30 Days Wild - bees and other crawly things

The interweb informs me that this is an orb weaver spider, spotted in the ferns by the back door because of its lovely golden body. 

Have seen several ladybirds, and that's exciting as there have been none previous years and I even purchased larvae in an attempt to deal with the aphid issue. There were some crawlies on my only rose bush so I just wiped them away but hopefully the ecosystem will help protect it too.

I popped to Hulme Garden Centre on the off chance of finding some preloved planters, and was very well behaved and did not buy plants. I did browse the gardens for quite a while though and watched the bees, and managed to catch a photo of a red-tailed bumble bee (who apparently favour yellow flowers).

Then having read the descriptions more closely in the bee spotting guide I spotted several furrow bees in the yard yesterday. She is right, you would dismiss them as some kind of fly, but as you watch you realise their behaviour is more bee-like (excuse photo, will try and get a better one)

And I'm going to add this photo because the light is so good and you can see the veins on both the bee wings and the flower petals, just exquisite:

Stay safe. Be kind. Save a bee from a spiderweb and watch him crawl up your arm!

Don't Touch

Dunk and I went out over the bank holiday to the Hepworth Gallery in Wakefield after I saw a review of the Sheila Hicks exhibition. While it was worth the trip, I am left bemused by artists who create works where texture is an important feature, only to find that you cannot touch anything.

They were huge and visually striking but nothing that was particularly thought provoking, that I tend to feel is important in art. It is work that raises questions about the lines between art and craft. There were many small weavings that were nothing special, and I have seem similar and more interesting things on Etsy. We then stepped to the next gallery to find, naturally, Barbara Hepworth,

and Henry Moore,

who also tend to suffer from the 'no touching' instruction, because both artists create forms which just beg to be touched.

But my favourite artwork was this one, by Ithel Colquhoun. The sign next to it informed me that it was snuck into an exhibition in Bradford in 1943 under the title 'Tree anatomy', and nobody questioned its presence:

Meanwhile in Japan, Monkey was at a gallery too, but no vaginas there:

Stay safe. Be kind. Look closely, things are not always what they first appear.

(Found art, at Leeds station, tentatively entitled, 'Squashed squirrel')

The Empress and the Cake

'The Empress and the Cake' by Linda Stift (translated by Jamie Bulloch, who has a much more extensive wiki entry) was an impulse purchased based on the title and the pretty cover. And it was wonderfully sinister ... no, that's the wrong word. Creepy? Disturbing? I'm not sure how to describe it. A young woman is offered cake by a peculiar elderly lady outside a patisserie, which sets off a chain of increasingly weird events and situations from which she finds she is unable to extricate herself. It's the kind of book where you don't want to give too much away. It's a very character driven book; the 'Empress' Frau Hohenembs, her servant Ida and the young (unnamed?) woman. The young woman, by the arrival of cake in her life, is tipped back into a lifestyle she thought tentatively that she had escaped (this is very disturbing and the first of many such description):

"I picked out a knife from the drawer and let it slide slowly through the Gugelhupf. I ate the slice standing up. The soft, slightly crumbly mass spread to all corners of my mouth. I could taste cocoa powder and lemon zest, with a hint of vanilla. I cut the next slice slightly thicker. On the third I spread apricot jam, which had stood unopened in the fridge for two years, and the forth I dipped into a jumbo mug of cold chocolate, which I had made myself. I cut the final piece into two and held a slice in each hand, both thickly buttered, then took alternate bites from them while squatting down to inspect the fridge. I took out everything that was more or less edible and ate it, rapidly and silently. I was abandoned by the day. A faint trance descended onto me like a silk cloth. I went into the bathroom and regurgitated the whole lot. The grotesque face of my abnormality, which had lain dormant within me, resurfaced. It was the first time in fifteen years. I had always known that there was no safety net. But I hadn't suspected that it would arrive so unspectacularly, that it would not be preceded by a disaster such as heartbreak or dismissal or a death. It was as if I'd absent-mindedly taken the wrong path when out for a walk." (p.23)

The three of them begin a series of 'outings' that become robberies, which simply makes her vulnerable to more extortion by the old lady. It descends into a sense of unreality pretty quickly, and the woman is so consumed by self-hatred and disgust that she does not even contact her only friend and is sucked into this new existence.

"Please call 55 60 600 as soon as possible. yours, Frau Hohenembs. I anticipated that this brazenly requested conversation would be about the duck press. Of course, I should have guessed that it was Ida creeping round my door, irresponsibly putting me in danger. I had no intention of calling. But I suspect Frau Hohenembs would not give up; she'd probably make Ida camp outside my flat until we'd spoken. Carefully adjusting one of the venetian blinds, I peered through the horizontal slats at the park over the road, but couldn't see anything suspicious. Only that the blinds urgently needed cleaning. A young woman was sitting on the bench with several supermarket shopping bags. She was looking vacantly up at my windows. Either she seemed to be pondering something or she was just staring into thin air, as people put it so nicely. I had the unpleasant impression that she looked similar to me, even though she was too far away for me to be able to see her features properly. There was something in the way she sat that unsettled me; it could have been me sitting there like that." (p.58)

It pushes on to a thoroughly satisfying denouement. A wonderful random find.

Stay safe. Be kind. Trust your gut.

30 Days Wild - scrub land

I like the fact that nature finds a way in some of the most unpromising of spaces. Wildflowers will pop up as soon as the human beings vacate. This patch of scrub land was being used as a storage area for builders working on the block across the road. Since they finished it has just been left, and the last two summers the poppies have taken over and given a vibrant display. It's right outside the gym window so I just jog on the cross trainer and admire the view.

Then Dunk and I went on an outing on Friday and it was lovely to just gaze out at all the wildflowers growing in the waste land alongside the tracks. Apparently, during the steam era, Dunk tells me (because he is an old bloke and remembers), they always had to clear the land alongside the railways for fear of sparks starting fires in the undergrowth, whereas now it feels like they act as corridors of greenery. (Hard to get a decent photo as I had to wait for the train to slow down so missed the best bits).

Stay safe. Be kind. Look out of the window.

God save the queen?

When I was a child my dad bought two souvenir coronation money boxes from some stall on Neston market for my sister and me. They are both pretty battered and well used now, and probably worth at least £1.50. But my links to the royal family go back much further than that. Here is my wonderful mum, born in 1936, youngest of four daughters, and named Elizabeth Margaret for the two little princesses. I find it interesting that my grandparents so admired the royals that they named their daughter for them, and yet Elizabeth herself chooses to barely acknowledge that my mum is an independent human being.

Here is my only correspondence with her from 2018 which to me represents a woman who remains stuck in the past while the world has changed around her. I read in the Guardian recently a comment by Peter Tatchell, on refusing to participate in the jubilee events, "To my knowledge, [the Queen] has never publicly acknowledged that LGBT+ people exist. The words lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender have never publicly passed her lips and she has never visited or been a patron of any LBGT+ charity.":

The government meanwhile is apparently spending £12million on books for primary schools, but all the same one, that celebrates the life of the queen. Amid all this excitement, and teaching resources directed towards this jubilee, I wonder if, in pursuit of a broad and balance curriculum, schools will be discussing the many potential alternatives to a constitutional monarchy. It feels anachronistic that in the 21st century we still treat these mere human beings as if they are special, as if they have some quality that the rest of us lack. What they have done, for the last thousand years, is to acquire land, property, wealth and resources, and given these things out to their friends and family to reinforce their own power and position. And somehow they have persuaded us ordinary people to come out and wave tiny flags and cheer them as they go by. I also read a report concerning the lack of tree cover on royal land and the refusal by the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall to discuss afforestation or consider the rewilding of some of their extensive estates. These are vast areas of the country, stolen over the centuries by people with might on their side. And while it's nice to know that the hospitality industry is getting a boost from the celebrations, I feel more depressed by the plastic bunting and balloons that are going to be joining landfill on Monday. 

David Allen Green's Law and Policy blog has this most thought provoking post today concerning the jubilee and the role of the monarchy in our society, making his usual well argued case for careful consideration before taking action. I can't make a strong case for a republic. She is a symbol of the power of the status quo; it's always been like this so lets just leave well alone. I simply abhor the blinkered patriotism that the royal family engender, and mix in a bit of anointment by the almighty, and there is nothing to particularly make me grateful for the presence of this little old lady, one of the richest women in the world, who has nodded and smiled her way across the planet and back again, but who, when it comes down to it, is just a human being like the rest of us. 

Stay safe. Be kind. Consider the alternatives.

30 Days Wild - Night crawlers

Excuse the dark photos but I captured this surreal image on my slug hunt on Tuesday. I had not idea that worms could climb. I have a whole new respect for their mountaineering exploits. He was just held in place by his own slime and seemed to be heading somewhere with intent.

Then we were sitting last night and I spotted Dunk had a visitor on the living room window (on the second floor). I have to assume it was a slug egg lurking in some compost or maybe bought in with one of his recently acquired plants. Dunk dropped it out of the window ... but I'm sure he'll be back.

Stay safe. Be kind. Respect the slimy ones.

30 Days Wild - Bee sex

So I thought I would try and join in with 30 Days Wild with the Wildlife Trusts again this year. I mean, I have to go to work a lot so often don't have time to go exploring the great outdoors but I have my little patch of greenery that brings nature to my back door. 

Sitting out the other afternoon, just counting the bees on the physocarpus opulifolius when I spotted what I thought was a very fat bumblebee. It turned out to be two bumblebees. Tree bumblebees to be precise, according to the Urban Bees website (who will send you regular update on bee identification if you sign up). 

This is what they look like close up:

I am determined to learn some more about bees this summer. There were actually two species on the bush, the tree bumblebee and the white tailed bumblebee. There were different sized ones of both species but it seems in general with bees the males are the smaller ones.

And sometimes the flowers just come in handy as protection from a Manchester downpour:

Meanwhile in Japan ... fire walking:

Stay safe. Be kind. Watch where you tread.