Soldier

After blipping a wide, extravagant landscape yesterday, today's blip is at the other extreme. I went to the butterfly meadow at the local nature reserve this morning specifically to get some pictures of butterflies. The sun was beating down, even at ten o'clock and - joy of joys - there were some butterflies!

Unfortunately, as I watched them, the just flitted down into the grass and then up again, moving round the meadow, but without landing. Slowly it dawned on me - as two came together, swirled around each other and then moved apart and continued flying around - they were mating flights.

It was pretty impossible to catch them in flight and I spent a frustrating half an hour trying. Then, two got together and landed and I got some great shots of them mating.

As I looked more closely at the flowers, I noticed movement and closer inspection showed a variety of insects moving from flower to flower. I took about two hundred and fifty pictures altogether, and some of them were even in focus!

I blipped this one after editing and cropping to show the details, but the colours are just as I saw them through the viewfinder.

In the afternoon, I worked on filling in forms. My daughter's National Savings Bonds had matured, so I filled in the form to get them back. Whilst looking for information for this form, I found a certificate for some bonds which my father-in-law had set up for him back in about 1994. Unfortuately, it had his name and address on it and they moved away from there shortly afterwards and he passed away about ten years ago, so we have had no communication or updates for almost twenty years. Should be an interesting letter.

The other letter was for my wife. Apparently John Rutter is coming to Tavistock and will be running a workshop for local singers and my wife and daughter have signed up. She is absolutely thrilled at the idea. I almost missed the last post and had to run (or at least make a clumsy stagger) to catch the postman as he emptied the box.

Tomorrow is my mother-in-law's next appointment at the eye infirmary, so that will be my afternoon taken care of.