Sad news - the London Butterfly House at Syon Park is closing down and relocating to Lincolnshire - a fine county in many ways, but a long way from London. I hope someone seizes the opportunity to open another butterfly house elsewhere in London. When I was in Lisbon a couple of weeks ago, I visited the butterfly house in the excellent botanical gardens there and found it full - very full - of Monarch butterflies. They were everywhere, and I even had one on my head briefly - but alas no photograph.
Talking of photographs, with Bryan off on his travels again, I thought bloggers might like so see this sneak pic of a corner of his funkadelic Seventies pad.
Friday, October 19, 2007
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
Forgot the Monarch link...
ReplyDeleteI have a shirt in that pattern. Nice.
ReplyDeleteIn London, most if not all, tend to think of how long, in time rather than miles.
ReplyDeleteIs Lisbon, in reality nearer to you than Lincoln ?.
Excellent question Vince. Depends where abouts in Lincoln. The trains are few in that county. For me, a non-driver, Lisbon might well be nearer (by plane, I hasten to add).
ReplyDeleteSad news about the butterfly house. As places that restore sanity and delight in the visitor, there ought to be one in every large town. Oh well. As for Vince's good question, places on the other side of the world seem much nearer because of personal connection and appeal than somewhere 25 miles away. Our mental maps are so different from those of geographers. Lincolnshire is somewhere east of the Urals on my mental map whereas Darjeeling, say, is just down the road.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely Mark - though I'd love butterfly houses more (and arguably they'd be doing a better job) if they filled them with native species. They're less showy, true, but we do have the Purple Emperor and the Silver-Washed Fritillary and the Swallowtail and the White Admiral...
ReplyDeleteIt's spelt Repellent.
ReplyDeleteBut I'm ignorant in more ways than one.
ReplyDeleteThough I should, and do, apologise. You were simply caught in the crosshairs of my unhappy relationship with the relevant flying insects; a tale to long to divulge but, suffice to say, they've made my life a misery. And they've ruined better men than I, the bastards.
ReplyDelete