Jeremy Fisher or Toad of Toad Hall?

This fabulous frog (for I think it is a frog and not a toad) hopped up on to our backdoor step in a teeming shower of rain at 1pm. I told my husband that the amphibian was rather like a gherkin with a yellow stripe down its back. Imagine our excitement for a split second when Google seemed to come up with the ID of Natterjack Toad!

If anybody can help us to name this frog (i.e. to tell us what sort of frog is gracing our garden), we would be thrilled. He was about the size of an adult hand, if you think of the body as the palm and the legs as - pretty long - fingers! We do not have a pond, and our garden is high up and about 3 km from the coast. The photographs should enlarge if you click on them.

• Read about amphibians at the Froglife website.
• Read about 'Geordie' frogs in the Daily Telegraph. My thanks to Professor P. Brain for pointing me in the direction of this article.
  

Dragonfly Nymph at Dinefwr

I had been admiring Bev Wigney's submission on the qaartsiluni 'Transformation' pages when I came across this creature on a bulrush stem. I may be biased (in terms of my narrow perception of good looks), but I have to say that Bev's creature would get my vote every time in a beauty contest!

'My' creature is a dragonfly nymph (I think, since dragonflies bypass the pupa stage, but please feel free to correct me - or to identify the species). It does not have wings yet, and will have crawled out of the pond, and up the stem in preparation for the time when it will burst out of its 'buttons' and become a fully fledged - and beautiful - dragonfly.

Read about dragonflies on buglife.org.

Of twites and twitchers

Taken at Rhossili on the Gower Peninsula

I am hoping that my friend, Mistlethrush, will cast her eye over this photo at some point (no rush!). The defintion is not good, but it would be great to know whether these birds are stonechats or linnets. One looks like a female stonechat and the other like a female linnet to me, and yet I think they are a male and female pair of 'something'. The photo should enlarge a bit if you click on it.

Lark Rise to ... Carnglas

Local residents in Swansea have been living through their own Lark Rise to Candleford experience since the announcement some months ago that the Carnglas Road Post Office was on the list of local branches that could be closed.

There is a spirit of great rejoicing today, as news has filtered through on the BBC that - thanks to the representations of local people - the Carnglas Road Post Office has been saved.

The tragedy is that 44 other branches in South and West Wales have not been spared.

• The real 'Lark Rise to Candleford': about the author, Flora Thompson
• 'On the Trail of Flora Thompson' by John Owen Smith
• Flora Thompson's plaque
• Flora Thompson's poetry
  

The Island of Spinalonga

Left: Thalatta, thalatta

I do not watch much television, but I have been enjoying Francesco da Mosto's voyage through the Mediterranean, aboard the beautiful Black Swan. David Bellamy's surprise appearance added a great sense of je ne sais quoi to the programme on Corfu, and helped to bring us closer to the spirit of that other naturalist and conservationist, Gerald Durrell.

I am, however, particularly looking forward to the episode of Francesco's Mediterranean Voyage on BBC2 tomorrow night at 8pm, in which the intrepid Venetian visits the little island of Spinalonga, once a colony for those with leprosy.

I am about a third of the way through The Island by Victoria Hislop, and have formed 'my' picture of Spinalonga (from her narrative); so it will be interesting to see whether the 'real' island matches the one in my mind. As someone who writes poetry, I am always fascinated by the reception of art. The viewer or the reader brings so much to the painting or the poem.

I have enormous respect for the work of The Leprosy Mission. It is amazing to think that leprosy can be cured with modern medication. It is awful, though, to think that there are still many with the disease who lose sensation - and the vital warning signal of pain - in their lower limbs, and consequently develop ulcerous and infected wounds from accidents. The Leprosy Mission has developed special footwear to help these patients.

• Francesco's Mediterranean Voyage BBC Listing Wednesday 6 August, 8pm.
• The Guardian: The Island by Victoria Hislop
• TLM Trading (The Leprosy Mission online shop)
  
• Spinalonga.com

Postscript: I have just come across the ILEP site ('working for a world without leprosy'), which is well worth visiting. It comprises 14 non-governmental 'donor agencies', including TLM.

Olympian Poetry?

Olympia, Greece: a Judas tree in the Palaestra, 1978
(I remember what fun it was, all those years ago on my school trip,
crouching on the starting line in the stadium)

The Times investigates whether there would be a place for poetry in the modern Olympic Games. The Greeks included poetry and rhetoric: how could we (& should we) find a modern blend of word and action?

Which poem will leap FORWARD?

The Forward Prize shortlist has been published in The Guardian.