WoW to Attenborough - Torrential Rain

Walking on Wednesday this morning consisted of me and Reg only, everybody else otherwise engaged. So we went over to Attenborough Nature Reserve and although the light wasn't kind, it was fun. We started with a coffee in the Visitors' Centre and while looking out saw Nottinghamshire's equivalent of 'Nessy' in the water. Strange humpy thing that slowly went past an island. Reg photographed it but I don't know how successful the results will be in viedw of the unhelpful conditions. Picture 1 is the Visitors' Centre and, if you open the link, you see the roof in the first aerial picture on their website.

Then we nipped over to the Erewash Meadows fo Reg to have a look at the plant I couldn't identify. He confirmed Jill's view that it was a Balsam. A Himalayan Balsam in fact but the show wasn't as beautiful as last week because it has moved from bloom to seed-head stage. Reg showed me how you only need to touch the seed-heads and they burst open scattering seed all over the place. .

As you can see from Picture 2 it looks as if there is a storm imminent. There was, and we got drenched. I told Reg to go to the car because there was little point in us both becoming saturated, but he wouldn't. I was dressed in a non-waterproof jacket which certainly wasn't, but Reg only had a sweat-shirt.

The drive to Kimberly was amazing - even with the wipers on superspeed they couldn't clear it, we couldn't demist the inside either and in the end I parked until it started to ease off. All was well when we arrived at the Nelson & Railway and the chip-cob was excellent. They are also a Wi-Fi Hotspot so I went on the internet and introduced Reg to googlemail. I sent him an invite to it while we sat in the pub so it should be on his PC when he gets home. The above link will take you to their very fancy website complete with 'twitchy' headers and such attention grabbing refinements. They don't seem to mention the Wi-Fi, but they should - it's quite a plus-point. Reg texted Roy who is in Pembroke just to let him know we were WOW-ing, soaking wet, but in the pub. He replied that it was also wet there but I didn't suss out if he was already in the pub or had not yet arrived. He is back next week so he will probably be available for Wednesday. Hope Mike will be too.

Good quote on my iGoogle page:-

"A wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top"

- Unknown

I'm always slightly disappointed when the author of a quote is either 'unknown' or 'anonymous'. I prefer a name to hang it on.

Y is cooking a steak & kidney pie this evening, with all the trimmings. And then there is Rick Stein and immediately afterwards Robbie Coltrane starts a new series and byways and side-roads which looks good. Have a good night's kip and see you tomorrow.