Wednesday, May 02, 2007

Holly blue, clothes dance, guess who

A holly blue butterfly hovers round the hedge in out garden. The book, which I use to identify it says that the adults drink "honeydew, sap and juices of carrion".

From the platform of Sevenoaks station, I watch one of those circular, rotating clothes airers, which you unfold and erect in gardens. Partly hidden by shrubs, the clothes which are drying on it, in the stiff wind, resemble people engaged in an endless circular dance. Round and round they go, crowding and pushing one another as in the hokey-cokey.

In the train today a group of young people play a guess-who game. Each has a label stuck on his or her forehead with the name of a person or thing, and has to ask the others question to find out what identity they have been given - a jolly train.

2 comments:

tristan said...

i bet you know how to do the lambeth walk !

Cady May said...

"the juices of carrion" what an apt description of that sticky sweet smell of something dead in the woods, at that certain time in its decomposition when it attracks butterflys and the not morbidly curious naturalist, hoping to garner clues of life and death.
Thank you! for all your posts, such clear visuals from words!