Walking in the Shadows

Random musings from Warwickshire on life in general... Things that make me laugh, make me cry, things that wind me up beyond all endurance - and everything in between.

Tomorrow


My New Year Resolutions



Karen

The miracle of love
Will take away your pain
When the miracle of love
Comes your way again.

Furious.

It's the only way to describe how I'm feeling at the moment.  I found out at 16:15 this afternoon that my shift had been changed meaning that I was finishing at 17:30.  When I pointed out that I wasn't happy and that I was expecting to finish at 17:00 as usual, I was told "well I have to work over".





How the hell I refrained from pointing out that the person who made that comment seemed to live to work, I don't know.  Needless to say, I sat at my desk quietly fuming.



And these minons just sum up how I feel today.



Karen

The miracle of love
Will take away your pain
When the miracle of love
Comes your way again.

Monday Minion

Well, I guess something had to make me smile today, and these Minions managed it.


Karen


The miracle of love
Will take away your pain
When the miracle of love
Comes your way again.








How I feel.









Not happy

Damn typical of this place.  I have work that I need to do (dratted month end stuff – invoicing - aka “Hell on Earth”) and I get booked for a meeting 9am – 1pm next Tuesday. 

I wouldn’t object – but the person who said I was “free” at this time, didn’t even bother to check with me – just said I would attend the meeting.  It’s well known in the department that the last week of the month you don’t book any meetings / training for me, as I am snowed under sorting out the invoicing for the month, and making sure that nothing is outstanding to cause me problems.

This has been the normal procedure since this person has been in the office, and to say I am unhappy with this is an understatement.  I don’t blame my colleague who told me about this meeting this morning – I am just seriously racked off that no-one thought to check with me first.

So, I will attend the meeting – with a smile on my face, but will make damn sure that the person who said that I was “free to attend” knows my feelings, and that I am attending under protest.

Guess I should call this quits – nearly at the end of my lunch break – let alone my tether this afternoon.


Karen

I tell myself
Hey only fools rush in and only time will tell 
If we stand the test of time 
All I know 
You've got to run to win and 
I'll be damned if 
I'll get hung up on the line


Footnote

I get "asked" if I am OK with the meeting that has been arranged, and when I say I am not due to the invoicing, I am told "tough - it's happening".  If that's the case, then why bother even asking me??

When I try to point out that I do have high priority work that needs to be done at month end, it's swept under the carpet, basically ignoring the fact that I am being pulled in two different directions, and will be under even more pressure to complete the work as well as everything else that I am expected to do.  

Needless to say I am less than impressed, and am very tempted to call a colleague and give them the heads up on this, but I can see that if I did that, I would cause no end of problems with someone who thinks that they know what my workload is

Footnote pt 2

Well, I took the plunge and spoke to my colleague who I usually liaise with over the invoicing, and it turns out that he had been warned of this meeting. I admitted that I wasn't impressed over the timing, but thankfully, there are contingency plans in place to make sure that the invoicing gets sorted out.  I won't say that I am any happier about the meeting, but I feel slightly easier where the invoicing is concerned.


Never forget


Monday feelings




This is how I feel today.







How insect eating plants persuade insects to pollinate them

There have been quite a few articles about carnivorous plants just recently, and this one caught my eye.  It’s courtesy of the BBC Earth website, and I’ve linked this post to the original one.

Enjoy.

Karen

I tell myself
Hey only fools rush in and only time will tell
If we stand the test of time
All I know
You've got to run to win and I'll be damned if
I'll get hung up on the line

********




Eating insects makes good evolutionary sense for plants living in barren soil with few nutrients. But how do the plants avoid eating the insect pollinators they rely on to reproduce?

·    By Yao-Hua Law
11 October 2016

Grubs gnaw roots, maggots munch fruits and caterpillars chew leaves. In textbook food chains, animals eat plants, not the other way round.But there are plant species that break this rule – at least 600 species of them on the last count. These are the carnivorous plants, and they routinely feast on insects, spiders, worms – even potentially small mammals.

Life for a carnivorous plant is challenging. They cannot very well march across the landscape in search of a meal. Dinner has to come to them. The plants have evolved sticky leaves, water pots and the like to catch animals, but how – if at all – do they lure their prey into these traps?

A study published in February 2016 shows for the first time that some carnivorous plants use smells to secure meals – validating an idea that Charles Darwin suggested 140 years ago.


Darwin worked on the sundews, a type of predatory plant with leaves covered in tentacles, each tentacle having a drop of sticky fluid at its tip. Darwin described the sticky leaves as"temporary stomachs"with which the plants catch live prey, break it down with acids, and "feed like animals".


Drosera spatulata. Pollinators are guided to the flowers by visual cues, and protected from the traps by spatial separation (Credit: Ashraf El-Sayed)
"It's common to analyse plant volatiles, so it's quite amazing that nobody has tested Darwin's hypothesis," says chemical ecologist Ashraf El-Sayed at the New Zealand Institute for Plant & Food Research Limited.

Studying sundews in New Zealand, El-Sayed's team found that one species, Drosera auriculata, uses smells to lure prey. Their leaves emit volatiles that beckon gnats, midges and mosquitoes.

"I was working on lure-and-kill tactics in pest management when I realised that wow, carnivorous plants have been at it for a very long time," says El-Sayed.

Carnivorous plants face a more profound problem: sex

Carnivory evolved independently at least six times across the plant kingdom.  Carnivorous plants live in places like bogs and rocky slopes where the soil – if there is any – is so nutrient-poor that few plants can survive.  Carnivorous plants eke out a living here because they converged on the same solution to the nutrient problem: animals are nutritious, so eat them.

But the path to meat-eating is costly. As plants transform their leaves into traps that can trick, bind, drown, and digest prey, they gradually become less effective for harnessing sunlight to produce energy. Therefore, most carnivorous plants grow slowly and stay small.

Beyond that carnivorous plants face a more profound problem: sex.

Drosera arcturi (Credit: Andreas Jürgens)

Like many plants, carnivorous plants produce flowers when they are ready to reproduce. Most of these flowers appear suitable for insect-pollination – again, in keeping with many plants.

The trouble is that many carnivorous plants trap and kill insects. They are faced with a unique dilemma called "pollinator-prey conflict": they need to eat insects without jeopardising their chances of being pollinated by insects.

The most obvious way to protect pollinators is to keep flowers away from traps

 For example, a carnivorous plant from Spain called Pinguicula vallisneriifolia could produce more seeds if its flowers receive more pollinators. But sticky leaves mere inches away from the flowers kill a good number of those pollinators.

The carnivorous plant's challenge is to avoid confusing the insects it needs to eat with the insects it relies on for pollination. Studies suggest that most carnivorous plants handle this challenge very well.
There is often very little overlap between the insects visiting flowers and those dying in traps.

Somehow, carnivorous plants can separate pollinators from prey.

A yellow pitcher plant (Sarracenia alata) (Credit: John Abbott/naturepl.com)
The most obvious way to protect pollinators is to keep flowers away from traps. Some carnivorous plants do this by making sure their flowers bloom and die before the traps open. A field survey of 560 Sarracenia alata pitcher plants found only five with flowers and pitchers active at the same time.

Many carnivorous plants seem to spare their pollinators

 There is another option. One-third of carnivorous plants have removed all risks of pollinator-prey conflict by growing their traps underwater and keeping their flowers above ground. Many carnivorous plants also raise their flowers on long stalks. Some researchers speculate that long stalks serve to distance pollinators from traps.

But the role of long stalks in protecting pollinators remains debated. Some plants extend their flowers on stalks even though pollinators cannot reach their traps: bladderworts (Utricularia), for instance, have stalked flowers despite the fact that their traps lie underground.

Furthermore, a survey of more than 50 sundew species } found that plants closer to ground grow longer stalks than those higher up. Some scientists argue that carnivorous plants evolve long stalks to better attract flying pollinators rather than to better protect them.

A greater bladderwort (Utricularia vulgaris) (Credit: Ingo Arndt/naturepl.com)

Whether or not their flowers are far from traps, many carnivorous plants seem to spare their pollinators. This suggests that the plants have another way to mitigate pollinator-prey conflict.

We suspected that the plants might be using other cues to guide the insects

We studied three sundew species with different distances between flowers and sticky leaves," says El-Sayed.

The sundews were lethal – less than 20% of insects caught on leaves escaped. But in all three species, less than 5% of insects caught on leaves were also found in flowers.

"We suspected that the plants might be using other cues to guide the insects," says El-Sayed.
El-Sayed found that Drosera auriculata – the species whose flowers grow closest to its leaves – has flowers that smell distinct from its leaves.

El-Sayed then exposed insects to synthetic blends of these odours. He found that flower odours attract floral visitors – insect pollinators – while leaf odours deter them. Only insects that the sundews usually eat are attracted by the leaf odours.

Some of these chemicals might help us manage pests

This means D. auriculata is the first carnivorous plant known to use odours both to lure prey and protect pollinators.

However, the other two sundews in El-Sayed's study, D. spatulata and D. arcturi, have scentless sticky leaves and flowers that grow further apart. Floral visitors prefer the white colour of flowers, while prey do not discriminate between flower and trap colours.

So instead of smells, D. spatulata and D. arcturi use visual signals and separation to protect pollinators.

Drosera auriculata. The flower and trap emit different odours, guiding pollinators safely to the flower (Credit: Friends of Black Hill/Morialta Inc)

"D. spatulata and D. arcturi grow in open sites. Their flowers are often the highest points around," says El-Sayed. Potential pollinators flying by would likely find the flowers easily even without odours. "Investing in odours to guide pollinators would not be cost-effective in these sundews."

 D. auriculata is the first carnivorous plant known to use odours both to lure prey and protect pollinators

 El-Sayed hopes that the discovery of carnivorous plant odours will stimulate new research and applications for the chemicals.

His team has now begun studying a pitcher plant that emits even more complex and distinct smells than those he found studying sundews. "Who knows? Some of these chemicals might help us manage pests," he says.

Carnivorous plants so captivated Darwin that he called them "the most wonderful plants in the world". After tens of millions of years of juggling hunger and sex, these wonderful plants have evolved into effective and selective killers. Their adaptations could well be a treasure vault that we have just begun to unlock.

Bringing petrol to the (wealthy) people

Sometimes, I wonder if the BBC publishes things for a joke, but reading it further, I realise it's serious.

See what you think of this....

Karen

I tell myself
Hey only fools rush in and only time will tell
If we stand the test of time
All I know
You've got to run to win and I'll be damned if
I'll get hung up on the line


********************





Bentley Motors has commenced trials of a smartphone-powered fuel-delivery service that promises to ease the burden for those too posh to pump.


By David K Gibson
        5 October 2016


There are millions of people who have considered purchasing a Bentley. The vast majority of them have decided against it after discovering that the vehicles require regular injections of a noxious and combustible substance known as “petrol” (street names: gasolina, hi-test, Slurpee). Worse, this petrol must be procured from specialised dispensing stations, most of which lurk beneath freeway flyovers and in rough parts of town.

But Continental considerers may reach once again for their chequebooks, thanks to this week’s announcement of an on-demand fuel-delivery service. Rather than sully their tyres on the macadam of a BP drive-through, Bentley owners may now use a smartphone app to notify “Filld for Bentley” that their automobile requires a bit of that nasty stuff and have it delivered to the bemarbled cul-de-sacs of their vast estates. A truck of petrol will arrive at the appointed time, zeroing in on the car’s location and unlocking its fuel cap, and then dispense only the highest quality petrochemicals (garnished with an artisan Bourbon-cardamom cherry*) into the awaiting tank. The service will roll out first in California, because where else would an on-demand fuel-delivery startup start up?


The service will roll out first in California, because where else would an on-demand fuel-delivery startup start up? 

Filld for Bentley is a part of the marque’s Connected Car initiative, a suite of technologies that makes the vehicles part of the Internet of (very expensive) Things. The goal, according to Christophe Georges, Bentley’s Director of Product and Marketing, is to provide Bentley owners with “the greatest luxury of all: more time.” Further advances of the fuel delivery service may include predictive fuel ordering, in which your car will autonomously call Filld to arrange a discreet pump, meaning that you, Bentley owner, need never think about stopping for gas again. And for an extra monthly fee, Filld will even place a paint-matched silicone disk over your Mullsanne’s fuel cap,* so you need never be reminded of the existence of petrol.

This is clearly a valuable service, one that is not ridiculous in any way, but — as habitual contrarians — we feel that we must raise some thorny issues.

Is not the whole point of having an amazing car to drive it to places where there are guaranteed to be other, lesser cars?

Does Filld charge for the petrol that their delivery trucks burn getting to your Bentley? And do you have to tip for that, too?

Where will the wealthy procure their Slim Jims? (Note to self: Pitch investors on Jerx, the Uber of desiccated meat product delivery services.)

How will we monitor the health of Demi Lovato without regular paparazzi shots of her filling up her Bentayga?

We are confident that the engineers of Bentley Motors are hard at work on those problems.



*These features have not been specifically announced, but may be reasonably inferred.

This says it all.

This was sent to me by an old friend of my father's - and no words are necessary.

                                                                                      


Karen 


I tell myself
Hey only fools rush in and only time will tell
If we stand the test of time
All I know
You've got to run to win and I'll be damned if
I'll get hung up on the line

Meet the man on a mission to save carnivorous plants

I saw this on the BBC Earth website, and thought it should be reproduced on my blog, as carnivorous plants are a passion of mine.

Karen


I tell myself
Hey only fools rush in and only time will tell
If we stand the test of time
All I know
You've got to run to win and 
I'll be damned if
I'll get hung up on the line

************************************


Many of these insect-eating plants are on the brink of extinction, but one researcher is trying to rescue them

·   By Lucy Jones
15 September 2016

Stewart McPherson is prepared to go a long way for his science: even into the grounds of a prison in the Philippines. "I had to be guided by murderers," he says.

His target was, appropriately enough, a plant that kills: a tropical pitcher plant called Nepenthes deaniana that traps and digests insects. "It hadn't been seen for nearly 100 years."
McPherson has been fascinated with carnivorous plants since childhood. As an eight-year-old he came across his first species in a British garden centre. Immediately fascinated, he started a collection. After a couple of years, he had filled the family conservatory with hundreds of different plants.
The young naturalist found carnivorous plants extraordinary – as many others have for centuries. But despite their startling abilities, carnivorous plants are also in profound danger.
"To think they are plants with highly modified specialist leaves that have adapted through evolution to attract, capture, kill and digest animals – in some cases as big as rats – is pretty amazing," says McPherson.

Nepenthes rajah sometimes traps rats (Credit: Stewart McPherson)
"To think they are plants with highly modified specialist leaves that have adapted through evolution to attract, capture, kill and digest animals – in some cases as big as rats – is pretty amazing," says McPherson.

The idea of flesh-eating plants has long captured the imagination, from Victorian fables of man-eating species to post-apocalyptic sci-fi with John Wyndham's The Day of the Triffids and the musical fantasy film Little Shop of Horrors.

These plants were mythical, of course. The thought of real-world carnivorous plant species once seemed impossibly implausible.

Over the last decade, he has climbed 300 mountains

So much so that when the great biologist Charles Darwin wrote about them in his 1875 book Insectivorous Plants, he was mocked for suggesting some plants were carnivorous.

"But of course he was right – as he always was – and he provided the evidence that showed these plants capture and kill animals," says McPherson.

Nepenthes deaniana was not seen for 100 years (Credit: Stewart McPherson)

McPherson always longed to see carnivorous plants in the wild so, after leaving university, he set out to various countries across the world to document them in a series of field guide books. 

Over the last decade, he has climbed 300 mountains, formally described 35 new carnivorous plants and rediscovered long-lost ones – like the Nepenthes deaniana in that Philippine jail.

Because, strange as it might seem, botanists and scientists often overlook carnivorous plants.

We had to eat frogs on the way back

"They haven't received as much attention as they deserve," says McPherson. "There are hundreds of them all over the globe that are underappreciated."

But, thanks to his and other researchers' efforts, that is changing. "In the last 10 years, more of these plants have been found than in any time in history."

Many species are found in remote, inaccessible areas of – for example – Malaysia, Indonesia and Western Australia. Some of these plants had been hard to assess because the environments they occupy are unstable and difficult to travel in.

This means McPherson has had to go to great lengths to explore carnivorous plant biology. On one "epic" trip to a remote mountain in Kalimantan in Southern Borneo, on the trail of Nepenthes pilosa, a species that had not been since 1899, McPherson and his team ran out of food.

Nepenthes pilosa has thick "hair", hence its scientific name (Credit: Stewart McPherson)

"We had to eat frogs on the way back," he says. "We'd go out each night with a torch and look out for their glowing eyes, and catch them for breakfast, lunch and dinner."

While compiling his book on pitcher plants, he travelled to Palawan, a little-known narrow island in the Philippines. As a result of political instability in the 1980s and 1990s, few botanists had travelled to Palawan and explored the spine of mountains that runs along its length.

It was a rich treasure trove for McPherson. "I went up all of the tallest mountains and found an undescribed species on almost every one – seven in total," he says.

It's lived there for tens of thousands of years, quite possibly millions of years, and no one has known or appreciated it

The most exciting of the new species was a giant pitcher plant on Mount Victoria that he named after David Attenborough (Nepenthes attenboroughii), because of the broadcaster's inspiring passion for the natural world. The plant is big enough to put your hand inside.

McPherson heard a story from a group of missionaries who returned after a fateful trip and said they had seen "giant cup plants". He became convinced they were talking about a new species of Nepenthes. "It was immediately clear that it was a brand-spanking-new species, because it was so gigantic."

"We felt absolute elation. It's wonderful contributing anything to science or knowledge. It's lived there for tens of thousands of years, quite possibly millions of years, and no one has known or appreciated it. It's humbling to know that a plant or animal has existed in habitats for years in silence, just slowly ticking along waiting to be noticed and appreciated."



Nepenthes attenboroughii is big enough to put your hand in (Credit: Stewart McPherson)

His team also found a newly-killed shrew in the plant. It had fallen in and drowned in the accumulated rainwater. Two weeks later when they returned, the shrew was a husk, digested by the plant's enzymes.

This kind of behaviour leads to the popular misconception that these plants are "rat-eating". It is actually more coincidental than that.

Many of them harbour little worlds of unique life within their pitchers

"It's not fair to say they deliberately kill [mammals], they do it through coincidence. Under very rare circumstances the same process by which they capture and kill insects, also works on [small mammals],"explains McPhearson.

We still do not know very much about how these plants engage with other animals. Many of them harbour little worlds of unique life within their pitchers: animals that live inside the traps and break down the prey that the plants capture.

And some carnivorous plants have close relationships with mammals and birds.

A fanged pitcher plant (Nepenthes bicalcarata) (Credit: Stewart McPherson)

For example, Nepenthes lowii gets much of its nutrition from tree shrews, just in a roundabout way. "The pitchers of N. lowii look like a toilet bowl. They trap the waste from birds and shrews that use it as a toilet," says McPherson.

A 2015 study suggested that a carnivorous pitcher plant in Borneo attracts bats with an ultrasound reflector, and provides a roost in exchange for their waste. The complex relationship between sundews, spiders and toads has recently been studied by scientists at the University of Maryland.

The parrot plant (Sarracenia psittacina) can capture tadpoles underwater with its lobster pot trap

There is a simple reason why carnivorous plants have such complicated relationships with animals. They usually live in nutrient-poor soil, so they have adapted to capture and digest animal prey to gain the nitrogen and other nutrients they need to survive and grow.

The beautifully ornate sundew (Drosera), for example, captures its prey with sticky, glue-like tentacles. Once an insect is stuck, the plant will fold down, trap and kill its victim. These bright reddish-crimson sundews are even found growing wild in the UK, in the bogs across the country.

Pitcher plants use pitfall traps instead of sticky tentacles. Often pitchers are vividly coloured in red and yellow, with intricate patterns. This elaborate display attracts insects, which slip down the waxy linings into the fluid below and drown.

The pitcher plant Nepenthes bicalcarata looks particularly sinister. It has two "fangs" projecting beneath its lid. There are many theories as to how these thorns profit the plant. Charles Clarke at the University of New England in Armidale, Australia, suggests they may attract insects – there is nectar in the tips.

Carnivorous plants can even capture prey underwater. The aquatic waterwheel plant uses a snap trap, similar to the Venus flytrap. It snaps shut on mosquito larvae and small crustaceans called copepods which are digested by enzymes released by the plant. The parrot plant (Sarracenia psittacina) can capture tadpoles underwater with its lobster pot trap.

Nepenthes platychila has a limited range (Credit: Stewart McPherson)


Unfortunately, the beauty and strange prey-catching adaptations these plants have evolved make them attractive to poachers. Many of them are already critically endangered, which means McPherson and other botanists are racing against time to describe species before they disappear. Many are endangered and some are already extinct.

People in Europe and North America want specifically different ones, which drives people to go up the mountains, rip them out and bring them back

Although it is a common sight in garden centres, the Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula), perhaps the most iconic of carnivorous plants, risks extinction in the wild. The plant occurs only in a small range around Wilmington, North Carolina. Illegal poaching is a factor in long-term population decline.

The rarest carnivorous plants can command the highest value – sometimes thousands of dollars per plant – and many of these species live in economically-deprived regions.

"Everyone has mobile phones and the internet for eBay, so there's a massive trade in the world of rare plants, and it gets bigger and bigger every year," says McPherson. "People in Europe and North America want specifically different ones, which drives people to go up the mountains, rip them out and bring them back to sell locally and internationally."

Alongside poaching, shrinking habitats due to logging, mining, agriculture, new roads and other developments is taking its toll. Because many of the plants live in narrow altitudes and ranges, they can become extinct quickly if habitats change.

There may only be a few thousand Nepenthes rajah in the wild (Credit: Stewart McPherson)
Climate change could also be an issue in the future because many carnivorous plants have such narrow ranges.

To combat the decline and conserve some of the rarest plants, McPherson set up Ark Of Life in 2010. "Many species of Nepenthes are increasingly at risk of becoming extinct and in some cases little is being done."

If we don't maintain a permanent collection for them, that's it for this species, they're gone

Nepenthes rigidifolia, for example, may be the closest plant to extinction. "It's pretty much wiped out in the wild," says McPherson. "The only known wild population currently consists of one plant."

Similarly, there may only be a couple of thousand Nepenthes rajah left in the wild. This huge pitcher plant is endemic to Malaysian Borneo, and has occasionally trapped lizards, birds and frogs. The species is well protected in Malaysia's Kinabalu National Park. Even so, a landslide last year completely destroyed one of four populations, bringing it a step closer to the brink.

The challenge in conserving Nepenthes and certain other carnivorous plants is that the plants are single-sex, meaning an individual plant only has male sexual organs or female sexual organs, not both. That means you need multiple specimens of each sex to have a viable population.

A botanic garden in Holland looks after the Ark of Life collection of around 50 male and female plants. "It's small but they're really important for plants that are extinct or nearly extinct in the wild – they're the rarest of the rare," says McPherson.

The only known wild population currently consists of one plant

"Nepenthes clipeata and N. rigidifolia are the most important," he says. "Both appear to be in serious trouble and if we don't maintain a permanent collection for them, that's it for this species, they're gone. In 50 years all the people who currently cultivate them will have died."

To build up a permanent conservation collection of strains of each plant, McPherson looks for cuttings from people who already have them in horticulture. It is perfectly fine to have legal carnivorous plants at home and there are many legitimate breeders.

The IUCN launched a fundraising campaign at the end of 2015 to help complete the assessment of carnivorous plants, estimating that only 20% of species have so far been formally documented. A report in 2014 said that the primary objective was the assessment of Nepenthes species, in line with the focus of McPherson's Ark of Life.

A shield-leaved pitcher plant (Nepenthes clipeata) (Credit: Stewart McPherson)

There are other promising developments, too. The law was recently strengthened in North Carolina to make poaching wild Venus flytraps a felony rather than a misdemeanour.

Despite extensively searching for several days, McPherson found only four adult clumps and just three small juvenile ones

McPherson has just returned from an expedition to see how the rare Nepenthes clipeata is faring in Indonesian Borneo. This species is the most imperilled of all carnivorous plants. The only mountain on which it occurs has suffered rampant poaching, and has been extensively burnt during recent years, pushing N. clipeata to the brink.

Despite extensively searching for several days, McPherson found only four adult clumps and just three small juvenile ones.

Our pollution might be turning these unique plants vegetarian

The situation is just as bleak for Nepenthes kelam, another carnivorous plant native to Indonesian Borneo. It occurs only near the summit of Mount Kelam on the island. McPherson's investigations on the mountain suggest it is close to extinction in the wild.

Human behaviour has a significant impact on carnivorous plants and it remains to be seen how the most endangered species will survive and adapt in the world.

In 2012, scientists found that  sundew plants in Swedish bogs were cutting back on their fly-catching because they could find nitrogen in the more polluted areas. The plants are so finely tuned to their environments that any changes can affect the way they prey and eat.

So what is the future for carnivorous plants? Some species that occur in non-vulnerable places will be fine. But for those that are restricted to small, isolated locations, the situation is critical. A poacher could wipe out an entire population in a single trip. "It's a battle that in some cases we're quickly losing," says McPherson.

Bank Holiday escape

What a bank holiday weekend.  I didn't want it to end, as it was such a good time.  My partner had been on about going to Chatsworth as he really enjoys that sort of thing, and as I’ve never been, thought it would be an ideal escape for the pair of us.

As he lives north of me, it made sense for me to drive up and pick him up, which wasn’t an issue for either of us.  OK – it was for me – I had to get up at 06:00 to leave at 07:00 as I was picking my partner up at 08:00.

Good thing I did leave early – I managed to get lost.  Damn sat nav.  But, once I got to my partner’s house, it was quite easy to get back en-route – especially as he took a different route to the sat nav – one that avoided the town centres until we got to the Ashbourne road.

The trip was reasonably uneventful and we stopped in Buxton as the pair of us needed a break, and something to munch.  We went into The Tradesman's Entrance, and had a “late” breakfast.  It was really good, and quite reasonable, and I have to admit that it served as a good stopping point.

Then it was back on the road to Chatsworth House.  Now I’d seen the signs for Chatsworth numerous times when I’d been going to the Peak Shopping Village at Rowsley, but never thought to go there.

Well I am very glad that I did. It’s beautiful.  OK – the house is undergoing major restoration (should be finished November next year according to the website Chatsworth House - The Masterplan) but that didn’t detract from the beauty of the house.

The house and gardens are well worth visiting, and like an idiot, I didn’t take my camera with me.  Doh.  But, the website does have some beautiful photos on it, and certainly explains it better than I ever could - Chatsworth - The House.  Whilst we were inside the house, the heavens opened, and I have to admit that I was very glad that we had decided to do the inside tour first - I would have hated to be walking around the house squelching.

The gardens are also something very special, and again, I am kicking myself for not taking the camera.  The scenery was spectacular (OK – slightly spoilt by the scaffolding and the modern “art” that was in the gardens – but otherwise it was something special. 

There was one feature that my partner wanted to show me – and it was a gravity powered water “fountain” called “Revelation.  The detail was incredible, and the information that I managed to find (courtesy of a plaque by the sculpture / fountain) stated:

Moved by the weight of water and gravity from the lakes above, the inner sphere is filled with water causing it to descend.  This makes the outer leaves close over it as if protectively holding a secret.  A syphon then discharges the water. The lightened sphere rises. The leaves open out to reveal the preciously held secret before the cycle begins again'.


This YouTube video shows it far better than I can describe it - Revelation video


Main gate to the Stables at Chatsworth House
Then it was up to the Stables.  This area has been converted, meaning that it was a sort of shopping / eating area.  OK – the usual complaint (damned expensive on the food – the drinks weren’t too bad) but at least we managed to find somewhere to sit and plan the next part of the journey – to our overnight stay.

That wasn’t too bad – apart from the sat nav getting confused again.  (Easier to blame the sat nav than my not listening to the directions as usual!)

Dinner wasn’t bad, and it gave us a chance to have a break and plan the options for the following day.  Namely the Blue John Caverns.

Now the route to the cavern is spectacular – if you’re not driving.  And more to the point, if you go the bus / coach route, it’s a darn sight easier.  However, I decided to go the car route, and wished I hadn’t.

It was damned narrow in places, and I did most of the drive with the door mirrors folded in on the car.  But, once we’d parked we decided to have a quick coffee at the Blue John Café. The coffee was pretty good by my standards, and certainly reasonably priced.

Then it was the walk to the cavern.  It’s down quite a steep slope (but the scenery makes up for it) and the entrance doesn’t look anything special…  Now I did notice that there was a sign advising people that the cavern wasn’t suitable for pregnant women, people with cardiac problems or respiratory issues.

I know my partner didn’t spot that bit about the respiratory issues (or if he did, he didn’t mention it) and we then headed down into the cavern.  Now as he’s taller than me (OK – I know that’s not difficult when you’re just over 5ft tall) but it meant he had to duck down in places and I didn’t.

It was well illuminated, and in places you did get wet, as it’s a limestone cavern.  Again, I wish I had taken the camera with me, bit daft of me, but I suspect that the photos wouldn’t have shown very much – other than a lot of mist!

The fun started on the way back up.  It’s a deep cavern – like about 300 feet down type deep, and it’s a steep slope.  Not too bad on the way down, but the way up….  Well that was where I should have heeded the warning about the respiratory issues....

Yep – I had an asthma attack.  About 150 feet below the ground.  Not fun, I will admit, and my partner was worried about me.  My blue inhaler kicked in, and I will admit to thanking my lucky stars that it did so, as I really didn’t fancy the cave rescue option.

So I sat quietly for a bit, and then we headed back to the car.  My partner was a real sweetheart, and he went to the café to get a coffee whilst I sat in the car trying to plot a better route to the main road – preferably one that didn’t use the horrible route I’d driven in.

My partner offered to drive, as he was worried about the after effects of the asthma attack.  Now had it been the 207, I would have had no objections, as it was the older car – but the 208?  No chance in hell.  Call me a control freak, but there was no way I was relinquishing the control of my new car to anyone.

We found a route on the map showing a road heading towards Sparrowpit (or Sparrowspit as my partner insisted on calling it!), meaning that we avoided the really grotty road in, and it meant that we could start heading back towards Ashbourne and home.

Now as the pair of us hadn’t eaten, we decided to find a pub en-route home so we could have a break and something to eat. Now as my partner knew the area pretty well, I trusted his judgement on the place to eat.  And as we got closer to Ashbourne, there were fewer options, until we spotted the Bentley Brook Inn.

Once we’d had a very late lunch (OK – an early dinner) it was back on the road to my partner’s home, and then onto home for me.  I dropped him off, and he made me promise that I would let him know that I was home OK, as he admitted that he worried about me driving such a distance.

I got home OK, and admitted that I was wiped out. Needless to say my partner was less than impressed with me, and made sure that I knew how he felt – even to the extent that he told me that the next time we went away for the weekend, he was driving and that we would explore no more caverns...

If anything, this weekend has brought the pair of us closer, and made me realise just what a gem I have found.

Guess I should call this quits – I do need to get some sleep.

Back when I get the inclination…

Karen

I tell myself
Hey only fools rush in and only time will tell
If we stand the test of time
All I know
You've got to run to win and 
I'll be damned if
I'll get hung up on the line