Close to Silverdale a few miles north of Lancaster. A place infested with small horses. It was a terrifying experience as the house was crammed full of small pieces of china. Cups, plates, vases, every other example of the potter's art you can think of.
I was forced to move very slowly. Like time slowed down in a film or a diver on the sea bed. I thought I had got away with it until we were leaving and my rucksack got caught on the door handle, very nearly sweeping an entire row of cups and saucers off the shelf behind me.
Blood actually does run cold at moments like that.
While in Lancaster we made an expedition to the Famous Fairy Steps.
(I give you pictures on someone else's walk)
If you can descend the steps without touching the side, the Fairies have promised to grant you one wish. Needless to say it is impossible, even for the skinniest child or superest supermodel. So no wishes were granted
The weather was mostly cold and cloudy but we did have some sunshine on the Monday and took a picnic out to the limestone paving at Hutton Roof.
New plants were just emerging from between the cracks in the rock but it will be a few more weeks before they look their best.
I continue to plant flowers and vegetables in my back yard, and this morning was surprised to come across a survivor of Snail Team Red from last year.
A true hero among snails.
There was an interesting piece on bees and neonicotinoids in New Scientist that brought to mind the crash of the vulture population in Asia and Africa.
There are now worries that the British Hedgehog may become extinct and most small songbirds continue to decline. It seems that magpies and other predators are not to blame and in urban gardens change of habitat and pesticide use cannot be blamed. After reading about the bees I suspect that chemicals may involved in a chain of stresses and knock on factors that are causing a disastrous decline across many species in Britain.
I'm listening to some interesting lectures on language and also some on The Origins of Life. One on Vitalism mentioned this handy way to make mice.
Put a dirty shirt into a large jar containing grains of wheat. After a few weeks mice will spontaneously appear out of nowhere.
I wonder if anyone has actually tried this experiment. It would be very embarrassing for modern science if it actually worked. It is hard to imagine that anyone could seriously propose such a bizarre process when it seems so obvious that mice are produced by other mice.
At least I think that is the way it works.