From the sublime to the ridiculous.

It's been a couple of months since I last put my moth trap out and on that occasion I got the shock of my life having caught the UK's largest moth https://gnatbottomedtowers.blogspot.com/2025/06/big-jobbie.html . This time round I caught a spectacles moth [first photo] and the golden triangle moth which was the size of my little fingernail. As I said from the sublime to the ridiculous😊

Hope everyone has a great weekend. Am pleased to say that we are off adventuring!

Arilx

Visit to LA

 Before you all think that I've broken free and hopped on a plane I fear that I might have to let you down a little...yes I've been to LA, but the Sussex version Little 'Ampton😆What do I know about the town? It turns out not a lot...my snippets were simply that it has the world's longest bench [which I placed my posterior upon as many have done before], Ronnie Barker had a holiday home there and the events upon which the film 'Wicked Little Letters' is based happened there. Spoiler alert...LA doesn't feature in the film as they used nearby Arundel instead!

As I was fairly clueless perhaps you would care to join me for a stroll round? A quick trot along the High Street...not much to see out of the ordinary [well by my weirdling standards anyway], but a rather fabulous cafe which the owners have decorated with hand drawn images in black pen on white on every surface literally...I took a couple of photos surreptitiously and had to inwardly chuckle at that door as I waited my turn to use the facilities🚽

Our first port of call was the free town museum. One of my aims this year was to get round several more of the county's museums, but it simply hasn't happened. This is the first one I've managed, but I hope to squeeze a few more in over the colder months when I'm looking for inside entertainment. This one didn't disappoint and although small had the usual array of all sorts within its cabinets. Even the gate took my fancy.

An Anglo Saxon hanging bowl mount. It's one of the best of its kind so is important at national level.

It might seem odd to our eyes that a child would be given a ring with a phallus on, but to the Romans it was a sign of good luck and a symbol of protection.

A rather pleasing assortment of clay pipes from different periods in time.

A couple of shelves of holiday souvenirs as we are afterall on the coast here. 

With these I thought that they were toy tanks, but apparently not. These were used by the Canadian troops to plan military manoeuvres when they were stationed in the town in WWII.

Next door is the church which I wouldn't have minded a poke around. Sadly not possible as it was closed, but did rather like this trio of curled wormy serpent things on the front and this rather lovely peace train sign on the Quaker meeting house over the road.

By now the sea was most definitely calling David. We started by walking along the river Adur which runs into the sea here and enjoyed a quiet sit on the 'pier' [call that a jetty] keeping a close eye on the gulls and our sarnies. They're quick to spot townies and are well practised at smash and grab🤣. They didn't get lucky with us though and besides the beach was rammed at the amusements end so they had plenty of potential victims they were keeping their beady eyes on. Below is the LA lighthouse. It's small, but fit for purpose.

I liked the tower on the Angling Club and am intrigued by that massive stone mullioned window in the house. It seems to be a later addition and not in keeping with the rest of the facade. Just a glimpse for you of some of the sights as we wandered up to the quieter end of the promenade. The 'rusty' building [it's made from raw steel] is the award winning East Beach cafe and was designed by Thomas Heatherwick. That curly wurly structure is a portion of the longest bench.

As we neared the end of our trip icecream was calling us so we turned into Mewsbrook Park. After the hubbub of the crowds enjoying the sea this was like a breath of fresh air. It was beautifully calm and still with its stunning Art Deco shelters, quirky wooden benches and wild flower borders. I think it was my favourite spot of the day.

What a lovely day that was and all the more special as it was the first Monday we had not had to spend in the hospital for two months. We've been back in again this week with David having his next biopsy, so we really did appreciate the change of scene.

Arilx

Music for our times

 Way back in 1984 my then boyfriend had the album of Bob Marley's Greatest Hits which he played a lot. I'd always liked reggae bands like UB40, but I wasn't familiar with BM back then. I soon fell in love with it and although my romance fizzled out after a few months later I did go out and buy my own copy which I continued to listen to frequently. Over time my taste in music went off at various tangents and reggae fell by the wayside.

For the last couple of summers we've been really lucky in Horsham to have free music every Friday for two hours in the centre of town. The council has paid for professional cover bands to come down and they've had everything from Abba through to Ska evenings. They have grown in popularity week on week and the local pubs/street food vans make a killing. As I'm not a great lover of big crowds I've not gone, but I finally had a word with myself last week and met my gig mad friend down there. She'd travelled up from her home in Worthing and was really impressed. What led to this change of heart? The chance to hear the fabulous One Love Orchestra and the chance to dance in a happy crowd of all ages with a cider in one hand and relive the memories of the songs of this great talent. His choice of subject matter and lyrics seem much needed in these times. Here's the original 'One Love'

Arilx

Victorian Mourning

With the death of Prince Albert in 1861 grief became big business in Victorian society and a whole range of businesses sprang up to meet demand. They seem to have had pretty much every aspect of mourning covered. Seeing mourning pins in the cabinet of a local museum earlier this week had me stumped though as I had no idea such a thing existed nor what was different about them. Now I know that they were made of different materials to blend in with the colour of the mourning clothes you wore depending upon what stage you were at. Deep mourning called for plain black, but as you moved onto half mourning colours such as lilac and grey became acceptable. Pins were needed to keep shawls and other items secured, but it would have been deemed crass to draw attention with ones of gold or silver hues. This particular example are all black. Fascinating snippets of social history.

And leaving you all on that happy note I hope everyone has a good weekend. We've had a busy old week so shall swing by in a few days.

Arilx

Violet-blue

The furthest we have travelled these past few days is over to the hospital, but as ever in amongst all the familiar and local there are many new treats to discover. How about this for an amazing berry colour. Bar a bit of gentle cropping these photos captured what I saw [again at Nymans]. I have never ever seen the like of them before and having asked what they were on FB, I'm told that they are Tasmanian Flax Lily berries.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.

Arilx

It's not been a good year for the roses

I am rather partial to roses, but we gave up trying to keep them alive many years ago. We inherited some when we first bought our house and bought a couple more in the early days, but we were always having to treat them for black spot, aphids and a multitude of other complaints. I am a lazy gardener [even that's stretching the truth a fair bit], but they really were more trouble than they were worth in the end. I'm glad to see that even the NT garden, Nymans, has had issues with theirs. The rose garden there has always been a delight, but they've taken a radical step and grubbed the whole lot out because of disease issues. The plan is to replant in two years. On my last visit all we saw were a series of empty borders, but who could be disappointed with these dreamy beds that are this summer's temporary replacement. Gorgeous.

Arilx

At 6am

 6am last Saturday at the local nature reserve. Sometimes pictures just seem to take themselves.

The reserve isn't usually open so early and nor do I usually get up at 4.45, but this was for a special bird ringing event. Thankfully both my friend Jak and I are natural larks, but I left David at home snoring his head off in bed! The quality of my bird photos is not great, but here's one of a Willow Warbler and one of our second smallest bird, the Goldcrest, which only weighs the same as a 5p piece. They were caught in a net and then brought in dark drawstring bags to keep them calm. The warden handled them at all times and he's trained for 3 years to become a ringer. They are sexed [where possible], coded if they are a fledgling from this year, their wing length is measured and their weight taken before they are taken straight back to the part of the reserve that they are familiar with. The process is very quick and is done on a weekly basis. The info is then logged onto the national database and they are able to tell how far birds are migrating, how long they're living for, breeding success etc. Due to it being a very good year for insects the birds on the reserve have raised lots of successful broods and only 8 out of the 100 bird boxes have stayed empty. Any bird born on the reserve is ringed on the left leg with the unique code to this ringer, but usually countries [bar France] ring birds on the right leg. I learnt so much and saw birds which I'd never be able to see at close quarters under normal circumstances.

What a great way to kick off my weekend....mind you my timing was out for the rest of the day with me thinking that it was far later than it really was😂

Arilx