A Photo a Day

10th to 16th May 2021

Forget-me-not flowers are everywhere, now. The name apparently comes from the Greek word for mouse’s ear, which the leaves resemble.

However, legend says that this flower’s name came from Germany: a knight and his love were taking an airing alongside the River Danube when a blue-flowered plant was seen floating downstream. The lady was distressed to think the plant would be lost, so her knight leapt into the river to save it. The current was too strong, though, and he was swept out to sea.

As he was passing his lady, the knight, with his last breath, gallantly threw the flowers onto the bank at her feet and cried out: “Vergiss mein nicht.”

This means ‘forget-me-not’.

A friend visited my drive this week. It was, of necessity (because of the dogs), a very short visit. She’d been to collect three Border collies from a place they never should have been, and she stopped for a quick rant about the three dogs in her car — currently called: Trouble, Trouble and Trouble. (see above)

Too many people think puppies are ‘cute’ and they don’t bother to think about when those same puppies are grown, and what an enormous responsibility they will be. Especially, as in this case, when they’ve decided that what is essentially a working dog, is going to be the cutest of them all. These dogs are possessed of great intelligence and can get bored easily. Then they get blamed when they get in trouble. The trouble is not rightfully theirs.

Thankfully, these three haven’t had their spirit broken and will have a happy ending.

Friends came round for a nicely distanced, safe visit on the drive outside my house. The day was bright and sunny. We all got settled with hot water bottles on our laps because it was very cold, wine in glasses, snacks on upturned supermarket crates.

Almost immediately, the light of day was overtaken by darkness, the heavens opened, and rain of biblical proportions fell from the sky.

We ignored it. We knew our rights. The BBC had promised dry sunniness. As far as we were concerned, dry sunniness it was!

While pretzels turned to mush in their bowls and olives started to float, the main worry was dilution of the wine.

People raced by on the pavement, heads covered with newspapers. They would see us and laugh. (???)

I can tell you that the main disadvantage to having a couple of friends visit for a glass of wine on your drive in a pandemic in the pouring rain is that the battering of the rain on your hood makes it impossible to hear normal conversation. We had to shout all our catch-up gossip to each other.

The entire neighbourhood now knows our business. Eek!

At least, due to the hot water bottles on their laps, my guests didn’t freeze to death. They nearly drowned instead, though.

I’m getting a bit sulky about the ceanothus outside my back door. I was promised it was a blue one. This will be its first flowering since I planted it. I was looking forward to clouds of blue just there, outside my back door. The pic on the left is from a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been waiting for ages. The pic on the right is from today. It doesn’t look blue, does it? No. It’s not right out, yet, though …

I must now sort out my frame of mind so that it’s looking forward to clouds of white. Then — if it suddenly bursts into blue it’ll be a pleasant bonus, but if it is actually white I’ll be happy with that, too.

I’ve not got so many photographs this week — I’ve spent most of the time trying to get together a ‘greyhounds and whippets’ colouring book for Amazon, and haven’t had time to go outside much.

Doggo doesn’t mind — he gets to play football (pawball?) inside when we don’t get out. That tires him out more than going for a walk, so he’s not deprived.

It’s always lovely to catch up with you all in your pictorial weeks!

Last week’s ‘A Photo a Day’ — that is: 3rd to 9th May 2021:

And the week before: