A Welcome Revisit

-
Hummingbird Hawk Moth - Image © Elsewhere


I almost forgot... I was talking to my neighbour this afternoon when suddenly a Hummingbird Hawk Moth hove into view and started feeding at the Honeysuckle on the fence. I haven't seen one of these beautiful creatures for around five years - we had a summer/autumn when there were dozens of them feeding in the garden: again the first time they had been spotted here. A truly wonderful thing to behold and a welcome distraction from the follies of our own species, at present.

Comments

  1. Joe Stoner31 August 2020 at 04:01

    As Kel knows I spent three "seasons" sailing and diving in the Med, coming home to earn the spondoolicks for the next "season". During one of these returns we were demolishing Shoreham Gas Works and Gordon & I witnessed the best sunset we'd ever seen from over 200ft up what could have been the set of "The end of the World" as we attacked it's giant, teetering steel frame with gas axes in gathering gloom. No safety helmets, rigging or boots just welding gloves, goggles, overalls and basketball boots, for verily we were very trendy and they gave reasonable support and grip! Health & Safety anyone!
    I've never seen such deep reds, greens and bright yellows it topped ALL that we'd seen in Cornwall and the Med. Wish I'd got photos:(((
    Reuben Woodford (Chairman of local fishig association) is telling me about the devastation that storm Francis (was it??) has wreaked: the redds have been stripped! The river, in parts, is down to the glacial scar-marks in the country rock! THAT was what I was hearing (for only the second time in thirty years) the boulders and gravel being ripped from the heart of the Ogwen! The subject line of our email thread is: "The government is looking the other way while Britain's rivers die before our eyes"!
    Public Money for Public Good anyone???

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Feedback & Wobbles

-
Image
Many years ago I came up with an analogy for poorly damped feedback loops. The feedback loop that prompted this frankly tart analogy was indeed a horror. Anyone who remembers shame-faced their first attempts at clutch control resulting in the good old kangaroo launch across the lights only to stall in the middle of the crossroads will have some idea of the kind of data transfer lag involved in said system. The analogy I made was that of a large blancmange. Untouched, a model of stasis and eminently stable and predictable; but prod the bugger and the resultant chaotic behaviour needs a very complex physical model and some very decent computing horsepower to predict its outputs, if at all. The system in question was a large and complex audio-visual display at what eventually became 'The Electric Mountain' in Llanberis. We were ultimately contracted to maintain the thing having been witness to and peripherally involved in its installation. Certainly not involved in its des...
Read more

A Time of Connection

-
Image
I was just reflecting on the vacuum of continuity that's left behind when someone dies: that sudden sense of disjoint, of fracture, in one's personal history that takes one completely by surprise at the oddest moments. These pinch-points in memory can often yield some surprising revelations of fact about periods in one's past. One such occurred to me tonight, tending my rather lazy meal of pizza in its journey from shrink-wrap to mouth via the oven. Al's recent demise still catches me out from time to time: the space he left bounded by forty plus years of friendship. But the thing that struck me tonight was just how much change was happening on a personal and social level in the very early years of our acquaintance. Between moving here from Birmingham in September 1980 and our buying our first proper house eighteen months later, all manner of things occurred that would chart the course of our lives to the present day. At around the time of our meeting Alan & Irene [...
Read more

Sister Ray

-
Image
Ray Keats - aka Ann Key - local artist & family friend, died this morning. She'd been ill for some years, but never let it get in the way of her work or of tending to the massive network of friends, colleagues and fans she had accumulated over the decades. Her house on the High Street of Rachub, just below where we live - a former cockle factory(!) - bought many years ago when she and her late husband Ronald moved here from Manchester to set up home in Yr Achub, is currently still home to her paintings and drawings, and the front window displays her work, including the last drawing she made in hospital, just days before she died. Her good friend Colin has been a diamond in her latter years, looking out for her and just being there when she needed him. She will be much missed by this tiny community of ageing bohemians up here in the hills, but suffice it to say, George, her cat, will be well looked after now she's gone.
Read more