Friday, April 16, 2010

Eerie silence

the reason that this little chap has a puzzled look on his face is that it's unusually quiet. Eerily quiet.
We're beside East Midlands airport, and the reason for this silence is that somewhere up there is a cloud of volcanic dust from a volcano far away with an unpronounceable name. It stopped the aeroplanes from flying yesterday and again today. It looks like continuing into the weekend. The walk around the perimeter of the airport is pleasant enough, but I wouldn't normally do it because of the constant stream of aircraft going to and fro. But today they're all sat on the ground going nowhere. :-)On the way round, I went out of my way to visit the memorial plaque to the people who died, were injured or helped in January 1989 when a plane crashed on the M1 motorway below.

It has turned into an extraordinarily nice day today.
Some kind of fungus? Or something alien? Not sure what this is.
I do know that this is hawthorn - the leaves are unfurling now turning the hedges a beautiful bright green.
And these are the flowers of its sister, blackthorn, the flowers generally come out earlier than the leaves. And eventually turn into sloes, which make gin into a gorgeous liqueur.

4 comments:

leni425 said...

Love the picture of the butterfly!

peahen said...

I'm amazed at how close it let me get. And at those bright patches glistening on its wings. Good colours for a fibre mix, I'm thinking!

Jules said...

I've notcied the lack of planes too. The noise isn't really an issue for us, but everyday we would see planes turn in the sky over the house (I think they are using the reservoir as a reference point). No vapour trails, no planes. It looks so quiet up there.

dive said...

What a gorgeous day, Pea.
Yay for the lack of noise and contrails!
Great fungus, too.