Cranefly on Saskatoon blossom

Thursday afternoon was beautifully warm and sunny, with a perfect blue sky and little wind. I didn't go for a walk, choosing to rest on my laurels after a good but challenging online yoga class, and as M was here to give J her lunch and support her, I had time for sowing and potting as well as a wander round the garden with the camera. I wanted to photograph the saskatoon blossom, which is at its perfect best just now; the fly was fortuitous, but too dramatic not to be blipped. It's a cranefly, Nephrotoma, but I can't see its markings clearly enough to see what species it might be, despite having found a very good identification guide online. I've tried much harder to identify insects in the garden since I started photographing them, but my knowledge is still very limited. 

Our Thursday movie night seems to come round very quickly, and means I rarely share my Thursday photos before the weekend. This week J and I watched Tell it to the Bees (2018), a story of life in a small Scottish town in the early fifties, and the developing relationship between two lonely women, a struggling single mother abandoned by her abusive husband, and the doctor who has returned to inherit her father's practice and house. Lydia's son is fascinated with the doctor's bees, which bring the protagonists together and become the repository of secrets in a society where women who stray from accepted norms are quickly condemned and shunned. We both enjoyed it: it's well acted, and the cinematography and production design capture the period very well - I particularly enjoyed the costumes. It's based on a novel by Fiona Shaw, though with some significant changes, and we watched it on J's Disney+.