We’re still taking it easy
on the Peak Forest canal but know we’re going to have to go for it soon. Next weekend we will get through Manchester
and on towards Liverpool before we dash up to climb Ben Nevis, see Jo in
Edinburgh and then dash down south for Sophie and Yanos’s wedding. All that dashing will be done in a car and
not on the boat I hasten to add (apart from Ben Nevis which will be neither car nor boat).
I was repairing the
punctures and Karen was gardening when a hen party came past on a day boat. Even though it was well before lunchtime they
were having a good time already.
Sensibly they had a nominated driver which is always good to see.
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The girls asked me if I would put their picture in the local paper!
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We saw them twice more during
the day, but it wasn’t until I looked at the picture properly that I realised
that what I thought was the name of the bride to be, actually said, ‘Memory’. Maybe it wasn’t a hen party after all 😉. Mind you, looking at it again now I’m not
sure it says, ‘Memory’ either.
As part of our walk before
lunch we went to see if either of the mooring spots we had seen yesterday were
still free. We got to the first one after ½ mile and it was free so when we got
back we cruised the whole ½ mile to take up a new position the other side of
Disley at a place called Strines.
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| Our mooring at Strines |
We were moored right next
to clumps of Lady’s Smock (aka Cuckoo Flower) so we went in search of orange
tip butterfly eggs. These spring
butterflies lay their eggs on Lady’s Smock and Garlic Mustard (aka Jack by the
Hedge, Poor Man’s Mustard, Hedge Garlic and Penny Hedge).
Years ago, when I was
learning the Latin names for the British butterflies it soon became clear that
the genus and/or specific names were often the same as the Latin names for
their larval foodplants. This made learning
easier and I will always remember my first and easiest was anthocharis cardamines
(orange tip butterfly) which lays eggs on cardamines pratensis (Lady’s Smock).
Back to the search for eggs:
we soon found some and they were at the orange stage:
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| An orange tip egg on a Cuckoo Flower right outside the boat |
When first laid, the eggs
are white but after a few hours turn orange (when they are easy to spot) and
then brown after a couple of weeks. The
larvae are cannibalistic and so the females will only lay one egg per
plant. We did find some plants with two eggs,
but they were probably from different females.
One school of thought is that the orange colour warns other females that
there is already an egg on the plant and therefore, if they lay another one, it
will get eaten by the first. Another theory
is that a pheromone is deposited with the egg as a warning to go elsewhere to
lay eggs.
Whilst on Cuckoo Flower it
reminds me that we’ve yet to hear a cuckoo this year. The Cuckoo Flower is named after the bird
because cuckoos tend to arrive in the UK when the flowers appear. I know cuckoos are in decline, but I do hope
we have just been unfortunate this year as we usually hear them in the first
week or two of May.
During the afternoon I
prepared a section of the roof ready for touching up the scratches and Karen
did some potting up.
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| Our new view when looking west, away from the Derbyshire Dales – we were taken with the three cottages at the bottom of the field |
This last week has seen us
move three miles down the Peak Forest canal – our boat friends, Mike and Lesley,
would have a good laugh because they don’t really call that cruising 😉
Monday will probably see
us getting the washing out early and going for a good walk on the hills above
Macclesfield. I always say probably when
talking about what we may do the next day as we often change our minds 😊
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