LOOSE AND LEAFY

THE NEW TREE - SAMBUCUS NIGRA

2012-01-28T11:25:00.000Z

A few weeks ago, Laura at Patio Patch asked if I will be focusing on a new tree this year. I'd already been giving this some thought. My affection for 'last year's' tree (a Sycamore) began long before I gave it a special place on Loose and Leafy - so there's no way I'd let it out of view. However, it has the disadvantage of being so tall, all the 'action' happens high up. At ground level, shade and location mean its not a good place for other plants to grow . . . what little there is that struggles into life between its toes tends to get nibbled as soon as it shows its head above ground.

So a shift of focus might be a good idea.

A long time ago, I decided to 'follow' several trees and several patches of ground. All sorts of things went wrong - branches were lopped, the undergrowth was cut back, little plants died in drought or were trodden on - other plants caught my attention! In other words, it didn't work. None the less, there's an elder that has kept my interest all the way through. It's a scraggy thing - hardly a tree at all and only specially noticeable because it's bulked up by being part of a small clump. And the clump is both extra-noticeable and extra-easily-ignored because it is almost enveloped in blackberry and ivy. (Some of the recent photos of ivy berries were taken there.)

So, without abandoning the sycamore, let's shift focus and keep a little more of a conscious eye on the Elder - Sambucus Nigra.

It will be an incredible contrast. While the leaves of the sycamore are 'up there' and almost invisible (so high are its trunks before there are branches) the elder is definitely eye-level. And where the vegetation round the sycamore is sparse, so many plants like to live by and on and over the elder, it is sometimes hard to see it!

Deep breath . . . and a little fanfare . . .

Tarantara!

and we approach the elder . . . through January gloom!

It's on a path we've met before - an old railway line that has been re-surfaced for pedestrians and cyclists.

There's the clump, up ahead on the left. (Further ahead still, on the right, you can see a group of Holm Oaks (Quercus Ilex)).

And we arrive.

For much of its route, the old railway runs along an embankment so, although the tree is easily accessible from this side, there's a quite a steep slope on the other.

Photographs can give the wrong impression of size. The elder is the wonky tree on the left. The little path which runs beside it is nothing more than an animal track. Maybe children push through from time to time. I'm not sure. Dens along here are not entirely out of fashion - though their occupancy seems to be very short - no sooner are they made than they are abandoned.

This is the foot of the tree - red shoots already showing. (I've heightened the contrast so you can see the patterns in the bark.)

Because the elders here are tightly packed, I'm not going to be too particular about which branches belong to which particular tree. We'll take the clump as a unity.

An untidy one!

Useful Link

The Woodland Trust has an interesting page about the Elder HERE

with information botanical, historical and folkloragorical.

'Festival of the Trees' has now become 'Treeblogging'.

'The Tree Year' has come to a stop - or has it?

BLACKBERRIES IN THE GLOOM

2012-01-17T18:16:00.000Z

There have been some lovely sunny, blue sky days recently but, for the most part, those have been the days when I haven't had time to go out with my camera. So I've been missing the startlingly crisp afternoons when one can take startlingly crisp pictures . . . and have been left with gloomy days - days when everything sort of merges into a mush. All that means, of course, is that we are invited to look a little harder.

Here we go - the big scene (which is never very big - too much choice!) . . . and the view when we hone in. It's a bit like a spy film. And today - today we are spying on blackberries.

First, the bramble picture from the recent Loose and Leafy post 'Prickles and Thorns'.

At least it's clear what the photo is off. None the less

go closer in and one is less aware of the shape of the branch and more of the arrangement of thorns. I even find myself wondering what happened to the missing limb.

Blackberry fruits which weren't eaten and didn't fall.

I could, of course, have walked on by. Most people would. Most people are simply marching down a path or walking back. They aren't out with a camera with a post in mind. I'm glad I had my eyes skinned.

Leaves which hang on to autumn stand out more, even at ground level.

But there's a world in there which could be missed if we didn't go in closer still.

Perhaps there should be a little sign beside it: 'INSECTS AT WORK!'

And, far less obtrusive, agreeing to stay muted - a dessicated twig.

Sometimes, the tiniest of details need their own frame.

THE BERRIES MATURE

2012-01-13T13:23:00.000Z

It's possible, I suppose, a moment may come when I loose my interest in ivy. For the moment, though, it runs un-diminished. Their earlier golds have mostly vanished. Instead, there are blues and greens and browns on show. It's very hard to move on.

Sometimes, I adjust pictures a little - cut out glare from shiny leaves, take a few shadows away to reveal detail. This time, so you can tell how wonderful the variety is, so you know it hasn't been introduced by editing, the pictures for this post are exactly as they came out of the camera (except for cropping off some of the edges so you can see the berries centre stage).

Can't wait to hear what you think!

There are olive greens.

And chestnut browns.

And blueberry blues.

Some are hanging low where the new Alexanders grow.

And some hang on to memories of autumn fireworks.

There are masses and masses of them.

Beautiful.

A PAUSE TO LOOK AT REEDS

2012-01-05T16:45:00.000Z

Reeds are here all year round but when bushes die back and green fades out of the landscape they come into their own.

In the summer, there will be flowers either side of this path - daisies and vetches and all sorts of things I don't know the names for but, for now, reeds dominate

- and they won't stand still. It has been very windy recently. Indeed, to take these pictures it was, at times, hard to stand still, the wind was buffeting so much. They are being blown sideways - and I am too. Weather is contrary. Clouds are coming from the north but wind from the west. This means it is not too cold. An east wind is the coldest here.

It comes blasting up the English Channel. The coast you see is the south coast of Dorset - heading from Weymouth to Kimmeridge and Lulworth.

As evening falls, the light grows colder and the reeds turn silvery

and dull

and dramatic.

(The little white dot in the sky to the right of the reed head is the moon.)

I like reeds.

Photographs taken on the 2nd and 5th of January 2012.
I'm at sea with botanical names. Is Phragmites Communis the same as Phragmites australis?

PRICKLES AND THORNS

2012-01-03T07:16:00.000Z

When the weather grows cold and blustery, it’s tempting to look for signs of new growth but do that too much and one misses the season. In January, there’s more dead on show than usual; prickles show clear and thorns are beautifully exposed.

Gorse flowers all year round but in January, when there is less colour than in other months, the flowers are specially prominent in the dull light.

January is a month when it's easy to see where blackthorn gets its name. Come spring, white blossom will draw the eye and in the summer these long spikes will be hidden in dense foliage.

For most of the year, blackberries mean fruit at some stage but January is a 'look at those thorns!' time.

Buddleia is an exception to this general 'now-ness'. Last years dead blossoms remind us of the year passed.

Hurray for January!

Have a Very Happy

2012

THE BERRIES TURN BLACK FOR CHRISTMAS

2011-12-24T22:44:00.001Z

Christmas Eve.

The sun touches the elder

and the blackthorn is stark against the sky;

the buddleia has lost its senses

and a magpie pauses.

Best of all, the ivy berries have turned black for Christmas. I didn't think they'd make it but a few have managed to turn in time.

All's well with this little bit of the world.

Hope all is well with you too.

Have a very happy Christmas and a happy, hedgeful 2012.

(All photos were taken today, December 24th 2011.)

LOOKING UP FOR A BIT

2011-12-23T11:23:00.000Z

As I write - it's mid-morning and getting darker as the rain grows heavy.

Walks have to be snatched when it's neither uncomfortably windy nor wet. Such moments of ordinary sun and still air are treasurable - even to someone like me who likes wild and windy weather.

In such a moments, the sky can be surprisingly blue . . .

beyond the ever flowering gorse

and through the lattice of elder hedge.

The upper branches are bare but, lower down

leaf buds are not only forming above the ever pleasing lichen

but breaking open.

And Old Man's Beard

grows thinner scraggier and more beardy and old as the weeks pass.

THE WIND DROPS AND THE SUN COMES UP

2011-12-18T14:05:00.000Z

It has been very windy recently. Even when it hasn't been raining, the wind has been making every plant, every stalk, every leaf - everything tremble. (Even me!) Not the weather for photos.

But this morning . . . a lull. A day for a quick stuck-foot stop. (This is where I keep my feet planted in one place - and see what there is to see.)

Ten past ten. The sun is up (though low). The wind has dropped. Down to the beach. It's a bit glarey, looking east!

But at my feet - Rock Samphire (Crithmum maritimum)

And . . . I don't know what this is. I know I don't like it though, so I look up

to the top of the bank above the path . . . . from where the little black seeds of Alexanders (Smyrnium olusatrum) are falling onto the rocks and, rather astonishingly . . .

germinating through the remains of old reeds.

Where . . .

an old teasle (Dipsacus fullonum) has fallen too.

And, below the rocks, on the sand itself

seaweed in dog-walkers tracks. The greeny one, I'd guess is Toothed Wrack (Fucus serratus). The twiggy bits - more reeds (Phragmites communis). But the red threads . . . I daren't hazard a guess about the red threads - red seaweeds have me completely beat. (Too many look too much alike!)

EXPLODING IVY

2011-12-03T16:51:00.001Z

December 2nd 2011

I'm stuck. I'm well and truly stuck. I've tried to understand - and failed.

Julia of Plot 108 has tried to help me out. She's given me some very useful links (here's one) - but I'm still lost. I really can't understand ivy.

I see it creeping on its little feet behind the loose bark of trees, burdening branches, pulling down walls. I know you can grow a new plant if you cut off a piece that has toes - but when it comes to its flowers and berries - I'm lost but entranced.

December 2nd 2011

Ivy persists and blunders its way into almost anything. Ditto me. In the true spirit of this blog, I will not let ignorance get in its way.

December 2nd 2011

When the berries are ripe, they will be black. They are far from this yet but all sorts of other stages are around together so, by posting before the sequence is complete, I hope these pictures will encourage you to go and look for yourselves.

December 2nd 2011

November 4th 2011

Ivy produces flowers only where it is sunny - and it is often allowed to thrive only in shade - which is why many of us are unfamiliar with what they look like. And where it flowers, its leaves change. They become elongated instead of heart shaped.

November 4th 2011

And why do I talk of explosions? . . . I first began taking photographs of ivy at the beginning of November, just when our town had a firework display. I'd always assumed the huge ones with which such events always end represent chrysanthemums. Now I know I've been wrong. They are ivy.

November 17th 2011

Just see below!

November 3rd 2011

November 4th 2011

Not all of them make it . . .

November 17th 2011

But many do - and, when they are ripe and black and it's time to sing carols about them - it will be Christmas!

WALKING INTO THE BLUE

2011-11-19T06:09:00.001Z

There's a little path I like. It goes down to a little beach - and I often go there. You've been with me before. It takes about one and a half minutes to walk down and the same coming back - probably less- yet the undergrowth is so dense and varied, I could write a post a week about this one short stretch and there would still be more to see.

This is a little of what I saw on 17th November 2011.

At the top of the path - Chicory Flowers.

A few years ago, I complained to our local council that it cut back blackberry bushes when fruit was on them - and, at the same time, raised questions about the spring trim in relation to nesting birds. I don't claim it was my email alone which got it changed. Indeed, it may have had absolutely nothing to do with it but, since then, the autumn tidy has happened later - and they've just done it so only the shorter chicory plants are still standing. They've had a bit of a tough time this year because the spring trim happened immediately after the first were tall. They are one of my favourite plants so I was pleased when others grew to replace them. I will miss the tall white stems they would have left through the winter if they'd been left uncut but there's no point in a path if you can't walk along it!

Summer here lasts long - right into autumn. Here's a Viper's Bugloss plant. It too has been cut. It has to be done - but look it was still in flower when it fell!

Also at the top of the path - a small maple. (You'll know from previous posts that I'm no good at distinguishing trees in this group so you may say "No! It's a sycamore!" or . . .) (I hope you won't pop up and say no! It's rhubarb!)

The light is uncertain. It flickers between sun and no-sun. The sea is impressive whatever the weather but, since this post is called 'Walking into the Blue', let's choose a sunny moment.

It's evening in mid-November so the sun is low and there's a glare on the water. It's also the time of year when seaweed washes up in bunches.

Back up the path and, caught in the blackberries (you could cut them back for a million miles and we wouldn't run out of blackberries!) . . . keys from the maple / sycamore / (or even rhubarb!).

Autumn.

LET'S VISIT A TREE

2011-11-13T09:41:00.001Z

This is the walk . . .

. . . with the tree we are visiting straight ahead, on the left hand side of the path.

It's very tall - which I know isn't a precise way to describe it - but, for scale, a car could pass down this track easily and have room to spare either side.

Its needles are like this.

There are several trees like it. Ivy grows up one of the narrower trunks.

The bark is peeling from them all. I'm startled by the red. Shiny and wet in the autumn rain, the exposed wood looks like flesh.

It has dinosaur toes.

I was going to check with iSpot - but the site is down so . . . does anyone know the name of this tree?

(It isn't Fred.)

HARLEQUINS

2011-11-08T15:16:00.000Z

Those who do not live near ivy may not realise how poplar it is with insects. When it is in flower, you can hear them buzzing loudly as you approach.

In the last week, I have been taking pictures of ivy in various stages - buds, flowers, beginnings of berries. The weather has been variable so I've been going backwards and forwards, trying out different lights.

Sometimes, there were three insects per mini-firework display so my attention drifted to them . . . and from them to ladybirds in the leaves . . . and from ladybirds to realising there are Harlequins here - Harmonia axyridis.

Harlequin Ladybird -Harmonia axyridis

The good thing about these ladybirds is that they eat lots of aphids. That's why, in 1988, some were taken from Asia and introduced into the U.S.A..

The trouble is, these ladybirds have such a great appetite for aphids . . . they gobble up every single available one of them. Indigenous ladybirds begin to starve to death. Does this bother the Harlequins? No. They extend their diet to include the already declining species of local ladybirds . . . and lacewings . . . and butterflies . . . and hoverflies . . .

Their population is expanding. It is now the most widespread ladybird in North America and some species which used to be common in Canada are now rare.

Un-hatched Harlequin pupa

Bizarrely, despite this experience, Harlequins were introduced to mainland Europe as a device of pest control . . . and then they flew to the British Isles.

The empty skin of a hatched
Harlequin pupa.

There is a lot of alarm about this (naturally!) so the UK Ladybird Survey has set up a special section for monitoring their spread here.

It's almost useless to explain what to look for because although the Harlequins I came across on the ivy look much like 'ordinary' ladybirds, they can come in a surprising number of guises. (Disguises!) The best thing (I suggest) for people in the UK to do is to submit photos of ANY ladybird to the UK Ladybird Survey. Not only will they be able to distinguish one species from another, it's as important to record the distribution and numbers of indigenous ladybirds as it is to make a map of Harlequin spread. The impact of Harlequins needs to be monitored - and it's good to keep an eye on what's happening to our wildlife whether or not we have concerns about the activities of a particular predator.

Another empty skin of a hatched
Harlequin pupa.

There are charts and pictures on the UK Harlequin Survey site - these are worth consulting too. There's an interesting summary of information about Harlequins HERE - and information about studies of them in the London and Essex areas HERE.

But what about other insects on the ivy?

I went back to take photographs. The weather had cooled - was it this which meant there were fewer around - or was it that the sun was shining on the bushes and the insects preferred shade? . . .

I don't know - but whatever the reason was, as soon as I decided to pay attention to insects, most of them vanished. But there was a Blowfly next to a Harlequin -

And a Drone Fly. (Probably E. tenex).

And a moth. (Possibly a Nettle-Tap - Anthophila fabriciana).

The rest kept flying around, buzzing off, flitting away - if only they had been prepared to sit as still as this snail!

With thanks to members of iSpot for help with identifications.

SOME LINKS YOU MIGHT LIKE

UK Ladybird Survey

Pictures and Charts to help identify Harlequins

Harlequin Ladybird Survey

Record sightings of UK Ladybirds

Record sightings of Harlequins in the UK

History of Harlequin invasion - on this page there is information about how to send live ladybirds to the Department of Genetics at Cambridge University. The address for this has changed and specimens are no longer needed from certain areas. Details are on the right hand side of THIS page, the address to which ladybirds may now be sent is on the left.

To find out about the forty-three species of ladybird native to the UK. (Click the red names on the right hand side to see pictures.)

Using sexually transmitted disease to render Harlequin females sterile is being studied at Cambridge University but parasites are another form of control. You might like to take part in a parasite survey on the BBC Breathing Spaces site.

And . . . beyond ladybirds - here's a list of surveys UK residents can take part in with OPAL (Open Air Laboratories).

And . . . I know I'm always going on about iSpot . . . but it really is worth belonging to / contributing to if you live in the UK.

For readers in other parts of the world . . . there seem to be no parallel ways for people who live on mainland Europe to take part in surveys like these. It may be that there are some in North America . . . if there are, I'll add information here . . . or does anyone already know?

P.S. You can follow Dr Helen Roy of the UK Ladybird Survey on Twitter.

FOOL, IF YOU THINK IT'S OVER

2011-10-26T07:39:00.000+01:00

. . . I'ts just begun.

Blackberry eating sometimes seems the highlight of the hedgerow year.

By the time they wither and become tasteless, we have to agree with nature that winter is on its way.

But, really, this is just the beginning. Seeds are almost ready for a new start. Growth doesn't start with spring, not really - autumn is where it begins.

Humans plant most of their seeds in the spring, when the weather is beginning to warm. Wild Fennel is dropping its sowing its seeds now.

Roses are passed but their hips make great displays

Haws which began as May Blossom earlier in the year are beginning to shrivel and age

And the skins of sloes are wrinkling. (Sloes are Blackthorn fruits.)

I don't know what this plant is called.

It's low growing with densely packed, white umbels. I don't like it at all . . . until the flower vanishes and its seeds are left behind. Wonderful!

Viper's Bugloss flowers are over and the plant is now transformed into a stick of silver prickles. Tiny seeds are now falling from the cups which have held them while they ripened.

The hedges are fluffy with Old Man's Beard (the seed protections for Traveller's Joy - wild clematis). This year, they are smaller than usual - but just as lovely.

Seed upon seed . . . did you notice?
Grass? Wild Barley? Can't see that it has come from anywhere immediately above. Bird or wind delivered.

And back to ground level.

'Fool, if you think it's over . . . it's just begun' A song sung by Elkie Brooks. She wan't singing about Autumn but . . just look at those seeds fall.

All photos for this post were taken on the afternoon of October 25th 2011.

WHAT CAN YOU DO IN A STATIONARY CAR?

2011-10-14T09:31:00.002+01:00

What can you do in a stationary car?

Long journeys can be fun if they go smoothly. Sometimes they are fun even if they don’t. Otherwise, why would anyone risk going anywhere?

But when the journey ceases to ‘go’, when you are stuck, stopped in a traffic jam or otherwise detained - what then?

Then . . . you lower the window and poke your camera into the outside world, never mind that the engine is still running and making everything shake. Or, if you can’t do that, you focus through the window and put up with grime as well as judder.

A stream which is usually shallow enough to be forded has swollen in the (holiday!) rains. Here we are. There’s the road we are supposed to be driving along. In between is a river. What to do? At least, in a place like this, we can turn the engine off for a while - so everyone jumps out to be photographed on the bridge and to persuade the driver not to risk going through the water. We watch other cars arriving on the other side - and turning back. We look round at cars coming up behind us. They too, turn round - and go back the way they’ve come. Then we do a twenty point turn, narrowly miss diving into a ditch - and agree to a less interesting route home.

Accident. Police stop all traffic on our side of the road until it’s sorted. Cars going the other way continue un-interrupted. We are at the front of the queue so we can see what’s happening (ish) and, once the lane is all clear, we have the unusual pleasure of travelling with a completely empty road ahead and a procession with hundreds and hundreds of cars in it chugging along behind.

There are sometimes people to see.

While we were stopped, a man and a woman with metal detectors were hunting for treasure on the other side of the railway-line paralleling our road. One has found something.

Here, while we are stuck on a bridge in heavy traffic . . .

. . .a group of cyclists speeds up a hill below.

Sometimes one can feel very hemmed in but if you free your mind from the idea of weeds - there are generally wild flowers, even in the boring-est of places.

The car edges forward.

There, once more, is a view. Wayside plants take on very different atmospheres, depending on their back-drop.

Even nature can be oppressive when one is going no-where but there are sometimes lots of plants to see - and at the beginning of autumn, when flowers and leaves are goldening, one may even be glad the traffic has stopped.

A few wheel-turns away -

- and a view through a gate. Heather and bracken and trees . . . and more trees . . . first deciduous, then forestry pine . . . and hills and clouds beyond . . .

And when another hill blocks the horizon - is there history under it? Have the treasure hunters been that way? Is there a village beneath? Burial mounds? A road even more ancient than the straight, Roman road we are on? Or even not.

It’s good to arrive on time. It’s horrid to be stopped in traffic. But, sometimes, its a privilege to be where a pedestrian could never safely stand - and see what there is to see.

* * *

All (but one) of these pictures were taken from a car on the roads A31, A35 and the A354 with the motor running and the afternoon light fading. The exception is the ford (or ex-ford!) which is on a minor road running between the B3708 and the A31, near the Rufus Stone in Hampshire. Lesson - if it has been raining for almost the whole of your holiday, a brief moment of sunshine does not mean it’s a good idea to take a detour in the New Forest in the expectation that the rivers there will be running dry!

HOW NATURE CREEPS INTO ARCHITECTURE

2011-10-05T09:47:00.000+01:00

Even if it hadn't rained, we would have visited Gloucester Cathedral. And the rain wasn't too bad that day, more like on and off drizzle, so we were able to visit parts of the town as well - but the cathedral cloisters caught my imagination beyond everything else. (If you've seen the Harry Potter film where Hermione fights a troll - you've seen them too - and I understand they were used as a set for one of the Doctor Who episodes.)

I walked round and round (or square and square!). There's a garden in the middle but you can't see it unless you go out through one of the small doors.

These cloisters are large and wide. Very beautiful, clearly very old - but not exactly material for a nature blog so it took me a while to decide whether I should include them.

So, once back here in Dorset, I went for a walk. And as I went, I thought. And as I thought, I took some photos. Then I came home, turned on the computer . . . and looked at them all, holiday and here.

Part of why I felt so at home in those cloisters was evident.

It's a very outside sort of place. I doubt it would always have been glazed - even though monks would have washed in the basins at the side. And there's a stone bench running around the inner walls. You could sit there and be cool, or cold . . . depending!

These cloisters were begun in 1351 and construction continued over the next . . . well, decades. Never mind Rome not being built in a day - some cathedrals took centuries to build. Durham, which we visited later in our journey, took four - and they hadn't stopped tinkering even then! We may have less reason to complain about having the builders in than we think. The building of buildings like these was part of life's fabric through generations of workers and couldn't but have had an impact on everyone who lived in the town and the lands around.

Looking up - fan vaulting - the earliest surviving. Some of it probably the first ever built.

But 'fan' vaulting . . .

This post is a struggle. I'm heavily dependent on the internet for information and, so far, I haven't been able to find who first thought of the name.

To me, the 'fans' look more like support structures of umbelliferous flowers

- and such flowers are not a silly place to find inspiration. In the middle ages when towns were smaller and the country always close at hand, for people interested in pattern and structure (architects!) plants like these could not have been other than fascinating. So, for me, this is fennel vaulting. Whether fennel had been introduced by then is beside the point. There would have been all sorts of umbelliferous plants in the gardens and hedgerows of Gloucester and beyond.

(This family of plants has now been renamed 'Apiaceae' but (to me) 'umbelliferous' describes them better. Think of prongs which hold up umbrellas.)

I once spent ages trying to find out how long roses had grown wild in Britain - and writing a post like this forces me, once again, to realise that the English countryside is not ever-unchanging.

I don't know whether chicory grew in its mediaeval hedgerows (I suspect not) but the flowers, though striking in their blueness, are not alone in their umbelliferousness. Look at the shape of the petals too - tall, with straight, parallel sides and a toothed edge at the top. Look at their simple circularity. Then look at the lines and shapes and circles of the cloister windows.

This is a shoddy post. It is dreadfully short of information even though my brain is bursting. That's why it's taken so long to write. I've been hoping to find time to check out the facts, fill in the gaps - but, in the end, I've decided I'd rather post something inadequate than to let Loose and Leafy grind to a halt while I swim through a sea of research . . . so . . . take this next bit with care.

I'm not an indoors kind of person. Well, I spend a lot of time indoors but indoors is not where I feel most at home. Yet these cloisters entranced me.

Here is a door.

And this is a familiar walk along our old railway line.

There will always have been routes through woods where the trees arch over. There will always have been bridges of some kind to walk under. Doors into . . . where . . . ? One catches one's breath.

And ever since I walked in these cloisters, I've been plodding around taking pictures of the spikey tops of leafless bushes - and chimney-scapes. Of telegraph poles and trees. And examining the way flat topped builidings don't seem to fit into our particular landscape as comfortably on the eye as those with sloped roofs and overhanging eaves. Is this because some reflect the shapes of oaks and mushrooms but others clearly don't? Do I like some buildings more than others because I begin from nature (in other words, is this is a matter of taste) or does architecture go wrong for everyone when it abandons the way things grow and form?

(I put it this way because buildings which suit a rocky country might well need to be more angular than those which 'fit' here.)

No way is this to do with simplicity. The cloisters of Gloucester Cathedral are far from unsophisticated structures. They didn't take a long time to build because workers were short of JCBs and tall, metal cranes. They were a radical innovation. A new design. Something people hadn't seen before.

If only we in the twenty-first century paid as much attention to ceilings!

HOME IS WHERE WE KNOW

2011-09-17T22:24:00.000+01:00

When we set off for our exploration of England and Scotland, I'd imagined I'd come home with lots of photographs of plants.

I didn't.

It rained. My, did it rain! You know the myth about people who live in snow-filled worlds having an almost infinite supply of words to describe the consistencies of snow? I now wish I had words for rain. Never previously have I realised how many kinds of rain there are. Some are beautiful. Some are as hackneyed as buckets of water thrown into the set of a B movie. But through all the kinds of rain we travelled, never did I find one which would make friends with my camera.

There were other disincentives too. Telling the people one is travelling with (Esther Montgomery and her family) to stop posing for holiday snaps and get out of the way of a leaf - isn't friendly. Nor is expecting them to wait while you crawl through the undergrowth. But these are not the only reasons for my empty handedness. Nor are they the most interesting. For I have learnt the value and importance of familiarity.

August 8th 2011

This is one wonderful landscapes we found ourselves walking in while we were away - part of the Goyt Valley in Derbyshire.

Fortuneswell (Dorset) Portland Harbour, Chesil Beach and The Ridgeway.

This is what I am used to.

Standing where I stood to take this photo, I am close to the Young Offenders' Prison, the stone quarries and the Old Railway Line I described in THIS post. The great bank of pebbles stretching into the distance (Chesil Beach) is pictured in THIS one. Most of the hedgerows featured in this blog are straight ahead. I live in an especially plant-rich environment - but people who live in the hills and the moors would say the same of the land around their homes - for they know what they are looking for.

If it hadn't rained so much, I would have learnt what to see. As it is - I re-learned the value of 'home'. Context is crucial. Familiarity opens our eyes.

August 8th 2011

This is the tent we travelled with - set up on Cold Springs Farm, right next to the Goyt Valley (pictured above).

Here are the plants we came home to.

The ripened sloes.

Little yellow daisy flowers. (The blue dots are the remains of Vipers Bugloss, still not quite over.)

The seed of Alexanders. (Which, to my embarrassment, I used to think belonged to Ground Elder.)

Brambles and willow herbs.

Seaweeds.

Fossils which emerge from the rocks, almost as I watch.

And the sea, the sea, the wonderful sea. It's the Isle of Portland, straight ahead. (I was standing on the highest point you can see here when I took the second photo of this post. If I had still been there, and had binoculars, I could have waved to myself.)

I'll show you more from our adventures as the weeks go by. But first, I celebrate 'home'.

(All local photographs were taken today, September 17th 2011.)

Esther's posted about one of the places we visited while we were away - Little Moreton Hall in Cheshire - HERE.

SECOND STUCK-FOOT POST

2011-09-05T15:13:00.000+01:00

The wind is whistling in the wires. Plants are shivering. They won't pose properly for photos. And I am longing for autumn. Soon, soon. I'm waiting for that particular smell which comes with it but I can't sense it yet, breathe in as I might.

Life is still busy. I haven't even opened all the envelopes that were waiting for me when I got back from our trip round England and Scotland. I haven't even looked through my photos - and that's saying something!

So . . . just time for another stuck-foot post.

If you didn't read the last one, it's where all the photos were taken from the same spot. Not only that, I put my foot down and didn't move it. It stayed 'stuck' in the same place all the time - even when it was awkward.

I was lucky for I was soon joined by this White Butterfly. I'm told (on good authority) it's a Green Veined White (Pieris napi) but, since I didn't notice any green veins . . . I'm feeling a bit wobbly about naming it.

I may not think it is autumn - but some plants seem definitely to be 'of the season'.

Others are simply dead - like this broken branch of gorse (Ulex europaeus). The rest of the bush is fine.

Scarlet Pimpernel (Anagallis arvensis) is a bright, end of summer delight.

And there too was this . . . whatever it is.

Are you stuck-footing yet?

(If you have a stuck foot post you'd like people to know about, leave a note in the comments and I'll put a link to it here.)

DON'T MOVE A FOOT

2011-08-29T21:18:00.001+01:00

On the turn of our journey, when we were leaving Newcastle-upon-Tyne to come south, I saw a Black Headed Gull with its head already turned grey. Very soon, it would be winter-white, a black spot behind each eye to keep its name in.

Elderberries matured while

we were on our travels
and are already

dropping from

their umbrella-rib frames.

The first breath of autumn.

The hedgerows which were solid green on our way up the country were mottled with early yellows by the time we came back the other way. I hadn't intended to post for another couple of weeks but the birth of autumn cannot go un-noticed.

How, though, to limit myself?

There's lots to be done on a return and I hadn't planned to write a post for Loose and Leafy until around the 17th September.

So I hit on an idea. Walk a short way from my house. Stand in one spot. Don't move a foot. Stick my nose in a hedge, see what can be seen, take photos - go home.

Result? Lots of wobbly photos from unfortunate angles in an awkward light.

Second result. I tried it in several places, forgetting that lots of ones add up to . .

. . . Never mind. I've set myself a trend.

All the photos in this post were taken within a four minute span with my feet stuck in one spot. Neither pottering nor re-positioning allowed! (11:10 - 11:14, Sunday 28th August 2011.)

At first sight, the bushes seem little more than a splurge.

I used to think these were
Ground Elder seed-heads
until Mag of Ragbag
tactfully put me right.

But when you re-focus your perception - here are Alexanders seeds.

The tattyness of these blackberries first drew me to this spot. Walking on after my foot-stuck-photo-shoot, I found there are plenty of fine and juicy ones near by, though their flavour seems mostly to be adequate rather than fantastic.

Haws - the fruit of Hawthorn.
You can see what the flowers looked like
in the spring in the post
Lights and Bells, Mists and Flowers.

Haws can be overwhelming. I find them vulgar in over-profusion - and, this year, they are definitely over-profuse to my eyes. I'd even say I am repelled by them. It's the same with caterpillars. One is interesting, possibly pretty - but in a writhing bunch they are less appealing. However, taking haws branch by branch, they are beautiful berries - red and shining.

Never neglect the ground.

All sorts of bits and bobs in there and, tipping us ahead to Christmas . . .

shines the Ivy.

Note - There's a picture of a Black Headed Gull in winter

if you scroll down this page of news from the Portland Bird Observatory.

THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY

2011-07-30T14:09:00.001+01:00

I've been invited to go on a trek. My neighbour, Esther Montgomery, has suggested I go on a camping holiday, travelling due North through England and Scotland and coming back on the other side (more or less). There will be Esther, her husband, their two children . . . and me! You can see the route plan on her blog - here.

How can one resist? The down-side is that I won't be able to blog while we are gone and, by the time we return, the season will be turning and pictures I have been accumulating for particular posts will have become dated and irrelevant. That's the trouble with a plant blog - you can't put nature on hold!

But I don't want to abandon some of these topics so here are some pictures that were intended for a couple of urban posts.

First, plants which grow along the edge of the pavement and the drop into the water of Weymouth Harbour.

In the foreground is the edge of the pavement. The concrete path beyond it is a pontoon where boats moor while waiting for the bridge to lift so they can get into the inner harbour without having their masts lopped! Beyond that is the water of the harbour itself.

It always astonishes me that plants can grow (and flower!) in such inhospitable places. There's no visible earth. There's traffic on one side, boats on the other. (The engines of some boats can be very fumey when they are start up and turn towards the sea.) The wind can be strong along here and there's salt in the air.

The blue is a pipe going down from a tap. You can see the tap itself on my other blog-
Message in a Milk Bottle - TAP.

Is there anywhere Buddleia will not grow?

Where plants have no hold - moss takes its chance.

And, down in the gap . . . a leaf floats by.

Below the life-belt case .

* * *

I had an inland-urban post in line too. Pavements made from bricks have become common - and plants are glad of the cracks between them.

Never under-estimate grass!

Some ubiquitous plants don't like to be trodden on.

There can be great variety at the foot of a wall where residents refuse to 'weed'.

Grasses come in many forms. Hurray!

Don't forget to look close-up! The patterns and textures can be impressive.

* * *

Alright, I know that, however impressed I am that so many plants are able to get their feet into almost impossible places

. . . most who read Loose and Leafy like to see colour and countryside. Here is a picture which got away when I wrote the post about the under-side of flowers.

I'll be back in September . . . around the 16th I expect.

Have a good August everyone.

Lucy

WHEN A CASTLE EXPLODES

2011-07-24T15:26:00.005+01:00

Last year some time . . . a man talking on the radio . . . an English journalist who’d worked as a reporter in Afghanistan and had made friends with an Afghan journalist . . . who, when he later needed to flee the country . . . came to stay with him in London . . .

. . . The British journalist explained what happened when he decided to deflect his friend's mind from the terrors of war and exile by taking him on a trip into the lovely English countryside. Where better to go than Dorset? Where better than Corfe -

Even in Celtic and Roman Times there was probably a castle on this site.
The first castles would have been made of wood but
William the Conqueror built it in stone here at the end of
the 11th Century.

1635 - 1646 the castle was owned
by the Bankes family which took
the Royalist side
during the Civil War.

where castle ruins perch dramatically high on a conical hill

After its fall to Parliamentary forces in 1646,
the stones of the castle were used for building
houses in the village.

and where seventeenth and eighteenth century cottages are still grouped around its toes?

Where fields and woods stretch into the distance,

the lanes are narrow, the parking adequate and the National Trust has a pleasant tea-room?

It’s a long trek from London; not really advisable in a day but just about manageable when it matters . . . even when the sun shines and everyone else has decided this is just the right moment for a holiday jaunt. The roads jam and the cars go slower and slower . . . and drivers and passengers alike grow weary .

. . but when they see that castle, the jagged ruins against the sky . . . wow! Fatigue is drowned in awe. The heart lifts. There’s beauty! There’s history! There will be cream teas, ice-creams, ginger beer. This is Enid Blyton country. Remember Kirrin Island with its ruined castle? Rooks? Dungeons? Childhood adventure? Corfe Castle and the coves and moors of this part of Dorset were what inspired the Famous Five stories.

Click to find out about the Swanage Railway

You won’t have time to take a ride on the steam train if you’re only here for a couple of hours but you can watch it puff in and out of Corfe Castle station on its way between Swanage and Wareham and simply seeing it will take you back to the childhood you probably never had . . . back to the atmosphere of the original Thomas the Tank Engine illustrations . . . it will be tantalising, you’ll want to come again . . . but for the moment . . . as you come round the bend in the road and suddenly see what’s there, you will experience a wonderful a gasp of surprise, of exhilaration, of pleasure

The castle was
blown up from the inside
by military engineers
when Parliamentary
forces took it in 1646
after laying siege for
six weeks.

. . . of horror . . . !

Horror?

“What have you brought me here for? Is this it?”

The shock of seeing through someone else’s eyes.

This man had escaped Afghanistan - a land of war, of explosions, of ruins. For him, ruins do not refresh the soul.

We forget what war is.

The National Trust banners on the bridge between the tea rooms and the fortress say ‘Romance’ ‘War’ ‘Treachery’ ‘Betrayal’. Oh yes! All very jolly!

References
I'm giving an Amazon link for The Famous Five books because I'm uncertain what would be better. The Famous Five, as well as giving great delight to several generations of children and giving many the motivation to learn how to read, have been hi-jacked on the internet by some very odd people (with strange approaches to sex) and sites which seem ok at first glance turn out not to be . . .

In the 1960s some librarians took against The Famous Five books because the vocabulary is limited. Some people were also concerned because children in it come from middle-class families which sent their children to boarding school and employed a cook. They were also concerned that Enid Blyton's approach suggest racist attitudes and that the children she wrote about 'looked down' on travelers and the poor.

My own opinion is that children need stories - not just 'education', that if they can identify with wizards and fairies there's no reason why they should have problems with people who employ cooks and that unless we know how people used to behave towards each other, they will not be able to understand where we have advanced as a society nor what is left to be achieved.

For Thomas the Tank Engine . . . so far, I'm stuck because I'm not finding links to the original drawings, only to photos taken from more recent books in which they were replaced with models from the television series.

* * *

Welcome to Corfe Castle - is a good site for finding out about the castle, the village and the surrounding area.

The National Trust Site about Corfe Castle - includes information about opening times and entrance fees as well as about the castle's history.

The Swanage Railway Site - tells you about the engines, history, timetables . . . and more.

Here is the Historic Towns Survey of Corfe Castle - topography, building types, archaeology etc.

A touristy page with a map to show where Corfe Castle is. (Which might be quite handy!)

THE BACKSIDE OF FLOWERS

2011-07-20T00:17:00.005+01:00

We don't get on, Nature and I. We never seem to get in synch.. I begin to take photos for a post . . . am delayed by rain or circumstance - and the wretched plants have grown so much my pictures are far too out of date to use.

I'm in the middle of a 'circumstance' at the moment . . . in that summer brings with it obligations other than blogging and I get as much behind with them as I do with Loose and Leafy - and I'm in a bit of a rush just now too . . so . . .

. . . I'll take this as an opportunity to post three pictures which were meant to belong to a longer post. If I don't do it now, by the time I get round to it, snow will be landing on them!

I'd been struck by the idea that we don't often see the backside of flowers; we are forever staring them in the eyes or looking up their noses - so I crept up behind some and took them unawares.

June 24th 2011

Bindweed.

June 24th 2011

Bramble.

June 24th 2011
(posted on Message in a Milk Bottle on July 8th)

Buddleia.

Then, on the way home, this.

June 23rd 2011 - which, being the day before 24th
doesn't exactly fit the text
- but I assure you, very little had changed!

Grass is terribly much un-celebrated. It doesn't have the virtue of a backside - but it's great stuff - tough and varied so I'll give it a moment in the lime-light.

April 5th 2011

This is a picture I took a while back and posted on Message in a Milk Bottle - but I like it so much, it can have an encore..

Backsides, sideways and from underneath!

WHAT IS THIS TREE?

2011-07-08T13:49:00.006+01:00

There are some things which are so familiar in our ordinary lives, or in the turning seasons, it is easy to forget that what we take for granted is unkown to many who live elsewhere.

I am guilty of this.

When I posted this picture on Message in a Milk Bottle,

June 20th 2011

I was surprised when several people said they hadn't seen catkins before.

I've been watching this tree for a few years. It isn't the sycamore which I've drawn to your attention and re-visited from time to time. I think it is a birch - though what kind of birch, I am not sure.

It first came to my particular attention when the sides of the paths were cut and the branches of the trees and bushes which lined it were slashed. I was worried that the resulting damage might open the trees to rot and disease. It seems my fears were unfounded.

October 2008

Here is something which concerned me at the time.

June 20th 2011

Here is the same branch now. Bits have fallen off but that's all.

It's a beautiful tree, but it's part of a clump. From a distance, they are indistinguishable, one from the other, and the result is a domed blob. Not only that, they have their feet in a dip so I don't know how tall they are - just that we are standing amongst the top-most branches!

July 7th 2011

You can see where the bushes and branches are shaved off along the path. (This year's 'tidying' was effected about a month ago.) This is necessary if it is to be safe - even to exist!

This picture also show why I often like to look at trees and plants close up - there is much more to see. Take a look!

July 7th 2011

Here you can see leaves and stalks and veins. There are more colours. Healthy leaves and an un-healthy one; evidence of insect activity and catkins in their stages. One is beginning to turn from green to ripe. There is a ripe catkin which is begining to shed its seeds - you can see where they have fallen off and made a gash. There's an old brown one too. If I knew more . . . there would be much more to say.

Here's one of the semi-ripe ones still on the tree.

July 7th 2011

Birch Catkin Bug (Kleidocerys resedae)
July 7th 2011

Go in close and you can see a Birch Catkin Bug (Kleidocerys resedae).

But what kind of birch is the tree? A Downy Birch has been suggested but I'm hesitant to agree. I know nothing about birches and little about trees but, when I look at pictures of Downy Birch on Google images, the bark is very much lighter. What do you think? Are you able to identify this tree?

I really like it tree, whatever it is.

I like its bark.

I like its leaves.

I'm not too struck when looking from a distance,

BUT . . .

close up!

Well!

THE TREE YEAR

WE WALK ON

2011-07-03T11:00:00.004+01:00

This is a continuation of the walk we began in the last post. (The Dog Which Sat At My Feet)

We are walking along a cliff - not a high one . . and not a steep one either because, every year, some of it crumbles. The top is getting thinner. There are fewer places to put our feet. In some places the earth has sheered of. In others, it's become almost a slope down to the sea - but a cliff, none the less.

The ground is dry and flaking away from the roots of plants.

At first, we can look down at the little coves and pools below. The piles of rocks are to protect the land from erosion. England is shrinking!

The track is narrow, the grasses rise

and in a while we are pushing our way through tall reeds.

They are taller than my head and are probably taller than yours (unless you are a super-model or a tennis player).

In places, they have been burnt. I don't know why. (There has been controlled burning of gorse not far away and children/teenagers sometimes light bonfires . . . because . . . because that's what they do! The weather has been hot and the ground dry, with lots of dead grasses and seed heads . . . )

But new growth is hearty.

We find a place with a good view - so we can sit in the sun and watch kite surfters.

Perched on the edge, we can look down onto a specially interesting beach / patch of grey, sticky, boot-sinking mud.

See the round things which look like car tyres? They are Septarian Nodules; part of the fossil history of the area. I've zoomed in and scale is hard to judge from up here - but they are probably about eighteen inches across. (We'll make a special trip down to that grey landscape and see them closer in another post.)

The wind is not strong but it's ruffling everything. Almost every flower that isn't flush with the earth trembles on its stalk. They don't want their photos taken!

But these stay nearly still enough.

And these.

But now it's time to open the flask, and poor the tea and chat with . . .

You didn't think I'd come alone, did you?

Hope you have enjoyed this post -
but there's something more serious to think about
on the Wanderin' Weeta blog.
Read
Extinction Event in Microcosm.
Susannah could probably do with a visit.

THE DOG WHICH SAT AT MY FEET

2011-06-24T17:45:00.003+01:00

As I’ve mentioned before, many of the plants and bushes and trees on this blog have been photographed alongside what used to be a railway line. In some places it is now earth, or grass or stony ground. In others it has been tarmacked and turned into a comfortable footpath and cycleway. More and more people are travelling along it; in and out of town; or taking it in as part of the Southwest Coast Path which runs the 630 miles from Poole in Dorset to Minehead in Somerset. This is good. Of course it is; except I preferred it when hardly anyone went that way.

Last Saturday, I was walking along this section with a couple of friends when we found ourselves almost in step a few yards behind a man with a small, brown, broad shouldered, fighty-type of dog.

I went back to take this photo today. (June 24th 2011)
It began to rain so you'll have to imagine the sun is
blazing down and caterpillars are sun-bathing on the path.
Apologies for that.
None the less, you can see,among other plants,
Elder, Buddliea,Bramble
Holm Oak,Viper's Bugloss,
Alexanders,
Gorse, Hawthorn and Blackthorn
- all in just this one glimpse.

I don’t usually like this kind of dog. Their owners generally insist they are friendly; but, if they bite, their jaws lock and they don’t let go. Sometimes they are lethal. Sometimes they frighten me. Always I am wary.

This dog was a sort of exception. Whereas most dogs like this charge along on a long leash or run anxiously loose, this was well trained. It was not on a lead but when any other dog came by, the owner called to it and it walked by him on the side away from potential friendliness or confrontation until the passing dog had walked on to a safe distance. There was no barking, no chasing and sniffing. It was all very orderly.

It was also funny. Once the command had run out of purpose, the dog would trot round behind its owner in a kind of peep-o game.

“Where have you gone?” the man would ask, looking about - but the dog was always somewhere in the near circumference of his heels.

After a while, we were distracted by caterpillars - bright green and yellow ones - and lots.

When I am out with family or friends, they get annoyed if I spend too much time taking photographs of leaves and trees and tiny, familiar-but-interesting-to-me plants. The camera has only to appear and groaning begins.

In a post called 'One thing I have realised ', Jen at Muddy Boot Dreams amplifies on a comment I'd made after reading a post called 'What to do with all those pictures?'. I'd admitted that I don’t pay enough attention to snap-style photos . . . people, places, events; when I am old, they are the pictures I will treasure - not twigs here and pebbles there. None the less, I find it hard to take pictures of people. For one thing, I am not very good at it. For another, I shy away from taking portraits without permission. And I don’t like forced smiles, funny faces or set expressions either - so pictures for posterity are neglected . . .

So, there we were, looking down at the ground in a communal kind of way. “Here’s a caterpillar. Here’s one. Here’s one. And another!” Until, in the end, I could bear it no longer. Out came my camera.

We’d forgotten the dog. The call of its owner to step aside from the path only gelled into sense when the dog trotted up and sat very goodly at my feet, right between my toes, right on top of the caterpillar I was focusing on.

I don’t know why he had chosen that moment to switch allegiance, or put himself in my confidence. But, there he was, happily sitting on ‘my’ caterpillar. I gave him a stroke (I think he was a he) called a friendly remark to the owner - and put my camera back in its bag.

* * *

Yesterday, I went for a walk on a track which leads off the old railway line - where there is nothing between it and the sea except eroded cliff.

(Today's photo shows a white, cloud filled sky and drizzle. The path looks a lot more tempting when the sun shines on it! Keep imagining blue sky and sunshine!)

See what I mean about yesterday's blueness?
But even then it was raining from time to time.
Surprising drops falling from an apparently cloudy sky.

The playground noise of happy children floated across the water. A flotilla of training boats was speeding towards the sailing club; experts leading the way, novices in the middle - and extra adults following for safety behind them.

But there were no green and yellow caterpillars.

Two other kinds though. They seemed to be sun-bathing on the parched, hard and cracked earth.

Here they are.

Oak Eggars - Lasiocampa quercus

Oak Eggar (Lasiocampa quercus) Caterpillar
23rd June 2011

Oak Eggar -
Lasiocampa quercus
23rd June 2011.
This was a bit shorter than the one in the first picture
and looked like a bit that had come off
an old doormat.

Here's a link to see an Oak Eggar Moth

There was also a caterpillar of the Lackey Moth - Malocosoma neustia

Caterpillar of the Lackey Moth (Malocosoma neustia)

A few weeks ago, they looked like this

(This is a link to the post where I show their tent-nursery.)

This is a link to see what the Lackey will look like when it's a moth.

* * *

A short while back Laura at Patio Patch (in relation to the post about a walk to the sea and back) asked what we would have come across if we had gone further. What’s there depends on the tide so I’m beginning a series of posts about what you would see if you went to a higher path (parallel to the rocks and little coves) so you can look down without getting your feet wet.

This is the first of these posts.

AND AUTUMN ARRIVES

2011-06-19T14:48:00.002+01:00

Towards the end of summer, from late August on, hedgerows grow weary. Leaves hang limp and dusty from sycamore trees; grass wilts, pales and yellows; the air hangs heavy. Everything longs for the freshening winds of autumn, for showers and release.

It's generally a time of excitement. We'll miss the old but welcome the new.

It's the middle of June - and summer is already tired, even before it's properly begun.

Buddleia stutters open

from thin buds.

* *

Viper's Bugloss

is small and weak and falls over easily if knocked.

* *

Sloes seem to have stopped swelling

and haws are reddening before they have got to any size.

* *

It seems rainlessness has propelled the season forward and some plants are suffering for it

. . . but blackberry blossom reminds us autumn is a long way off because little of it has yet opened.

* *

Gorse is gorse.

It flowers all year and smells of coconuts when the weather is hot. There are always seed pods. When the sun comes out they pop - you can hear them. It burns easily too. Its volatility may make us extra glad for late rain. Meanwhile, it's a good symbol for autumn in the middle of summer.

SEA AND SEA AND ROCKS AND STONE AND SEA - THE NEXT CONTEXT POST FOR PORTLAND

2011-06-07T13:10:00.080+01:00

There’s a lot of sea around Portland. Lots and lots of sea and lots of sky and lots of light - and I can never get it right when it comes to photographs. Detail is often blurred out and I rarely get things perfectly in focus.

But then . . . maybe this is precisely how the photos should turn out. Because this is how we do (or, rather don’t!) see here. We nearly always have to squint. The light is bright and stark and white - except on the days when it is dull and misty. It swings between the two.

Portland has its own weather system. You can see it from miles away in each direction - sitting in the sea with clouds making a bee-line for it. Often its top wears them like a hat.

This contrast of light is echoed in the landscape. The Grove (the Young Offender’s Prison I mentioned in my last post) is on the Eastern Cliffs. Just around the corner, you come to this

on your left

straight ahead - this

(If you peer into the picture, you will see, in the straight-ahead distance, one of the lighthouses I showed in a previous post.)

and, on your right - is this.

Fishing and quarrying have been the main industries on Portland for centuries. The sea remains the sea but the quarries have changed and defined the landscape. Some are still working. Still they churn up and dig out - and magnify the glare which comes down from the sun (and the mist!) and the sea.

Portland is shrinking, cutting bits off itself and sending them away. It’s been doing this for a long time!

When London had to be re-built after the Great Fire in 1666, stone quarried on Portland went to re-build St Paul’s Cathedral and many other grand buildings which are still there today. (Christopher Wren was the local MP!) London wouldn’t be the same without them. One almost might say London wouldn’t be London if it weren’t for Portland.

It is a particular feature of Portland stone that it works well in big blocks but not so much in small ones. The hacking and lowering and transporting of these huge rocks was a time consuming business - expensive too!

Looking over the edge of the cliff . . . this is where the stone went from, lowered by crane into barges. This kind of crane was used for boats as well as stone - and there's one down there still. (Though not left over from the seventeenth century!) In an earlier post, I published a photo of one at Portland Bill. Taking a look at that might be easier than peering into this picture but there are other things of interest down there too - a ‘pillbox’ from World War Two (a concrete hut with slit windows to see through when guarding the coast) and great hunks of abandoned stone. These hunks add to the lunar nature of some of the landscape. On the western side of the island, so much un-needed, waste stone was tipped over the cliffs, it has accumulated into a great slope which looks almost as if it is a natural feature of the scenery. (I know I am building a great list of items for future posts - but this will feature in one.)

There’s an old quarry railway down there too - at least, you can see the long, straight, white line where it used to be.

To give an idea of scale -
there are two people standing on the track.

It was not easy to construct this railway - one of the great challenges being to build a cutting (now filled in) on a gradient gentle enough that engines could climb to the little town of Easton - but it opened in 1901 and for fifty years the trains transported passengers as well as stone. Freight trains continued until 1965. The rails have gone now and it has become a good flat track for walking. (Once you get down to it!)

There are wild goats here; and fulmars were swooping around their nests while I was taking these pictures. (They build them in the vertical faces of the cliffs, inaccessible to humans.)

And as for plants - they get everywhere!

Whether to the right

or to the left

People come in coaches to see the lighthouses of Portland but there are few visitors along here. There are enough walkers (mainly local with dogs) to make you feel safe - you are not too remote. Sometimes they will stop to talk (one told me there are sometimes ravens in these cliffs . . . ) but, mostly, people will smile, call a short, quiet greeting and continue on their way. It’s a good place to think. There will be a long gap before the next passer by.

Sometime, when the weather is sunny and warm, I’ll take you down to the old railway track and we’ll look up - and probably say ‘Surely this can’t be England?!’.

* * *

Special thanks to Stuart Morris for the friendly way he helped with information about the railway. He is the author of

Portland, an Illustrated History.

(You can buy this through Amazon. Here is the link.)

For a Link Page to lots of Portland Material - Click HERE

For Photographs of Stone Quarries on Portland - Click HERE

If you’d like to find tourist information or where to stay on Portland - Click HERE

To see where Portland is on a Google Map - Click HERE

* * *

All these pictures were taken within a twenty minute span on 27th May 2011.

NOTHING LOOSE AND LITTLE LEAFY

2011-05-28T20:11:00.019+01:00

Remember Oscar Wilde and Reading Jail ? Probably. The ballad too?

Do you know who the Governor was while he was there? Probably not!

Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise, that's who. And if ever you visit the village church in Finchingfield (Essex) you'll find a plaque to his memory, praising him for founding the Borstal system.

The way teenage criminals are dealt with in England has swung around through history. At the beginning of the twentieth century, boys were put in ordinary prisons alongside older, harder men; men more experienced in crime. Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise decided this was inappropriate and set about reform and, in 1908, the first official 'Borstal' was established. (In the village of Borstal, hence the name.)

When I was growing up in the 1960s, going to a borstal didn't seem much of a big deal. It was a sort of Approved-School add on; as much a natural progression through life as prep-school to public school to university is for many children in wealthy families. Maybe this was a local attitude and demonstrates little more than the kind of area I grew up in. Maybe the boys who were sent there took it more seriously than I did (I didn't know what happened to criminal girls) but I don't think they saw it quite as 'prison' - not like the Young Offenders Institutions we have now.

AN ASIDE
This article on borstals points out that they were not necessarily humane places and says not to confuse them with 'approved schools' - which might more warrant the boarding school analogy. Certainly, I was surprised when I first saw the plaque in memory of Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise. To have invented Borstals didn't strike me at the time as something to be proud of. It's difficult, this. There are often contradictions between what is intended and what actually happens. (Just as Secondary Modern Schools weren't planned to be what they developed into.) Bravado has to be taken into account too. And, as time goes by, ideas change about what is harsh and what is helpful.

* * *

This morning, I spent a pleasant hour rifling through the find-a-camp-site page of ukcampsite.co.uk which tells you where you can pitch your tent or park your tourer in England and Scotland. This afternoon, when preparing this post, I came across Her Majesty's Prison Service Find-a-Prison page. What a turn up!

I was looking for information on the Grove YOI (Young Offenders Institution) on Portland in Dorset.

Here's what it looks like across old quarry ground.

This is its page.

Between 1848 and 1921, it was a 'convict prison'. Then it was a borstal until 1988 when it was changed into a YOI. It now houses 483 young men between eighteen and twenty-one. (2010.) Borstals no longer exist. They were abolished during the changes brought in with the Criminal Justice Acts and their revisions in the 1980s.

Another prison service page explains

'Prison life for a young offender held in a Young Offenders Institution (or YOI) isn't that different to prison life for adult prisoners, however there are some differences in the way YOIs are run.'

Prisons are, of course, very different from what they were like in Oscar Wilde's time. None the less, I wonder what Sir Evelyn Ruggles-Brise would have made of this. His idea was that young people need something specially formulated for them. That doesn't seem unreasonable. Secondary schools are different from Universities and Universities are different from paid-work places. Different ages need different environments and levels of input.

I don't know what it is like to live in an institution like this; nor what it feels like for families when they come to visit. It is a long way from nearly everywhere and must seem very remote. It's on a semi-island, joined to the rest of the country by a nine mile long bank of pebbles and by the causeway (which I described in a previous post).

There are, of course, brilliant views from beside the prison . . .

. . . but for a young man used to the bustle of city life, I imagine emptiness must come as a bit of a shock. The sea can be as bleak as it is beautiful. Families who make the trek to visit must sometimes wonder if their sons and brothers have been sent to the end of the world.

I have nothing to say here about what it's like inside the prison but I do know this is meant to be the beginning of a new life for the people locked inside it. The information on the find-a-prison page says it does not accept anyone whose sentence is longer than ten years. Ten years is a long time - some of the young men here may have committed pretty serious crimes. But whatever they have done (and some, I would guess, in the scale of criminality - not a lot) this will be their home for a while and . . . we are getting to the point . . . most readers of Loose and Leafy will have an idea that what grows around our homes profoundly affects what goes on in our lives.

This was the scene yesterday (May 27th 2011) when I walked along the prison wall.

As you will know from previous posts, I do not recognise the conventional distinction between weeds and the wild plants of the streets. Some young men are allowed 'out' to help in a community garden. Could they not have been asked to pull out these plants? To do a bit of light weeding? Clearly not. Someone has been the length of the wall (and this is only part of it) with poison. This is what you see when you arrive - a high wall and a great line of dead plants.

People arriving in prison vans won't have time to look up, except perhaps to glimpse the razor wire.

But those of us at liberty to stop, will see plants, not many of them, but plants, gripping into the crevices between the stones.

And the lichens and woodlice and clumps of leaves lower down.

Life is so encouraging.

So far, no-one has killed the plants along the more recently built bank which holds up a lawn nearer the prison gates.

Did they leave these bits of grass and barley because there is a poppy - or is the poppy on the list for next week's weedkiller?

This is not a post about how young people should be treated when they break the law. It is post that says what we see has an impact on how we are; that seeing dead vegetation is unlikely to be an inspiration to live a better life or to put your trust in the people who will be caring for you (guarding you!) over the months to come; that killing plants without need is . . . well, I think it is wrong.

A WALK TO THE SEA AND BACK

2011-05-16T18:25:00.001+01:00

At the end of April, I found a Lackey Moth nursery in a blackthorn bush. I'm not sure whether I like it or not. It's an extraordinary, construction - a kind of sealed over hammock made of a white material that's like spider-web.

Inside - and venturing onto the outside too, the larvae.

Yesterday (May 15th 2011) I went to see what had happened. Life seemed to have stopped. But see the sloes? (The fruit of blackthorn.) At the moment, they are small and green. They never grow large but, by the berry season, they will be black.

No just going-home. What else to see?

All along the way, tall plants with white umbels.

And, opposite, a little path leading down to a little beach. (We've been here before.)

The bushes and undergrowth are making it a narrow way.

Then it opens out, you turn to the right and there . . .

This!

Where, in the rocks, we can't miss the millennia.

Pause, turn, walk back through the gap between the bank and the rocks

Where there's a thistle-type plant beside the way

And homewards past the teasels.

THE TREE AT THE END OF APRIL

2011-05-07T11:40:00.001+01:00

There's something odd about the tree I am following. Ditto the ground around it. The leaves are late and many of the flowers beside it had their heads eaten off or withered before they had a chance to flower. I expect, at the end of the year, I'll go through photos and do a sort of 'retrospective' post to show how things haven't happened. In the meantime, before we get completely out of season, here's a glimpse of what was happening on 25th April.

Looking up into the tree.

As you see from this (and from the next photo) there are many more leaves on the sycamores beyond 'our' one, in both directions.

Fortunately, the clump of bluebells was worth waiting for.

But, right against the roots, where the lesser celandines didn't flower - the Arum Maculatum (Lords and Ladies, Jack in the Pulpit) isn't faring well.

It's all very odd.

But it would be nice to finish with something cheerful so . . .

A couple of miles away, a field where ponies live - buttercups.

THE TREE YEAR

THE MOST EXCITING POST EVER ON LOOSE AND LEAFY

2011-05-02T18:12:00.006+01:00

LOTS OF PICTURES FURTHER DOWN THE PAGE!

There's a grassy bank near where I live where strange things grow. Every spring, disgusting little stalks appear. They look like fungi which have muddled their identity with plants - or the other way round. Then they vanish. Grass and spring flowers grow up around them and, over and over, I loose track of what happens next. Do they wither and die or grow into something prettier . . . and if so . . . what? How come I never notice an unfamiliar plant in with the rest?

This year, I decided to watch. I became a sort of private eye, going back and back and back to see what was going on but, yet again, I missed the magic moment when they disappeared. What was going on?

Well, one thing happened . . . that I missed it again. Simply missed it. The magic must have happened very quickly.

Meanwhile Horsetails (Equisetum sp.) were growing up all around - up the bank, across on the other side of the path. Lots of them. Very pretty. Gardeners don't like them because once they get a grip, they don't go away. But in the right context - wonderful. (I think these ones are Equisetum arvense.)

Long and short . . . and going round in circles . . . these plants - whose forbears lived as ground cover in prehistoric forests - have several ways of growing. The yucky things on stems are the same variety of plant as the familiar green horsetails which come later. They spring from the same source and . . . I've given up trying to understand (for the moment). If you are interested to learn more, it would be worth it. I'm reluctant to explain anything because my knowledge is thin and I don't know enough to weed out mistakes from facts when it comes to Horsetails on the internet. Fortunately, Happy Mouffetard has kindly provided a link to a diagram and more information - so that's a start!

For this post, I'll confine myself to observation - how the first kind came; how they were superceeded by the (very different looking) rest - and encourage you to look out for them. They aren't fully grown yet. I don't want to delay this post until they are fading. You will want to marvel at them now!

2nd April 2011. A grassy bank with things sticking out of it.
The tall ones are four or five inches high.

The smallest are like this.

Ones at the next stage are like this.

The tops may be (to my eyes) ugly but this part of the stem (to my eyes) is beautiful and fascinating.

April 8th 2011

Then . . . spores are released. (I think this is what is happening!) Hopefully, someone will say - which is a good moment to thank Toffee Apple, Rob and Michael Peverett for identifying the plant (with blue flowers) in the last post as Green Alkanet.

Moving from 2nd April to the 8th . . .

April 8th 2011

The plants with spores (in the photos above) disappeared and new kinds of plant began to grow nearby. The photo above is of early Horsetails. But so were the others. Am I able to say they are the same plant? (You might like to refer back to the link Happy Mouffetard found.)

Close up - with dew! - Also April 8th.

By the 17th April they are coming up everywhere - here they are in the bushes, along with bramble, in a kind of hawthorn den, along with the blue bluebells and white bluebells too. (You can tell I am not a botanist!)

April 17th 2011. (Peer in closely or look at the close-up below!)

Look at the foot of the picture for emerging horsetails.
April 17th 2011

Gradually, a short forest grows. The horsetails below are about seven inches high. This is how they were on 22nd April.

22nd April 2011

And, in their most recent state, on the 1st of May. This one is nine or ten inches high.

May 1st 2011 - this one is leaning because of the wind and direction of the sun.
Mostly, they are upright.

This is not the end of the story. Their arms will lower to 90 degrees from the stem.

Watch out! There are horsetails about! And, now you know - remember the spot if you find them and see if you can find the early versions next year.

LIGHTS AND BELLS, MISTS AND FLOWERS

2011-04-23T12:12:00.003+01:00

This is a mixed post to match a mixed season.

The month began grey and cold. We'd missed out on March winds - but having grown up with the idea that 'rain' is almost a synonym for England and Wales it never struck me that April might be without showers, let alone that the blazing summer weather of June should be relocated to spring.

This is the lighthouse at The Bill (the tip of land at the end of the 'Island' of Portland) as it was in cold and hazy weather at the beginning of April.
The lighthouse in the picture was built at the beginning of the twentieth century
but its history goes much further back. You can read about it
here.
This picture also shows how strip farming (elsewhere more associated with the middle ages) is still practised.

So, here we are in the third week of April, smothered in suncream and wearing shorts (well, not me personally - at least, not the shorts). Hawthorn bushes are only just coming into flower (the blackthorn being mostly over) - and it's quite disconcerting. This isn't how it's 'meant to be'. The season seems all 'wrong'.

There's a common saying

'Ne're cast a clout till May is out'

and, at this time of year, it seems to be discussed almost as much as the weather and probably more than who hears a cuckoo first (which is another tradition). Is the saying referring to May the month or May the blossom? ('May' is another word for Hawthorn.)

You'd have thought we would have decided by now! It's a bit like the commercialisation of Christmas - an issue that is never settled and which gets re-chewed each year.

May Blossom - the flowers of hawthorn trees and bushes.
(Sometimes it is deep pink.)

The 'clouts' are the cloths we wear as clothes - which, in the 'old days' were much harder to take off and on. Some people would be sewn into them for the winter.

And those 'old days' lasted until not very long ago.Take a look at this page of the Ambleside Aural History Project.

This is the Higher Lighthouse - Marie Stopes (famous for promoting birth control) lived here in the 1920s. One of the buildings in this little group can be rented to stay in for a holiday.

My mother (who was born in 1920 and grew up in London) told me newspapers were sometimes stuffed between layers of winter clothing to provide extra warmth.

Nowadays, of course, most of us are able to fling clothes off and on again with each passing cloud!

* * *

Even when the seasons flow according to plan, this part of South Dorset has its own range of surprisingly different climates. Portland Bill, exposed to cold winds and salt spray, is a harsh environment. A few miles to the west, there are Sub-tropical Gardens at Abbotsbury. The spring flowers in this post are located somewhere in-between!

The lighthouse pictures were taken on April 5th.

The flowers yesterday (April 22nd).

The Lower Lighthouse, like the Upper Lighthouse, has its roots in the eighteenth century. It is now a bird observatory where a track is kept of birds returning from their winter migration. There is a bookshop, field courses and day events too. (It's run by the RSPB.)

Here you get a glimpse of why lighthouses were built here!

Close up of the
Black Backed Gulls
on the stack.

Throughout the centuries, Portland has been a tough place to live. Even now, those prepared to go onto its seas have to be skilled and brave and know the waters well. Boats like the one in the photo below have to be lowered by cranes.

The obelisk in the background warns that there is a low shelf of rock extending thirty metres into the sea.

As you can see from this photo, plants in the immediate, rough and rocky, area above the water are not bluebells! Here is another highly specialised context to bear in mind!

So, swinging between the beginning and end of the month, switching seasons in the way the weather is itself switching back and forth, flitting between the sheltered areas with dips and bushes - and the exposed land jutting south . . . we go from the harsh to the flowery and end with . . . this . . . there are lots of them . . .

Toffee Apple, Rob and Michael Peverett have identified
this plant as Green Alkanet - thanks folks!

I don't like this plant (others do; I've even seen it in gardens) but, since this is a blog to document what's here not what I'd like to be here, . . . well, here it is!

FIRST OF THE 'ABOUT's - WEYMOUTH

2011-04-13T11:16:00.001+01:00

In the last post on Loose and Leafy, I said I would sometimes give you an idea of what South Dorset is like; what people do here, what the shops and houses are like - as well as a better idea of the wider habitat of the plants. It's nice to have a context, I think.

It's really Barbee who, inadvertently, gave me the idea. I've been reading her blog almost from when it started and have seen her beautiful and interesting garden as it goes through its seasons, hearing of how she works and what her garden helpers do to keep it changing and in good order. Occasionally, she has mentioned neighbours but . . . I have begun to wonder what is over her garden wall.

Weymouth Horses live on roundabouts
- and race in circles.

Barbee lives in Kentucky. I know Kentucky is in the U.S.A. but I need a map to show me where. I have a vague idea there are horses in Kentucky but . . . well . . . that's it. I don't know whether there are mountains or forests or a sea line . . . I'd better look at that map! I don't know what its economy is like, its politics, anything.

Of course, those matters are beyond the normal scope of a gardening blog (which hers is) but, nevertheless, . . . I find myself intrigued.

Therefore, as part of the 'context' for the plants here, I will, from time to time, show you more of what it is like to live this part of England - and I will begin with Weymouth because it is the biggest town in South Dorset. (And 'big', I assure you, is not very large at all!)

* * *

Most people who visit the area in which I take most of the photos for Loose and Leafy would be amazed that plants and trees are its centre of interest. Of those who swell the population of Weymouth from a population of 67,000 to 200,000 during the summer months, very few will be looking dor dandelions.

Dorset is predominantly rural with woods and hills and fields and farms and its coastline is one of the most dramatic in England - but Weymouth itself (the biggest town in the county apart from the conurbations and retirement areas on the Hampshire border to the East) is the kind of stereotype of an English seaside resort one might not expect still to exist - sea and sand and donkey rides and stripey huts on the beach where tourists and holiday makers can buy ice-cream and candyfloss; roundabouts for children and grown-ups alike and small-scale scary rides for the brave.

There are areas of poverty, of course, and, in winter especially (because holiday flats fall empty) people are drawn here too when they are rootless or troubled, recently released from prison and wondering where to go or with lives wrecked by addiction.- but that is not its most obvious face from outside.

I find crowds difficult and avoid town when the Kite Festival or Carnival or Christmas 'Show Night' (newly named 'Sparkle') fill the streets almost to crammed-up-full point. None the less, Weymouth is an important part of South Dorset - its atmosphere, its reputation and contribution to the regional economy so here, as a 'starter post' is a glimpse of its harbour. (I'm letting you in gently!)

This is the view as you would see it if you were arriving from the English Channel. On the very left, the rowing boat is a ferry for crossing the harbour. (There's a bridge further along.) Straight ahead is the Lifeboat (with the orange top) and the big boat with masts is The Pelican - a training ship.

This is a working harbour. Fishing boats moor further along.

Weymouth has a small commercial port. You can also take a Condor Lines catermaran from here to Jersey and Guernsey in the Channel Islands and to St Malo in France.

Although, as you can see by comparing its size with the terminal, this is a large boat, it is not the largest on this line.

These are the backs of some of the bed and breakfast hotels, facing out onto the harbour. People staying in them are immediately by the scenes in the photos so far but, in a couple of minutes, they can walk to restaurants and pubs beside the harbour and watch the town bridge go up and down so yachts with tall masts can make their way into the inner harbour (or 'marina'). (It lifts just like Tower Bridge in London - only this bridge is VERY much smaller!).

As an anti-social person, I try to avoid the harbour when it is like this; the beach too (which I will introduce in another post, some other time). I like it when cold has driven people away and left sandcastles to the birds

and while most people are watching boats and kites and carnivals and eating ice-creams, I prefer to look at dandelions on the way home.

(Don't worry, the next post will be back to normal - but I thought you might like a glimpse of the 'other side'.)

P.S. - When I went to collect the URL for Barbee's blog, I discovered that, by an extraordinary co-incidence, Barbee has posted about farming in her temperate zone!

WHAT'S NEW, WHAT'S OLD, WHAT'S YET TO COME - and, most of all - WHAT'S NOW!

2011-04-03T11:05:00.040+01:00

Blackthorn flowers before

it comes into leaf.

I’ve been housekeeping the blog so it should load faster onto your screen.

Most links are now under tabs at the top of the page. I’ll soon be adding notes to explain in what ways the different sites might be of use or of interest - though many are clear in themselves.

The labels list is more concise. (Still under construction too - there must have been more than one post about Spring before this!)

The mass of Blackthorn flowers can

turn the hedgerows

solid white.

‘What I Read’ (wide-ranging and idiosyncratic) has been reduced to a short list of blogs with a similar focus to Loose and Leafy. Not that I’d be able to explain my thoughts well here - Lithops, Sri-Lankan Trees and creatures in the National Zoo in Washington DC have very little in common with the hedgerows of south-coast England. Parallels between Loose and Leafy and The Green Man and Rebecca in the Woods may be more obvious. Don’t be put off by the title of ‘Tree Care Tips’. You may not be about to go pruning but I think it will interest all who like trees. Do check on the ‘Related Blogs’ tab from time to time. I’ve lost track of some links. They will be added back in gradually and more added.

The fruits of Blackthorn
are called 'sloes' and are

used for making ‘sloe gin’

(and nothing else I can think

of because they are so tart).
(September 7th 2010.)

Yet to be included . . . an ‘ABOUT’ tab. Whenever I visit a blog for the first time, I like to know a little about the author and where he or she lives. This ‘where’ thing is very important in a blog like this and I’ve neglected it. I introduce you to trees and plants, bushes and flowers; occasionally I offer glimpses of views; but there’s little real context; the area as a whole; what people do here; how they live. I plan to put this right, partly in posts; partly under a tab.

* * * *

September 11th 2010

I have noticed two varieties of sloes (Blackthorn fruits) ripening locally in late summer). The ‘ordinary’ kind with a ‘bloom’ on (above) - and shiny ones (on the right).

April 4th 2011

Hawthorn flowers are sometimes muddled with those of blackthorn because they too are white. However, they aren't out yet; they arrive later - AFTER their leaves. (Their flower buds, at present, are barely visible.)

The fruits of Hawthorn are called 'haws' and, unlike sloes, are red.

And finally, almost insignificantly - but part of the ‘now’ - at our feet, this . . .

Happy Spring!

HERE COME THE FLOWERS

2011-03-27T12:15:00.010+01:00

There are two easy ways to make a nature blog look especially attractive.

1. Take photos only on sunny days.

2. If you have to take them in a mist, adjust them to make the scene look more cheerful than it really was when you were there.

The disadvantage (apart from giving a wrong impression, a misleading record and, therefore, in effect, lying) is that, when the sun and summer eventually come, it is hardly of note. The seasons meld and can even seem pointless.

* * *

I don't want to labour the bleakness of The Hamm (the causeway between Weymouth and Dorset on the South Coast of England) but it hasn't quite hit clear days yet!

24th March 2011 - Cold and hazy!

When the sky blazes blue in the summer and the sea does too; when the wind drops on land and the heat rises; when the air shimmers and flotillas of white sailed training boats tag across the harbour; when the arcs above kite surfers are bright with colour . . . it all feels completely different.

Chesil Beach - 24/03/11

Even then, it's still a bit odd. It's still not easy to remember that, once you climb to the top of that overpowering and horrifically dull pile of pebbles (or look down on it from the heights of Portland) . . .if you do that, you will see that this is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Indeed, it is so special, it is a World Heritage Site. It's on the same United Nations list as the Pyramids in Egypt, the Great Barrier Reef of Australia, Yellowstone National Park in the U.S.A.; the Taj Mahal, Venice, the Dolomite Mountains and the Great Wall of China.

Looking towards Portland.
Sometimes surfers hanging onto the kites
skim along the surface of the sea
faster than the cars on the road.

But, on Thursday last week (March 24th 2011) it was cold and hazy. Mist thinned the view. The kites of the wind surfers were almost colourless.

Spring was, none the less, springing underfoot - and the nice thing about taking photographs close up is that there's hardly any mist to look through - so the white of the haze disappears and the sun, which is filtering through eye-level glare (when standing) is all that's left between us and the flowers.

As you can see, there used to
be a railway here.
The sycamore tree we are 'following'
is on a bank in a cutting
about a mile behind us but
on the same line.

When the weather warms, when the sun comes out with more confidence - I'll climb that bank of pebbles (over on the right and stretching into the distance) and show you the view.

BLEAK POST

2011-03-18T13:14:00.003Z

There's a causeway running between Weymouth and the (almost) island of Portland on the south coast of England. It isn't a 'desert' in the technical sense of the word but it's not an easy place for plants.

Alongside it runs the back of Chesil Beach.

'Beach' is a confusing a word. Forget ice-cream and donkeys. Think a seventeen mile stretch of pebbles which starts from the west of here with little stones lying against the land. As the 'beach' runs east, the stones get bigger and little pools appear which gradually merge into a brackish lagoon defended from a raging sea by a massive rampart of smooth, flattish stones. At its eastern end, the water of the lagoon flows away, under a bridge, and the 'beach' swerves south to follow the causeway. Thousands and thousands of tonnes of pebbles keep the sea from the road; from the flat, straight, grassy path of an old railway line and the calm of Portland Harbour.

'Harbour' is almost as misleading a word as 'beach'. This isn't a cosy place where fishing boats unload against a jetty or children drop crablines into the water - think 'sea' - with a wall crossing the horizon; it's a massive wall but it's so far away it looks small.

The stones along the
east side of the causeway
are interesting and irregular.

Imagine you are standing on a narrow stretch of land; two miles of stones and dryness and bitter winds and no houses. There are seabirds and windsurfers and a harsh white light and a road with no stopping places. It's hardly ever quiet.

When the wind isn't roaring, the cars and buses and lorries hum away irritatingly - unless one drops down over the edge of the bank to walk by the water - and there the noise drops.

I expect there is somewhere like it - but I have never been there!

At its start - an empty carpark sets the scene.

At its ending - a prison on a hill, an ex-naval base, a new marina, boat building factories and workshops and acres of land to keep boats out of the water, and a sailing academy which will be the base for the sailing events of the 2012 Olympics.

This is not going to be a tree post!

Plants, to survive here, need to be tough and low growing and their heads need flexible necks.

It's astonishing there are plants here at all. But there are - many of them specialists.

Soon, there will be flowers. Indeed, there are already some.

I'm not going to risk saying what these plants are just yet. (Well, there's a dandelion!) I'll add their names if and when I'm more certain.

Rather, I'm setting a scene so, when the spring gets further under way and the summer comes, if the wind doesn't shake everything about too much - you'll be able to appreciate what happens.

Hurray for Lichen!

P.S. One day, I'll post about Chesil Beach itself - but I'm waiting till the weather is warmer!