Lesser Stichwort

What more can I say?  It does what it says on the tin!

Sunshine and More Flowers

A sunny but humid day here, still a pleasant change from the cold of late.  The variable light was quite nice for these pictures, though I used flash on the Oxlips to lift them a little.

 Red Campion    Silene dioica

Oxlips    Primula elatior

Daisy    Bellis perennis

Thanks as ever to The Children's Mother for helping identify the plants properly and dig out the latin names! 

The World's Smallest Lilly - Saved!

Good news.

The world's smallest lilly has been saved.  Scientists at Kew have managed to propagate this tiny lilly and begun the process of reintroducing the plant to the wild.

And Rog thought his Lilly was the smallest...!

More Flowers on a Sunny Day

We woke to a glorious sunny morning.  A certain three or possibly four loads of washing and drying sort of day.

What else could I do?  Out into the garden with the camera, so you are getting flowers again!

Exochorda - 'The Bride'

Prunus laurocerasus  (Cherry Laurel)

Blue Bells!

Euphorbia robbiae

Four loads of washing and the lawns cut too. What a day, what a man!!

I would like to think more of a man than the ex Government Ministers who it seems pushed through such huge last minute spending that senior civil servants demanded written confirmation of the instructions.  An almost unprecedented move on the part of the Civil Service!

Thanks Minister......

A Cottage Morning

While I have been here at the cottage, I have been steadily catching up with (not quite getting ahead) of the strimming.  A little bit each day.  Yesterday I was the turn of the bankside down to the burn below the orchard.  This morning the donkeys had a few minutes treat grazing there, though I can't leave them as they invariably start on the fruit trees!

The plan is that one day, the orchard will be extanded to this area giving us perhaps another dozen trees.  It  was down here that I planted some wild crab apples a few weeks ago.

I will bore you all with another shot of the Wood Anenomes, I have to admit they are a favourite of mine.  A nice bit of 'bokeh' for Rog too, yes Rog I had to look it up!

After lunch I had a wander down the road to collect the papers and on the way had a chat with some of the locals.

The Highland Cattle above and the Kune Kune pigs below.  I had never heard of  Kunes before I first saw these ones just over a year ago and I am still trying to persuade all concerned to let me have some in the orchard!

At last the old bread bin where all the papers for our little group of houses are delivered in the morning.  It used to be on the other side of the road until it was hit by a wayward car one day!  The papers have been delivered here for as long as I can remember, and probably even longer...

The Cold Facts......

I took this first shot late last evening when I was locking the hens up and feeding the donkeys.  The dogs were tearing round like mad things, looking for rabbits to chase and moles to dig for!

The clear sky an indication of the white frost I woke up to this morning.

Yes, hard frost on 12th of May, it was snowing in Allendale yesterday!  Not unknown up here though, I remember in the late seventies, driving to the station at Hexham through a blizzard on my to college one June evening.  It was a night of contrasts, the train caught fire...!

So we have a new Government, not quite the one were were expecting but it makes a change!  It's works in the two most successful ecconomies in geographic Europe, Germany and The Isle of Man, (the latter despite the previous UK administrations best efforts!)  so why should it not work here?


Lets be totally honest, we don't really have a choice.  Do we.....?

The Darling Snows of May?

Well not quite but as I was out this morning strimming the orchard, it was snowing!

As usual when staying up at the cottage, I got up fairly early to let the hens out, check the donkeys and give the dogs a run round the fields before breakfast which is eaten at the moment while watching the political too-ings and fro-ings on the BBC news.  Gets my juices flowing and my teeth well ground for the day ahead!

Second trip outdoors is to clean the henhouse and collect eggs (they are a bit quiet at the moment) and give the dogs another run.  I usually carry my camera this time and today was a lovely sunny morning.

More shots (and hopefully better) of my old favourites on my mother's little piece of Britain.  The Wood Anenomes, that I have been trying to get a decent shot of since I discovered them and below,  the georgous, delicate,  little Violets which have increased dramaticaly since last year.

The clump of Primroses which is surviving in the protecion of the fallen branch.

And once again the Plum blossom.

I used the Samsung for all of these shots and as I am finally getting used to the way it works I am quite impressed by the way it handles some subjects.