Pottering

 Pete's funeral service, over at Margate Crematorium on Thursday 1st July, was a superbly well conducted event. The "life celebrant", Michael, who did the speaking ensured that the entire process was a respectful, yet very positive, experience for all those in attendance. A couple of "light ales" at The Racing Greyhound followed and everyone agreed that Pete would have been happy with this send-off. At 09.00 hrs, next morning, Bev & I were in the car headed for Rotherham, stopping en route to pick up Debbie, Bev's daughter, then embarking on the delights offered by the M2, M25 and M1 - oh what joy! To be fair, it was little more than four hours before we'd arrived at our destination and got booked in to the Premier Inn. As I alluded to in my previous post, this journey was undertaken in order to scatter Bev's mums' ashes at the family plot in East Herringthorpe cemetery and have a family gathering which had been denied us at the time of her death due to travel restrictions imposed by the pandemic. Sadly, the weather meant that only Debbie, Bev & I were able to visit the cemetery, but our afternoon celebration in The Tabard PH, just up the road, was a brilliant success full of joy and humour. The first time we've been together since Bev's dad passed away. We are in need of a wedding in the family. Back to the hotel in plenty of time for the football. We had the place to ourselves and thoroughly enjoyed the game without the usual stresses of an England underperformance. A few other lads joined us for the second half and the atmosphere was great as events unfolded. Smiling faces said it all, even at 06.00 hrs, next morning when the bloody fire alarm went off. We were back home by 15.00 hrs very pleased with the way events panned out, all involved seemed to have a similar opinion. 

The first thing I did, on arriving home, was to check the state of our garden plants. Since the original lockdown, and even more so now retired, I've become rather involved with ensuring our garden has some colour. Caring for the hanging baskets and a motley array of pots (on stands so they don't mark the lawn) has become part of my daily routine. I was slightly worried that they would suffer dehydration, I shouldn't have been as I soon discovered. A decent night's kip and now we can start to get back to some form of routine, knowing that we've done our bit in getting Denise reunited with her family in their beloved Yorkshire.

Thanks to an anonymous comment I now know that this
creature is Rhagoletis alternata - a Rose-hip Fly.
Not an uncommon species but, understandably, easily overlooked thus under recorded?

So there I was, this morning, pottering about with the watering can and secateurs when I discovered a very, strange looking, small, orange fly with rather spectacularly marked wings. I grabbed my camera and managed to secure some images which might allow someone, far more knowledgeable than I, to id it. I certainly haven't, knowingly, seen one previously. Whilst I had the kit to hand I began clicking away at some of the other insects using the dog rose and honeysuckle hedge. Three very common hoverflies were quickly "in the can" when I spotted a small damselfly perched nearby. I clicked away, merrily, thinking it would be a Common Blue Damselfly only to be found somewhat bemused when I checked the images against those posted by Marc Heath - Kent's very own Mr Dragonfly. To the best of my, very limited, ability I'm going with Red-eyed Damselfly which, if correct, is a new species for the garden and almost certainly present due to my neighbour, Barbara, having a, hedgehog friendly, pond.

Hopefully I'll be back out with the rods very soon and my blogging will, once again, have a more regular pattern.