Sunday 13 June 2010

Enjoyed a perfect-weather day with lunch - vegetarian curry - at Ballywire Farm Tearoom. It's only a fifteen minute drive. Gwenda joined me and we caught up on news. Since I didn't have any it was all her news, of  her grown sons and their adventures, and then of her trip on Friday driving Denis and Isobel to Wallaroo Hospital at the top end of the Peninsula (two hours each way).  Denis had scans following the minor-stroke scare of 12 days ago. Small drama involving the departure in the morning, but all was well.

The other insight from today was the discovery that I do not know the difference between a swamp oak and a she-oak. I know neither is an oak. Will I ever learn the difference? Will anybody care? If I learn, I can walk around carrying a sign reading, "Ask me about swamp oaks".

Truly the world is a puzzling place.

To prove it, here is that pic from yesterday's slide show, the four wee crabs I met at Flaherty's Beach. Now that I look at it again, I am not so sure that the crabs are expecting to open the shellfish (mussel?) although they might well be happy if they could. Are they maybe nibbling the soft tissue around the lip, and possibly attacking the anchoring "foot"? It's as well that I have no intention of sitting any exam in marine biology.

If I was a betting bloke I'd put a  buck on the big fella on the right. But the little guy at the bottom deserves marks for trying. The smallest crab's carapace is only 7 millimetres across. Water depth, 50 millimetres. This was not in a rock pool but the actual shore line, near high tide.

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