The after-party

This morning about twenty of us gathered for breakfast (cooked by the Junior Chapter of the bridal party) and then we thrashed through the process of clearing up, dismantling the decorations, and organising the removal of people, props, and leftover supplies away from Maesbrook. Some of us were a little weepy (me), and some of us were hungover (not me, happily), but we all enjoyed debriefing each other on the events of yesterday; and having lots of other people around and lots of things to do helped to lessen the feeling of anticlimax.

R then took Child Two back to The Shire, so that H could collect his car and head off to the Frozen North; but made it back to the venue in time to help me transport all the plants and trees down to our barn. You might suspect that R and I then collapsed in front of SpringWatch, with a bottle of Prosecco and some toast and hummus... but I couldn’t possibly comment.

I have a feeling that this is my 5-year blipversary post, but I hope you’ll forgive me not having gone to town on it. This little female Common Blue appeared at the pond while I was there on a vain hunt for dragons, and as she’s the first of her kind that I’ve seen this year (and the last of any kind of bug that I’ll be photographing at Maesbrook) I wanted to make her my subject today. Here she's feeding on ragged robin - which has five divided petals, even if you can't see them in this photo!

I did take one other photo today that I quite like, and that's gone onto Facebook if you'd care to see it.