Caldecote village and a common wasp queen under the microscope.

As Mr McArthur' book Ka Sefofane is being printed, I had also been commissioned to prepare a DL insert for a newsletter. This provided an excellent opportunity to trial the new version of my design software, which promptly decided that it needed to update and install a new service pack. Once the installation was complete, the screenviews of the upgraded program were mercifully similar to the previous version, thus avoiding time consuming delays due to re-familiarisation.

The afternoon was spent with members of the Caldecote History Group, who are planning to publish the results of their dedicated research in book form and had requested my humble opinions on the matter. A more detailed account can be found here http://miltoncontact.blogspot.com/2011/05/caldecote-history-groups-early-book.html.

The stimulating discussion continued unabated till after five pm. Taking my leave, I chose to drive south through the village to gain a personal impression. Caldecote conformed to a ribbon development along the causeway, with a key difference that most of the houses were screened with greenery from the road such that at times one might have been forgiven for thinking one was on a leafy country lane .

I halted at the parish church of St Michael and All Angels and meandered through the graveyard and into a delightful meadow garden beyond. The evening sun shone benevolently on the lichen covered gravestones as I used my camera to good effect. Beyond the meadow garden and through another turnstile, was a large field where the distribution of buttercups revealed the underlying undulations characteristic of ancient ridge and furrow ploughing. You can see the photographs at https://picasaweb.google.com/miltoncontact/CaldecoteChurchOfStMichaelAndAllAngels?feat=directlink

My route back to Milton was most circuitous, first through Toft, where once the best ever laboratory assistant I had ever had had lived during my science research days. Then on past Comberton, I took the Long Road towards Madingly; straight as a die, it rode across the hills like a giant rollercoaster ride.

The evening was spent in part at the stereomicroscope. I tried sectioning the demineralised chicken bones that I had preserved in glycerol; sorted out some foraminifera from the Hunstanton sand collection of 22 April and took a first glance at the fruit flies clearing in glycerol. The last challenge was to identify the preserved wasp that I had captured on the 15th April (see
http://theworldofchristopherust.blogspot.com/2011/04/spring-wasp-book-cover-and.html). My Collin's Field Guide to Insects allowed me to narrow the wasp down to species level, it was a common wasp, Vespula vulgaris, as indicated by the clublike black marking on its face. However, It required the excellent pictures and additional information published by
http://www.eakringbirds.com/eakringbirds2/insectswaspsidentification.htm to determine that this was indeed a queen that had invaded our house, no doubt seeking a suitable nesting site.