gill ale rarity

one for plant geeks, this is the rare pale pink variant of ground ivy (see link on earlier page for normal variant of this pretty little plant). I have never seen it before.

mousetails

Spike and the Laurel cottage mob reported these strange little flowers in their garden (actually where he is not allowed). In fact they are mousetails, closely related to lords and ladies, a member of the arum family. As my book says they have "almost ludicrously" long tails, certainly longer than Spike's. They are not native, but maybe the warmer climate is encouraging them to spread. The blue flower to the lower left is bugle (see earlier pages as well)

furrows to plough

These wide smooth furrows have appeared in fields on the road to Launceston, creating pleasing geometric patterns in the soil. We remain very busy blurbing. But not so busy we couldn't appreciate the beautiful symmetrical complexity of a dandelion seed head.

blurb

first a rook, and then this jackdaw, settled on the stump of an old apple tree, and tore off small strips of wood. What for?

We have also been busy, hence lack of regular blogging. Spot has discovered a very wonderful site for any one who takes photos and wants to bring them together in book form. Blurb. Cannot get Blurb badge to work on this blog page but this is the link to our books, and to the Blurb site. The amount of work going on all over the planet is unbelievable. We are going to use the book of photos of Stoke Climsland as our contribution to the church fete raffle (written under Spot's nom de plume). Buy lots of tickets!

and where there are no bluebells there are great stretches of wild garlic. The two species share the same damp woodland habitat but seem to avoid each other for the most part.

things we are very glad to see again

tipless Harriet, her beauty forever spoilt, hiding her sorrows in a bluebell glade near Carthamartha. And no, the colours aren't quite right but we will keep trying. The lower photograph is fairly close to what the eye perceives.