a blue day

...I was up at the crack of dawn so as to be ready for when the Land Rover technician arrived at 7am. I needn't have been up quite so early as he didn't actually arrive until 7.50am but he was able to reassure me that there were no new faults and that the car was safe to drive over to the dealer in Christchurch.

While it is being fixed, we have been loaned a brand spanking new Range Rover Evoque with more on-board gadgets than a James Bond Aston Martin. Once all the paperwork was done, we drove into Bournemouth for lunch at our favourite fish restaurant where the oysters were absolutely delicious and the scallops were amazing. After a good browse round the shops, I telephoned the dealer to see if our car would be ready today and, on hearing it wouldn't be ready until tomorrow, we decided to drive home.

All this meant that I would have plenty of time to take advantage of the increasingly blue sky to find a suitably interesting fly for today's blip. Just as we pulled onto the drive, L said How are we going to get indoors! Slightly perplexed, I replied Why? Because the front door key is still in our car. she said! Such is life. I made a quick call to the dealer and we made the two hour round trip to collect our keys.

There were two effects resulting from this saga. The first was that I had plenty of time to evaluate the loan car. The other was that I had almost no time to search for an unusual blip! As we were approaching the layby at the foot of Ballard Down, I saw my opportunity to stop and capture some butterflies in the beautiful evening light. I was delighted to see a Small Tortoiseshell posing on the Hemp Agrimony but, when I saw it up close through my lens, it was looking very tired and tatty. Conversely, the Adonis Blues are still looking magnificent.

Tomorrow will be another day spent mostly in the car. I have a meeting in Lyme Regis in the morning and expect I will be driving back to Christchurch in the afternoon - so it could be another butterfly tomorrow...