Beach butterflies

More clouds and rain to start the day. I slept well and got up late. Clare was already cooking pancakes for breakfast. The rain stopped mid morning so we drove to Cold Knap in Barry, walked around the pond, had lunch in Mr Villa's Fish Restaurant, then went for another walk along the road above the beach. 

The tide was out, almost as far as it goes, revealing the full extent of that vast deposit of pebbles arrayed in a sinuous curve around the bay by tides and wind over centuries, about fifty feet deep and a hundred and twenty yards in breadth. Sparse vegetation has taken hold among the pebble at the very top level, mauve coloured marsh mallow flowers provide a splash of colour among the pale grey stones. 

I was surprised to see half a dozen Small White butterflies flitting between the plants. I followed one with black wingtips in search of a photo. It visited every plant over a stretch of a hundred years, then settled on a big plant along with four others. It's the most butterflies I've seen in one place for a very long time. I got a photo of a couple mating. They move so fast it's hard to get a good photo of them unless they settle, and it's never for long.

We were home again by a quarter to four, and I went for another hour's walk down to the river before the next bout of rain was due. The Taff wasn't as swollen as I expected, given so much rain this past few days. Today's photos I uploaded when I got home. You can see them here.

After supper I found something interesting to watch on BBC Four - a fictionalised French drama telling the real story of a serial rapist whose crimes were committed over a period of thirty years in the vicinity of the river Sambre crossing the border of north eastern France and Belgium near the town of Mauberge. As the third of six episodes was showing, I found it on BBC iPlayer and watched the first two instead. 

It was told like a documentary, with each episode focusing on an individual in the story; the Victim, The investigating Magistrate, the Mayor, the statistical Scientist, the Police Commandant and the rapist. It's a useful introduction to the way the French criminal legal system works, different from ours. I could have done with knowing this before starting to watch 'Spiral/Engrenages' over six years ago as it took me ages to work out who's who and what their roles are. It's an effective as well as informative story telling format, with fewer flashbacks moving for most part from the late 1980s to the present day and charting the evolution of attitudes towards women and sex crimes over recent decades.