Well, despite YET MORE torrential downpours, high winds and generally rubbish weather...we've made it to Wigan in one piece. We're taking a canal route northwards to Kendal as the next leg of our journey. Sami's leg finally stopped giving her pain just 4 days ago (poor girl, a whole month suffering agonising shin-splints. We're both extremely relieved it has finally cleared up) so we plan to pick up the pace somewhat from here onwards.
We arrived at Whixall on a day of horizontal rain so delayed moving on until the following day, by very happy coincidence Rogerdodge and his lovely wife were heading homewards from their Scottish adventure and we briefly met up to gawp at his amazing photos. Jealous? Naaaaah....a'hem!
Whixall the following day was dull and decidedly cool. Unsurprisingly we failed to see any Large Heaths (my
polydama curse continues....) and White-faced Darter also eluded us. A noisy family party of Willow Tits was a surprise bonus and a new species for Sami. A couple of days later the sun appeared and we added our first Ringlet and Large Skippers to our trip list. Common Blues seem massively down, we've seen just a handful in seemingly ideal habitat. Peacocks and Commas have made a welcome return, but we haven't seen an adult Orange-tip for some ten days now.
Right now it's bucketing down once more. We've nipped into a library to dry out (!) but packing away a wet tent and getting back into a wet tent whilst being rained upon is becoming just a tad tedious. A newspaper heading caught our eye - rain until September. You gotta be kiddin' me?!?!?
We've been in regular contact with Butterfly Conservation throughout. Today we received an e-interview in readiness of a full-size article in the autumn edition of Butterfly. It would be amazing to raise some more money for the cause (hint hint!!!) so if you haven't already donated, please would you consider doing so as soon as possible. Every couple of quid helps, we're not asking for your life savings!!! And many thanks to everybody who already has kindly donated, either via the justgiving site or via text.
Here's hoping for some dry weather, good butterfly numbers and lots more donations from ALL of you lovely people (and your friends, family, beer buddies, neighbours...)
Seth & Sami.