Nettle

For the last few summers I have spent hours picking my way through the nettle patches on our land and finding a rich and varied stock of insects but this year they are barren.  Perhaps the ducks who spend a lot of time grazing there have eaten them all?

This summer I will have to make do with  a nettle leaf.......

Gills

The gills of a fungi I found in Slaley Forest a few weeks ago.

Hedgeline Near Slaley

I spotted this a couple of years ago one winters day.....

Newcastle-upon-Tyne Civic Center

Sunset

We are quite blessed living here at the cottage for many reasons, not least of which is the regular, magnificent sunsets.....

Another Day. Another Sunset.....

Lesser Stitchwort

Lesser Stitchwort nestling in a bracken frond on the banks above the burn today.

Dock Leaf

The time of year when leaves start to change colour is rapidly arriving. This dock leaf is one of the first.

Solanum tuberosum L.

Every year we have potatoes growing in the compost bays, none of them planted but growing from some which must have been waste from the kitchen years ago.  No idea what it's companion is called, a hoverfly of some sort.