Getting there - slowly!

Bev has now had her first two radiotherapy sessions, with just three more to go before the treatment is completed. However, because it is a Bank Holiday weekend, we're not back to the Kent & Canterbury Hospital until Tuesday, thus have to return on Wednesday and Thursday before this saga is completed. Once through this caper, we're are hopeful that a break on Corfu will be possible, although we've not made any arrangements due to simply not knowing how Bev will react to the treatment? Hopefully, the Irene Apartments in Agios Gordios will be able to accomodate us for a fortnight, or more, after mid-September.

Benno has really started to get into the rhythm of fishing at Stonar Lake, taking some nice Rudd and Bream, plus a couple of (very) small Eels for his efforts. Me? Just a single Bream! It would appear that my angling efforts, for this Summer, are doomed to failure purely because of other priorities. I simply can't spend hours away from Bev when her anxiety levels are causing real issues. Fortunately, the C&DAA venues down at Minster are close enough for me to spend a couple of hours with a bait in the water, confident that there is a realistic chance of getting some action whilst also having the ability to get back home within twenty minutes should Bev need my assistance. This afternoon, I arrived a Brook Lake just before 14.00 hrs and, having soaked my landing net and un-hooking mat, was fishing within half an hour. By 16.30 hrs, I had landed a dozen, or so, small Carp using free lined floating wholemeal cubes,, the best one being an absolutely stunning linear Mirror of 11 lbs 8 oz (or there abouts). 

The fact that I took this photo in dappled sunlight is a magazine editor's nightmare.
I actually quite like the result.

The garden moth trap continues to provide the majority of my daily wildlife fixes, with the Hedgehogs putting on a very nice sideshow most evenings. I am indebted to the contributors at  Folkestone Birds and Sandwich Bay Obs websites for their regular, moth related, up-dates. Not that I'll ever be able to compete with them with my pitiful lack of id skills, I simply enjoy seeing what species might be possibly attracted to the trap knowing what's being recorded elsewhere around the Kent coastline. A few decent moths have graced the egg trays recently. Golden Twin-spot is obviously top of the pile, yet Maple Prominent and Yellow Belle were also new for the year.

Golden Twin-spot 

I have to admit to being quite taken by Ian Hunter's assessment of the impact the recent "Blue Moon" had on the effectiveness of the Obs moth trap. On that same night, and admitting that diversity was certainly depleted, I recorded over 200 Common Wainscot (agg) plus good numbers of Setaceous Hebrew Character and Straw Underwings. All very strange as our locations are probably five, or six, miles apart - as the crow flies!

Yellow Belle

Maple Prominent