We went to see the snowdrops at Anglesey Abbey again.

Down in Devon seeing Agatha Christie's place in Torquay, and where giant bears hibernated in Kent's Caverns among other places.

A live action adaptation of an earlier cartoon series. The film features the son of a toy store and his girlfriend who spend their time building giant robots, but transform into Yatterman 1 and Yatterman 2 when it's time to go fighting evil. Evil in this film comes in the attractive form of Lady Doronjo who with her evil sidekicks are seeking some skulls. "Yatterman" isn't as artistic as some of Miike's films which is say it is quite watchable. Besides the special effects and costumes and sets he does add a certain amount of risqueness. It is all quite lunatic and oddball. The film is both a celebration of the original "Yatterman" (and one guesses other similar shows,) but also a critique of it. So Lady Doronjo openly admits that the 'evil' guys always lose, in fact they normally lose because of what they do rather than the good guys defeating them. The heroes sing silly songs when they win because that is what they do.

In Cambridge we live on the outskirts of Fenland. Originally marshland this was drained by first wind-driven pumps and then steam pumps (and then diesel and then electric but they're less romantic.) Stretham Old Engine is a surviving example of the convoluted steam pumps that bled the Fens dry. It's open for a few days each year, and I took my father on July 11th as he wanted to photograph the beam for one of his slideshows. The machinery itself is a marvellous puzzle of shafts and bearings and cranks and gears and things that spin round. The massive main beam at the top of treacherous staircases rises and falls very slowly. It is almost alive, a dinosaur in wood coloured metal. Very inefficient, the boiler relied on atmospheric pressure to move anything. It took a day or two to get steam up to start the engine, and persuading the engine to start pulsating was hit or miss. The electric motors which now do the same job are about the same size as a postbox.

Virginia and I try to see some open air Shakespeare each year. One feels for the actors and actresses who perform in the variable English weather. Happily July 20th was a fine day when we went and saw "Love's Labours Lost" in the gardens of Downing College. They hammed it up, but perhaps in Shakespeare's day they hammed it up too. The Bard's plays should not be treated as sacred texts? Some of the hamming up was quite funny as when the King of Navarre and his companions pretended to be Cossacks. The play itself has elements you will find in other Shakespeare plays - bawdy humour, feisty heroines not at a loss for biting dialogue, love befuddled fools. It did feel unfinished because it doesn't all end in the leads getting paired off.

This Friday evening I did something different. Rather than sleep in a cosy bed I went out to wander in the dark and wetness of a rainy fen. Welney WWT centre were having a bat and barn owl evening where you wander round with a guide learning about bats and barn owls. The closest we got to owls were their pellets, impressively sized. On bats we had more luck. Pipistrelles were darting around the centre as we arrived. In one of the lookout points they had an infrared camera set up and you could see Daubentons flitting over the surface of the pond, and pipistrelles higher up. Pipistrelles need to eat their own body weight each night in insects, 3000 worth - rather them than me. To help us detect bats the guides handed out bat detectors which turn the bat ultrasonics into more audible frequencies - though it seemed we were hearing insects more than flying mammals. The centre also had a number of moth traps around - light traps and scent traps (the scent was red wine mixed with sugar.) There are zillions of kinds of moths, so much so the names lack a little imagination. Buff ermine, poplar hawk moth, lesser red underwing, etc. The evening wasn't a complete success. The rain didn't help, and no newts were visible in the ponds. But it was something different and there quite a range of people on it. Chatted with one guy who came fully prepared in long waterproofs, infrared camcorder, and fancy torch. The centre is out in the Fens, and it was a long drive to get there, particularly as it was dark and I was unsure of the way, and the roads were half-hearted. At one stage I found myself pursued by a farm vehicle in the night - its lights were like a dragon's breath hot on my neck!

Virginia and I had a long weekend in Stratford-on-Avon. We booked Tabitha and Amelia into the Jobil Cattery in Histon so not far from us, and booked ourselves into "Brook Lodge", a slightly more comfortable Bed and Breakfast place in Stratford. Jobil Cattery was adequate, perhaps a bit bare bones, but did for the weekend. True we didn't ask the cats their opinion! The journey didn't take long to get there, partly because all the service stations we tried to stop at for a bite to eat, and a comfort break, were closed as regards eateries. In the end we checked into the guest house, then had oversize plates of sandwiches at the Bell Inn in Shottery. As we were in the area we decided to cross Anne Hathaway's cottage off the list. The cottage has undergone revision over the years. When Anne Hathaway grew up in it was two rooms, open hearth fire vented through the roof. The guides were very pleasant and informative, they explained that people lived on bread rather than potatoes as they didn't have potatoes then. They didn't even have carrots as we now know and love them, the garden had skirrets growing which were poor weedy root vegetables now superseded in the modern diet. The guides also commented on Shakespeare's life with Anne Hathaway, giving a contrary opinion to the populist one that Will ran away to London to write plays and act because he was tired of his 8-years older wife. Shakespeare did marry young (at 18 when 21 was the norm) but stayed with Anne apart from the half-year seasons when acting took him away. Perhaps as people remodel buildings to suit their fancies, so we have remodelled Shakespeare to suit our fancies of how the bard should have been.

A second trip to New Zealand overdoing it on the Tongariro Alpine Crossing, and seeing the volcanic White Island.