Hot news

Hot news on the caterpillar front. Ken is definitely in chrysalis-making position: he's curled himself onto a sturdy bit of fennel stem and has lashed the stem to the glass and himself to the stem using strands of silky cobweb-like stuff. He is fastened there by his mouth (?) and his bottom, as well as having a sort of sling around his midriff. Every now and again he twists and wriggles a couple of times in a very slightly alarming manner, so something is going on inside him. I've seen this happen on an incredible video on YouTube ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2cE86AA1q0 ), where the caterpillar shucks off its caterpillar skin to reveal inside, already formed, the chrysalis. I think that's what will happen with Ken. The other big green one, Boris, has been motionless for a day as well but is looking less deliberately placed and more like he just stopped where he was for a rest. The other two are now huge — just as big as Boris and Ken — but their coloration is still predominantly black rather than green. I don't know why they haven't turned green, but they look healthy enough and are eating huge quantities of fennel. Tiny tiny Egbert has reached the heady length of 1cm and is really fairly visible without having to squint.

In other news: the weather has turned, dramatically, and we're now in the full depths of autumn. Big storms yesterday with torrential rain and horizontal winds; lots of branches down all over the roads and the fields running with water. It was 25 degrees on Sunday; today it's 9. Something of a shock to the system. When I went out to feed the animals at 7.15 this morning I put on my new, bargain, fake-sheepskin-lined wellies from Lidl for the first time, to find that the lovely warm lining goes down only as far as the ankle and that the whole of the foot part is completely unlined. What the hell is the point of that? But the air smelt amazing as I hunted about for wild fennel in the meadow — the fennel itself (smelling of curry), wild mint, hay and all sorts of other grassy, herby smells mixed in — brought out by the rain. If only my feet had been warmer I'd have been pretty damn happy.