A Passion For Palomena

My spider hunt for #Arachtober took me down to the south-facing wall of disused glasshouse number thirteen. The weather was beautifully sunny and lots of arachnids were basking. I captured a lovely harvestman.

A passion flower growing like Topsy inside the glasshouse had put out tendrils and a gorgeous flower was blooming amongst the brambles outside. A green shieldbug (Palomena prasina) was sitting on it. What luck! However beautiful a flower might be I'm not really interested unless a bug is present. 

After lunch I noticed a strange quality of light which had me blinking trying to make sense of it. As the afternoon wore on the sky got darker and a definite pinky yellow. I was driving when I saw the red hurricane sun. Wish I could have captured it. Evidently these phenomena were caused by storm Ophelia bringing sand from the Sahara and ash from Iberian forest fires. Thinking of the poor storm-battered folk in Ireland.

Today's poem is If I Could Tell You by WH Auden. https://genius.com/W-h-auden-if-i-could-tell-you-annotated

I like this. No point worrying about things over which we have no control, let's enjoy the moment.