Packing-up postponed

I was going to say that our revels now are ending. But even in the Lake District, the weather has been astonishingly mild and I'm minded to keep the trap going for the next few days, back in Leeds. Last night we all went out to eat at the Woolpack near Brotherilkeld, at the foot of the great, wild curve of upper Eskdale, and although it was blowy, the wind was as balmy as in the South Seas. During a day's round of Burnmoor Tarn, the lofty heights above Wastdale's Screes and back up lost little Mitredale, we found plenty more Broom Moth caterpillars around, an elusive brown, dotted moth jittering about in the bracken in daylight (any identification ideas, anyone?), and a Comma resting on a Forestry Commission warning sign about tree-felling. In the evening, yet another Small Tortoiseshell fluttered into Penny's and my bedroom and came to rest on Barbara Kingsolver's The Lacuna (above). There's a great, human and instructive read, as the butterfly seemed to know.

Kingsolver btw is the sister-in-law of a very nice American academic called Mark Whitaker who has written a biography/analysis of the murdered Sri Lankan journalist Sivaram Dharmaratnam, younger brother of my in-law Suri and Uncle of our Tom's lovely Abi, supplier of interesting news of moths to this blog from Mexico City. I live in hope of meeting BK one day. Details of Mark's book are on www.amazon.co.uk/Learning-Politics-Sivaram-Revolutionary-Anthropology/dp/0745323537