Thank you all for your kind messages of condolence, on this page and by PM. I appreciate them very much.
It was a great blessing to have had two parents for so long. My mother was walking in Rendlesham forest the day before she died and looking foward to the spring. That is a blessing too.
I picked up Minnie this morning and headed east along the Rhône Valley. I wasn't sure where we would go but in the end decided to continue into Italy to look for nettle tree butterflies. Usually I set off early for this site but today I couldn't, and didn't arrive until shortly before 13h00, after a hefty uphill cycle ride (seeing a few brimstones and small tortoiseshells on the way). It was still wintry there, though the sun shone all day, and only hibernators were on the wing. Commonest overall were the large tortoiseshells, but very locally nettle tree butterflies came a close second. I saw probably a dozen - maybe more - all flitting around the tops of tall nettle trees on the sunny side of the path. This made them almost impossible to photograph. This rather awful shot was taken directly into the sun:
The only individual that came down lower was this one, glimpsed through brambles before he zoomed off to spin around the canopy again:
I was very surprised to see no green hairstreaks or coppers - familiar early species at this site. Nor were there any orange tips or whites on the wing. It must be all just about to happen.
We cycled down to the valley, then up to another, nearby site, where lots of large tortoiseshells but nothing else were on the wing. Here is one, posing on some human-made structure:
The sun, the exercise, Minnie's company and these few but lovely butterflies were just what I needed.
Guy