Elrow 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

We are a country of light and (very) dark animal stories: Black Beauty (a harder read than many will recall); Wind in the Willows and Beatrix Potter; Watership Down and Plague Dogs (gulp); Tarka (by a fascist) and Animal Farm (by an anti-Fascist); Kes.

I think we can cope with animals on banknotes.

Sheep tail wags #sheep #smile

Our gorgeous cat snoring! #cat #snore #catsnore

Image from Twitter

How do you build a giant wickerman? 🧐🔥

This month on the Butser Plus blog, we sat down with the innovative duo behind our Beltain wickerman.

What does it take to build a 30ft willow sculpture? And how does it feel to see months of work burn to ash?

www.butserancientfarm.co.uk/butserplus-blog-home

I travel a lot for work. Five hour drive today with just Anna for company. She doesn’t say much. Ideal.

Rain, rain, go away…

Someone’s had a lot of fun!

UK bank bosses plan to set up Visa and Mastercard alternative amid Trump fears Exclusive: First meeting to be held over domestic payments system aimed at reducing reliance on US networks

Good.

www.theguardian.com/business/202...

I’d choose No.2

Tour de France reveals the six UK stage plans for historic 2027 Grands Départs Men’s race will visit Edinburgh, Carlisle, Keswick, Liverpool, Welshpool and Cardiff, while women will head from Leeds to Manchester, then to Sheffield and also includes a central London stage

www.theguardian.com/sport/2026/j... Exciting! Will look forward to the Welsh stage 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿

Monday Mood

Cat asleep facing a stove.

Nose to the Rayburn, fast asleep #cat

Farewell, Amazon Fresh – the no tills thing was all a bit too awkward | Jason Okundaye The ‘just walk out’ innovation promised frictionless shopping – but these days, maybe we all need a bit less tech in our lives, says assistant newsletter editor Jason Okundaye

Yep. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Save some for me, save some for me, save some for me…

#dogs #cats

Two dogs and a cat having a Cwtch with me.

Good to be back home!

Some man shaped foliage.

The #GreenMan.

The #bats were active again last night.

Hope he’s ok.

Happy birthday!

Me holding a stone that looks like the Star Trek logo.

I have a new favourite stone! #StarTrek #LLAP

Screen shot of timeline showing an alarmed looking cat looking up at the previous post showing a scary bird.

I think the cat is worried about the post before… 🤣

#synchronicity

Patients should not film clinical procedures without permission, says Society of Radiographers  | SoR Patients who video their medical treatment for social media risk publicising medical information and compromising their own treatment

www.sor.org/news/health-...

Gloucester Services - Wikipedia

Not sure we need more Greggs, Starbucks etc. Perhaps something more like Gloucester services on the M5?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glouces...

Health board's researchers launch study into bowel cancer blood test Researchers at a Welsh health board have launched a research study that will investigate whether bowel cancer and polyps (abnormal cells that grow inside the body which can turn into cancer) can be id...

Researchers at a Welsh health board have launched a study that will investigate whether bowel cancer and polyps can be identified by a simple blood test

Sir Humphrey from Yes Minister.

Death of the penny - US Mint set to make final coin after Trump decree President Donald Trump says the small coin is "so wasteful" and should be abolished, with an estimated saving of $56m (£41m) a year.

The end of the US penny #Cash news.sky.com/story/death-...

Navy slang names for foreign currency

#cash

If you know, you know