I believe these clusters of bright and, definitely, orange berries are firethorn [genus Pyracantha] — doubtless someone will correct me if I am wrong. A whole slew of them have grown to cover the fence outside the Ellen Wilkinson Building, anyway. Valuable winter bird food, apparently.
Yesterday’s journey home was done with Joe in attendance. Up on the allotment, the hedge needed trimming. A conjunction of child, hedge and the necessary hardware was facilitated. All parties seemed reasonably satisfied with the outcome.
What would have been the best photograph of my day was never actually taken. At one point on my walk through the hills of the Medway valley, I came round a corner and a grass snake and I startled each other — the first snake I have ever seen live in the wild, even including other countries. But my camera was in its bag and it was far too keen to leave my vicinity for me to be able to bag it. Never mind. Instead, I present this mildly sinister hedge tunnel: I can quite imagine some goblins coming along to surprise me in the other direction.
Football, and landscape…. a mix that does for me at the moment, though I hope you’re not getting too tired of it. I liked the wavy hedge and the bijou executive accommodation (well, maybe it’s not that) behind one corner at Slyne with Hest FC of the West Lancashire League. Excellent game too (4-3 to the hosts).
Clare proves she is the person around the house to ask when anything resembling manual labour is required. Cooking? That’s usually me.
Quite like the focus and depth of field on this shot, better than usual but achieved by doing nothing more than having a camera with a better lens, as of Tuesday morning. This is the first shot where there is a noticeable difference.
As predicted on Thursday, the weekend is seeing a family effort with manual labour on the allotment. Joe is contributing his bit, having discovered power tools (namely the hedge trimmer), although this photo doesn’t really reflect this. It’s interesting to compare this photo with another one of him in a hedge, taken in January 2012; that’s what adolescence does to you (visually anyway).
I’m still off work, still not much going on so only everyday scenes to work with, and I know that even then this isn’t a great photo. However, it does document the devastation wreaked on the hedge that runs between our garden (allotment) and the path next to it. It needed doing but still…
Being 42 