The moth in the attic

I just unearthed a big box of Lego from the attic as part of our continuing early Spring clean, and inside it was this mummified Copper Underwing (or it may be a Svensson's CU; the difference is too close for me too tell).

Dead alas, but dead in a form which allows me to show you the reason for its name; something very hard to capture while the moth is alive.

Earlier today I achieved another of my Yorkshire Ambitions although quite unexpectedly. Joining friends for a walk around Eccup, that pleasantly-named hamlet on the north eastern edge of Leeds, we went close to the fake TV village used in the Emmerdale soap.

Here it is, complete with a red kite - one of many soaring around - inspecting possible carrion in a field of sheep. Before Yorkshire TV built the dummy deep in the grounds of Harewood House, the series was made at Esholt, the old Bradford sewage workers' village not far from our house. Because there was so much lanolin in Bradford's waste from the wool industry, the sewage works had huge presses to squeeze it out for makers of cosmetics - and, appropriately, soap.

You can't get nearer the fake one, I'm afraid, without loudspeakers starting up and ordering you off.