Yay, Rosetta is in orbit!
Here is a stunning photo, taken today, of the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.
Surface of the comet taken by Rosetta on 6 August 2014.
And here is one taken three days ago, showing the whole comet:
The comet photographed on 3 August 2014 by Rosetta.
Hearty congratulations to all the project scientists and technicians. This is a terrific achievement, and there is lots more fantastic science to come!
Tomorrow the European Space Agency’s Rosetta robotic spacecraft will rendezvous with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, some ten and a half years after the space probe was launched. In that time it has travelled 404,523,421 km (251,359,200 miles). It will be, according to the ESA’s website, ‘the first mission in history to rendezvous with a comet, escort it as it orbits the Sun, and deploy a lander to its surface.’
The whole event is being livestreamed, from 8.00 am GMT (9.00 am British Summer Time), here, as Rosetta is deployed into orbit around the comet.
I will certainly be watching this historic event. It has been so exciting watching as Rosetta approached the comet over the last month or so, from the first initial pixelated views that resolved themselves into the ‘rubber duck’. The scientists have to choose carefully where to place the lander on this slowly rotating chunk of space ice (water is a major volatile component of comets, along with carbon monoxide, methanol and ammonia.)
The comet pictured by Rosetta on 4 July 2014.
Rotating view of the comet captured by Rosetta on 14 July 2014.
The comet imaged from a distance of 1,000 km by Rosetta on 1 August 2014.
Once Rosetta is safely in orbit, it will begin to map and characterise the comet. Using the information it provides, a landing site will be selected for the lander.
According to the ESA website, the timeline is:
Comet mapping and characterisation (August 2014)
Less than 200 kilometres from the nucleus, images from Rosetta show the comet’s spin-axis orientation, angular velocity, major landmarks and other basic characteristics.
Eventually, the spacecraft is inserted into orbit around the nucleus at a distance of about 25 kilometres. Their relative speed is now down to a few centimetres per second.
The orbiter starts to map the nucleus in great detail. Eventually, five potential landing sites are selected for close observation.
Landing on the comet (November 2014)
Rosetta’s Philae lander on comet.
Once a suitable landing site is chosen, the lander is released from a height of about one kilometre. Touchdown takes place at walking speed — less than one metre per second.
Once it is anchored to the nucleus, the lander sends back high-resolution pictures and other information on the nature of the comet’s ices and organic crust.
The data are relayed to the orbiter, which stores them for transmission back to Earth at the next the period of contact with a ground station.
Rosetta and the comet.
So exciting. Can’t wait for tomorrow!
100 years ago today, the United Kingdom, and with it the Commonwealth, entered the conflict that became known as the Great War, and in time, World War I. From that point, life in this country was indelibly changed. The horrific loss of life affected every family, every community. Family members, friends, neighbours—no-one was immune from loss. The mechanisation of war, with machine guns and tanks, poison gas and bombs, meant that the killing was on a horrific scale.
Our village suffered huge losses among its young men. The large part of a generation, wiped out.
There is a wonderful project by the Royal British Legion, Every Man Remembered, to memorialise every person from the Commonwealth who died in the conflict. You can memorialise someone you know, or select someone with no commemoration and add a message of remembrance and gratitude.
Poppies, the symbol of remembrance. Photo by David Wijnants.
Lest We Forget.
I love kedgeree: quick to make and so tasty. Here’s my version of the Anglo-Indian classic. It involves a little bit of juggling to get the cooked, skinned fish, the boiled eggs and the rice ready at the same time, but it’s very easy. The spice measurements are guesstimates as I just chuck a load in that seems right. Serves 2, with some left over (it freezes well, apart from the eggs, which go rubbery—so eat all of those first time round!).
Kedgeree.
1 large fillet undyed smoked haddock with skin on (about 400 g)
4 eggs
200 g brown basmati rice
big knob of butter
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp ground coriander
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1/2 tsp ground chilli
salt and freshly ground black pepper
large bunch of flat leaf parsley
Fill a large saucepan about a half full with water, and bring to the boil.
In a small saucepan, bring some water up to the boil into which to boil the eggs.
Reduce the water in the large pan to a simmer and poach the haddock (I cut it into two or three sections for ease of handling) in the water for about 5—6 minutes or until the flesh loses its translucence.
When poached, take the fish out of the water and drain—don’t throw the water in the pan away. Bring this fishy water up to the boil, add a pinch of salt and then add the rice (the rice will taste extra yummy cooked in the fishy water, even if it looks a bit scummy). Stir the rice around to make sure it doesn’t stick to the bottom of the pan or clump together while cooking.
Put the eggs in to boil in the smaller saucepan.
Skin the fish and break it into rough flakes, and keep it warm. (I put it on one of the plates we’re eating off and upturn the other over it so it doesn’t dry out, and put it in an oven that has been warmed but with the heat now turned off; the cats gets the fish skin).
Strip the parsley leaves off the stalks and chop roughly.
Give the eggs 8 or so minutes to hard boil with a slightly soft centre. When cooked, shell and cut into quarters.
When the rice is cooked, which should be about the same time that the eggs are ready, drain it and quickly rinse under hot water. Leave it in the sieve to drain. Put a big knob of butter in the rice saucepan, then add the spices and cook briefly over a medium heat. Return the rice to the spicy buttery mix in the pan and stir around to mix the spices through well.
Add the flaked fish and the parsley to the rice mix and stir to combine. Add the quartered eggs and gently stir through (they’ll break up if you’re too rough). Season with salt and masses of freshly ground black pepper, and serve. I like it with a big dollop of brinjal pickle; plain yoghurt goes really well with it if you are not too keen on dry rice dishes.
This is the first time I’ve written down a recipe that I do ‘off the cuff’—I now have added respect for cookery writers, because it’s not nearly as easy as I blithely thought it would be.
Now I know this isn’t for everyone, but I love insect jewellery. There’s something about the idea of wearing a bee or a spider or a ladybird as adornment: quirky, fun, and a pretty little celebration of the beauties of the natural world. They’re certainly not for those with arachnophobia or other squeams (I don’t know if that is a word, but if you can be squeamish, I don’t see why not!)
Scarab beetles were incredibly popular among the Ancient Egyptians for many centuries. Of these, the most famous example must be the stunning pectoral (chest decoration) from Tutankhamun’s tomb with its central yellow scarab, carved from glass sourced from the Libyan desert. This glass is really unusual—it was formed when a meteorite hit the desert sand and the extreme heat formed glass (glass is made from silica, and the most common constituent of sand is silica). The pectoral dates to c. 1323 BC.
The central yellow scarab beetle in Tutankhamun’s pectoral. The beetle is carved from Libyan desert glass, formed when a meteorite struck the sands of the desert.
I had a wonderful early Victorian turquoise glass scarab brooch in my shop, and was very sad when it sold—it was my favourite piece. I don’t know who made it, but whoever it was they had the most fantastic eye for detail and craftsmanship. It was a pretty wee thing and the level of detail was amazing. The lady who bought it adored it too and told me it was her favourite piece of all her jewellery. I love hearing things like that from my customers: it makes it so rewarding.
Early Victorian turquoise glass scarab brooch. Sold in my Etsy shop. (NOW SOLD).
The Victorians had a particular passion for insect jewellery. Their brooches were often expensive pieces, made with platinum or gold and encrusted with precious stones such as diamonds, rubies, sapphires and emeralds.
Victorian sapphire and diamond bumblebee brooch.
Victorian Abalone pearl, ruby, diamond and gold beetle brooch. French.
Victorian emerald, ruby and rose-cut diamond dragonfly brooch.
And I couldn’t leave out a nod to The Master, René Lalique (1860-1945). Here is a wasp hat pin of his:
René Lalique wasp hat pin.
Simply stunning.
I have three pieces of insect jewellery in my Etsy shop at the moment, none as grand as those above, but charming nevertheless.
A pair of spider brooches with green glass facetted stones for their abdomens and thoraxes make me chuckle every time I see them. They are joined by a chain and so can be positioned differently every time they are worn. They are made by a company called Mizpah; I haven’t been able to find out anything about this company so far. I think they date from the 1950s but they might be earlier. (Okay, I know spiders aren’t insects, they’re arthropods, but humour me in lumping them in with their six-legged friends). The bigger spider is ginormous – a full 69 mm (2 3/4 inches) across!
Two spider brooches joined by a safety chain. For sale in my Etsy shop. (NOW SOLD).
I also have a more modern beetle brooch, bejewelled with green rhinestones. He’s another behemoth of the insect world—he’s 58 mm (2 1/4 inches) long, not quite up to the size of Daddy Longlegs above but giving him a run for his money!
Vintage jewelled beetle brooch. For sale in my Etsy shop. (NOW SOLD)
I bought him because I love the colours. Green beetles always make me think of the amazing dress made for the famous actress Ellen Terry, when she played Lady Macbeth: goodness knows how many thousand green beetle carapaces were sewn on to the dress. The stunning painting by John Singer Sargent of Ellen Terry wearing the dress is in the Tate Gallery in London.
Ellen Terry as Lady Macbeth, by John Singer Sargent, 1889.
The dress itself is on display at Terry’s house, Smallhythe Place in Kent, under the stewardship of the National Trust.
My third piece is a gorgeous fluttery butterfly which has settled on a silver ring: blue and green guilloche enamel decorates the wings, and the two antennae bend back towards the body.
Vintage guilloche enamel and silver butterfly ring. For sale in my Etsy shop. (NOW SOLD).
The ring is not marked with a maker but it is similar to Scandinavian examples so I wonder if that region might be its homeland. (I had a pair of enamel butterfly earrings by Norwegian silversmith Hroar Prydz, but unsurprisingly they sold pretty quickly—they were absolutely gorgeous!)
Hroar Prydz enamel butterfly earrings. Sold in my Etsy shop. Sorry ladies! (NOW SOLD).
UPDATE 19 August 2014:
I now have a beautiful small Hroar Prydz butterfly brooch for sale in my shop:
Hroar Prydz small butterfly brooch, silver, vermeil and guilloche enamel, 1950s, for sale in my Etsy shop. (NOW SOLD).
UPDATE 26 August 2014:
I’ve gone bug crazy! I have another insect brooch in my shop now, a lovely little sterling silver and turquoise insect brooch. I think it might be from the US – Southwestern/Native American/Navajo jewellery. Wherever it comes from, it’s a buzzy delight!
Sterling silver and turquoise insect brooch, for sale in my Etsy shop. (NOW SOLD).
The night before last I was awake between 3 and 5 am (I know that much as I heard the village church clock strike 3, then 4, then 5 … Oh the joys of insomnia!) and just before 4 am a tawny owl (Strix aluco) perched up very close to our cottage and started its call.
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Tawny owl (Strix aluco). Photo by Martin Mecnarowski.
As it has been so hot recently all our windows are wide open, so it sounded like it was almost on top of us: I think it might have been in our neighbour’s alder tree. Anyhow, after a few initial single screechy ‘ooh-eee’ calls (can’t think how to describe them better), it started up with its regular ‘Hoo hoo-hoo-hoo-hoo’ call, the one that we in the UK often call ‘twit-twooo’. (This BBC video starts with the ‘twit-twoo’ and ends up with a screechy one, if you were curious to know what my pathetic attempts at owl call transcription actually sound like).
Within a couple of minutes a second, distant tawny owl was responding, setting up a nice duet. And then a third joined in, somewhere between the other two—not as loud as the first but louder than the second. And he sounded like he had a bad case of sore throat: his croaky calls didn’t add much to the melody. The three of them sang to each other (or more realistically, disputed territories vocally) for about ten minutes, and then, as abruptly as it had started, it stopped. I still didn’t get to sleep though.
Tawny owl chicks. Cute overload! Photo by Artur Mikołajewski.
I have a real fascination for raptors of all kinds. We are lucky to have various kinds living in and flying over our village. We frequently see buzzards (Buteo buteo) and occasionally sparrowhawks (Accipiter nisus) flying over—the sparrowhawks hunt quite low over our garden and I have had some amazingly close encounters.
Buzzard (common buzzard, Buteo buteo). Photo by Arend.
Sparrowhawk (Accipiter nisus) in flight, seen from underneath. Photo by Christian Knoch.
Most exciting of all are the red kites (Milvus milvus) that we have started seeing in the last four years or so.
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Red kite (Milvus milvus). This stunning bird has a two metre wingspan. Photo by Thomas Kraft.
These magnificent birds used to be common in the UK—so common that they used to scavenge for scraps on the street of medieval London—but were so relentlessly persecuted over the centuries that their numbers dwindled to a handful of breeding birds in mid Wales by early 1900s. Reintroductions using European birds started in Wales and a little later in the Chiltern Hills in the UK, followed by other projects around the country, and these have been a great success: the red kite population is increasing and their distribution across the UK is spreading.
We waited and waited for our first sighting round these parts. A friend told us he had seen one in Dorset. Then in February 2006 great excitement when Chap saw one circling over an ‘A’ road about three miles from here. But the day were were hoping for—seeing a red kite over our own village here in south-west Wiltshire—finally came on 19 April 2010. That was a red letter day indeed for our nature diary. Since then we have seen them regularly—so regularly in fact that we hope they are breeding nearby, rather than just passing through.
We once were lucky enough to see a kite and a buzzard flying in the same thermal, and we were able to compare sizes: the buzzard is a big bird, but next to the kite it was dwarfed.
Even though our cottage and garden are both pretty small, all in all we have eight neighbours with whom we share a boundary—but the reason for that is for another day’s post (hint: medieval burgages and later coaching inns). There is a low stone wall between us and one of our neighbours’ houses.
The mystery tile. The old breaks are a dirty dark grey; the modern ones bright greyish white. I don’t think it’s Iznik – Indian, maybe?
One day, many years ago, I noticed a lovely old tile sitting on top of the wall—one edge was broken and missing, and the glaze was dinked in a couple of places, but generally it wasn’t in too bad condition. What really grabbed me about it were the colours, turquoises and cobalt blues, and they reminded me of the colours of the Iznik tiles I had seen on the walls in the various ancient mosques I had visited in the Middle East. I didn’t think much more about it. Our neighbour’s kids used to play on the wall and I assumed they had put it there. The next time I saw it was about a year later. It had fallen to the ground on our side of the garden and had broken into about six pieces. I mentioned it to our neighbour and she said ‘Oh that old thing, I don’t want it, chuck it away.’
Angled view from the front, showing the bumpy textured section of the central flower spike.
Well, being a lover of old things and an inveterate hoarder, I could do no such thing. I gathered up all the fragments I could find, washed them, and stuck them back together with HMG glue (beloved of archaeological finds officers across the nation). A few pieces were missing and despite a thorough search I never found them.
I would love to know more about the tile. It measures about 220 mm (8 3/4 inches) square and about 16 mm (7/10 inch) thick, with slightly bevelled edges. The clay from which it is made is a greyish white in colour. There are fingerprints on the backside—you can run your four fingers down where the tile maker smoothed out the clay into the mould. The glaze is very glassy/vitreous. I don’t think it is an Iznik tile as all the ones I have seen have flowing, curving, sinuous plants and foliage, whereas the ones on this tile are quite geometric and angular. I wonder if it might be Indian?
The back of the tile, with the four parallel finger marks running horizontally across from the bottom right corner, from when the maker was smearing and pressing down the clay into the square mould. The darker grey circular marks (there would originally have been nine of them) are presumably something to do with the loading of the tiles in the kiln for firing. Anyhow—if anyone has any ideas about the identification of this tile, I’d love to know.
As it is a blazing hot day, yet again, I thought a cooling drink might be in order … Be warned, it is boozy. Very boozy.
In 2008 Chap and I had a wonderful six-week holiday in New Zealand. We stayed with my family in Wellington, and then did a tour around North Island in a campervan (nicknamed The Nostromo by us).
We both adore swimming and snorkelling, so a visit to the marine reserve at Goat Island (properly titled the Cape Rodney-Okakari Point Marine Reserve) was a must.
The beach at Goat Island marine reserve, with Goat Island in the distance. Photo by Inglenookery.
There is a lovely camping spot nearby, and we spent a couple of days there. The weather was not too clement, and the sea was very choppy and visibility was not too good, and on top of that the fish stayed away. One evening during that stay we walked from the campsite to a great restaurant: Leigh Sawmill Cafe. Before the meal I had the most moreish aperitif, Goat Island Iced Tea, a cocktail made with five (!) white spirits: vermouth, gin, white rum, tequila and Cointreau, topped up with ginger ale. The food was delicious, and the wine list introduced us to Hyperion Syrah (we liked it so much we later visited the vineyard at Matakana and bought a couple of cases). Needless to say, we staggered back to the campsite—luckily most of it was downhill.
We loved Goat Island so much that we visited again during our trip, and stayed at the same campsite. The sun shone for us on our second visit, and the snorkelling was amazing. As there is no fishing allowed in the area—commercial or of any kind at all—the fish are incredibly numerous, both in species and numbers. They are also bold and unafraid. We swam with groupers and rays and blue mau mau (also called blue cod, Parapercis colias). We dined and drank again at the Sawmill. Again, I had the Goat Island Iced Tea. Again, we rolled home. Happy days.
Blue mau mau (Parapercis colias) at Goat Island marine reserve. Photo by Inglenookery.
I tried to get the recipe from the barman but quite understandably he wasn’t about to give away his trade secrets. I knew the ingredients from the description in the wine list, so I decided to try to recreate it back in Blighty. This isn’t a bad approximation:
Goat Island Iced Tea
50 ml vermouth
50 ml gin
50 ml white rum (such as Bacardi)
50 ml tequila
50 ml Cointreau
50 ml fresh lime juice or a good glug of lime cordial (I like Rose’s)
500 ml dry ginger ale (not ginger beer—that makes the drink too sweet)
Mix in a jug. Serve in tall glasses with lots of ice. I bung in some lime wedges and/or mint leaves too. Enjoy!
Oh lordy. Now I am going to get drawn into the wormhole of Catblivion.
Catblivion. You are powerless to resist.
A new website called iknowwhereyourcatlives.com features over a million cats, located Google Earth-style to their actual locations. The site’s maker Owen Mundy, an art professor at Florida State University, has taken photos of cats that have been uploaded on to photo sharing websites such as Flickr, Twitpic and Instagram, and used the metadata on these photos (which includes the latitude and longitude of where the photos were taken) to create this cat cyberstalker’s heaven.
There’s also a ‘random cat’ button. The very first one I got was a tiger in the City of Des Moines Blank Park Zoo. Too cool! He’s lying in snow and he looks like he’s got conjunctivitis in one eye. See, I’m already fretting about teh kittehs.
The second was of a lovely ?Bengal cat who lives in Finland.
And now I’m fretting even more—this is also a catnapper’s little black book with knobs on. But maybe I’m just a cynical old bag. Time to click random cat again and de-stress. Kitteh in Gold Coast Australia helps …
Kitteh in the Gold Coast, Australia.
They also have a Kickstarter to get funds to cover the web hosting for the first year. So far it’s on $775 of a $2,500 target; that’s 16 days left to meet the target.
An interesting article was published on the BBC website a couple of days ago about a study into how seals in the North Sea are foraging around offshore wind farms. I don’t suppose it is any great surprise to the marine biologists that this is happening, as the wind turbine bases act as artificial reefs, and the seals are attracted to the fish and crabs and other tasty snacks that are attracted to the reef-like environment that offers them shelter and food. But thanks to GPS trackers, the seals’ movements can be closely monitored and have provided a grid-like pattern that echoes that of the wind farm.
The GPS track pattern made by a Harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) around an offshore wind farm.
The study looked at the movements of harbour or common seals (Phoca vitulina) and grey seals (Halichoerus grypus). Some of the harbour seals repeatedly visited the wind farms, Sheringham Shoal in UK waters, off the north Norfolk coast, and Alpha Ventus in German waters.
Sheringham Shoal wind farm. Here there be sea monsters (okay, seals). Photo by Mike Page.
This little news snippet reminded me of a charming video I saw on YouTube a couple of years ago. Here’s a turtle meeting a commercial diver who was doing some checks or maintenance work at an oil rig in Thailand:
So cool! I love that the diver interacts so nicely with it, after the initial ‘What the ***!’ moment and shove when he realises there’s a turtle breathing down his neck. Aw, turtle just wants to hang out and be friends. I’m not sure what species it is—possibly a Hawksbill turtle (Eretmochelys imbricata).