Heyjude

Park Life

Sunday was a beautiful day. The sun was shining. It was reasonably warm for the time of year and it was my birthday. To celebrate we went for a walk in a nearby National Trust parkland, Berrington Hall, where a new route has been created through the broadleaf-woodland, followed by coffee and cake in the courtyard with live music from a folk group celebrating the apple harvest and a last lingering stroll around the walled garden and orchard simply dripping with apples of all colours and sizes. Care to join me?

We decided to follow the blue route but cut alongside the lake and then follow the yellow route to cut across and join the blue one again. Although we have visited Berrington many times, it has always been during the period when the lake walk is closed due to grey herons nesting there between March and July.

Looking back towards the house, built in 1775 by Thomas Harley and designed by Henry Holland in the latest French influenced Neo-classical style. Continue reading Park Life

Bench series #40

For the month of October I’m looking for a bench with someone or something sitting on it

(any kind of bench will do, but there must be at least one person, animal or object on the bench)

the 'Diana' bench — The “Diana” Bench at the Taj Mahal in India – yes there really is a bench under these ladies!

If you would like to join in with the Bench photo challenge then please take a look at my Bench Series page. No complicated rules, just a bench and a camera required 🙂

Create your own post and title it Bench Series: October
Include a link to this page in your post so others can find it too
Add the tag ‘bench series’ so everyone can find the benches easily in the WP Reader
Get your post in by the end of the month, as the new bench theme comes out on the first Sunday in November.

My Picks of the Week:

Isobel has some lovely benches from Camden’s Stable market and Lisa has benches with a view. Debbie is back in London and there are more curves from Ruth in Hobart. Meanwhile Elaine has some controversial ‘benches’ – what’s your opinion? And my last pick from the metal series is a sweet bench from Dawn with unusual basket-weave.

As always there are so many delightful benches to view, I hope you will check out the other links within the comment section.

beware of boundaries

See more ‘boundaries’ at the Weekly Photo Challenge: Boundaries!

little things in life

A fellow blogger and friend has been posting some images of spring in Australia including close-ups of moss starting to sprout. It prompted me to take my new macro lens down to the river where I knew moss grows abound and where I had seen some tiny fungi growing just the other day. Unfortunately it was quite dark by the river (it is flanked by a high cliff and trees on the one side) and moss isn’t as attractive in its latter stages, but I did find the fungi and a few interesting little things to photo. They are not the sharpest of images, but as I have mentioned over on the flower blog where you will find more macro images, I am happy to record my journey with the new camera with the hope that as time goes on I will improve!

We will start with this quite small leaf covered with tiny hairs on which there were beads of moisture – from the early morning fog I imagine.

Next a look at some fungi – note that the puff ball ones are actually very, very small, probably the size of the nail on my little finger.

Then some moss – again with the droplets – ferns and a couple of flowers. I had not realised until now how much the spores on a fern look like tiny eggs.

Maidenhair Spleenwort (Asplenium trichomanes)

Herb Robert

Spores on harts tongue / Asplenium scolopendrium

Green Alkanet (Pentaglottis sempervirens)

Moss with droplets

Spores

Moss

And finally one insect (there was a spider too but the quality of that shot is far too embarrassing to post here) a bright red-brown fly. If you click on him to enlarge the image you will see the hairs on his back.

To Autumn

SEASON of mists and mellow fruitfulness,
Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
Conspiring with him how to load and bless
With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;
To bend with apples the moss’d cottage-trees,
And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
And still more, later flowers for the bees,
Until they think warm days will never cease,
For Summer has o’er-brimm’d their clammy cells.

John Keats (1795-1821)

Cider Apples – Hereford

Blackberries ripening (September)

Elderberries

Squash

Blackberries (August)

Grapevine