Category: UK

memory of colour

I mentioned last weekend that salmon pink geraniums always remind me of Elizabeth Goudge’s delightful book The Little White Horse. The book is a firm favourite of mine, read again and again when I was a child, and no doubt I’ll read it again with pleasure whenever I manage to retrieve my books from that storage locker in central Spain.

Despite being brought up in a time when blue was for boys and pink for girls, I was never that fond of pink, so perhaps it was Loveday Minnette’s love of the flowers in the book that has made salmon pink my favourite among geraniums. A close runner-up is red – the bright, bright red that verges on vermillion.
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tangential memories

Yesterday I looked at different shades of blue and purple and the impossibility of marking a dividing point between them.

Today the flowers I have chosen are more on the redder side of purple, and are all examples of scabious. At least, I think that’s what they are, although I’m always slightly concerned about naming plants here as I am no expert and I’d hate for anyone to be misled because they trusted either my memory or my Google-fu.
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blue horizons

For me, some flowers and plants are inextricably linked to books I have read. I can’t see a periwinkle flower like the one above without its other name – Joy-of-the-ground – springing to mind alongside images of Maria Merryweather and her pony at Moonacre Manor in Elizabeth Goudge’s delightful story The Little White Horse.

Salmon pink geraniums also take me to the same story, but they don’t fit this post’s colour theme, and, really, it’s colours not books that I’m thinking about today.
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maybe not

Yesterday I wrote about walking around the racecourse and ended the post with a photo of cow parsley. Today the top photo is a different umbellifer. I think it’s probably common hogweed, which I’m assuming might be a relation, as it’s also known as cow parsnip.

For those who haven’t made the connection, umbelliferous flowers are arranged on short stalks that radiate from a common point, like the ribs of an umbrella.
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encounter with cows

During the lockdown, I’ve begun going to the racecourse when I have time for a proper walk, as there is plenty of space to avoid people. As well as the paths around the track, there’s also a small wooded area, where I know I will be completely alone, and there are a couple of places where you can climb over stiles and get onto footpaths that cross the adjoining fields.

There’s a proper made-up path on the inside of the track, but I prefer the natural path thats skirts the racecourse; this is quite narrow, but you can always dip under the fence to ensure the recommended distance is adhered to.
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