Banded demoiselle - Lee Valley Park

Visited our friends in Waltham Abbey for the traditional good food and company. Walked into Waltham after lunch to visit the local museum and for a stroll alongside the Cornmill Stream which was used to bring water from the River Lee to the Abbey where the monks used to grind grain - hence its name.

There were many insects flying around the watercourse, particularly dragonflies but they were far to active to perch to allow photographers to capture their beauty and delicacy. The Demoiselles were more obliging though, posing on leaves long enough for shots to be taken.

We saw many of these on the banks of the River Frome when on a walk from the canal boat near Avoncliff Aquaduct last month. I wasn't able to post a shot then as I don't have a laptop with an SD card reader to upload from the camera to the internet. So I've included one as an extra.

A jolly good day out, plenty of food and drink, it's just unfortuate that each time we go we get held up either going or coming back or both. This time approaching the Dartford Tunnel we found one of the tunnels had just been shut. A breakdown I think. Thank goodness we weren't 10 minutes later, the queues build up very quickly. We were also delayed on the way back at 10.30pm. One speed restriction to 50mph owing to congestion (which didn't exist) another slowing us down to 40 past some roadworks in one lane of a 4 lane hightway (which the truck just ignored) and one where 4 lanes came down to one to cross the Dartford Bridge. This one had no advance warning at all, we just came to it.