Painted Lady 2

Three or four years ago, I did not see a single butterfly until late in the year, and then there was just a few flutterers. But this year there has been a plethora of butterflies in Coldstream, in the Scottish Borders.  The path called Nuns Walk, which rises high above River Tweed, is lined with buddleia bushes (beneath which is a sheer drop), and these bushes have been full of butterflies, feasting on the buddleia as its blossoms begin to turn brown.  There have been many peacocks, and small tortoishells, and painted ladies, cabbage whites and red admirals.  My husband also saw a ringlet up there.  There are butterflies in the garden too, and yesterday I saw a big yellow moth feeding on the buddleia just outside my studio window.

Painted Lady 1

The Midnight Hare and Milo

“Then they were flying, over the fields and towers and hills of the Borderlands.”

Thistle Visitors

La Belle Abeille au Derriere Blanc

or in other words, a white-bummed bumblebee…

River Leet

Went past this spot yesterday, after heavy rain overnight, and all I could see was a couple of green leaves sticking up out of the swirls of brown water.

Shadow of the Geranium

 

“Shadow of the Geranium” feels like the title of a South American magical realist novel. Maybe I should have it as the title of a book I mean to write some time with Brighton in the 60s as its setting, though I am not quite sure how I will weave in the geranium. The scent of the leaves reminds me of the terrace outside my Granny’s house in Chailey, Sussex. These geraniums are in the window-boxes outside out kitchen window, and sometimes the afternoon sun strikes the net curtains in a particular way.

 

 

Tortoishell on the Wasteland

Swan on the River in August

Leaves on the Water