Signs of Spring in the Thames valley: solitary bee, first Brimstone, lark, harlequin ladybirds. In the Wargrave chalk pit except the lark, above farmland near Crazies Hill
23.02.2026 09:08
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Signs of Spring in the Thames valley: solitary bee, first Brimstone, lark, harlequin ladybirds. In the Wargrave chalk pit except the lark, above farmland near Crazies Hill
Things that seem at once miraculous and inevitable. Such are the processes of the earth. I am currently reading Clarence Ellis' spotter's guide to 'The Pebbles on the Beach' (Faber's reprint 2018 of the 1954 first edition) AND Jon Cannon's 'Stones of Britain'. Lithophiliacs like you.
Of course you still have it. I watch a lot of streamed cycling: you and Robbie McEwen are the best commentary team around. You hit that gold standard of being worth listening to without the pictures.
I should add that this was the AI's second try. After it made a series of guesses, I gave it a negative feedback cross, and tried again to see how it would respond. This was it, and not much better. The website 'The Rose Window' features a photo of this Satan.
In the V&A. Satan tempting Christ to turn the stone he holds into bread, detail in a panel from cloisters at Mariawald, c.1521. Google's AI confidently identifies it as showing St Augustine.
Model and artist, V&A. Virgin and Child by an unknown artist, limewood, probably Salzburg, c.1480. She has probably been carved to be viewed from far below: she is certainly looking down, and her head would look in proportion. Will she give her blessing? Her expression is not very encouraging.
Wonderful programmes fronted by a native to the place, observant and fascinated by all the life and past lives of the wild and high Donegal coast. Top quality wildlife filming, without the mixture of parade and anxiety of the BBC, and a presenter with a very real personality - plus a very fine dog.
Rotation. Still morning reflections, Cock Marsh. (90 degrees right pleases me most: the reflection being more real than the tree, and the quasi-Chinese signature bottom right.)
Interesting! An opera stage set design (for an 'Electra' composed by JCF Haeffner). It incorporates many elements from witchcraft images (vaults, smoke, tripodic braziers, etc). In general, witchcraft became a stage and opera favourite trope. The Drottningholm Court Theatre survives, fabulously.
Snowdrops, crocuses and a first daffodil at the Wargrave Chalk Pit. The gardener who looks after the cemetery area once told me that the old quarry is two degrees warmer than the surrounding area in winter, two degrees cooler in summer.
Max Cencic as Monteverdi's Nero, looking as if Sonya Yoncheva's voluptuous Poppea has already frazzled him. Singing "Pur ti miro, pur ti godo" ('I adore you, I embrace you'), they advance downstage, having sex in acoustic form. www.youtube.com/watch?v=oADm...
Off my usual patch, and I may be 71, but I can still recognise a total banger, and can still manage not to resent the young being young, energetic, and talented. Haute and Freddy, 'Dance the pain away'. feat. students of the Hollywood Dance Centre: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1BhJ...
Two beautiful pebbles (or specimens). Each one of your finds takes me for a moment to that wild shore you haunt so attentively.
The latest from Le Musée d’Orsay's 'Box of Nuggets'. Performers of Freda Swain's 1950 piano quartet about the sea, dropped digitally into Henri-Edmond Cross's painting, Après-midi à Pardigon. Amid the AI dross on YouTube, a precious nugget of human creativity. Look at the resources put in play here!
I saw him on the Wired YouTube Channel, 'Ask an expert'. He's at least 33% comedian: a wind-up merchant and a tease. The etiquette schtick is the character he lives in. Rage bait in human form, he yearns to make far worthier folk angry with him.
Shortly after the mass start, the groups of participants begin to split.
The front group of the race on the sands. Once a rider falls behind the group, there is no way back.
The chasing group, the leading trio vanished from sight.
Trying to avoid wet cold feet, a rider lifts his front wheel into a shallow beach watercourse.
23.11.25, the De Panne Beach Endurance race. Mass start into the vast horizontals, the lead group soon heading into vanishing point. 52km of being sandblasted with wet sand. Cycling at its most existential: no landscape, just an illimitable surface. Wonderful spectacle.
A Peacock butterfly in machine embroidery.
A Swallowtail butterfly in Machine embroidery. The original is approximately twice life size.
Detail of the stitching, capturing the texture and shine of the scales.
The artist does the iridescent elements in metallic thread.
Textile Art butterflies by Paula Robinson (Freehand machine embroidery). She represents her subjects as accurately as possible, without fantasy. Insects are intricately textured things. (I had gone to a Xmas Craft Fair, intending to buy presents for others.) Look for thelittlebunnystudio.co.uk
Excellent! I had never seen this, quite an oddity. Jupiter, painting, seems to have his eyes shut, rapt in his creative vision. His thunderbolts are at his feet, but the otherwise the god looks more like a portrait of a real person. For pedantry points, I assert that it's a butterfly and two moths.
The photograph shows a long perspective under medium growth trees planted to form an avenue in 2007.
Roe dear herd, seen through the trees.
View back up the avenue of nut trees to the stile at the entrance.
Roe deer, wary, but not frightened away.
Down the Nut Walk, near Crazies Hill, today Nov 4th. Cob nuts, hazel, sweet chestnut and walnut saplings were planted in 2007. It's beautiful. Roe deer in the fields to either side.
Delaminated headstone, Sonning churchyard. Leica Monochrome setting, Lumix G9ii.
Large Ganoderma bracket fungi on a tree stump
I was separated from the fungi by spiked railings, so could not try the white underside as an artist's medium (I believe this is Artist's Bracket). In Africa, Gorillas eagerly consume it - possibly for health benefits?
The image includes dead burr growth on a Chestnut tree stump, and Fairy Inkcap fungi (plus the corner of a cast iron grave marker). Sonning Churchyard, Berkshire.
Detail of previous image.
Fungal textures: Artist's Bracket (?) on a tree stump, Fairy inkcaps on decayed burr wood, intricate as a Bosch painting of hell.
Sonning Lock, Berkshire side.
A detail from Millais' famous painting of Ophelia - one that often gets cropped out. A robin surveys the tragic scene with its beady eye. Being just a robin, it does not share in the pathos.
This robin is a detail in a painting, one which I hadn't noticed before. Can you think what famous scene it is in? Answer in Alt Text.
Hedgehog fungus. The mycologist in charge was trying to id a rather nondescript group of fungi, picked one, and was a little embarrassed - and delighted - to discover what it was.
Giant Club. Our guide had been told years ago that these spore shooting fungi grew under a particular beech tree, and had looked for them for years. 2025 delivered this rarity.
Warted amanita. It has just thrust up through the soil, and soil particles are visible.
Blue Roundhead. The most striking I have ever seen - it is the reserve's speciality fungus.
The Warburg reserve, where I volunteer on Fridays, has always been famous for its fungi. A guided walk yesterday revealed some fine examples. IDs in Alt text #fungi
I hope this bunny is called 'Pierrot'.
A photograph of a fungus, a Stocking Webcap, taken from ground level to show its bulbous stipe and rich-coloured gills.
Stocking Webcap (Cortinarius torvus) at the Hurley Chalk Pit reserve today. Such a sculptural, colourful fungus, and not common. In an attempt to do it full justice, I focus-bracketed and then image stacked using focusstackingonline.com
After I gave up on Twitter/X I missed your posts. I'm so pleased to connect again to your photos and films of all the significant things, living or long dead, that can be found in your superlative stretch of coast - and your informed wonder at it all.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=6THV... From the Musee D'Orsay's delightful 'box of nuggets' series of works by 19th-20th century women composers, Louise Héritte-Viardot's 'Flies and butterflies' movement, with the performers digitally dropped into Berthe Morisot's 'Butterfly chase' painting.
After Martha www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4... I have read a lot or prose in my time. This, though written in deep grief, is exceptional for its dignity, seriousness, and effectiveness. The power of this indictment of a hospital hierarchy that could not be questioned - hence, rightly, 'Martha's law'.
