A personal best

This week work has been particularly demanding with the weekend eating up 28 hours plus. During the week I was either recovering before my evening shifts or attending day time meetings but such is life and I enjoy the variety my work throws at me, never quite knowing what will be in front of me as I start my shift. So yesterday was my first swim for 10 days and time was short. I almost didn’t go as there is much to do around house and garden but hey ho that is not going to go away and will be there for another day.

I started badly and was going to give up after a couple of turns of the bay but then something kicked in and I got into the rhythm completing the distance whilst fulmars skimmed over me and the sun shone . It felt wonderful and I would have liked to stay for more, maybe a seal would arrive or I would see dolphins further out but work beckoned. A quick time check revealed that I had managed the distance in approximately 30 minutes. I don’t have a stop watch so this is approximate but it is certainly the way I want to head and although conditions were benign and very unlike what is ahead of me it does give me a bit of a margin.

it was near perfect weather. The walk to Hackley Bay was exceptionally beautiful with the wild flowers appearing in their best. Lady’s bedstraw, speedwell, thyme and orchid by the bucket-load. The violas are still going strong and whilst the thrift is beginning to show signs of age it still waves its purple head as I pass. Here and there lousewort flowers are less showy but add a splash of pink to the picture. I come across a huge patch of butterwort in a damp runnel, their purple flower spike rising above the pale lemon coloured “starfish” leaves. The zygomorphic flowers of eyebright (the flower that figures on my JMT calendar for June) are relative easy to spot with their pouting lower lip. Patches of bell heather flower in drier spots with its relative the cross-leaved heath in the damper areas. Bright green crowberry with their shiny black berries against pale grey lichens show that nothing can beat nature’s colour scheme. Then there are the lemon flowers of the mouse-eared hawkweed that bring to mind my good friend and former walking companion, Heather who is always on the lookout for this particular hawkweed.

I didn’t have time to stop for photographs although if I had spotted a small copper (butterfly) I may have been tempted. On this front there were a few small heath butterflies, a dark green fritillary and various micro moths. This is disappointing. April and early May seemed exceptionally good for butterflies with the overwintering species making a strong start but perhaps the run of stormy weather set other species back. Still like me they have a couple of months to improve!

 Dark green fritillary taken a couple of years ago