Walking along by the canal the other day, I paused to take a photograph of what I initially thought was a bee.
This meant stepping off the path a little, and I waited to one side as a dog walker was coming along in the opposite direction. He could see that I was taking photos and told me to watch out for an orchid that was in bloom some twenty yards back along the way he’d come.
Continue reading “telling tales”
At this time of year, the rural hedgerows and urban edgerows froth with white lacy flowers.
I’m not sure I know the difference between cow parsley and cow parsnip, wild carrot and hogweed, chervil and hemlock, or a host of other white-flowered umbellifers, but they always trigger a singsong voice in my head:
Queen Anne’s lace, Queen Anne’s lace,
You’ll find it growing all over the place
The last week has been Mental Health Awareness Week and I’ve seen a great deal of conversation online about the benefits of nature, with experts explaining how spending time in green spaces, or caring for plants or animals, can have a positive impact on our mental wellbeing.
Many business and life coaches have taken to the parks to hold their sessions in the great outdoors and inspire new healthy habits in their clients. My social media feeds are full of posts urging me to pause and take time out to look at buds on plants and the burgeoning leaves on trees.
Continue reading “healthy habits”
The other day, I posted a differently cropped version of the photo above on Instagram with the caption:
Blossom above my head;
clouds in the sky.
Since then, I’ve been niggling and tweaking and wondering whether and how I can turn that into something a little more poetic.
Continue reading “reductio ad absurdum”
Some fifty plus years ago, when I was a little girl, my mother made my brother a butterfly net out of a bamboo garden cane, a hoop of wire and an old net curtain. I don’t know how often he used it, but I suspect it wasn’t that often.
Whether he tired of it in the first few weeks, or whether it was when it came out of the shed on the second summer and he was off on his bike in the park with his mates, somehow, I managed to inherit it.
Continue reading “small blues”
don't confuse the narrator 