A Peacock

A Peacock butterfly

No, this is not a Peacock bird, it's a Peacock butterfly, a species native to the UK. I spotted it recently feeding on nectar from fragrant flowers in a garden in Fife, Scotland.

It was interesting to see a Peacock so far north. The butterfly gets its name from the eye-spots, similar to those on the tail of the bird. The butterfly probably has these spots because they increase the survival rate of the adults by scaring away predators or making them think this is an animal altogether too large to eat.

Maybe a predator would even think there are two animals as the Peacock has four 'eyes'!

Butterflies have been in very short supply this summer because of the wet summer last year. But numbers are increasing in this year's dry and warm weather. Good for the butterflies.

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A plant to remember by

Prunella grandiflora

I bought this plant at Cragside, a large house in Northumberland once the home of a famous engineer, Lord Armstrong.

We spent a while at Cragside on 17th August as we drove back south after a week in Fife with my daughters and their families.

Prunella grandiflora (Large Self-heal) likes moist conditions in partial shade and I've planted it next to our summerhouse where it will only receive late evening sunshine.

This one is a white-flowered cultivar and should be popular with bumblebees. I'm looking forward to seeing how well it grows.

It's good to collect plants from places I've been. The Self-heal will remind me of two visits to Cragside, one just recently and the first back in the mid 1980s.

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Fish and chips

Yummy fish and chips

Fish and chips is usually good, but tonight we had fish and chips that was utterly spectacular. We are on our way north for a week with the family and we stopped at Durham for the evening before driving to our motel in nearby South Shields.

We walked the city centre streets of Durham, visited Palace Green and the Cathedral, and had a look at the Lindisfarne Gospels exhibit (it's oustanding, by the way).

Then we stopped at Bells Restaurant for fish and chips. They were the best ever! Really delicious, beautifully cooked, nicely presented on fish-shaped plates, with friendly service thrown in for good measure. I thought I should share the photo.

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Hedge trimming

Belated hedge trimming

Keeping the world in order is a massive undertaking. If I wasn't here to manage my little part of it, it would manage itself - but probably not to my liking!

This photo of my garden hedge illustrates the problem perfectly. On the right is the part I've just trimmed. On the left is the part that I have still to do.

You wouldn't believe it, but earlier in the year it was all trimmed. However, hedges have a habit of growing and growing, and this year's warmth and rainfall has provided perfect growing conditions.

If only someone would breed a hedging plant that would grow to a designated height and width and would then just stop. That would be perfect.

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Jim and Pam's 25th

Party at Jim and Pam's

Tonight was Jim and Pam's 25th wedding anniversary.

Jim had prepared a big party for over a hundred guests, hosted in their house and garden. A marquee filled much of the garden with the rest of it pressed into service as a kitchen and serving area.

In one corner of the marquee was a disco. People congregated in the house itself as well as in the front and back gardens.

Children were happy to play on the bouncy castle in the front garden.

Many of the guests already knew one another, a reflection of Jim and Pam's widespread circles of friends, both church based and in the wider community.

Donna and I knew many of the people there through one route or another. It was a truly great evening and everyone had a lot of fun.

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Gibbous coffee

This cup of coffee is partly shaded, like a half moon. When a moon or planet is more than half illuminated it is said to be gibbous, hence a cup of gibbous coffee.

Coffee half shaded

Gibbous is astronomical jargon, a useful term with a precise meaning.

The coffee was part of our breakfast this morning at 'The Ambiance Cafe' in the Riverside Park in St Neots.

It's a popular place for people wanting a snack, a drink, an ice cream, or a simple meal, neatly and conveniently positioned between the car parking spaces and the grass and trees of the park itself.

After our breakfast and coffee/tea we headed off for a bench under a shady tree for the next part of 'The Forgotten Ways' by Alan Hirsch, a workbook we've been studying. This time we completed the section on the 'Missional-incarnational impulse' so we're ready next time to begin 'Apostolic environment'.

If this all sounds double-Dutch, please be reassured that it's most certainly not. It's actually a very interesting study on how church works and what makes it really fly. In a sense this book is telling us that we need to be fully in the light and not half in the dark, like the gibbous coffee.

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A new path

We had a new greenhouse recently; building it was all a bit of a saga - but that's another story...

New path in the garden

The area between the old greenhouse and the fence had always been something of a nightmare.

It was overgrown, the hedge that preceded the fence was wide and left little room, and the ground was full of broken glass, old concrete posts, rusted bits of ironwork, you name it!

But now it all looks a lot more promising. I've built a new path with a rustic stone step where the levels change. I also added a narrow border beside the greenhouse base.

The new path makes it easy to get from the back door to the summerhouse. It's been fun to do despite the hot weather.

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