Golden dollars

These curious things caught my eye on on this brilliantly sunny but cold - almost frosty - morning and for a moment I couldn't think what they were. Some exciting new tiny beetle? Or vast moth eggs? It took a closer look to recognise the seeds of Honesty gleaming like gold as they nest in half of their 'silver dollar' pod. More of my regular material for sermons there.

Soon they were joined on the lichen-covered Oxfordshire stone wall by this sleepyhead: a Flounced Rustic looking like a Glastonbury festivalgoer curled up in his or her travelling rug brought back from gap year adventures abroad. Here it is again, this time as a contemplative member of the Jedi Council in Star Wars.

Aren't I the metaphor man this morning..?   To bring me back to earth, 94-year-old Mum-in-law came zooming back yesterday evening to our cosy sesh with the last night of the Proms - excellent American conductor Marin Alsop amazingly the first woman to do the job since they started in 1895. I dedicate my Honesty gold to her. "There's an interesting moth in the loo," said Mum-in-law who is opne of my top moth spies, along with P. Here it is, with previously un-noticed flecks of red paint from our recent amateur but dramatic redecoration. Another Rustic of some kind?  I shall to the books.