Not a Dragonfly

This morning I had the third company come round to give a quote for replacing the retaining wall only put in 5 years ago. This one seemed more knowledgeable and they recommend replacing it with engineering bricks, the coping one slightly overhanding to stop rainwater running down the face of the bricks. Unfortunately their reputation is that they're expensive. They had a fancy measuring gadget, so I now know it's about 33m long in total round the paths and patios. 

This afternoon was my postponed dragonfly walk, it started at 2pm which was when the clouds came over, and they cleared at 3:45 as we were walking back to the visitor centre. So we only saw a few dragonflies and only in flight and not close enough to photograph. To be honest, the walk should have been cancelled as it was in the area not normally open to the public, and we walked a lot through boggy / waterlogged ground which was unstable and slippy. One of the group did point out this lovely emperor moth caterpillar though, and on the way back I heard an unusual bird song which Merlin identified as a goldcrest and I spotted it up in the tree. On the drive home I saw an unusual white van, possibly converted to a 'camper van', which was veering across the centre line. Three guys were in the front, the driver had one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding his mobile phone which he was looking at. The guy the other side wound down the window and threw a 4 hole cardboard drinks tray up into the air which landed on the road - *****************s!

Unfortunately I missed the Alcaraz / Draper match. Well done to Jack beating Alcaraz, I've been watching his career for a couple of years and he's shown so much potential, has also suffered injuries, but I love his game. He won his first ATP tournament very recently, became the British No.1 and now this win over the best player out there. I did watch the England match - dire.