Floral art

On a bitterly cold and damp day, Pete and Iset off after breakfast to drive up to Lincoln, for the annual Recorders' Meeting of the Lincolnshire NAturalists' Union, where I was giving a short presentation on botanical recording.

Unfortunately, the A1 was closed for a short stretch, which meant we sat in a traffic queue for nearly an hour. We'd planned to do some recording in a couple of villages to the west of Lincoln, as the meeting didn't start till 2pm, but the delay meant we only had time for one. To be honest, we were glad for an excuse not to be out for too long. There was a persistent mizzle and my fingers rapidly became numb with cold. I also ended up with wet feet, despite wearing my walking boots - thankfully Pete had brought two spare pairs of socks so I was able to borrow one of his!!

After a welcome bowl of hot soup at the Whisby Nature Park cafe, we went across to the meeting room which was packed. It was a very good afternoon, with talks from most of the recorders, and a number of displays including this hand-painted flower book, created by May Lane-Clypon of Wyberton in 1890. It was an extraordinary feat, though she hadn't quite filled in all the pages. It was also interesting to see how much the scientific names of the species had changed.