Time to Think

Time to think

Oh! How I love having time to think!  And how glad I am that I can still catch and entertain those ethereal, disembodied spirits that float into the mind, linger and vanish!   

My time has largely run its course, and I am slowing down. Not only do I get less done in a day than once I did; but time grows more treasured as it becomes more scarce. There is no part of my day more treasured than my "thinking time".

If I must make cuts I shall perhaps start with my tidying time, or dusting time. Practice time vanished a while ago, unnoticed, and perhaps wrapping presents will follow it. But I hope I shall always have time to think. 

I like to pause at the top of the stairs, to admire my daughter's framed butterflies, so carefully cut from old maps; memories trapped on paper; Helmeth Hill in the shape of a Swallowtail, Haddon Hill on another; Ratlinghope, Bodinnick Ferry, Glynn House, Trebarwith Strand. 

I love to stand on my terrace, straighten, by throwing back my shoulders, and look up beyond the roof tops, to see if I can spot any of swifts that have loyally returned to their  ancestral eaves. I fondly remember the screams of the returning swifts as they swooped in to their chattering young, nesting in the eaves some 3 feet from my boyhood bedroom in our generous old Shropshire house. 

I wonder if it is a dearth of flies that has reduced the number of these astonishing aerobats that complete their absurd journey from from Sub-Saharan Africa to Middle England. Or if it is head winds en route? Or have my neighbours pulled down their old stone houses, or poked out the nests from their eaves? What are insects doing up there, 100 metres above any possible source of food? Does the swift fly with its mouth open, accepting what comes, or does it actively swerve left and right to catch a tempting morsel? Would I see anything if I trained my grandchildren's telescope on that patch of sky?

The frequent glimpses of a tiny blue butterfly down at the bottom of my modest garden is less mysterious when I find that bird's foot trefoil is the food plant of the Common Blue, for I have a clump of it in flower down there. (Funny that nearly all of the dozen different Blues eat legumes; except for the Holly Blue (holly), and the Large Blue (thyme)). Ah! But I have masses of holly in that corner, besides the trefoil, and I might have been over-hasty in assuming my butterflies were Common Blues. (It is easier to tell holly from bird's foot than Holly Blue from Common Blue). I find [1] that I also have the food plant of the recently re-introduced Large Blue, for one of my herb boxes is over-flowing with Thymus serpyllum. The caterpillar of this intriguing butterfly has a trick of exuding 'honey' which tempts ants to carry it off to their nest, where it overwinters, feeding off ant grubs till it is ready to pupate and eventually emerge. That lifestyle is stunning in its improbability; but several related species do the same (Adonis Blue, Idas Blue, Alcon Blue).

Why do we not gradually fill up with trivalent Aluminium; as it binds tightly to protein? Does a spider get appreciably lighter when it abseils to the floor? Easy enough, I suppose, to measure the speed of swifts in flight 'in terms of its own body length'. Pigs, they say, are more intelligent than 3 year old human children. I wonder how that was measured. 

Reference: [1] David Carter (1982) Butterflies and Moths in Britain and Europe 

Please address comment to cawstein@gmail.com