BUCKET LIST;

My trip to Hiroshima, Japan was work related (Not Leptraps). I have been to Trinity (New Mexico) twice.

My journey to the Bikinis Islands got my wife, Ms Betty, two weeks in Hawaii and both Ms Betty and I six days in Tahiti.

Of all the places I took Ms Betty, her favorite foreign country was the Virgin Islands. We had a time share. We visited the Virgin Islands five (5) times. There was no telling Ms Betty that the Virgin Islands were a US Territory.

Cars and caterpillars? Cars can be correlated with just about anything these days. But there was a time when they were essentially irrelevant, even in my memory.

I am into my fourth week of recuperation from a Total Knee Replacement. It is so uncomfortable that all the good intentions I had for this period of forced inactivity have faded, and I am reduced to pondering my past, which I regard as very rich, notwithstanding an almost total absence of cars in my life. I live in Victoria, British Columbia, but I grew up in Wimbledon, and had the great fortune to go to a primary school (Old Central) on Wimbledon Common. It was a blissful setting. Every day I would pass a large patch of stinging nettles near the school and I began to notice large numbers of caterpillars (peacock and small tortoiseshell) feeding upon them. This discovery around 1946 triggered a passion for butterflies and moths, and later just about anything to do with natural history.

London was on my doorstep, and offered many opportunities for young aspiring naturalists. Among them was Watkins and Doncaster, whose magnificent swallowtail hung out into The Strand. After ascending the spiral mahogany staircase, one entered a cramped room, packed to the ceiling with glass-covered trays of insects. It was a world away from the hustle and bustle of The Strand outside.

Just through idle reminiscing this morning, I googled Watkins and Doncaster to find out what happened to them. I was surprised and delighted to learn they are thriving. And then I stumbled into InsectNet Forum.

Clearly the passion for insects is still out there. My own interest is limited to simply observing these lovely creatures where ever encountered, most often in my back garden which they share with native black-tailed deer and scores of European wall lizards. Occasionally there will be a special treat, such as my first hummingbird hawk-moth a few years back, in my brother's Sussex garden, followed by another the next year in Newfoundland Like their bird namesakes, this species is remarkably indifferent to close observation, though you must keep still. And keeping still is what I am getting good at.