Twigs and beasties

I had left a bundle of fuchsia sticks on top of the garden wall. This morning I went down with a piece of string to tie them up and add them to the coal sackful of roots, brambles and other twigs that I was going to take to the dump. I used to shred all this sort of stuff but I think that the dust and vapour from plant shredding is one of the things that does my head in (in a painful clogged up hay feverish sort of way) so I do less of it nowadays.

Underneath the bundle was this shiny beetle. I managed to get a pic before it ran away. Look how grainy the top of the wall is where moss and ivy have worked on it!

Then I noticed a whole crowd of beasties: millipedes and more beetles. The picture isn't very well focussed, I'm afraid.

Then they all ran away and I felt like a rotter for removing their roof!

Meanwhile the pond had a certain tadpoley wriggliness about it in all the shallow parts. Sorry, no pic of tadpoles just my favourite pond edging of tiny Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage plants.

Garden zones: 1 The Flag Patch

The year after we moved here I planted three Yellow Flags (Iris pseudacorus) in the boggiest part of the front garden. It's always boggy there in part because it's part of a boggy hill in a place with a wet climate but also because under that part of the garden is a soakaway. The winter after I planted the flags I took this shot that shows what I call the mark of the soakaway. It gives a clue about the water drainage on a frosty morning.

Three years on from the first pic you can see that the flags are doing well. Meadow buttercups (Ranunculus acris) don't need any encouragement down there either! 😊

This morning the flag patch looks like this from the top of the bank on which the house is built. I tidied it up a bit from what it looked like in November (see below). Beyond the flag patch is a wild angelica patch. More on that another time.

flag leaves are tough;
even the scythe finds them so

Roll on summer and the hopeful signs of budding flag plants and then their brave show:

June 2015

Flag seed heads can look quite arty, and snails seem to like the leaves.

DPR = Deep Pink Rhododendron

DPRs flowering April 2007

The first spring we were here, there were two deep pink rhododendron shrubs. I don't know their official name so I call them the DPRs. We acquired a hammock that matched the flowers. Toadlet and her friend sat and swung in it quite a lot.

DPR is a profuse flowerer

I like the effect of its dropped flowers too.

DPR lawn

Upper DPR in flower; 3 squiggley trunks of the lower one. April 2016

A few years ago the lower of the two shrubs died. I had thought that its triple trunk was strangling a holly tree that was growing from the same spot, but it seems that it was the holly tree that was strangling the rhododendron.

March 2017

I cut away the dead branches but left the trunks to dry out. I think they are a nice natural garden sculpture. At some point I daresay we'll chop them up and use them as firewood, like the old collapsed wild cherry tree behind them. That blew down during what was officially called Hurricane Friedhelm (and unofficially, by Scots, Hurricane Bawbag) in December 2011.

Oasis knittings 2016-7

The Garelochhead Oasis "Daffodil Tea" is to be held next Saturday. The knitting group has been busy all year. G has been making, among other things, some scarves and a snood.

Earlier in the year she made a baby blanket for a friend.

Earlier in the year I also put together this cushion cover from knitted strips.

I hope it brightens up and 'comfies up' someone's chair.

G's latest finished project is a little tea cosy. There is a yellow and cream one almost finished too.

Meanwhile, M has been churning out colourful blanket strips. I have begun sewing these into what will be a lovely blanket but I can't keep up with M's output! 😀 Look at the piles I've to finish off by sewing in ends and then sew together. Actually, I think there'll be two blankets-worth!

Pics of early spring on the Boggy Brae

honeysuckle stem growth

Springy Turf-moss (Rhytidiadelphus squarrosus)

Pignut leaves with the springy turf-moss

Fire hydrant in the lane

Lesser Celandine beginning to flower

Opposite-leaved Golden Saxifrage

Insects on the pond

A day trip to Edinburgh

On Thursday this week I got the train to Edinburgh to meet DivingDaughter for lunch in the National Library of Scotland (good butties) and some granny friends for tea at the National Gallery (good scones). On the train over I finished the book that one of my gran friends had lent me quite some time ago: Hellfire and Herring by Christopher Rush. Though great on social history about the fisher folk of St.Monan's in Fife, it's quite a densely written book and so short bursts of reading it were usually enough. There were some descriptive gems like these:

July was a blaze of blood red poppies

heavy with the smell of elderflower

and tall with nettles and willowherb,

waving at us from the dry ditches

and the kirkyard burn

where the loosestrife ran free.

August threaded our noons with dragonflies

and stroked our faces with thistle seeds.

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DivingDaughter had good news about a new job she has acquired after some self-financed extra training in software development. She's off on a trip to Nova Scotia to visit a friend there before the new job starts.

DD took me up steep stepped wynds I'd never walked along when I lived in Edinburgh, mainly because when I did live there I had young kids and my trips from five miles out from the city centre were normally by bicycle to visit a shop or two on a Saturday, when their dad was available to watch them, and home again without too many diversions. Other times I'd be taking the kids on the bus to the house of a friend whose kids were the same age, and we'd often go for a walk to Holyrood Park. Exploring the city along steep stepped narrow wynds were not really a practical option even if I had ever thought of it back then!

We stepped into St Giles Cathedral for a quick squint. I hadn't been in there since I was a student and had time between trains. The ceiling of the nave looked as if it had been recently painted. There was scaffolding in parts where, we presumed, more repair and restoration work was being done. It struck me as a 'heavy' and somewhat oppressive building, lacking the light lofty spaciousness of some similar and much older churches. 

Then it was down through Princes Street Gardens, the slopes of which are carpeted with crocuses.

We sat with the spring sunshine on our faces for a little while before DD went her way

and I joined my friends in the National Gallery cafe.

After a chatty meetup and a filling tea (I particularly liked the smoked salmon on scones idea), three of us went for a wander around the gallery looking at paintings.

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One of my favourite Scottish paintings is this one by Sir Francis Grant. 'Daisy' made us think of Jo March in Little Women when she only had one decent glove to wear to a party so carried the spoiled one in her hand. She also reminded us of the Scottish ballad The Road and the Miles to Dundee, which you can listen to via the link.