Herald

I didn't realise, when I first started taking an interest in bricks and pavers, what a physically demanding obsession it would become. Each time they are used, added to, or subtracted from, they need moving. Each time the space they are stored on is going to be used for something else, they need moving.

Now I am making changes to the end of the garden where, nearly two years ago, the builders made a huge mixed pile out of my old bricks, bought-in bricks, and bricks from the bit of house that was demolished. One of the changes will be a brick path, so at the same time as moving them out of the way of that, I am sorting them into the bricks I want to use for the path, those I hope I can sell, and those fit only for throwing away. 

In today's rain, sun, wind, hail, thunder and lightning I have moved between 400 and 500 and disturbed woodlice, spiders and centipedes. Almost at the end, I turned over a brick on the lowest layer on a pallet and, clinging to the bottom of it, found this hibernating herald moth. The brick has gone onto the to-be-path pile but in the meantime I have done my best to protect the moth from rain, sun, wind, hail, thunder, lightning and predators.