Flying Cows

Lesser Yellow Underwing larva (Noctua comes)

Captain Butterfly has returned from his expedition to Hampshire with a moth larva he found somewhere in the uncharted wilderness...    It is now hatching out on our balcony. 

It is a Lesser Yellow Underwing, he says. But how can he be sure?   What will it hatch into?  Has he not watched "Alien" - many times?

Lesser Yellow Underwing

We had a muddled, but lovely, morning on the field service yesterday.  Three of us, in my car, weather against us, doing return visits.   None of my visits were remarkably successful. But at least I tried. And we went to Jean's for tea afterwards.

Though, as they warn you about old age, its hard to remember what you did yesterday, or even what you have just had for your lunch.  Though in my case its nearly always safe to say veggie soup.  In  fact I was up very early this morning making the soup for lunch as we have a visit from the plumber, and who knows how long the water will be off?

Anyway - what was I saying? - oh yes, I remember, memory.   What have I been doing?  It was a hospital and pharmacy day on Monday - still trying to find out if this eczema is induced by my fearsome arthritis medication, or by something else.

But if yesterday has vanished, things from the past do come back vividly.  And the other day I was thinking about the craze for autographs that swept through my 1950s primary convent school.We all had autograph books.

I remember only two contributions. But I remember them vividly.

This was my granny Margaret's contribution (she was a wonderful granny in her way, but not a cosy one).  I may have blogged it before, but it seems worth repeating.

Here lies the body of Andrew Jay
Who died maintaining his right of way
He was right, dead right, as he sped along
But he's just as dead now as if he'd been wrong.

(The picture of a little tombstone accompanied the poem - as I said she was not a cosy granny).

Its a good life lesson too.  It is not always the course of wisdom to stand upon our rights.  Which is a lesson that harmonises with the teaching in the Christian Greek Scriptures. So thank you Granny. And I hope I will see you again one day.

And I have no idea whose autograph accompanied this one, but I remember the rhyme.

Once a bird, flying high,
dropped some whitewash in my eye
I don't scream, I don't cry
I'm just glad that cows don't fly.

It could have been contributed by my best friend Janie. If so I must have kept my autograph album going into the early sixties, when she and her family moved in next door.   I hope I will see her again one day too.