In this part of the world at least (the Campbeltown peninsula, in western Scotland), last  week’s heatwave is but a distant memory! Monday’s wet weather activity was a ferry ride from Tarbert to the hotel at Portavadie, on the East shore of Loch Fyne, with an outdoor swimming pool (to get wet again!)  Kate spotted the lichen Nephroma laevigatum, growing on a wall– it is unusual in having reddish-brown apothecia (cup-like fruiting bodies) attached to the under surface of its thallus, which makes it relatively easy to identify. Kate says it is eaten in China, though I couldn’t find any reference to that in UK literature.  We kept our eyes peeled on the ferry but didn’t see any porpoises, but we were able to watch seals hauled up on the far side of Loch Gilp using a telescope in the sun room of Alec’s friends house later in the week.

I’ve been surprised by the amount of Himalayan Balsam in flower along the roadsides here but the canal-sides are full of colour too – lots of Crocosmia, Meadowsweet, Common Valerian and Rosebay Willowherb, as well as Persicaria and a few late Common-spotted orchids.  I even found one of my late-summer favourites – Devil’s-bit Scabious.

Casper enjoyed the empty beaches in the gaps between showers, and proved quite adept at finding sea anemones ‘hiding’ in crevasses and tiny orange snails on the wrack. We found a crab no bigger than my little fingernail but he was still very wary of its pincers. 

One advantage of the damp summer they’ve had in this part of the world is that Aisa has already been able to gather Chantarelle mushrooms nearby and we ate these as a tasty starter one evening.

I had one of the best excuses ever this week for being late for a meeting (on Zoom) planning a new third year field trip this week when I got stuck on the far side of the Crinan Canal from my laptop, with the bridge across it at Ardrishaig raised while boats went through the lock!   We’re thinking about a UK trip based around some of the fabulous rewilding projects in Scotland and the north of England, so watch this space!

Casper enjoyed his cousins’ aquarium a lot so, on our way home from Scotland we stopped at the Sea life centre at Balloch, where the ‘Nemo’ fish, otters, sea horses and rays intrigued him the most.  It reminded me of a trip to the aquarium in Tynemouth with Rosie, just a little older than Casper is now, when she had the screaming hab-dabs in the room with the tank of rays because the person feeding them had been talking about how the sting from a sting-ray’s tail could kill a child or an older person.  She was too far gone to hear the explanation that the stings had been removed from the rays in the tank!

Other nature highlights of the week included looking at moss invertebrates again, this time with a very engaged group of students on a Sutton Trust programme at the university.  Maybe I benefitted from having the group at the end of their week as they seemed very keen and happy to ask lots of questions.  I also spent time in the allotment, picking several kilos of blackberries and the first few autumn raspberries as well as digging up potatoes with Casper – he enjoyed the process of finding them ‘hiding’ in the soil and ate them roasted with cauliflower the same evening.  He is eyeing up the ripening apples in the garden carefully every day!

The two contenders for this week’s culinary highlight were definitely Aisa’s Chantarelle tapa and the spaghetti we cooked one lunchtime with local Langoustine, chilli, lemon and rocket.  The meal we had from the local Chinese takeaway was less of a success, in Kate’s eyes particularly!

This week I’ve been reading Little Deaths, by Emma Flint.  A thriller based around the deaths of two children and a family where all is not as it seems…