Consolations

A spot of illness being (like death in the old joke) Nature's way of telling you to slow down, it brings consolations with it. My recent bout gave me the opportunity to lie around reading Penelope Fitzgerald's letters (which are quite wonderful), to sit in the sun in the garden - and to do a good deal of productive and enjoyable gardening at a leisurely pace. Something about gardening feels so right, so natural - and it is immensely therapeutic to body and mind. Holly Blues are flying in all the gardens around here, with the odd Speckled Wood - and, not being able to get out for a proper butterfly walk, I thought that would be it. But no - in the scrubby grass bordering a path beside the railway (classic suburban edgeland), I spotted yesterday a Common blue, which obligingly landed for some minutes, wings folded, allowing me to make a firm identification while admiring its lapidary underwings. An uncommonly beautiful butterfly, the Common Blue - and that was my first of the year, taking my species count to 13, though I've yet to see a Tortoiseshell. There's a nice picture of a Common Blue on this post from last year. And now, busyness calls...