Once again we have been visited by some weird and wonderful creatures. Like this scary looking cricket (?) ................... whooa.
Crickets are supposed to look like this; green and delicate and Jiminy-like.
Talking of green, our little tree frog has turned up on the terrace a couple of times recently.....
....and a couple of copulating dragon flies dropped in on us (rather inappropriately) while we were having lunch.
And our mild mannered lizard.......................
...................actually turns out to be a bit of a psycho.
But what on earth was this monster? I found it (very disconcertingly) at eye level in one of the fruit trees. It appeared to be sort of mummified, like something out of Pompeii. Have there been any volcanic eruptions around here recently?
I thought I ought to check out the attics. This is the tower above what used to be our bedroom. Quite impressive, but absolutely zero insulation which probably accounts for why it was so ****ing cold last winter.
But in the other attic, above the soon-to-be-third-shower-room, there was the most enormous hornet's nest........ gulp. Luckily it now appears to be very defunct, but even the thought is enough to cause palpitations and nightmares.
A rather more gentle creature was this adventurous butterfly that decided my lunch was actually some sort of delicious flower. But I didn't really mind. They don't buzzzzzz around annoyingly and, what's more important, they don't sting .
Our little red squirrel has been in evidence recently, looking for walnuts in our (this year) barren walnut tree. I am rather worried that he may not have enough stocks to last him through the winter. I did consider buying him (or her - hard to tell) some walnuts in the market, but they are horribly expensive. This photo is actually someone else's as I haven't yet managed to get close enough for long enough.
Although we didn't have any walnuts or cherries this year, we did have grapes. And we were looking forward to finding out whether they were eaters or wine grapes (though I don't really know how you tell). Then, one day, I noticed the whole lot had gone. Stolen. But by who(m) or what? I suspect the "murder" of crows that hangs around in our field up to no good.
We do not have a single grape left, and yet those in the vineyards appear to be totally unaffected. Why is this? Why isn't the French wine making countryside swarming with overly fed crows and, come to that, WASPS? Surely this is one of life's great mysteries. Why don't these acres and acres (hectares and hectares) attract every bug in Christendom? And what is even more strange/annoying, why do they just pick on my particular grapes? Merde!
Our little red squirrel has been in evidence recently, looking for walnuts in our (this year) barren walnut tree. I am rather worried that he may not have enough stocks to last him through the winter. I did consider buying him (or her - hard to tell) some walnuts in the market, but they are horribly expensive. This photo is actually someone else's as I haven't yet managed to get close enough for long enough.
Although we didn't have any walnuts or cherries this year, we did have grapes. And we were looking forward to finding out whether they were eaters or wine grapes (though I don't really know how you tell). Then, one day, I noticed the whole lot had gone. Stolen. But by who(m) or what? I suspect the "murder" of crows that hangs around in our field up to no good.
We do not have a single grape left, and yet those in the vineyards appear to be totally unaffected. Why is this? Why isn't the French wine making countryside swarming with overly fed crows and, come to that, WASPS? Surely this is one of life's great mysteries. Why don't these acres and acres (hectares and hectares) attract every bug in Christendom? And what is even more strange/annoying, why do they just pick on my particular grapes? Merde!
