More garden fauna...

Back to normality today, with a preliminary visit to a nearby woodland, in order to prepare a quote. It was quite rough going, with large areas covered with dense soaking wet stinging nettles and goosegrass and with many hidden fallen logs. I fell over once, which probably didn't do my back much good. My legs tingled the rest of the day, despite wearing thick trousers.

After the early rain, the sun came out in the afternoon, and I spent some time photographing more insects in the garden. This is a very common hoverfly that goes by the name of Eupeodes corollae, and it was one of several species of bee and fly feeding avidly on the perennial wallflower. Our list total is rising rapidly now - won't be long before we hit the 600 mark!

Lizzy joined us for a meal of roast gammon and Cumberland sauce (one of Alex's favourite meals) and we finished off with genuine Vietnamese coffe, which everyone enjoyed, and shredded nutmeg, which was a rather more unusual flavour - rather medicinal. Chris and Lizzy had bought back a surprising number of gifts, including wonderful wooden sculpture carved by the chief of the Iban tribe in the Bornean longhouse where they stayed for several days. The blow-pipe was also fascinating, and I surprised myself by having a surprisingly good aim!