Giant hoverfly II

I found another of these huge hoverflies out on my walk today. Thanks to Gen2 for the id of my previous photo. It is apparently a hornet mimic, Volucella zonaria. Nice day for a walk - quite a few butterflies around and lots of crickets and grasshoppers bouncing around in the grass.

The lovely meadow where I chased lots of butterflies a few weeks ago has now been completely cropped by some horses. Their large deposits made it quite tricky to negotiate the footpath too......not what you want to bring back into the office!

Son number one's girlfriend helped to sort out my name in phonetic Japanese today to go on my business cards. Hope to get them to the printer tomorrow in time for the trip at the end of next week. Journals, freebie pens and leaflets are all boxed up too ready for despatch to the conference centre.

Now all I need to to is travel insurance, currency, gift buying, clothes shopping......etc, etc