Return to Lincolnshire

Since I've had the sciatica I've not been able to go botanising in Lincolnshire, and have stayed much closer to home. Today the weather was beautiful and I decided to take a drive up the A1 to record a tetrad near the western boundary, at Skillington.

I'd selected an old drove road to visit, as they often have good areas of unimproved grassland. When I arrived I was a bit disappointed as it looked rather dull, with a lot of scrub either side of a heavily rutted track full of muddy puddles. But Rosie and I set off anyway, and further along there were enclaves of species-rich grassland, with lots of woolly thistle, greater knapweed, common knapweed, salad burnet, cowslips and rock-rose, which is my blip subject. This species tends to only occur in good quality grassland and hadn't been known from this area previously, so I was really pleased to find it. There was also a small colony of chimney-sweeper moths, another comparative rarity in Lincolnshire. After we'd been walking for a while our way was blocked by a large, deep puddle, from yesterday's thunderstorms, so we had to turn back. We spent the rest of our time recording round the village, which had some nice scruffy corners, as well as a roadside bank with huge naturalised clumps of purple cranesbill.

In the evening, while we were cooking our evening meal, part of the house was plunged into darkness, as something tripped the RCD on the new fuse box. After a bit of investigation we discovered that it was the cooker in the annex kitchen - hardly surprising that it's faulty as it must be at least 30 years old, and possibly nearer 40!! So it looks as though we'll be buying a new cooker tomorrow - more money...