Our exertions of yesterday finished late enough to make crashing at the in-laws’ desirable. Morecambe was still a fine, sunny place this morning however. These flowers may, or may not, be columbines — the identification is hesitant. I like the one in the centre, though, just opening up, stretching its tentacles like a little octopus. Or pentopus maybe.
I’ve been moving around a lot in the last couple of months — Norway twice, Slovenia, Croatia last week — but apart from a couple of trips to London there will be no more of this until into August. So expect plenty of HB, Manchester and, when the local train service allows, the Lakes. It will give me a chance to show the progress of the summer, anyway. The arrival of the first mint crop in the garden is always a welcome one, as that means it’s also home-made mojito season.
With the extinction of pollinating insects being one of the more plausible end-of-the-world scenarios doing the rounds, it’s gratifying that this one has survived the cold snap and sees in our winter-flowering heather some pleasant sustenance. I like how it looks as if its little eyes are closed, though of course that’s not how insect eyes work. Gives it a look of contentment though.
Strimming the long grass on the allotment today I think I inadvertently took out this spider’s web: the remnants of it are visible to the left. It then had to put up with me sticking my camera in its personal space immediately afterward. I’m sure it’ll get over the difficulties; spiders have been on this planet a lot longer than us, and I’m sure will outlive us, too.
Another one of these time-of-year things, annual photographic events — you’ve seen this flower (wood cranesbill) before, not to mention insects plunging themselves within, to extract the bounty.
The garden is a riot of vegetation; only most of it is growing in places it shouldn’t, the consequence of a month of neglect. A weekend of agricultural labour looms. Attractive as it is this unidentified plant will be categorised as weed; its days are numbered.
Everyone was enjoying the good weather today. This robin in the garden had a look around, decided I was no threat at all, fluffed its feathers up, spread its wings and settled in for a few minutes’ quiet drying out time. This seemed a perfectly good response to the sunshine as far as I was concerned.
Clearing away a bunch of dead foliage from the allotment this afternoon, I uncovered this beauty. It decided it was still far too early in the year to be exposed to the elements and crawled its way back under cover sharpish, but I managed to get a couple of shots off before it did so.
Hint: if really struggling to find a picture for the day — go sit in the allotment for ten minutes and wait for a robin to turn up and flirt with the camera…
The leeks have grown way better this year than in any previous year. We could say it’s the good weather — and it continues to be mild and pleasant, Wednesday’s sprinkling of snow notwithstanding — but actually I reckon it’s the discovery of ‘Baby Bio’ fertiliser. Which probably means these no longer count as ‘organic’, but what the hell, the one we ate this evening was very tasty. Not that you eat these bits of the plant, however.
