Identification

I only discovered Google Lens fairly recently. What a treasure it is! Instead of Google image searching "brown butterfly France" and scrolling through hundreds of results, I can just point my phone at the photo on my computer screen and browse the possibilities. Hence I am fairly confident this is a mallow skipper. That said, I was less successful with the unfamiliar small orange butterfly in the first extra. Ideas, anybody? And I know the second extra is a marbled white, it was just an unusual angle that I liked.

It was a scorcher today. I went down to the garden ... mistake, I should have taken a machete. What a mess! I eventually emerged liberally spattered with burrs and spiky grass seeds. Still, the insects are enjoying it! On the way back home I saw the billows of smoke from the first big fire of the season ... it's not even mid-June. 60 hectares burnt so far, and it's windy.

Apart from that I've had a fairly idle couple of days. I made a couple of jars of cherry jam today, and have just started a sourdough loaf, since my starter is having a party in this hot weather. Read some of the Ukrainian short stories for my book group (not terribly keen on them), interspersed with the book of essays by Hilary Mantel, delightfully called Mantel Pieces, that I bought on my Waterstones jaunt in Sheffield. She's so fearsomely intelligent and cutting she can only be taken in small doses.