The storm last Sunday took our allotment shed and flipped it neatly upside-down, while nestling it comfortably beside our neighbour’s greenhouse (which only partly survived the experience). We could move it, but I believe Ciara’s sibling Dennis is on the way in this coming weekend to entertain us further, so let’s leave it there for now, it’s probably safer where it is.
A brief interlude at home in Hebden, between trips. It still refuses to get particularly wintry. I have always liked this garden, passed on the way to the shops from our house: it is past due an appearance here. Today it can have its moment.
Welcome to 2020. As with 1/1/19, the weather on the first day of this new year was glorious, and may the rest be the same (it won’t happen). I can’t imagine that life as a small bird is easy in the winter but this robin (like others of its species) seems to have humanity sussed: I was digging over part of the garden when he turned up, clearly waiting for me to finish so it could get at the worms with that dagger-like beak and fill its belly before the frosts come (if they ever do).
Really didn’t feel like engaging with people today. Let this shot be a metaphor for that state of mind…. or perhaps, just the only thing I really felt like photographing today, up in the garden. At least the sun was shining. This was the day’s only redeeming feature.
Hard to caption this photo as anything much other than ‘APPLE!’. For appley (apply? Apple-y?) it most certainly is. Not that it’s sitting comfortably on this tree any more; it was definitely picked today.
Very little happened today — nor will happen for the next couple of days, so let’s see what can be done with the creative juices. This shot comes from my playing with the zoom lens in the garden. Would it be better without the second plant in the background? I like the juxtaposition of the two.
Joe finished his GCSE exams a couple of weeks ago and so now, like all the UK’s 15-16 year olds, has an extended summer holiday, interrupted only insofar as his parents nag him to do things to get him out of the house. Attending part of the annual allotment summer tidy up (July is inspection month) didn’t seem to enthuse him much though. But the redcurrants are ready to eat (all six of them).
And you thought all bees lived in hives, correct? Well, apparently not. Some bees are solitary and if one wants to be nice to them, building a little place like this in the secluded corner of a garden is one way to do it; they like nesting in the tubes. None seem to be at home today in this one that my in-laws have set up, however.
Despite the lack of encouraging conditions, some of the foliage is giving it a go. It can’t be easy under the monsoon, probably our equivalent of crawling out from under the duvet at 6.30am in February. Hence the ragged look of this bloom.
After last year’s glut, our plums are going to have one of their years off, this is obvious already. But there are dozens of these little babies on the branches of the apple tree. Come back to us in September for the harvest.
