Tortoiseshell

DSC08654
Originally uploaded by ellarien.

There's a long disused road over the moors on the edge of Sheffield that we call the Sheep Track. Somewhere out there they built decoy buildings in the War, hoping to distract the bombers from the city. (It didn't work, so's you'd notice, which is why most of the department stores are now in 1950s buildings, but that's another story.) These days it's just a rough track over empty moorland, with sheep and tumbledown stone walls and a hazy view over the valleys of the city.

It's lovely up there when the heather's in bloom, but the day we went this year was a few days too early for that. We did meet a small clutch of bright new tortoiseshell butterflies, disporting themselves in a thistle patch.

Editorial Headaches

I'm not living entirely in memories of my vacation, really. It's just that my current life consists almost entirely of fascinating conundrums to do with the three-author rule[*] in journal citations, against a background of hot sticky weather, would-be fratkids running around campus, and occasional barrel cactus flowers.

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