I’m sure there are worse things to be remembered for, and less appropriate ways of memorialising a loved one. Those whom Barbara left behind are hopefully gratified to see this being properly used. (That is an actual squirrel, in case you were wondering.)
For various reasons St Helena is no agricultural paradise. Some types of fresh fruit and veg can be picked up fairly easily (tomatoes are currently easy to find, for example) but others are never seen. Potatoes, particularly. Ask for potatoes in a shop and you will either be laughed at or, as happened to me once, the shopkeeper will mutter, under his breath, “try me on Monday”, with a wink, as if you’ve asked for cocaine.
However, these beauties are currently growing happily on the tree in the courtyard outside my apartment. The landlord told me not to pick them off the tree, and I honestly haven’t. But they will, at some point, fall to the ground…. and at that point I consider them fair game.
I’m no botanist but banyan trees aren’t difficult to identify, with their multiple trunks and more on the way. This is the blog’s second, after the one seen in Brisbane (with the wife) back in 2013.
I forget exactly how much our plum tree produced last year but it was at least 20kg (or more than 44 pounds): its all-time record for a single harvest. It won’t do this again in 2024, simply because it never does have two glut years in a row. But the blossom’s out, at least.
Hardly the most sumptuous shot. photographically, but it suffices to represent a day spent entirely in the local vicinity. It’s getting lighter in the evenings, as it always will at this time of year, but not yet past 6pm.
Definitely the first full cherry blossom sighting of the year, sprouting in the nicely sheltered urban heat reservoir that is Sackville Gardens, Manchester. Dr. Turing’s statue looks rather content to be there, as it usually does.
When I captured this clutch of fungi engaged in consuming this old tree down by the river, I had a feeling that I’d been here before. And so I had — getting on for seven years ago; it was 7/1/2017 when this symbiosis was seen from another angle. They’re taking their time, as the tree carcass doesn’t seem any smaller than it did back then. But if you are a fungus, I guess you see time differently.
This week has been one of those periods where keeping this blog going is as much an exercise in persistence as it is one of creativity. Despite all the countries that have been seen in the last 12.25 years (see the stats) it’s been seven months since I have left the UK (the last shot taken away from Blighty being this one of the Pyrenees on 5th April). But this will change in 2024, with fairly definite plans for trips to Canada, the US (including New York City) and at least one return to St Helena, via Namibia. So hang in there…. Meanwhile, here’s a shot of a local tree.
Too nice a day to have lunch sat inside, and a few minutes after I made this decision this group joined me in the courtyard. This space has appeared on here several times before, and as it’s still not exactly easy to work out how to get in it, this is as many people as I’ve ever seen using it at one time.
Another one of those recurrent, annual subjects. Our plum tree definitely has years off — and 2022 was one — but this year there’s going to be a decent crop. Previously I have referred to these as plumlets but for some reason ‘plumlings’ came to mind this time round, which I feel is definitive.
Being 42 