Bleached and Stained

The hot sun of late July and the first part of August bleached the egg exterior considerably, as I noted when the first of the protective foil panels was removed this week to reveal the original orange tinted condition of the wood beneath. Further panes exposed in coming months will create a calendar charting seasonal change.

Intense sunlight through the smaller shower window has had an opposite effect on the marine ply walls inside the Egg, where the timber darkened to pick out the paler ghostly afterimage of a large plastic shower bag recently removed.

The reused shower door has older and more distinguished patination from its former life as part of a garage, that contributes gravity to the Egg’s newer narratives.

Moth Attracting Device No1 (General Purpose).

A landing strip of white canvas is glowing beneath a pulsating false moon of mercury vapour light, visible from a great distance and sufficient to draw in in a large number and variety of Lower Exbury moths (in three hours my mothing mentors, Juliet and Richard counted over fifty different species without naming the micros present).

Small Fan-footed Waves, Large Yellow Underwing, Black Arches, Small Broad-bordered Yellow Underwings, Rosy and dingy Footmen, Sallow Kittens, Ruby Tigers and a host of other evocatively named characters spiralled in to join the party. Boris the puppy, triumphantly bagged a Brimstone before being hauled off early, much to his consternation and confusion.

I shall adapt the same principles of beguilement and attraction later in the month when I attempt to lead legions of lepidoptera toward the light in the entrance to the Egg.

Beadle & Bee

The Local Damsels

Damselfly are flitting from leaf to leaf beside the water on my parish border with the adjacent Exbury Gardens. They briefly land all facing the same way and long enough sometimes for a photograph.

Caterpillar Tracks

Many caterpillars of the small tortoiseshell butterfly were feasting on a nettle and leaving tracks of their own black droppings of processed green leaf. Another much smaller critter of similar colour, was only noticed when I examined the photos on screen.

Tunnel Vision

Other creatures dwell around my abode in the Egg and the labyrinth spider is just one of my many parishioners. Its web inspired me to cut a new route to the Egg through bramble and blackthorn, that is both more sheltered and less disturbing to the birds. It was slow work negotiating the sharp spines of the blackthorn.

Clean

Another swim today in warm, clean and clear looking water is a further induction into a deeper exploration to come. I tested the water for hydrogen sulphide and the reading barely registered on the scale as the photographic record shows. There is little if any sewerage in the river today. My own waste goes into the chemical loo and thence to a mains pipe for safe disposal – this is not a requirement for yachts and other craft on the river.

Samphire

To the west side, the story is about marsh samphire whose tips are ready to be picked. A few succulent stems made breakfast today, cooked for a few minutes with a small amount of butter, pepper and lemon juice. It stands like a miniature forest of fresh, succulent and bright green cacti (without the prickles).

I have also got a small patch of sea beet beside the pontoon to the Egg, and my thicket of blackthorn could well result in a few bottles of Exbury Egg Sloe Gin or maybe jam…

For some amazing sounding recipes for samphire take a look at the following link:-

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2007/jun/30/features.weekend

Penning a line

There are around seventy Canada Geese summering on the marsh and surrounding fields, and today I found a large goose feather on the foreshore which I made into a pen by shaping the hollow end with a sharp knife. Goose feathers were the scribes weapon of choice until the advent of steel nibs in the nineteenth century. Whilst penning these brief notes on a mac book pro, this writer still likes the feel of scratching over the surface of real paper and using an ink made in the traditional way from the surrounding Oaks. Whilst enjoying the best of the new, I would hate to forget, or lose, what endures in the traditional.

Egg Cases

Empty egg cases of the common whelk are fairly frequent spongy finds amongst the detritus of the tide line beside my own Egg. The adult whelk is less evident, though I found the shell of the five year old below (if every spiral marks a year), not far from the type of sac it would have spawned from. Both are now part of a growing collection inside the Egg that helps to relate the life and times of my riverine parish.

The Exbury Egg

Stephen Turner's Exbury Egg is addressing the meaning of place at a time of great environmental change. In the guise of The Beaulieu Beadle, he will work on, in and around the Egg for twelve months from July 15th 2013 – July 14th 2014.

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