Summer Flowers – Thursday

A break in the pink run:

Meadow Crane's Bill ,Wiltshire, August 2009.

My favourite flower colour is the blue spectrum.  These flowers lined the hedges and roadsides of our two-day cycle ride from Reading to Bristol, via the Kennet & Avon canal towpath.  On the first day, my partner had both cameras and whenever we stopped together, these flowers were not in sight.  I was worried cycling on the second day.  I had the Ricoh but, for the first few miles, I saw none of these flowers.  I desperately wanted a photo of them.  As I resigned myself to not getting a photograph, these purple blooms waved at me from the middle of a traffic island.  Dragging my bike onto the island and crouching down, I took this photo.  It makes me happy.

Summer Flowers: Wednesday

Still sticking with pink.

One of the joys of taking photos of flowers is afterwards sitting down with my two Wildflowers of Great Britain books – one published recently; one I purchased from a secondhand bookstore for the delightful illustrations – and trying to identify what the flower is.  I am astounded that the recent publication has such awful photos of flowers, especially given the abundance of excellent photographers out there.  The photographs are not only awful but are hopelessly unhelpful in identification.  They are plain bad photos.  Some flowers are barely recognisable, or the colour is off.  Or, as in the photo of the poor buttercup, the flash was used uncessarily, wiping out all detail in the petals.  Truly bizarre.

Anyway, with some back and forth between the newer and the older book, and then googling images, I have tentative belief that this is Greater Burdock, here seen drenched in summer rain.  (Please do correct me if I’m wrong.)

Greater Burdock, Symond's Yat, August 2009.

This summer has been the driest one I have experienced in England.  Most weekends have been lovely and dry, and neither of the two barbecues I planned was rained off and only one of the three I attended became an indoor meal.  To one of the barbecues, the weather was so clement, I even wore my short red cordurouy skirt – the one and, thus far, only time I have worn it in my 2.5 years in England.

Today, however, has been thoroughly wet.  From lunchtime, it started to drizzle and by the time I left work and headed for home on my bike, it was bucketing down.  In the time that it took me to walk from my office to my bike in the carpak, I was so wet that I squelched.  I had a raincoat but I did not have my waterproof trousers so my trousers dripped water as I cycled home, with the wind lashing water at my face.  I could barely see, partially because my glasses were covered in droplets of water but also, because the wind blew sheets of water about the place.  One car swerved into a puddle in such a way that grumpy and paranoid me decided was a deliberate attempt to soak me.  The driver failed, of course, as I was already drenched beyond saturation point.  After that, however, I made slow progress home, pulling to the side of the road whenever I heard a car behind me.  I arrived home with frozen cheeks and stripped off in our lean-to, padding upstairs to dry off and plunge frozen toes into snuggly sheepskin boots.  I think autumn has arrived.

Summer Flowers – Tuesday

Keeping on with the pink theme, another quintessentially summer flower is thistle.

Thistle, Brecon Beacons, July 2009.

I like its punky hairdo and body covered in prickly piercings.  It kind of reminds me of a housemate I had when I was a student.  He was a goth and a punk and a med student.  We had quite a few parties in that household, only one of which did some uninvited guests attempt to gate-crash.  My friends were sitting out on the front steps of the house and got increasingly uncomfortable talking to some young, drunk men who wanted to join the party.  I saw it from my vantage point in the hallway and came out, eventually saying, “Listen, it’s a private party and unless you can name one of the people who live in this house, you’re not coming in.”  They blustered – trying a few common names – and got angry and began pushing through my friends, who hastily stood up.  I, perhaps foolishly, headed down the stairs to, er, fill the doorway with my bulk (ha ha ha) and when I got about half way, one of them unaccountably stopped and said, “Ah, never mind.”  They left.  I turned to grin at my friends, pleased that I had, with bravado, scared them off.  Instead of my friends, I saw my tall, goth-punk housemate in full regalia – black leather trousers, long black coat with an incongruous fluffy pink vest underneath – at the top of the stairs, hands on hips.  “Oh,” said I, “You scared them.”  My housemate grinned at me and said, “Nah, just back-up.”  He seemed a prickly sort, but was really quite sweet.  Much like thistle.

Summer Flowers – Monday

I really have no idea how people who post daily manage it.  Three days and I’m close to quitting.  I had a day at home today (public holiday) and it got to 1740 hours and I had not turned on the computer.  This is a wonderful thing in our household, when usually, (if we are at home) my, his and our computers all get turned on close to first thing in the morning (yes, all three; we have a fourth, too, but that’s upstairs and for I don’t know what kind of special things because only my partner uses that one).

No, we’re not geeks.

Oh, wait. Yes we are.

But I digress.  Back to flowers.

Heather is one of the flowers I associate with English summer.  It covers entire hillsides near where I live, such that all one sees is acres of pink.  Up close, the individual flowers are cute little bells in neat rows along each stem, and awfully difficult to photograph especially if there is a breeze, which, being England, there almost always is.

Heather, Brecon Beacons, July 2009.

I took the below photo because the rock resembled a happy guinea pig, sniffing away at the glorious scent of heather.

Heather, Peak District, August 2008.

Field of Poppies

It is really summer when you see this:

Field of Poppies, North Hampshire, August 2009.

This is actually the first year that I have seen a field of poppies in England.  Usually, I come upon the fields after the poppies have bloomed – I know by the seed heads that they were here but I have missed them in their red dominance of fields as I see only the later blooming ones scattered along the disturbed earth of footpaths.