We live on the edge of the Wiltshire downs, and these days, apart from birds and creepy crawlies (you can tell I'm not a biologist), the living things we see out there are mostly rabbits (the photo was taken a few days ago, from the window), occasional foxes and very occasional badgers. However, this chalk escarpment was, of course, once under water, and when we had to dig rather a long way into the chalk some while ago it was difficult to move for fossils of ancient sea creatures. Unfortunately, being chalk, many of them were broken, but I wanted to share a couple of the best preserved. I'm not sure if I like the sense of continuity, or I'm slightly unnerved by the idea of these things swimming around outside my study window...

I'm sorry. I can't be politically correct about this. I hate nettles. They are evil. And to show I mean business, here's a sack of them I ripped up yesterday. I'm sure someone reading this is thinking 'But nettles are wonderful plants. You can make lovely soup out of them, and nettle wine and nettle tea. They're eco-marvellous.' Well, I'm sorry, it's rubbish. Just imagine I was talking about local youths: 'They take over my garden uninvited, and they hurt me. Hours after our encounter I was still in pain.' In fact, the local youths are mostly pretty nice, but that applies absolutely to nettles. If humans did what they did, they'd be arrested and sent down. Death to all nettles.