Rosie Bray Photography

As you may remember from this post I am quite partial to a bit of blossom. I used to hang out at Kew Gardens, relishing the avenue of cherry blossom trees and thinking how wonderful it would be to have one’s own cherry tree. Fast forward a year and here we are in our new house with its fabulous garden and what should spring into flower but our very own cherry tree. And not just a cherry tree but a WEEPING cherry tree. Can you imagine anything more beautiful?

I can’t believe our luck and I am so happy to watch this beautiful tree blossom and grow. The pretty delicate flowers are fleeting though, they were soft pink buds one week, beautiful white petals the next and within a fortnight they were falling like snow, lining the grass as confetti.

Luckily I managed to grab some photographs of the blossom in its prime and at its most alluring to the eager population of bees that visited. I got a bit obsessed with trying to capture the bumble bees’ soft, furry bodies and fragile, ethereal wings whilst trying not to get in the way of their very busy work.

For me, this beautiful combination of blossom and bees sums up the excitement of Spring and I am so delighted to be able to celebrate this wonderful season from our very own garden.

I meant to blog these butterflies last week but then a horrible thing happened and my blog succumbed to a nasty virus and went down with a bad case of Trojan infected php files (or something). Luckily, with the help of a fantastically clever web whizz in America, it was restored back to its former glory pretty quickly and I am so very grateful. I felt bereft being without my website for just a few days.

So, to celebrate my virtual return, and to get a blog post up on the very rare day of 29th feb, here are my butterfly portraits, taken in the Butterfly House at RHS Wisley Gardens last week.

I had never photographed butterflies before and I have to say it was even harder than photographing toddlers! They move so fast and inevitably when they land they like to close their wings which can be frustrating when you know they have such colourful wings to display.

With a lot of patience and sweat (wow, was it hot in there, these are tropical butterflies after all!) I managed to get some pictures I was pleased with. It was lovely to see people completely mesmerised by these beautiful creatures. There is something so magical about a butterfly fluttering past, so close to you but still so elusive and ethereal. I wonder if they know they are the beauty queens of the insect world and realise how much pleasure and delight they bring.

I have tried to identify some of these gorgeous specimens but I am missing a few names and I would love to label them correctly so please do leave me a comment if you know what names I’m missing. I am particularly interested to find out what my favourite one is called – the purple and orange beauty with the velvety soft wings. I LOVE that one so much, especially the way it was basking in the sunshine (a butterfly after my own heart).

You will notice some X-rated butterfly shenanigans towards the end of this set – it is mating season and there was a fair bit of ‘action’ going on. There were male butterflies fighting while the ladies waited patiently (what’s new?) and there was a lot of frenzied chasing going on mid-flight, which all added to the wonderful atmosphere of beauty and excitement.

Simply stunning. I can’t wait to go again next year. I hope you enjoy the pictures, I’d love to know your favourites.

Here is a mystery white butterfly and the Blue Morpho.

My favourite – but what is it called?

The stunning Blue Morpho.

The common Mormon (I think) and the Malachite.

The mystery white one again.

My beautiful mystery butterfly, sunbathing.

The wonderfully furry Malachite.

Don’t you just love those powdery purple wings?

Or is this one the common Mormon? What beady eyes…

The beautiful white one again.

Not sure what this one is either, but he/she is well camouflaged.

Hello Blue Morpho.

The closed Blue Morpho on the left and the Owl butterfly on the right.

The delicate Tree Nymph.

Some resting Blue Morphos and some ‘not resting’ Blue Morphos.

Three’s a crowd as these Blue Morpho’s discovered.

Well it is mating season after all…

Get a room!

I was very surprised and chuffed to see my infographic about home working tips that I made for this blog post has been translated into Portuguese for a Brazilian website about working from home called Movebla – O mundo do trabalho movel  (the world of mobile work).

I think they found it via this post on Judy Heminsley’s fabulous Work From Home Wisdom website – thank you Judy!

One of the challenging things about working from home and particularly blogging from home is that you’re not really sure who is reading or if people are interested in what you’re writing. Of course there’s the fabulous Google Analytics for stats galore but you still want to know more about your readers. I love the internet for these little moments that show you that people are actually reading and enjoying your content.

So thank you Anderson Costa, (or should I say Muito Obrigada) for making me feel appreciated from thousands of miles away!

Now I am no linguist (although my cousin-in-law is from Brazil so I know a few words) but I translated the introductory sentences via Google Translate and here they are, a little bit off but not bad:

“Everyone always asks me for tips on how to work better at home. And this came in very handy illustration mounted by the photographer Rosie Bray, who took the liberty to freely translate into Portuguese.

Rosie took the top 10 tips you have learned during the first year of home office and turned in this image below. I corroborate all of them.”

It is good to see that the highs and lows of home working are universal and span across many continents!