A Photo a Day
17th to 23rd May
If you look carefully, you can see that this pic contains a rare sighting of the elusive yellow-jacketed strimmerpeep and his family.
Rarely seen, this shy species, like a plague of giant mosquitos, descend on the graveyard and fill the air with their very loud, distinctive buzzing as they go about their business.
Unfortunately, a natural consequence of their seasonal activity is the smell of petrol which quite overcomes the fragrance of freshly strimmed grass.
Mourners who might have been communing with their laid-to-rest, silent people, clutch themselves in horror and trot away as fast as they can before they are overtaken by the army of grave-strimmers, possibly afraid of being topped like the flowers they’ve carefully grown over their lost ones’ plots.
Silence falls to the earth when their job is done. Then the strimmerpeeps are gone. Until the next time.
Doggo and I smile at our silent friends. They, no doubt, smile back — they know that it’s another photo opportunity, another incident to note.
This is the back garden of the surgery — it’s pretty lush for the middle of a city. There are two squirrels in this picture — they’re playing in the tree on the right, and a woodpecker is doing woodpeckery things in one of the trees on the left. Luckily, Doggo can’t see them either, or he’d be howling fit to bust because he wouldn’t be allowed to go and play with them.
Across the road from me a Clematis Montana is rioting and crying out to be photographed, so I’ve obliged. I particularly like the white one, as above.
The leatherleaf viburnum is flowering now. I love the leaves — they look so determined and full of tales to tell.
The hawthorn is in full bloom. It is also known as quickthorn, whitethorn, hagthorn, mayflower, and ‘bread and cheese’ because apparently, this is what the leaves taste of — not that I’ve tried to confirm this …
The flowers come in all shades from pure white, through pink to magenta/cerise.
There are a lot of folk tales associated with this tree. A most common one is that it is the residence of fairies, and stands between this world and theirs. It is clear, therefore, that to cut down a fairy tree is to condemn yourself to certain doom.
I keep on the right side of hawthorns by having some planted in pots outside the front of my house.
I am part of an art group from years ago when members of it started businesses selling paintings on eBay. It’s been a hard year for many of our members, and the people who run the group (and do an incredible job with much more patience than I’d be able to find) have put up prompts every week as inspiration for us and for the newbies. We have to post pics we’ve painted in the past.
Even though my niche in the market has always been dogs, I’ve had something to post for every prompt, be it ‘circus’, ‘hats’, ‘accountancy’, etc. This week the prompt went up and it was: ‘Still Life’. Eek! The only thing I could find in the depths of my computer that even remotely came near to ‘still life’ was a half-eaten custard cream.
So, here it is (above) — a half-eaten custard cream.
And, on that crumbly note, I’ll be signing off for another week. Take care, you all!
Last week:
The week before last:
