insects – don't confuse the narrator

bee aware

I’ve mentioned before KWP, the minister at the church my family attended when I was a little girl and the stories he used to tell. They were simple stories with morals, usually based around small domestic occurrences – like the Green Shield stamp that had lost its stickability and was therefore of little use. (The notion of “stickablity” as a value to be cultivated and encouraged has remained with me all my life.)

Once KWP told of having been in London with a friend who was an ardent nature lover. As they were walking, the friend suddenly stopped; he paused while the rest of the crowds surged past them, then turned and in a moment or two had located a tiny green grasshopper sitting on a kerbstone.
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May day (again)

It’s always hard to know what to celebrate on May Day bank holiday weekend. Should we be watching out for witches hastening through the dark on their broomsticks on Walpurgis night? Should we be lighting the beacons for Beltane? Crowning the Queen of the May? Or dancing round the Maypole in honour of the start of summer?

Or should we, perhaps, be celebrating International Workers’ Day?
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ruffled feathers

It’s autumn, and the hedgerows are bright with berries. But there are other flashes of red, too, competing with the bryony, hips and haws.

This feathery tangle is Robin’s pincushion, which I found on the wild roses around the racecourse.
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russet-brown pauses

Although life and work are gradually returning to some kind of normality, when weather and time permit, I continue my occasional walks over the local racecourse. It helps to clear the digital world from my mind and lungs, and offers me an opportunity to reset after spending so many hours sitting in the same chair, in front of the same screen.

But, unless I know I have plenty of time to focus on the world around me, I’m unlikely to bother to carry my camera. So although I like to keep a photographic record of the things I see, I have to rely on the camera on my phone, and the photos are not usually great quality. Still, they serve their purpose of reminding me of what I saw when, and sometimes they’re good enough to supply images for this blog.
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bug-eyed monsters

I wonder if schools and other organisations still give books to children as prizes if they do well in exams. Certainly it was common when I was a little girl. Somewhere among my books, I think I’d find ones awarded to my mother, as well, so it’s a practice that goes back a long way here in the UK.

The reason I am wondering is because I’ve been wishing I could find my Observer’s Book of Common Insects and Spiders, which was the book I claimed as my prize after doing well in a Scripture exam I must have taken through the Sunday School or Girls’ Brigade.
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