Vie

 

I took this photo about a week ago. Look at it, it's teaming with life . It's a constant cycle. Nature when left is a thing of beauty. Just look. 

For some reason it reminds me of The Fairy Feller's Master-Stroke.

Gunnera

 

"Gunnera is the sole genus of herbaceous flowering plants in the family Gunneraceae, which contains 63 species. Some species have extremely large leaves."

We don't have a garden but I quite like looking at other people's, and sometimes taking photographs. Last week we had a holiday in Devon, stopping in mediocre accommodation, but set in 13 acres of garden. There were some lovely examples of Gunnera and I took quite a lot of photos of them. Actually I took about 560 photos on holiday of various things, I get carried away, only about 30 were of Gunnera. Anyway here are about half of them:

Nature’s Wonderland

One thing that I’ve always been thankful for was growing up in a household where books were always there. I think that was mostly down to my mother's influence. Books meant learning and learning meant advancement. Mother also made sure we were all library members from a very early age. I am grateful for books being in my life.

I only own one book from my early childhood. I think it was a hand-me-down. I had an uncle who was only seven years older than me and it probably belonged to him. The book is called Nature’s Wonderland and dealt with an eclectic mix of what it considered to be the wonders of the natural universe. There’s no date or price on it, but judging by the quality and the style of the few colour pages, I would put at early/mid fifties.

As a young boy it fascinated me with what truly were wonders as far as I was concerned. It introduced me to the Northern Lights, the giant redwood tree, stalactites and stalagmites, and things in outer space. My interest in space travel and astronomy were fired at an early age and have never gone away. All exciting stuff for a lad whose world was a council estate in a Suffolk market town.I guess that’s why I’ve hung on to it all my life. I still occasionally look through it with fond memories even now. It’s a bit battered and has generally been mistreated over the years but I try to take care of it these days. In monetary terms it’s worth very little which makes it all the more valuable to me.

Dogwood sunrise

Sometimes less is more...

Ratty man

Ted Ellis was the epitome of the 'ratty man'. I don’t use the term in a derogatory sense, it’s more an explanation of his stature and mannerisms. He used to be on local telly in the East when I was younger. His specialist subject was wildlife and nature. A fascinating man that always reminded me of Ratty in The Wind In The Willows.

Ted was highly regarded in the East. There is even a train named in his honour.

Turtle-dove update

They've flown the nest, but are still hanging around the garden. They seem to be doing just fine.

Two turtle doves

A couple of weeks ago we discovered a nest in a grapevine that we have which grows close to the house. We've now got two juvenile collared turtle doves just about ready to leave home:

All together now, aahhhhhhhhhh!