We weren’t very adventurous this spring, staying close to home and taking things easy, so there wasn’t too much to blog about.
A visit to St Michael’s church on the first mild spring day in March
We admired the ‘Narnia’ lamp post by the gate.
We were unable to tell the time as the sun failed to shine.
The peaceful churchyard.
Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris ) The flowers are in the centre of the bloom and have no petals. The 5 – 8 petal-like sepals are bright shiny yellow.
Peacock butterfly (Inachis io) It was very sluggish and was still in the grass outside the church when we came out again.
A pair of Greylags (Anser anser) took up residence in our garden as they usually do each spring
We enjoy their company.
They constructed a nest on the island in the middle of the big pond but after ten days it was abandoned. Feathers were spread everywhere. We don’t know what happened but we suspect an otter or an American mink was to blame.
The abandoned nest.
After we lost our summerhouse in the storm earlier this year we spent some time clearing the area behind it and discovered this tree with the deformed trunk. What could have caused this?
We enjoy seeing all the birds that visit our garden including the Pied Wagtails (Motacilla alba). Not a good shot as the bird hurried into the dappled shade just as I took its picture.
A sunset seen from the back of the house.
On a visit to our church at Rumburgh we saw this Mallard duck (Anas platyrhynchos) resting in the shade of a gravestone.
Primroses (Primula vulgaris) in the churchyard
I love the informality of our country churchyards and I like to see the wild flowers there. The wild flowers are just as much God’s work as any garden flower or exotic bloom. They have a haven in our churchyards and should be safe from herbicides.
Barren Strawberry (Potentilla sterilis)
Richard on his way to church
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Meanwhile, back in my garden…..
My Pieris with its new leaves of red and its little white bell flowers
I have been growing these hyacinth bulblets on in shallow tubs and they are now ready for planting out in the garden to flower next spring.
Scented narcissi and pink aubretia
Elinor gave me some more aubretia, a mauve variety, as a gift on Mothering Sunday
Lathyrus and scilla
Pasque flowers. These began flowering just a couple of days after Easter Sunday.
I had a large patch of these red saxifrage but the deer scraped most of them up. I’m hoping they will spread again.
We had stormy weather like this all through last summer!
Many beautiful cloudscapes
Cloudy sunsets….
…and a lot of misty evenings!
ooOOoo
Richard grew Gazanias in pots last summer. They did very well especially towards the end of summer when the weather improved.
I discovered this rather chewed iris on the bank of the big pond in our garden. We don’t have any other irises like this. I wonder where it came from?
Red-eyed Damselfly (Erythromma najas)
I saw this damselfly on a lilypad on the big pond. I zoomed my camera as far as it would go and then cropped the shot which explains the poor quality of the photo. I needed to ID this damselfly which is a new one for our garden.
In 2014 I discovered a Bee Orchid in our garden and was very excited. I looked for it again in 2015 but it didn’t re-appear. Last summer I looked again at the place where I had found the orchid and was again disappointed. However, a few days later I found four bee orchid plants about 2 metres away from the original plant. I have already seen a few leaf rosettes this winter so I know that the orchids have survived.
Bee Orchid
Bee Orchid
This may be a Southern Cuckoo Bumblebee (Bombus vestalis) on white Allium
A Wasp Beetle (Clytus arietis)
Common Spotted-orchid (Dactylorhiza fuchsii)
When we moved into our house we discovered one of these orchids growing close to the house. I moved it to a safer place and since then it has done well and the plant has spread all over the garden. I often find seedlings in a tub or flower pot where they seem very happy and grow enormous like the one in the photo.
Hoverfly Syrphus ribesii on Escallonia ‘Apple Blossom’
Five-spot Burnet moth (Zygaena trifolii) on White Clover (Trifolium repens)
Five-spot Burnet on White Clover
House-leek in flower
Large Skipper butterfly (Ochlodes sylvanus) on Lavender – Lavandula angustifolia ‘Hidcote’.
Hedge Woundwort (Stachys sylvatica)
Black Medick (Medicago lupulina)
Hoverfly Volucella pellucens
The same hoverfly next to a tiny micro-moth
Branched Bur-reed (Sparganium erectum)
I have now caught up with all the photos taken in and near my garden last year. I have photographs from a few outings we did that I would like to share with you and then I can concentrate on this year!
Here is my music selection – Chris Rea’s ‘Heaven’ – one of my most favourite songs!
This post is made up of photos of flowers, insects and other things of interest that I saw in my garden during the last couple of weeks of July and the first fortnight in August. We spent that time catching up with jobs around the house and doing a lot of gardening as the weather was quite good.
It has not been a good year for insects here; an extremely bad one for butterflies in fact, possibly due to the cool, wet spring and early summer we had. The flowers and plants had a slow start but once the warm weather arrived in mid July they soon caught up.
A male Ruddy Darter (Sympetrum sanguineum)
We still had plenty of these small dragonflies in our garden until recently but in July they had just started flying. They don’t just fly near water but find perches all over the garden from which they ‘dart’ to catch passing prey. In this photo the dragonfly is on the top of a cane in my flower-border and was happy to let me get very close to him. Ruddy Darters are the only red dragonflies with totally black legs – they also have a small patch of yellow at the base of the wings. There are black lines on the upper side of the second- and third-to last segments of the abdomen. The upper half of the eyes are red-brown and the lower half are green. The frons (the front of the ‘face’) is red.
Hyssop (Hyssopus officinalis)
I bought this herb late last summer; it survived the winter very well and has flowered beautifully this year. It is very popular with the bees and smells good too.
Swiss Chard ‘Bright Lights’ (Beta vulgaris subsp. cicla var. flavescens)
I grew Swiss Chard from seed this year for the first time, mainly because my mother likes it and hasn’t been able to get it for a few of years. I gave her a few plants and then put some plants into a couple of gaps in my flower-border. They look beautiful, especially with the sun shining through the colourful stems. I can’t say the vegetable when eaten has been very popular. The leaves are like spinach, quickly reducing in size and becoming soft; the stems which I put into the hot water a minute or so before the leaves, have a lovely texture and a very mild taste. They can be steamed successfully too. I think it is the mildness that doesn’t appeal – or perhaps the spinach-like leaves. We love greens in this family and get through large amounts of cabbage, spring-greens, brussels sprouts and broccoli, all of which have fairly powerful flavours. Perhaps Swiss Chard is too refined for us?
A poor photo of an Essex Skipper butterfly (Thymelicus lineola) sitting on a buttercup flower.
I include this just to prove to myself that we did get a number of skippers in the garden in the summer. The Essex Skipper is very similar to the Small Skipper but the antennal tip instead of being golden is black underneath, which can just be seen in my photo.
A Greengage (Prunus domestica ssp. italica var. Claudiana)
We bought a young Greengage tree nearly three years ago and this year we got two fruits on it. We didn’t manage to eat either of them because one or other of our animal, bird or insect visitors got there first.
A Comma butterfly (Polygonia c-album)
The name ‘Comma’ refers to a white comma mark on the underside of the wings.
This has got everywhere in the garden this year! I have found it growing in amongst the herbs, up through the Pyracantha and it has taken over the two Cotoneasters that grow next to our gas-tank. (We are not on mains gas here so have a large butane gas tank near the house). Bittersweet berries are beautiful and are at their most attractive at this stage when some are still green and they are plump and shiny.
Another poor photograph showing what I believe to be a female Blue-tailed Damselfly (Ischnura elegans)
Another photo that is proof to me that we had these damselflies flying round the pond this summer.
Female Gatekeeper butterfly (Pyronia tithonus)
Male Gatekeepers are territorial and patrol an area of hedgerow often in corners of fields or near gates trying to deter other insects from entering their domains. The males are smaller and a brighter orange than the females and have a dark patch of scent glands on the fore-wing.
Ripe Wheat (Triticum spp.)
I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the wheat in the field behind our house just before it was harvested this year.
Peacock butterfly (Inachis io)
This slightly battered Peacock was sunning itself on the path. They are very hairy-bodied insects and the colours and markings on the wings are beautiful. I noticed for the first time the lovely tiger-stripe yellow and black ‘shoulders’ on the fore-wing.
Perennial Sow-thistle (Sonchus arvensis) This one I discovered growing next to our compost bin.
Field Bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis)
The flowers this year are only lightly marked with pink. They are usually much brighter.
We are lucky (?) to have both Field Bindweed, as in the former photo, and Hedge Bindweed (Calystegia sepium) as here, in our garden. This one was being visited by a bumble bee.
Our young Rowan or Mountain Ash tree (Sorbus aucuparia) had many flowers in the early summer and produced some berries this year. The berries in the photo are not quite ripe yet. They were eaten by something very quickly once they were red and ripe.
Pheasant Berry (Leycesteria formosa)
I have a pale-leaved Pheasant Berry bush and it has done very well this year, having had enough rain-water at the beginning of the season. The birds usually enjoy the berries but I’m not sure if the wasps will have left them any!
Lilium longiflorum
The white Longiflorum lilies did a little better this year. I still had some trouble with non-native Red Lily Beetles but the cool wet June meant the flowers were taller and stronger and the beetles didn’t appear until later in the season when the weather improved. I was as vigilant as I could be, going out checking for beetles at least twice a day and squashing them when I found them. Unfortunately, nothing could be done while I was away from home so when I returned I soon discovered the horrible grubs eating the plants. I removed as many as I could and discovered that spraying them regularly with soap was very effective.
Runner Beans (Phaseolus coccineus) ‘Celebration’
I grew runner beans this year and gave my mother six plants and planted the rest in a gap in my flower border. They grew up through a laburnum tree and did quite well. I started them fairly late so they didn’t begin flowering til after mid-summer but the beans develop very quickly and these ones are so sweet and hardly have any ‘strings’. I love the orange flowers.
The beans with a Jacob’s Ladder (Polemonium caeruleum) flower-spike and a bumble bee flying towards the Jacob’s Ladder.
The Astrantia, also known as Masterwort, has done well this year.
A male Common Blue Damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum)
This photo of my lilies (Lilium ‘Stargazer’) was taken well after sunset and without a flash.
I wanted to see if there was enough ambient light to take a successful photo of these luminous lilies.
I then took this photo of a Gladiolus next to the greenhouse
On a church cleaning visit to our church at Rumburgh I noticed this Black Spleenwort (Asplenium adiantum-nigra) growing on the wall.
This plant is mainly found in the west of the country so I was surprised to see it here, almost as far east as one can get. It loves alkaline soil and here it is growing in the mortar. A month later and it had gone – removed I presume, in case it caused yet more damage to our poor crumbling church building.
Just below the spleenwort was this patch of Black Bryony (Tamus communis)
A sunset seen from the back of the house.
My music selection today is ‘The Arrival of the Queen of Sheba’ by Handel.
This post includes the better photos I took at home during the first half of May.
I have a few miniature scented Tulips. I have no idea what they are called or even when I got them though I think they are about 18 years old. I had a selection of red, orange and yellow ones but all that’s left are the red ones.
These jonquils are tiny and the flowers bob about on their narrow stems like yellow butterflies. Each flower is only about 2 inches across.
The Pasque flowers (Pulsatilla vulgaris ‘Alba’ )in my garden came out well after Easter this year. Not only was Easter early but the weather was cold and the flowers sensibly stayed as buds until the time was right.
I love this pretty pink Saxifrage!
Wild Cherry blossom (Prunus avium) with a visiting bee
Wild Cherry blossom. I like the green-bronze colour of the new leaves.
Pale yellow double Narcissus
Pear ‘Concorde’ blossom. This pear is supposed to be a dessert pear but by the time it is soft enough to eat it is already rotting in the centre. Perhaps our climate isn’t suitable for it? We harvest the pears before they have started to soften and we cook them or we prepare them for the freezer.
Pear blossom with a visiting Hoverfly. The lichen is doing quite well too with its orange fruiting bodies.
These are St. Mark’s-flies (Bibio marci) doing what flies do in the spring. The female is the upper fly and she has smoky-grey wings and a small head. The lower fly is the male and he has silvery wings and a larger head. Both sexes have spines on their front legs at the tip of the tibia. You can just see this on the female’s front leg. These flies fly weakly and slowly and dangle their legs as though the effort of flying is almost too much for them. They are called St. Mark’s-flies because they usually appear on or around St. Mark’s day which is April 25th. This photo was taken on 2nd May – it was a cold spring!
Lady’s-smock or Cuckooflower (Cardamine pratensis) – a member of the cabbage family
New leaves on my variegated Pieris ‘Forest Flame’
Crabapple species blossom. Standing under this weeping tree I am almost over-powered by the scent of roses and the buzzing of bees.
These are the English Bluebells (Hyacinthoides non-scripta) I am trying to establish next to the weeping crabapple. I have put canes alongside them to remind us not to mow them until the seeds have set and the leaves have died. I am also hoping that the canes will stop the deer from trampling the plants.
A beautiful Common Dandelion ‘clock’ (Taraxacum officinale agg.)
Crabapple ‘Evereste’ blossom
Crabapple ‘Harry Baker’ blossom
Ground-ivy (Glechoma hederacea)
The Horse-chestnut tree (Aesculus hippocastanum) with its flower ‘candles’
Field Maple flowers (Acer campastre)
Common Hawthorn flower buds (Crataegus monogyna)
Cow Parsley (Anthriscus sylvestris) (or as it is called here in Suffolk, Sheep’s Parsley) with a fly. I am very fond of Cow Parsley and the sight of masses of it in flower along the lanes makes me happy.
Here is another song that features a wonderful trombone solo and a fantastic brass riff too! This is a very old recording and it is also an uncommon arrangement for this song.
I saw these holly berries (Ilex aquifolium) in one of the carparks in Halesworth at the beginning of the month.
We have had a fair amount of cloud and rain this month and there was a week when the rest of the country was getting very pleasant weather while we in eastern East Anglia and also those in eastern Kent were having gloomy, wet weather with north-easterly winds. We have had a few slight frosts and some sunshine too – but not as much as we would have liked! For anyone who is interested in our weather here in the east of Britain – and why wouldn’t you be! – here is a link to the local BBC weather forecast.
Spindle berries (Euonymous europaeus) seen in our garden at the beginning of October
The leaf-colour has been very beautiful but I haven’t been able to get out often to take photos. The leaves are falling fast now and the recent heavy rain and windy weather have stripped many trees of their leaves altogether.
A beautiful Maple tree I saw on the way to my mother’s house on the 14th October.
As I stood admiring it it began to rain heavily, as you can see!
The rainbow that appeared at the same time.
I took a photo of the tree again on the way home later that day.
I was surprised to see some Hemp-agrimony (Eupatorium cannabinum) in flower in the ditch next to the maple tree. It usually flowers during late summer and all other Hemp-agrimony plants had already gone to seed.
Richard and I have been sharing driving Elinor to and from college and I have been feeling much less tired than I did when I was doing all the driving. The month has had its fair share of hospital, doctors’ surgery, optician and dentist visits. Every week this month one of us (at least!) has had an appointment or has had to take someone (my mother) to an appointment.
I mentioned to Richard that I had seen a beautiful Guelder-rose (Viburnum opulus) on my way to my mother’s house (yet again!) so he kindly photographed it for me with his phone when he walked past it on a breezy morning later in the week.
He photographed it from the other side too
He also photographed a Hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna)
Elinor has had her half-term holiday this week. She has worked very hard during her first half-term and has had quite a lot of homework to do during this week. She has enjoyed the course so far and her tutors are very pleased with her and the standard of her work. This bodes very well. She is also working hard to overcome her anxiety and also the sleep-phobia that has returned to plague her nights.
Raindrops caught in a spider’s web
A Witch-hazel leaf. All the rest of the tree’s leaves were a buttery yellow but the leaves on the new shoots went red.
This Cricket, a female Speckled Bush-cricket (Leptophyes punctatissima) I believe, was sun-bathing while sitting on a yellow Witch-hazel leaf.
Alice seems well and is enjoying her new job but wishes she was able to work longer hours. She has to have her PhD thesis printed before she can take part in her graduation ceremony so is trying to save up enough money to get it done. She is coming home for the weekend in a fortnight and I am looking forward to it very much. To see her in action discussing horror films please watch the video on the following link.
Fine trees on a fine day. The churchyard of St Mary’s church in Halesworth. Whenever I see this wall I remember the times I have held one or other of my daughters’ hands when they were little as they balanced all the way along it. It used to take ages! Alice was especially keen.
Richard and I are starting to compile the list of improvements and repairs we need to do to the house and garden. One of the first jobs will be to replace most of the windows and we hope to get this done before Christmas. We are also getting a gardener/landscaper to clear and dig out the front ditch which has become overgrown and blocked. We have asked him to cut the hedges too. This will be done in a fortnight’s time.
I found these ladybirds sheltering in my Rosemary bush next to the front door. I think they were hoping to hibernate there. We have since had some very wet weather and they are no longer there.
Last winter we had no ladybirds hibernating in the corner of the window in our bedroom. This year, when we hope to replace the windows in a few weeks time, the ladybirds are back! I will have to think of a way of gently moving them before the windows are removed. I don’t know if they will be as interested in the new poly-carbonate windows we are to have, as they are in the old wooden ones with ladybird pheromones on!
Last Sunday we went out for lunch to The Sir Alfred Munnings in Mendham. (I don’t know what the black shadows are top right and bottom left of the photo).
The artist Sir Alfred Munnings was born in Mendham in 1878 and this restaurant and bar was re-named after him.
Mendham is a very pretty village just a few miles from where we live.
Mendham church is quite large and well looked after. I couldn’t get far enough away from it to get the whole of the church in one photo.
Mendham church
Sunset
And another!
Here is one of my favourite songs – ‘Ola Ta Diskola’ (All the Difficulties) by Anastasia Moutsatsou.
This post marks the return of posts about our holiday in the Lake District in July.
We spent an afternoon at Thirlmere, a reservoir which was created in 1894 to provide water for the city of Manchester.
Thirlmere Reservoir. You see here the typical stony, grey edge of a reservoir. I think the fell on the left is Helvellyn.
Thirlmere was originally two smaller lakes and in flooding the valley, the two villages of Amboth and Wythburn were submerged. Many people protested about the construction of the reservoir, the philanthropist John Ruskin being one of them, but theirs’ was a lost cause. The citizens of Manchester’s need of fresh water was thought to have been more important than the loss of a couple of villages and a community’s way of life.
Thirlmere
Thirlmere is 3.76 miles long and about half a mile wide. It is surrounded by 2000 acres of coniferous forest, mainly spruce and larch, planted in 1908. More deciduous, native trees are being planted now. There was protest at the planting of the forest because the fells were traditionally tree-less and bare.
Woods at Dobgill on the banks of Thirlmere.
We parked our car in one of the car-parks off the road that skirts the lake and then walked down to the lakeside through a pretty wood. It was so green and mossy in that wood!
This moss was about 8 inches tall.
I think the moss may be Polytrichum commune. I read that it has square capsules with pointed lids. These capsules can be seen if you look carefully at my photo.
This may be Amanita franchetii
I believe this is a slime mould. It’s bright yellow colour caught my eye.
We soon got to the lake shore where there was a lot more to see. There were plants living amongst the stones ….
The leaves of Marsh Pennywort (Hydrocotyle vulgaris). Marsh Pennywort is an atypical umbellifer. The flowers are tiny and pale (either green or pink) in small umbels on reddish stems.
…and plants at the edge of the wood.
Betony (Stachys officinalis)
Wood Sage (Teucrium scorodonia)
This plant tastes and smells like hops and in some areas has been used as a substitute for them.
Wood Sage
Richard and Elinor enjoying the view.
While they sat and relaxed I wandered about looking for plants and other interesting things.
A large mossy hummock or outcrop
This rock was covered with many different types of moss and lichen.
Moss
Mosses – the larger one may be Hypnum cupressiforme
Moss – this one may be Thuidium tamariscinum
Not a good shot but this moss may be Pseudocleropodium purum
Lichen in amongst the moss. Not at all sure which this lichen this is!
Mosses
Moss
Moss
Yet more mosses!
Lichen – for a change!
Moss
Thirlmere
Lichen with a reddish-brown fruiting body at the bottom right of the picture
These spiders look like Lesser Wolf Spider females carrying their egg sacs
Another spider
We then walked back up to the car-park but by a different route.
Possibly a Male Fern (Dryopteris felix-mas)
Fungus on a dead tree
A mossy wall
Hedge Woundwort (Stachys sylvatica)
Hedge Woundwort flowers
Yorkshire Fog (Holcus lanatus)
Moss
Spores on fern
Walking through Bracken (Pteridium aquilinum). Bracken gets very tall – this was over 5.5 feet tall.
I don’t know what this beetle is though it does look a little like a Click Beetle (Athous haemorrhoidalis)
The Dobgill
Maidenhair Spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes)
We returned to the car-park where we left Elinor to rest but Richard and I continued walking as we wanted to see the Dobgill waterfall. I will include that in a different post.
If anyone sees that I have made any mistakes with my identification I would be really grateful for any corrections. If anyone can identify any of the organisms I have been unable to name, again, I would be very pleased to know.
This is another diary post. Before I write anymore accounts of days out and holidays I really ought to tell you about a few things that have been happening lately.
Self-seeded Viola
Self-seeded Viola
The saddest event of all is that my mother-in-law died on Thursday 13th August. She had been in very poor health for some time and had had to move into a nursing home a few months ago. This made her unhappy but she knew that she was incapable of living on her own any more and was doing her best to come to terms with the changes this entailed. My brother-in-law had visited her during the afternoon of the day she died and hadn’t been home long when he got a call from the nursing home telling him she had collapsed and the ambulance had been called for. He telephoned us and said he had been told that there wasn’t much hope that she would survive and we were to prepare for the worst. He phoned us again a few minutes later to say she had died.
Marsh Mallow (Althaea officinalis)
The strange thing was that we were only an hour or so away from Manchester (where my husband’s family live) when Chris phoned us. Thursday 13th August was the day we travelled to the Peak District with our caravan to spend a week there on holiday and with the hope of visiting Mum-in-law. We had set up the caravan where we usually stay in Leek, Staffordshire and put up the awning on the side of the van already. We had then driven to Sheffield (about an hour’s journey) to take Elinor to stay with Alice for the week. Alice had given us a cup of tea and we had left the girls there together and were driving back to Leek. We had almost got to Buxton when Chris’s call came through.
Alpine Allium with bees
We went to Manchester the next morning. The rain, which had started when we got to Sheffield the night before, was still coming down so the roads were very wet and some were flooded. We went to Chris’s house and spent some time talking to him and his partner Annie and then went out to have some lunch together in a pub. During the afternoon we went to Joyce’s (Mum-in-law’s) nursing home and sorted out all her belongings, taking some away with us but donating all of her clothes and a lot of her equipment and wheel-chair to the nursing home. They were pleased to accept all we could give them as there are many old people in homes who have no relations to get them clothes and other necessaries.
Peacock butterfly (Inachis io) on Water Mint flowers (Mentha aquatica)
The Coroner couldn’t establish a cause of death despite a post mortem and there have been a number of tests done and an inquest has been held. All extremely painful for my husband and his brother. Eventually the date for the funeral was set and it duly took place yesterday 2nd September. There was a large turn-out of family and friends and all went smoothly and we hope Joyce would have approved. Richard had the difficult task of writing the eulogy which he delivered with dignity. The wake was in the upper rooms of a nearby pub and that was a success too.
Female Gatekeeper butterfly (Pyronia tithonus) on Marjoram (Origanum majorana)
Our holiday was a weird one to say the least! Richard’s 62nd birthday was on Sunday 16th August so we went to a church in Leek and said more prayers for Joyce and then went to a café for brunch. There wasn’t much else we could do. We met Alice and Elinor in Bakewell on Tuesday 18th August and told them the sad news.
This was one of Joyce’s favourite pieces of music.
A lot of our time has been spent (as usual) in keeping appointments with doctors, with physiotherapists and at hospital. Not a week goes by, it seems, without one or other of us having to go to see some specialist or another! Elinor went to her yearly appointment with the physiotherapist and was told she needed to do more calf-stretching exercises. I’m not sure that she has done anything about it yet! Richard went to the hospital for yet another MRI brain scan but won’t hear the results until he sees the specialist in a few weeks. He also went to the eye clinic and all seems okay. I took my Mum to her eye clinic again last week and she had to return there on Tuesday for another eye injection. I went to the Rheumatology clinic for a check-up and it seems I am in a medically-induced remission. My blood tests show excellent results and I have lost all the fluid on my finger joints. The nurse suggested I give up one of my drugs for a month to see if it made any difference to the problem I have in my throat. It hasn’t made any difference at all, so I’m back on the drug and my GP at my local surgery has asked the Ear, Nose and Throat clinic to give me an appointment so they can investigate further.
Swallows (Hirundo rustica) and House Martins (Delichon urbica) on electric power cable
Alice works part-time in the University library in Sheffield and some months ago went to a number of internal job interviews. She desperately needs a full-time job, preferably one in which she can use her librarianship skills instead of filling shelves and moving crates of books about as she is doing at the moment. She was disappointed to hear that though she had been offered a job one grade higher than the one she was doing, it was still a part-time job and as the hours were fewer she would be earning less money. After a lot of thought she decided to accept the job and after some discussion with her supervisor she has been given a few more hours and is earning slightly more money than in her last position. She moved house at the weekend and she is now sharing with a few other people (one of them a friend of hers) and will be paying less rent. This will be a Good Thing! She has finished the corrections and amendments to her PhD and has handed it back in to have it read through again. When that’s done she will have to get it printed – not just one copy but several – which will be yet another expense for her. We will then hear when she will receive her Doctorate which we all hope to attend if possible. She had her 30th birthday on the 24th July and her friends got together and arranged a Haunted Sheffield Tour for her to go on which she found great fun.
Southern Hawker dragonfly (Aeshna cyanea)
Southern Hawker dragonfly
Elinor wasn’t able to go into college to collect her GCSE results as we were still away in the Peak District so she got the results in the post. She didn’t do as well as she had hoped but she passed three out of the four exams she took. She got a D in Maths so she will have to re-take that exam next year. She got an A in Psychology but only Cs in English and Art. We are pleased that she managed to do as well as this because she missed two whole years of school and at one stage we didn’t think she’d ever be able to get any qualifications at all. The college have found that the grades the students got this year were generally much lower than expected. I don’t know if this is the fault of the college or if the marking was stricter than usual. She went into college last Wednesday for her enrolment and was disappointed to find she can’t take the Graphic Art course she wanted to do because of her failed Maths exam. She will do a years Art and Design course and re-take her Maths and then she will decide what she does next. The Graphic Design tutors say that they will assess her work after six weeks this term with a view to moving her onto the Graphic Design course if she is doing very well.
Young Moorhen (Gallinula chloropus)
Richard has now retired. His final week at work was last week and he had a good send-off from his colleagues. He will be giving back his fleet car tomorrow and has ordered a new car of his own which will be delivered in just over a week’s time. He hasn’t had time to appreciate the fact of his retirement yet. He still has a number of things to sort out with his brother with regard to his mother. Once that has been done he will relax a little and then begin to feel retired.
I spent a lovely day in Norwich with my dear friend Wendy. We met at school 45 years ago! Her husband was working in this area for a few days so she joined him and took the opportunity to visit former neighbours of theirs and to see me. Fortunately the weather was fine and we were able to find somewhere to sit outside and have coffee and a long chat.
A photo of the Assembly Rooms where we sat outside and had coffee. This photo was taken last December – the garden was much brighter and greener when we were there a few weeks ago!
We then went to have a look at the Roman Catholic Cathedral which is an enormous building and has many fine features. I’ll probably make a post about it sometime soon. We walked from there to the Plantation Garden. We had a lovely lunch together and I then walked back with her to her hotel. In thinking about this special day I am amazed to realise that I cannot remember the last time I spent a day out with her or in fact with any friend. I very, very occasionally meet someone for coffee or lunch or I visit Wendy’s house in company with my family but a whole day away from home with a friend enjoying myself…. no, I can’t recall anything since I was in my early twenties!
Gipsywort (Lycopus europaeus)
I always look forward to having my piano tuned each year. Kimble Reynolds is a very skillful man who not only tunes pianos but can also build, restore and repair them. He has a piano gallery in Blundeston in Suffolk and has recently invented a way of teaching people how to read music which doesn’t entail having to learn the names of the notes. His invention is called Noterettes. He is a lovely man and I enjoy talking to him and we spend most of his visit laughing together.
Fly ( possibly Tachina fera) on Marjoram
Yarrow (Achillea millefolium) with unknown bug
Common Ragwort (Senecio jacobaea) with Hoverfly (Sphaerophoria scripta) and another unknown insect
Common Ragwort with Hoverfly (Helophilus pendulus) also known as the Footballer Hoverfly because of the striped thorax which looks like a football jersey
I cannot identify this Hoverfly
With all the upheaval of Joyce’s death and Richard’s retirement, we haven’t had time for much gardening or walking locally. We managed to visit Dunwich beach for an hour on Saturday. We bought some chips from the fish and chip restaurant in the beach car-park and then walked on the beach. The weather was quite over-cast and there was a very strong wind blowing but it was good to be away from the house for a while.
Sea Kale leaf (Crambe maritima) with sheltering snails
Sea Kale with seed heads
Dunwich beach
Dunwich beach
Yellow Horned-poppy (Glaucium flavum)
Yellow Horned-poppy
Common Evening Primroses (Oenothera biennis) Introduced and naturalised, these plants like to live on waste ground on poor soil; they only open on dull days or in the evening. I see them on railway sidings quite often. These particular plants have spread along the base of the crumbling cliff.
Common Mallow (Malva sylvestris) This plant was on the path from the car-park to the beach but at this time of year Mallows are seen everywhere in East Anglia. The round fruits that you can see just right of centre are called ‘cheeses’ and contain many nutlets.
Out of focus photograph of the sunset that evening during a rain shower.
I haven’t published a diary post lately so this is a short resumé of my activities over the past month or so.
To start things off I have a photo of a cream tea that Elinor and I enjoyed while out shopping in Bungay before our holiday.
A very brightly-coloured café called ‘Jesters’ at the entrance to Bungay castle. We were going to walk round what is left of the castle when I remembered in time that I had only allowed myself an hour’s parking . The cream and jam scones were yummy!
Elinor and I went by train to Sheffield on the 2nd of July to visit my elder daughter, Alice. The day was hot and the journey quite uncomfortable as the carriage we were in on the train from Norwich to Sheffield had faulty air-conditioning. The ticket collector handed out bottles of water to anyone who wanted some. We had noticed large quantities of water bottles in the waiting room at Diss Station as well, with a notice saying any customer could help themselves to water if they needed it.
We were travelling to Sheffield in order to watch Alice perform in ‘The Man in the Iron Mask’ by Alexandre Dumas. We then stayed the night with her in her single room. It was snug to say the least, but lovely to be all together again.
These are some photos of her that I have ‘borrowed’ from her drama group’s Facebook page.
Alice (in the green dress) played the part of Constance, D’Artagnan’s wife. She is watching D’Artagnan (on the right) fighting his foe.
The man on the left is an expert in weapons and fighting and has an armoury at his home. He taught all the cast how to fence and fight. It all looked very real.
I thought Alice did very well especially as she had to wear a costume which gave her a terrible rash for which she needed medical treatment.
‘All for one and one for all!’
Dumas will be spinning in his grave at their version of his very sad and doom-laden book. It was a brilliant, funny, well-acted and well-choreographed play with a happy ending.
As we were waiting for our train back home the next morning I saw and heard the piano in the concourse being played. The piano is there for anyone’s use at any time.
This young man played well.
Unluckily for me and Elinor, the carriage we were in on our return journey also had no air-conditioning. This time there was no free water but we were able to leave the carriage at Nottingham (I think) and get into another carriage with AC that they had attached to the train.
The following week was busy with preparations for our holiday. Elinor’s laptop stopped working and had to be taken in for repair. She worried that it might not be repaired in time for her to use on holiday. She used my lap-top all week. We were able to collect her’s on Friday :). I shopped with Mum on Tuesday and made sure she’d be alright for food and other necessaries while we were away. My friend Heather came to lunch on Wednesday and we had an enjoyable time chatting about friends and family. She gave me a book – Janet Marsh’s ‘Nature Diary’. Such a thoughtful present. I had an appointment at Norfolk and Norwich Hospital for a rheumatoid arthritis check-up on Friday – the day before going away.
We were surprised to find on our return from holiday on the 18th July that the field of barley behind our house had still not been harvested. The weather at home had been warm and quite dry while we had dripped and shivered on holiday. We did get a superb sunset to welcome us back.
We had another busy week catching up on household and gardening chores and I had two weeks’ worth of washing and ironing to do. On the Monday I had to take Mum to the hospital for her regular eye check which went very well. I collected her shopping list as I would be doing her shopping for her that week. When I got home I started to make a loaf of bread and discovered I hadn’t enough yeast so had to go out again. I bought some other groceries as well as the yeast and was on my way home when I got a flat tyre. I managed to get the car into the town central carpark and got the spare tyre out but couldn’t work out how to remove the jack from the car! Shameful! I’m also not strong enough to take the wheel off anyway so had to phone Richard who had just sat down with a drink. While I was waiting for Richard to come and rescue me I got two offers of help from kind gentlemen who saw my pancake-flat tyre. The age of chivalry is not dead! The tyre had a rip in it and a couple of nails too.
The next day they began harvesting the barley field.
This combine had just off-loaded its grain into the waiting tractor trailer.
The harvesting wasn’t started until late in the day and continued until quite late in the evening.
The countryside at harvest-time is a very noisy, dusty, dirty place to be. It proves at this time of year to be very industrial. Our houses and cars get covered in a thick pall of dust and bits of straw. We all start wheezing and coughing and anyone with allergies or asthma has problems with their health. There is a constant roaring and whining of engines as the combines trawl up and down the fields all day and most of the night too and the tractors with full trailers of grain are driven at break-neck speed along our narrow lanes to the silos and barns at the farms. Woe betide anyone or any creature who gets in their way!
The barley field was only half finished that evening and the combine went off to another field to work on that. Both fields were left with strips of uncut grain.
I am not sure why they left both fields like this. Bad weather was forecast and duly arrived a couple of days later. Perhaps less damage is caused by wind and rain when the crop is in strips.
This is a photo of the other field our local farmer cut in strips. We took this picture while on a walk nearly two weeks ago. The fields were both finished last week – almost a month since they had begun.
This was the first walk we had taken from home in months.
A bee and a hoverfly enjoying the nectar of a Spear Thistle (Cirsium vulgare)
I disturbed this moth as I walked through the long grass. I think it may be a Shaded Broad Bar moth (Scotopteryx chenopodiata)
I remembered seeing a large patch of Common Fleabane (Pulicaria dysenterica) in the corner of a field last year. It was still there though a large heap of prunings had been left there earlier in the year
Fleabane with Pollen Beetles (Meligethes aeneus)
The Field Maple(Acer campestre) was looking bright, not only with its new ruby-coloured winged-fruits and leaf stalks but also with the crimson galls on many of its leaves. These galls are small red pustules probably produced by the mite Aceria myriadium.
New Pedunculate (or English) Oak leaves (Quercus robur) shining in the afternoon sun. There are also tiny acorns on long stalks to be seen.
Interesting cloud formation.
A hoverfly on Bramble (Rubus fruticosus agg.) flowers
Bramble flowers are very attractive and blackberries go so well in pies and crumbles!
I saw my first Dewberry (Rubus caesius) last year and was worried I wouldn’t find one this year because of all the hedging and ditching that was done in the spring. I eventually found a small plant under a hedge.
Richard and I like this view across a field
This is another view we like and I’m sure my regular readers recognise it.
When I checked my photos on my return home I was dismayed to see the spot just above the trees at the centre of the photo. However, when I cropped the photo…
Cheeky!
…I realised a bee had photobombed my picture!
An Oedemeridae beetle, perhaps Ischnomera sanguinicollis on a Spear Thistle flower with lots more Pollen Beetles.
We have had our first harvest of purple beans.
These beans sadly lose their purple colour when cooked and end up a rather dull green. They taste very nice and they have appreciated growing in the cooler summer.
French beans are so quick and easy to prepare and taste wonderful straight from the garden.
My white lilies (Lilium longiflorum) are flowering in the garden. This photo was taken at dusk.
Another sunset – this time with an added rain shower
The rain soon cleared away and as I turned back toward the house I saw the sky to the East was lovely too.
This post is made up of photos of things I’ve seen in my garden during the last month. The first few shots were taken during the last two days in June (I did say ‘mainly’!), when the weather suddenly got much warmer and the sun appeared. Summer arrived and we all felt much better!
Painted Lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) on a scabious flower
Dog Rose flowers (Rosa canina) next to the big pond
Male Common Blue damselfly (Enallagma cyathigerum)
Small Tortoiseshell butterfly (Aglais urticae) on big pond
Female Emperor dragonfly (Anax imperator) laying eggs on the big pond
We have Ground Elder in our garden. I wish we didn’t but there is little chance of us ever getting rid of it here so we will have to try to weaken it and stop it from spreading further. It is in the ditch between us and the school house next door and also in the ditches at the front of the house and under the hedge. It is trying to spread into the lawn at the front but we strim and mow as much as possible and try to stop it from flowering. We often fail in this.
Ground Elder flower! As you see it is a pretty umbellifer with slightly pink buds.
I eradicated it from a former garden by digging it out over a period of a few years. It was in a flower bed so therefore easier to deal with.
Common Backswimmers (Notonecta glauca) in the front pond. This pond completely dried up while we were away on holiday but is starting to fill again because of the torrents of rain we’ve had during the past week or two.
Insects on Lavender ‘Hidcote’. There haven’t been as many insects this year as last, but the lavender attracted quite few while it flowered. It is a fabulous insect magnet!
Lavender growing at the front of our house
My herb garden
Bronze Fennel flower bud. When we returned form our week away all the leaves on the fennel had died and the flowers were drooping. I watered the herbs and then the rains and cool weather returned; the fennel is still alive (it has an enormous tap root) but no leaves at all for now. The flowers are fine and are being enjoyed by wasps and hoverflies. A neighbour came in to water the plants in the greenhouse while we were away (tomatoes mainly) but we couldn’t expect him to water all our plants – that would be asking much too much!
A pretty Tumbelina Petunia in the window box. It has a lovely gentle scent.
A very bright pink Verbena in the window box with the petunia. The hoverflies love it very much. I wish it was scented.
Hoverfly Episyrphus balteatus (I think!) on verbena
A hoverfly on the Fuschia that is also in the window box. This photo was taken after we had begun to have rain at last after a long dry spell.
A beautiful, tiny green spider on the fuschia. I think this is a Green Orb-weaver (Araniella curcurbitina).
A Six-spot Burnet moth (Zygaena filipendulae) on lavender
One of my unscented Asian lilies.
Sisyrinchium striatum. These put on a good show this year. Many years ago I had these growing in my garden and loved them as they seemed to go with all the flowers in the border. We moved to Somerset for 18 months and then moved here in 2006. Three years ago I found a seedling sisyrinchium in the garden which appeared from nowhere. I potted it up and grew it on; it flowered the following year and I let it go to seed. I sprinkled the seed on my border and last year I found lots of plants growing which flowered beautifully this year. Free flowers!
A pretty Viola. These seed themselves all over the garden.
I have two Rosa Mundi bushes ( a gift from Richard) and they both flowered well this year. It is sad that they have such a short flowering period but it is worth having them for their pretty, painted petals.
Perennial Sweet Pea
Scabious flower
A pretty rose from Richard’s border
In a former post I posted a photo of a mullein flower infested with Mullein moth caterpillars. Here is another photo taken a week or so later when the grubs were much bigger.
Mullein Moth caterpillar (Shargacucullia verbasci) on what was left of a Mullein flower spike
A Meadow Brown butterfly (Maniola jurtina). Wonderful camouflage!
A fly on the Amelanchier tree. I cannot identify this one properly though it looks a little like Empis digramma, a fly which hunts other flies in long grass and other lush vegetation and spears them with its proboscis.
I took this photo of the Green Woodpecker (Picus viridis) and its 2 fledglings this evening. The adult was trying to teach its young how to find ant’s eggs.
This last photo wasn’t taken in my garden but in the grounds of the Norfolk and Norwich Hospital where I had to go for a check-up on the day before we went on holiday. I didn’t know what else to do with it!
Until this week we have had a very cool summer indeed which has meant that there have been very few insects about. The common garden pests, greenfly and blackfly for example, seem to cope with chilly weather but the insects that eat them don’t! Some of the flowers are continuing to flower a little late but a few are flowering at about their usual time which has made for unusual combinations.
Meadow Buttercups (Ranunculus acris) on All Saints’ Common
We have a number of ‘commons’ here in East Anglia. A common is an area of land either owned by a group of people or one person but it can be used by the general public in certain ways such as walking your dog or playing sport. Some commons and village greens have ‘rights of common’ where it is possible to graze livestock on the land. If you want to use the common for anything other than walking on it or having a picnic, (for instance, if you wanted to camp there), you’d have to ask permission of the land owner.
This is another view of the common showing one of the unusual flower combinations. This didn’t come out as well as I’d have liked.
The Common Sorrel is flowering at the same time as the buttercups and for a while it looked as though the field was alight with red flames above the yellow.
Common Sorrel (Rumex acetosa)
Common Knapweed (Centaurea nigra) is also in flower on the common.
As is Yorkshire Fog (Holcus lanatus)
The Elder (Sambucus nigra) is in flower.
The Dogwood (Cornus sanguinea) is in flower too.
Many people dislike the scent of the Elderflower; they describe it as smelling of ‘cats’. It isn’t a pleasant smell but it is preferable to the smell of Dogwood flowers!
Bittersweet (Solanum dulcamara), also known as Woody Nightshade, is flowering in the hedgerows.
The Pyracantha in our garden is covered in blossom. This is another plant with a strange scent but the bees love it!
I discovered a new plant at the edge of our big pond the other day – a Cyperus Sedge (Carex pseudocyperus), also known as Hop Sedge.
The plant is quite large and must, I suppose, have been there last year without me seeing it. Its leaves are strap-like, similar to Iris leaves, so I might have thought it was an Iris. The flowers are unmistakable though.
The flowers are pendulous, like catkins.
Yellow Iris (Iris pseudacorus)
Another new plant to our garden is this Common Marsh-bedstraw (Galium palustre) growing by our corner pond.
One of my favourite flowers is this little one – Creeping Cinquefoil (Potentilla reptans). Its petals are heart-shaped and such a pretty shade of yellow. The creeping refers to its trailing stems that root at the nodes as it grows.
I love Oxeye Daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare) too.
A White Water-lily (Nymphaea alba) on our big pond.
Elinor saw the Kingfisher at the pond a couple of days ago and since yesterday we have all heard the purring of a Turtle-dove in the trees round the pond. The temperature has risen to 25 degrees Centigrade and I think it has been too cold up til now for the Turtle-dove.
Female Blue-tailed Damselfly (Ischnura elegans)
Male Blue-tailed Damselfly (Ischnura elegans)
Male Azure Damselfly (Coenagrion puella)
I believe this is a male Four-spotted Chaser (Libellula quadrimaculata)
Greenbottle (Lucilia caesar) on Hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium)
A brightly-patterned Hoverfly (Helophilus pendulus)
Male Black-tailed Skimmer (Orthetrum cancellatum)
I hope to see some more insects now the weather has warmed up.
