Here we go again

Cinnabar in sunshine, like someone trying on an oversize anorak in a Keswick outdoors shop. Today's job: clean the greenhouse windows

Coincidences are fascinating, inspiring such luminaries as Arthur Koestler to pay them attention and speculate on whether and if so how the brain creates a 'series' in some cases and not in others.

Cinnabar in shade - more like a minor Catholic dignitary attending yesterday's Cardinal Beetle. Note how torn right forewing reveals extra strip of red from underwing. Like the subtle changes we used to make to improve school uniform.

Here's an example: the Cinnabar Moth, which featured on the blog five days ago for the first time since I mused about one which I found dead in our greenhouse in Leeds in May two years ago.

Next thing, Penny and I find ourselves talking at a very enjoyable canal fete in Thrupp with a nice couple who own a narrowboat called 'Cinnabar' - and discover that she is named after the moth because it's abundant in nearby fields. Then yesterday's post involved the Red-headed Cardinal Beetle which at first - in flight - I took to be a Cinnabar or Burnet moth because of the blur of red and black as it zoomed along.

Now, what do we have in our greenhouse here but...the Cinnabar above, photographed in light and shade to show that the camera does indeed lie, or at least presents two version of the truth. The effect of heat in greenhouses on insects which probably did for the Leeds Cinnabar was also shown here yesterday; a final coincidence. It is the only way I can account for the sad fate of this Green-veined White which Penny discovered on the floor beside my daughter-in-law's gift of a small but sturdy tomato plant.

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