would all blow over. It did, but only relatively, so we ventured out mid afternoon yesterday, with puffa jackets on our backs and wellies on our feet. We walked to the river wall via the park and a charming little moth posed for me ever so patiently. Would have been even better if I'd had my camera with me. Oh, well. We walked past the almost deserted sailing clubs, places that should be hives of activity at this time of year. More battening of the hatches taking place there and only a handful of hardy or foolhardy souls actually on or by the water. We walked past them, then it started to rain. We bottled it. On the way back I spotted a female Wasp Spider in a web by the side of the path by the boat yard's crane. Of course, I didn't have my camera with me.

We checked the tides and planned to come back at high tide to watch the surge which would have been spectacular give the wind direction and speed yesterday evening. But it didn't' stop raining and instead we spent the evening poking drains and planning sand-bagging operations.

Glorious weather innit?

Moth and other beastie visitors to the bathroom have been few and far between, so these are from the garden and garden shed. This first was on the ivy during the late afternoon a couple of days ago; my surprisingly clean and well manicured nail is offered by way of providing scale.

This is probably an early stage larva and on the Victoria Plum,
but what it will become I cannot say.

This moth was skulking high up on a cupboard in the big garden shed and awkward to photograph. The is the best of the lot wot I got.

Now for something completely different

We spent the morning working the garden, hacking great chunks off the the massive forsythia which should be attracting the Gothic and the Brown Tail. But if it is doing that they're not making their way into the moth trap. The bloody thing is indestructible. I don't mind it too much, as long as it is reasonably under control. His lordship loathes it with something of a passion, which is always such a shock when he gives vent to it, him being not being particularly prone to moments of any sort of passion these days.

Now that we have a green bin courtesy of the district council we're going to get a lot of stuff cleared away and might, by this time next year and if next year's summer is any chop actually get some use out of our garden.

The point of this is that while shifting stuff about I uncovered this guy, and if my identification of moths is poor, that's nothing compared to how I get on with reptiles and amphibians. Given there are so few species in the UK you'd think getting an ID for this guy or girl would be straightforward, but you'd be wrong when it is me trying to put a name to a face. Any help would be gratefully received. The verdict of the offspring was "how cute" but before she could unintentionally do any harm it scarpered. Presumably an amphibian, but which one?