Rant!
Cyclists on the canal towpath annoy me. In normal circumstances they have a nasty habit of creeping up behind you and either: suddenly ringing their bell or saying loudly ('cause they've got earphones on) "excuse me", two feet behind you; or creeping past on their silent wheels so that the first thing you know about their presence is when they suddenly appear at your elbow. Either way is enough to give a strong man a heart attack. I seem to recall a 'two tings' rule where cyclists belled once a distance away and again a bit nearer. Would it be so hard?
With the present circumstances there's also the two metre rule. How are you supposed to get two metres away from someone who's hurtling up the centre of the towpath at a rate of knots, often in a group of three or four.
I know it's excellent exercise but some of the cyclist that I've seen have come more than a mile or two. Is it right to cover ten or twenty miles, travelling from a virus hot spot (Sheffield for instance) to a quite covid-19 low area like North Notts scattering perspiration and saliva the while?
Rant over!
October 2019
Friday 4th
In my (tiny) back garden I've these plants which look quite tropical although I don't suppose they are. They have tall (two metres-ish) flower spikes that eventually have these seed pods. Sparrows love to survey the scenery from their tops.
Here's our muscovy again.
When he arrived, last August or September, he was looking a little the worse for wear, having feathers missing here and there but he's completely feathered now.
Did you ever look at the patterns on a spider's back?
Things that I have an irrational liking for:
Dock bugs
and
Jew's ear fungi.
Dock bugs and jew's ear fungi are both things that I only became familiar with in the past few years (wait 'til I show you wolf's milk!)
As I've said before, dock bugs are quite large, up to a centimetre and a half, beetleish things, that live by eating chiefly dock leaves although they often appear on nettles too.Jew's ear fungi, also known as judas' ear and jelly ear, are almost exclusively found on elder trees. The appearance, like a human ear, and preferred substrate are the reason for its names: Judas Iscariot is said to have hanged himself from an elder tree.
Jew's ear is edible although I've never tried it.
Fifth of October
If you suffer from arachnophobia proceed with caution!
Shiny eyes!
Hunter
Did I mention that I like dock bugs?
Looking a little knotted.
Comma butterfly basking.
Micromoth on blackberry
Fence post
Sparrows bathing in the canal.
Neighbour's dahlia
Tuesday the fourteenth of April
Great crested grebes performing the 'weed dance'
It was seeing grebe 'dancing' some years ago that started me spending real money on cameras. At the time I had a crappy little camera that had a zoom of slightly greater than zero that failed utterly to capture what my eyes could see. Since then I've spent a couple of thousand at least on cameras and lenses.
The sun was in a cloudless sky - this blackbird was basking in the warmth.
You'll be overdosing on lady's smock on my blog before long.
This stump is covered in sundry fungi throughout the year.
This particular one was at least fifteen centimetres* across.
* six inches for USians
That's all for now.
The neighbour's Dahlia was gorgeous, the bugs not so much, shudder. Agree re the cyclists. Not a fan, though I try very hard indeed not to hit them here on the GC, despite them apparently trying quite hard to be hit.
ReplyDeleteAfraid love bugs 😃.I get quite annoyed with folk who have perfectly manicured lawns that leave no rooom for insects of all kinds. Cyclists are notorious here for not obeying the rules of the road especially traffic lights.
ReplyDelete