A couple of lovely sunny days in Cambridge last week, Eleanor’s first holiday with Granny and Papa, proved a real success all round. Centrepiece of the first day was the Botanic Garden: well known to us, but seen now with new eyes – flowers from all round the world, complete with a kids’ passport-stamping discovery trail …

Given the time of year, fruits were also a feature, along with foliage sprinkled with mercurial stardust and brought to life with welcome sunlight:

Insects were everywhere of course, from leaf-cutter bees to Cinnamon Bugs, butterflies to dragonflies, the Ruddy Darter being one of Eleanor’s photographic efforts!

One poor Southern Hawker was giving especially good views, but only because it had been captured and beheaded by a Moorhen. It was then presented to a well-grown chick, which proceeded to turn up its bill at the offering!

Finally on the insects, we were saddened to see the killing fields of Thalia dealbata unleashed. A previous blog Murder at the Garden Pond: Thalia dealbata – the (not very) beautiful assassin | Chris Gibson Wildlife has catalogued the unsavoury habits of this plant, and we hope that contact with Garden managers will result in the removal of the pollinator-killing flower-spikes, as we now do at Beth Chatto’s Garden.

The following day, the Museum of Zoology kept us out of the fierce sun, and occupied for a good couple of hours. A REAL museum, with lots of fascinating actual specimens, an absence of buttons and lights, but child-friendly display cases, the right height to get eye-to-eye with specimens of every kind.

And that apart from some bits of intentional and unintentional street art was it…

… except for the delight of the funfair for our little treasure!