Ripple Nature Reserve

This morning I joined Francesca, Janet and Holly on the Butterfly Transect count around the Ripple Nature Reserve and over on the Barking Riverside land by the River Thames.  My word it was a hot and humid morning even though the day started with showers - I should have stayed in Lidl next to the freezer compartment!!

(down by the River Thames - Janet, Francesca and Holly)

It was such a beautiful morning and I wanted to stop and watch the boats and tugs as they made their way up and down the river.  In fact when one tug went by I thought of Les Redfearne, one of my golden oldies from Thames View Lodge Residential Complex,  who - as a young boy and man - worked on the tugs and barge boats as a Lighterman.  Les died a couple of weeks ago and Nigel was leading the funeral service at the City of London Crematorium at 3.30pm.

Everytime I stopped to take a photo then I kept losing the other ladies! especially as the grass was so tall - in some places I gave up looking for butterflies and concentrated on not falling over anything :))

Francesca explained that for certain months of the year - a record was kept of the different types of butterflies that were habitating in the area.  We saw white (or cabbage butterflies as I know them) a red admiral, common blues and lots of various brown ones but I can't remember what they were called. Francesca also went on to say that because of the heavy rainfall there were few butterflies than were last year.  All in all it was a good and interesting morning - even thought I look like a red tomatoe at the end of our walk :))

(Broom Bush)

By the time we had finished the walk it was 1pm and I had to be at the school by 4pm for various committees - so from the Nature Reserve I went to Sainsburys then home - grapped something to eat and back out to George Carey School.

What also happened to day - Diane gave birth to a little girl 'Maddison'.