We have two butterflies!

And one very excited Thomas asking all sorts of intelligent questions such as why do they have eyes on their wings and telling us they had to bite out of the cocoon ..he wants to hold them but we encouraged him to feed them instead!

Their names ... Peppa and George!

I wonder if the other three will hatch!

Caterpillars turn into chrysalis

So we moved the caterpillars into their new home on Saturday ... Very interesting to watch them and can't wait for butterflies now

Day 10 ... The fat caterpillars ...

Are now chrysalides (well 4 of them are!) It won't be long and they will be moving into their new home...

Day 7 ... Caterpillars are 1 week old!

Caterpillars are now about 5cm long... Literally doubled in size overnight!

Very fat, very hairy and a bit creepy if you ask me!!

Day 6 ... 5 big fat hairy caterpillars

About 3cm in length now!!

Day 3 ... The caterpillars are getting big fat & hairy!

Caterpillars day 2 ... 'they got lost mummy'

Had a scary moment this morning when I could not find the caterpillars.. Having asked Thomas about 6 times (each time with me getting crosser) he simply said 'they got lost mummy' ...
5 frantic minutes later wondering where on earth Thomas has put them I spot them on the window sill ... Fink had moved them!!

Day 1 with the caterpillars

They seem to be very hungry and have grown to 1cm already after only 1 night! Thomas wants to feed them chocolate cake and cherry pie like in the book!!!

5 tiny caterpillars...

arrived safely in the post yesterday.... All very excited here to watch them grow : )

Our Butterfly Garden- day 1

Firstly thanks to Vodqueen and Uncle Scammel for a great birthday present for Thomas.

Day 1... Box opened, Information read, Thomas very excited and researching butterflies with Daddy online...
We have completed the application and are now waiting for postman pat to deliver our caterpillars.. They will be dispatched next Tuesday, so a long wait with an excited little boy waiting for them!

Free Lurpak (and spud) at Canary Wharf

Feels like it's been a while since I last got a freebie, but actually it was only on the 3rd of September, and to be honest, I have actually walked past a few offers I didn't fancy including a whole huge great big litre container of "innocent" branded orange juice (but only because there were so many in the office I was sick of it by the time I actually walked past the stall and had the opportunity to grab some), anyway, today at the Wharf was probably the largest stall we have seen since Del Boy paid a visit...and it was all down to Lurpak butter...they set up their own few market stalls and were handing out (with a cheery "Good Morning Sir/Madam") little brown paper bags -

- each containing a spud, some butter, a small recipe leaflet and some (in my case) pumpkin seeds, but other people reported getting garlic bulbs (which may have suited me better)...

Anyway, I'm Flyingpops will be thankful for a free feed courtesy of the tiny yellow musician... ;)

Butterfly - Fuji S9600 super macro

Better click it to see the detail, pretty impressive lens on this thing, this shot was taken at a distance of just under half an inch (I must admit I was quite amazed it didn't fly off)... ;)

Syon Park - London Butterfly House

So we went to Syon Park in Brentford -

- still run by the His Grace the Duke of Northumberland (very nice, but will have to go and pay a visit another day) on bank holiday Monday. I can understand why the Duke's family aren't currently in residence though, as it's unfortunately right on the flight path into London Heathrow (and thus extremely noisy) -

- but landing planes weren't the flying things we were after, we had come *mainly* to check out the London Butterfly House -

Now, the weather on Monday was threatening to be nice (occasionally) but was still mostly cloudy and cold, so I was dressed accordingly (long trousers, long sleeved t-shirt and a thick fleece/coat) and having not been warned in advance (although I really should have thought about it) this proved totally innapropriate attire for the activity...it was *boiling* in there, and extremely humid too...(so if you go along, leave your coat in the car)...as soon as we walked through the door we were surrounded by butterflies of all shapes and sizes, so I immediately reached for the camera, only to notice with some puzzlement that I couldn't focus on *anything*...spinning it round it became apparent that the temperature difference between outside and in had covered the lense completely in mist! I resisted the urge to wipe it, and thankfully, within about 5 or 6 minutes it had gone all by itself...(phew!)...so, a few of the pics, I even know what some of them are called now -

This one is a "Burmese Peacock"...

A "Glass Wing"...

"The Owl"...(who made up these names?)...

An "Indian Leaf"...

A "Tree Nymph"...well, I could go on (the full flickr stream is here if you like butterfly pictures)...Oh, one really cute(?) thing they did have is a colony of leaf cutter ants that live in a huge (and very dirty) perspex box near the entrance, they are isolated from the regular foliage and connected to a special platform suspended over one of the ponds by a couple of large ropes, along which they travel to cut leaves (best to click this one to see it a bit bigger) I thought this was excellent, as normally they are isolated completely inside an ant farm -

...now, it's not a huge place, I think all in all we were in there for about an hour, and that was really pushing it, so don't plan to spend the day on that occupation alone, thankfully there are a load of other things to do around there, we got it just about wrong though, arriving too late for it to be worth it to do anything else apart from eat our picnic and wander round the huge garden centre/aquarium opposite but get there early and there would be plenty to fill more than one day...just wear comfortable shoes... ;) Oh, on that note my foot is much better, thanks (been resting it the last few days, wearing a compression bandage and taking anti-inflamitory medicine), so I'm back in London today, but taking it easy... ;)