tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-40832293886309037022024-03-13T02:59:42.201+00:00 LOOSE AND LEAFY in DORSETLucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.comBlogger333125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-22101023581531754312021-01-26T16:07:00.000+00:002021-01-26T16:07:08.228+00:00KEEPING THE BLOG ALIVE<p> </p><table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AMTt6boGeM0/XsOsxYvKy2I/AAAAAAAAHo4/vh-57ErnnyQhRbyU3_vHO8ahe_aTWo7LQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2BIN%2BHALIFAX%2B-%2BSYCAMORE%2BLEAVES%2B-%2B5TH%2BMAY%2B2020%2B-%2BDSC_0011%2Badj%2B2047.jpg" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Sycamore leaves and blossom." border="0" data-original-height="1060" data-original-width="1600" height="424" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AMTt6boGeM0/XsOsxYvKy2I/AAAAAAAAHo4/vh-57ErnnyQhRbyU3_vHO8ahe_aTWo7LQCLcBGAsYHQ/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2BIN%2BHALIFAX%2B-%2BSYCAMORE%2BLEAVES%2B-%2B5TH%2BMAY%2B2020%2B-%2BDSC_0011%2Badj%2B2047.jpg" title="Sycamore leaves and blossom." width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sycamore outside my house in Yorkshire.</td></tr></tbody></table><div style="text-align: justify;">I no longer live in Dorset . . . I moved to Halifax in West Yorkshire where I have an allotment and am recovering from leukaemia. To keep it clear about what plants grow where, I post now at - <a href="https://looseandleafyinhalifax.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Loose and Leafy in Halifax</a>. Join me there! Follow me there!</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Find me on Twitter too: <span face=", , "blinkmacsystemfont" , "segoe ui" , "roboto" , "ubuntu" , "helvetica neue" , sans-serif" style="background-color: white; color: #657786; font-size: 15px; white-space: nowrap;"><a href="https://twitter.com/LucyCorrander" target="_blank">@LucyCorrander</a> </span></div>Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-41404802666790803642017-05-20T22:06:00.000+01:002017-05-20T22:11:58.469+01:00FOOT STICKING - MAY<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qq7fU1bHsXQ/WSCgmLm64rI/AAAAAAAAGu4/vDmfdVjE0Z4FyqDXQbi8cP8BM1i8lFBqgCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BHONEYSUCKLE%2BAND%2BGOLDEN%2BELDER%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0618%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="New honeysuckle growth and golden elderberry leaf" border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-qq7fU1bHsXQ/WSCgmLm64rI/AAAAAAAAGu4/vDmfdVjE0Z4FyqDXQbi8cP8BM1i8lFBqgCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BHONEYSUCKLE%2BAND%2BGOLDEN%2BELDER%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0618%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="New honeysuckle growth and golden elderberry leaf" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Honeysuckle beside golden elderberry leaf.</td></tr>
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Here's a post where I place my feet somewhere and with at least one of them stuck firmly to the spot, look around to see what I can see. Mostly, I keep both feet 'stuck' but sometimes I wobble then I have to move one or I'll fall over. Once I did fall into a bush by trying to look behind it while keeping my feet in front of it. In some ways this is a meditative exercise. In others, an unconventional form of yoga. Either way, it's surprising what you can see if, for a moment, you stand still and refuse to move.<br />
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Today, when I plonked myself in front of a hedgerow, it was its leaves which caught my attention. There <i>are</i> flowers . . . but mostly we're in a kind of flower-lull. Being 'verdant' is currently the 'in' state to be. Or gold. This honeysuckle (above) with it's early reddish-ness is beside a golden elderberry bush. I've never known why some elderberry bushes have golden leaves when most are green. Is it a variety? Is it a deficiency? Is it a mis-identification?</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TLx17SOUSnM/WSCgxf5tz9I/AAAAAAAAGu8/OVjPkX0qfYsx8akMfIBsYe-AsvHU4RlZwCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BGOLDEN%2BSNAIL%2BON%2BGOLDEN%2BELDER%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0662.jpg%2BCR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Pale greeny-yellow snail on pale, greeny-yellow elderberry leaves" border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TLx17SOUSnM/WSCgxf5tz9I/AAAAAAAAGu8/OVjPkX0qfYsx8akMfIBsYe-AsvHU4RlZwCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BGOLDEN%2BSNAIL%2BON%2BGOLDEN%2BELDER%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0662.jpg%2BCR.jpg" title="Pale greeny-yellow snail on pale, greeny-yellow elderberry leaves" width="572" /></a></div>
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And here's another puzzle; did a golden snail decide to sit on one of the golden leaves because it would be a good place to hide? or did whatever turned the leaves gold turn the snail gold too?</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wTeyJ8QhKKs/WSChaPJl8UI/AAAAAAAAGvE/V36mZ10E7jAKdVpFzr0hnQ9tayoiYCwqQCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BLAST%2BYEAR%2527S%2BBLACKBERRIES%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0640%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Dead blackberries, new bramble leaves and new honeysuckle against a blue sky with a mass of brambles beneath" border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-wTeyJ8QhKKs/WSChaPJl8UI/AAAAAAAAGvE/V36mZ10E7jAKdVpFzr0hnQ9tayoiYCwqQCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BLAST%2BYEAR%2527S%2BBLACKBERRIES%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0640%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Dead blackberries, new bramble leaves and new honeysuckle against a blue sky with a mass of brambles beneath" width="640" /></a></div>
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Hedgerow silhouettes have changed again. In winter they were a gathering of arches and spikes. Trees were like frost patterns. With spring they went frothy with blackthorn blossom, then blodgey with hawthorn, fringed with the floppiness of bluebells. Now they have filled out. At first sight they are a green mass, a unity. It's only when you peer in that you see how many plants go into the making of one blob. But the overall hedeginess is broken up here and there with spurts of honeysuckle between us and the sky and the stiffness of desiccated blackberries which somehow got stuck in time last autumn.</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gPGf0P-BeHE/WSCh-Q0L6JI/AAAAAAAAGvM/2dHvTwSYXEg67_z6kr-Rk42uyPZiootLQCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BBLACKTHORN%2BLEAVES%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0651%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Blackthorn leaves against a blue sky." border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gPGf0P-BeHE/WSCh-Q0L6JI/AAAAAAAAGvM/2dHvTwSYXEg67_z6kr-Rk42uyPZiootLQCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BBLACKTHORN%2BLEAVES%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0651%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Blackthorn leaves against a blue sky." width="480" /></a></div>
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Blackthorn . . . I think I've mentioned before how it begins the year dramatically then fades into obscurity during the summer and comes out of hiding in the autumn when people search for its fruits - sloes. It's funny that. Apple trees grow apples. Pear trees grow pears. Raspberry canes grow raspberries - but blackberries grow on brambles and blackthorn bears sloes.</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lxm9sqn736w/WSCiM-Nd8KI/AAAAAAAAGvQ/60hXHywLaoAmVTqu3PDJKxCobi2lccMVwCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BALEXANDER%2BSTUMP%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0633.%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Broken brambles and alexanders with fallen and still growing ivy after council mowing." border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lxm9sqn736w/WSCiM-Nd8KI/AAAAAAAAGvQ/60hXHywLaoAmVTqu3PDJKxCobi2lccMVwCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BALEXANDER%2BSTUMP%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0633.%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Broken brambles and alexanders with fallen and still growing ivy after council mowing." width="640" /></a></div>
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Underfoot, things are a bit . . . um . . . not very attractive. The alexanders have been mown down and all plants shaved to earth level. Now that cyclists rule the world, we pedestrians have to put up with views less interesting so cyclists won't suffer the inconvenience of driving over us when they come round corners.<br />
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A few years ago, it was very aggravating when the council shaved the bushes back as well. Since then, there have been flat sided elders and sheer walls of ivy. One gets used to it. Well, no. I haven't got used to it. Nature is not meant to be flat sided. Resigned may be a better description. No. That's not right. Morose. That's better. Brambles would like to take over the world. A certain amount of cutting back is necessary or we'll end up in a thorny mono-culture. And it is good to have a path to walk along . . . but all the same . . . Ah well, don't worry, green will return. It does.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SNNO-e0gIpc/WSCjbF5olVI/AAAAAAAAGvc/Md_4w3c2lSEMEySFyYhqxGUFtMbGGP4bgCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BHONEYSUCKLE%2BAND%2BBRAMBLES%2B-%2BPAY%2B20TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0639%2B-%2Bcr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="High in the hedgerow - honeysuckle flowers before thier petals open." border="0" height="298" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SNNO-e0gIpc/WSCjbF5olVI/AAAAAAAAGvc/Md_4w3c2lSEMEySFyYhqxGUFtMbGGP4bgCLcB/s400/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BHONEYSUCKLE%2BAND%2BBRAMBLES%2B-%2BPAY%2B20TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0639%2B-%2Bcr.jpg" title="High in the hedgerow - honeysuckle flowers before thier petals open." width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Way high up - too high to photograph crisply -<br />
honeysuckle buds are ready.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Some links.<br />
<a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/countryside-hedgerows-regulation-and-management" target="_blank">Countryside Hedgerows: Protection and Management</a> - the Government<br />
<a href="http://www.plantlife.org.uk/uk/blog/road-verges-are-a-refuge-for-some-of-our-rarest-plants" target="_blank">Road Verges are a Refuge for Some of Our Rarest Plants</a> - <a href="http://www.plantlife.org.uk/uk" target="_blank">Plantlife</a><br />
<a href="http://plantlife.love-wildflowers.org.uk/roadvergecampaign2016/inspiring-stories" target="_blank">Plantlife's Campaign to Protect Wildflowers and Nature on Roadside Verges</a> - <a href="http://www.plantlife.org.uk/uk" target="_blank">Plantlife</a><br />
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If you too would like to stick your foot somewhere and see what you can see - the link box for 'Stuck Foot Posts' will stay open till 7pm (UK time) on 25th May.
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<link href="//www.blenza.com/linkies/styles/default.css" media="all" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"></link><script src="//www.blenza.com/linkies/loc_en.js"></script><script src="//www.blenza.com/linkies/opt_defaults.js"></script><script src="//www.blenza.com/linkies/misterlinky.js"></script><script src="//www.blenza.com/linkies/autolink.php?mode=standard&owner=LucyCorrander&postid=20May2017" type="text/javascript"></script>Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-86936876386161764502017-05-09T18:42:00.000+01:002017-05-10T04:47:24.581+01:00RIBWORT - A GARDENING SUGGESTION (Plantago lanceolata)<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Axf2LfQf7C0/WRH148lY0PI/AAAAAAAAGt8/WIXe2Xgi0asQ1BbhHPcLw881mI9wGp7ggCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BRIBWORT%2BPLANTAIN%2B-%2BMAY%2B9TH%2B2017%2B-IMG_0555.jpg%2B-%2BCLCR%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Ribwort Plantain leaves beside tarmac path." border="0" height="491" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Axf2LfQf7C0/WRH148lY0PI/AAAAAAAAGt8/WIXe2Xgi0asQ1BbhHPcLw881mI9wGp7ggCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BRIBWORT%2BPLANTAIN%2B-%2BMAY%2B9TH%2B2017%2B-IMG_0555.jpg%2B-%2BCLCR%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Ribwort Plantain leaves beside tarmac path." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The last few days have been dry - <br />
and this plant is feeling a bit old. <br />
Many plants droop a bit when their flowers are turning to seed.<br />
(It was in shade when I went to take it's picture before.)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
You know how beautiful dandelions are yet how few people let them into their gardens? Well, in addition to praising dandelions I'd like to recommend Ribwort . . . or Ribwort Plantain . . or Plantago lanceolata if you want to be posh about it, as a delightful garden flower.<br />
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It's only recently that I've noticed how wonderful each individual Ribwort plant is. It has shape and poise. It's usually buried in grass but with space around it . . well, why doesn't everyone have one?<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k3q6SPwOJr4/WRH18S7wDbI/AAAAAAAAGuQ/Qyhv1lchcnEoAIL4UUCQx9cgpzdfM3UBQCEw/s1600/1%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2BRIBWORT%2BPLANTAIN%2B-%2BMAY%2B5TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0459.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Upright head of Ribwort Plantain beside small holly tree in street." border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-k3q6SPwOJr4/WRH18S7wDbI/AAAAAAAAGuQ/Qyhv1lchcnEoAIL4UUCQx9cgpzdfM3UBQCEw/s640/1%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2BRIBWORT%2BPLANTAIN%2B-%2BMAY%2B5TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0459.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Upright head of Ribwort Plantain beside small holly tree in street." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Like Hollyhocks and Foxgloves, <br />
the flowers work their way upwards so you get to see the seeds forming,<br />
the white stamens with their prominent anthers and the un-opened bits all on the same stem.</td></tr>
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I grew a nettle once. It was in a pot and it looked magnificent. In a pot it couldn't spread. In a pot each leaf could be seen distinctly with its beautiful crisp and distinctly ziggy-zaggy borders.<br />
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Now I'd like to recommend Ribwort as a plant to grow at the edge of a flower border - with plenty of space around it so its flowers and seed heads can lean elegantly and its leaves stand erect or splay around as they please. Daffodils - well, their flowers are wonderful but their leaves have little to commend them. And as for shape - well, they are nothing but stalks with trumpets on top. Ribwort, in contrast, is a plant of completeness. You wouldn't want to put its flowers in a vase and you wouldn't want to pick its leaves to pad out a display . . . but you might want to stand back and admire it on its own, where it is and with all its elements intact. Like a beautiful human. The person you most admire might have fantastic arms but you are unlikely to want to cut one off and use it as a centre-piece for your dinner party table. Some things just aren't the same when cut off.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--VYU0HBmjt0/WRH16wOISBI/AAAAAAAAGuQ/Gv4GpWUOkmwqRBa1Z17o-8arWOpZXB0kgCEw/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BRIBWORT%2BPLANTAIN%2B-%2BMAY%2B9TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0566%2B-%2BCopy.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Compact head of Ribwort Plantain with yellow flowers behind." border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/--VYU0HBmjt0/WRH16wOISBI/AAAAAAAAGuQ/Gv4GpWUOkmwqRBa1Z17o-8arWOpZXB0kgCEw/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BRIBWORT%2BPLANTAIN%2B-%2BMAY%2B9TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0566%2B-%2BCopy.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Compact head of Ribwort Plantain with yellow flowers behind." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photos in this post come from plants round the corner from each other.<br />
This one has short and compact heads.<br />
I walked backwards and forwards between the plants to see what other differences there are.<br />
The one with the compact head has narrower leaves.<br />
Someone will no doubt be able to say why.<br />
Something going wrong with precise identification?<br />
Age of plant?<br />
Location?<br />
In this picture you can clearly see the 'ribs' on the stem where a head has been broken off.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I decided on the idea that Ribwort Plantains are worthy of a place in our gardens when planning a Street Plant Post. There were a few, flat, broadleaved plantains in the gutters but the lanceolot type were on the edges of little patches of ground in front of houses. They must have arrived inadvertently and either been ignored or taken to heart as regular front-of-garden flowers.<br />
One of the things I find difficult about Street Plant Posts is that it's sometimes hard to get a good angle on plants without including number plates so although I came across a Ribwort Plant growing on its own through pebbles, with a space cleared around it so its full shape could be seen - well, I would have felt too intrusive to have taken its picture. Plants in the gutter aren't too bad to take photos of (as long as you don't get your legs run over.<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CjRn9ssTJoU/WRH2BGnQK5I/AAAAAAAAGuQ/EoH9CPw-TcAN3AMqRJt12Gqt-PkLQwgkQCEw/s1600/3%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BRIBWORT%2BPLANTAIN%2B-%2BMAY%2B5TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0469.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Ribwort head showing ribs on stem - with tarmac background" border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CjRn9ssTJoU/WRH2BGnQK5I/AAAAAAAAGuQ/EoH9CPw-TcAN3AMqRJt12Gqt-PkLQwgkQCEw/s640/3%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BRIBWORT%2BPLANTAIN%2B-%2BMAY%2B5TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0469.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Ribwort head showing ribs on stem - with tarmac background" width="640" /></a></div>
The result, then, is that for all that I'm commending it to you, I can't show it to its best advantage. However, of all the photos on this post, this is my favourite and I'm currently using it as my desktop picture. (You can try it if you like.)<br />
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I'm not sure how easy it is to grow from seed but for many of us in the UK it's easy to come across so it's worth a try.<br />
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As for proper information . . . anything I could say would simply re-hash what can be read on the internet so I'll offer some links rather than waffle about and pretend I know more than I do!<br />
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I'll begin with a link to a Wikipedia Page. It's a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_leaf_morphology#List_of_leaf_.28or_leaflet.29_shapes" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Glossary of Leaf Morphology</a> which, being interpreted, means a list of the names of shapes of leaves with pictures drawn and descriptions written. It's brilliant. It's a browsing page. Find 'lanceolate' on the chart and you'll see where Ribwort gets its lanceolata from. Even if you aren't won over to Ribwort as a special garden plant, you may well be enchanted by this link.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-od_BWZOqsbw/WRH7G3RDqfI/AAAAAAAAGug/R4lG_TH9gAgHuwW1JF2sKvBWvzjNHKmuQCEw/s1600/2%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BRIBWORT%2BPLANTAIN%2B-%2BMAY%2B5TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0465.jpg%2B-%2Bcr2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Ribwort head with frill of flowers at bottom." border="0" height="518" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-od_BWZOqsbw/WRH7G3RDqfI/AAAAAAAAGug/R4lG_TH9gAgHuwW1JF2sKvBWvzjNHKmuQCEw/s640/2%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BRIBWORT%2BPLANTAIN%2B-%2BMAY%2B5TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0465.jpg%2B-%2Bcr2.jpg" title="Ribwort head with frill of flowers at bottom." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I'm really annoyed that I haven't been able to take<br />
a photo of a plant free-standing without number-plates and people included.<br />
And there's only one picture with leaves.<br />
But don't you think the colours are amazing?<br />
That bluey-black at the top?<br />
This head is about an inch long.<br />
And the stem is twenty-four inches. I measured it!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The rest of these links go to Ribwort Plantain Pages on nature sites with more to them than Ribwort so if you have time, you might like to go on an explore.<br />
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<a href="http://wildflowerfinder.org.uk/" target="_blank">Wild Flower Guide</a> - Look for Ribwort Plantain in the index down the right hand side. 'Plantain Family' is another interesting one to click.<br />
<a href="http://www.luontoportti.com/suomi/en/kukkakasvit/ribwort-plantain" target="_blank">Nature Gate</a><br />
<a href="https://easywildflowers.wordpress.com/about/cream-wildflowers-of-the-uk/plantago-lanceolata-the-ribwort-plantain/" target="_blank">Easy Wildflowers</a><br />
Garden Organic<br />
<a href="https://wildseed.co.uk/species/view/102" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Emorsgate Seeds</a> - someone actually <i>sells</i> Ribwort seeds!<br />
<a href="http://www.naturespot.org.uk/species/ribwort-plantain" target="_blank">Nature Spot</a><br />
<a href="http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/ribwort-plantain" target="_blank">The Wildlife Trusts</a><br />
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And completely irrelevantly - Butterfly Conservation is raising money by inviting you to take part in <a href="http://www.jumblebee.co.uk/testbutterflyconservationtest?utm_source=Dotmailer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=8243272_May%202017&utm_content=MothAuction&dm_i=DGT,4WOJS,NGNKDO,IMJNO,1" target="_blank">an auction to sponsor a moth</a> species and have your name printed with it in The Atlas of Britain and Ireland's Larger Moths. Whether or not you'd like to be a moth benefactor, do take a look at this site because the photos of the moths in their 'auction' (it's alright, they're not selling dead and dusty creatures on tall pins) are delightful.<br />
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P.S. It seems to me that the more boring a flower looks, the more complicated it is to understand. (I struggle with ivy). While trying to understand the flowers on a Ribwort Plantain Spike I found a page in Google Books where Macgregor Skene (in the '<a href="https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=pdyHbU1aKfgC&pg=PA394&lpg=PA394&dq=stigma+on+ribwort+plantain&source=bl&ots=AAvdwxv0iI&sig=4GCEAocwtuJkZlMcC-suUY1nXi8&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjvlZabqOTTAhWnL8AKHfrWAUMQ6AEILTAB#v=onepage&q=stigma%20on%20ribwort%20plantain&f=false" target="_blank">Biology of Flowering Plants</a>') explains that the stigma are produced from flowers in the upper part of the spike while the stamens hang from the lower. This is in relation to wind-pollination.<br />
One of the troubles with wind is that it makes plants wobble so my photos aren't good enough to peer into to see what this looks like . . . however . . . wandering off at a tangent to find out about the book itself I found this interesting and honest explanation <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Biology-Flowering-Plants-M-Skene/dp/817141205X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1494386027&sr=1-1&keywords=9788171412051" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">on Amazon</a> about the problems in re-producing a book originally published before 1923. I don't know what's significant about the magic date 1923 but . . . one goes, bee-like, from one place to the next . . . ! (I'll resist.)<br />
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-58337625045620319132017-05-01T18:32:00.001+01:002017-05-02T14:12:49.683+01:00NEW GLASSES AND A REVIEW - THE SALAD GARDEN BY JOY LARKCOM<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--cpV8Vbx9sc/WQdmKwkQqPI/AAAAAAAAGtU/SA7Rp4xm3wAP-d8ufstLJBLwHmARMzesgCLcB/s1600/PICTURE%2BOF%2BSALAD%2BGARDEN%2B%2528LARKCOM%2529%2BBOOK%2BFROM%2BINTERNET%2B-%2B240x4009780711238701.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Cover of 'The Salad Garden' by Joy Larkcom. (Publisher's picture.)" border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/--cpV8Vbx9sc/WQdmKwkQqPI/AAAAAAAAGtU/SA7Rp4xm3wAP-d8ufstLJBLwHmARMzesgCLcB/s400/PICTURE%2BOF%2BSALAD%2BGARDEN%2B%2528LARKCOM%2529%2BBOOK%2BFROM%2BINTERNET%2B-%2B240x4009780711238701.jpg" title="Cover of 'The Salad Garden' by Joy Larkcom. (Publisher's picture.)" width="292" /></a></div>
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I have new glasses and the world looks very odd. All my possessions have grown smaller yet the room is wider. I thought I had a medium sized laptop but it turns out it's quite small. I might even have suggested it could fit in a shoulder bag - if my shoulder bag hadn't shrunk too.</div>
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I've also bought a pair of prescription sun-glasses. The moment I put them on, my eyes relax. People who are surprised when they come across me staring into hedgerows are likely to be even more disconcerted now I have a spy-like appearance; for it's the sunglasses I'm wanting to wear all the time, even on cloudy days.</div>
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It's May Day. The sun is shining. I can hear thunder.</div>
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This is supposed to be a book review.</div>
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I love this book. I like this book so much I've been carrying it around with me. It's called 'the salad garden' (without capitals) and it's by joy larkcom (she doesn't have capitals either).</div>
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A while back I realised that, when reviewing a book, I tend to pay more attention than other bloggers (maybe undue attention) to the appearance, the weight, the size and the smell of a book. In part, this is because I guess gardeners fall into three categories: the mega gardeners who know everything, the middle gardeners who know what they need to know, and people who would like to garden, or dream of gardening. The mega-gardeners don't need books. The middle gardeners will already have a few instructive manuals and consult seed-packets, aspiring gardeners will look for inspiration - and to be inspired the look and the feel of a book matters. This salad-growing book seems to be a sort of cross-over in that new gardeners and dreamers thinking about what salads they might grow may be surprised and delighted to find out that cucumbers and peppers come in a variety of shapes and sizes, and middle-gardeners may be inspired to try out some of the recommended varieties. Both groups might find the crisp description of Cucumber Mosaic Virus helpful.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AjGJgZd7Lt4/WQdrTNUiYBI/AAAAAAAAGtk/mCCiNK91aTkaC7nBnlPUnRzEA4olB5J6ACLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BFOR%2BREVIEW%2BOF%2BJOY%2BLARKCOM%2BSALAD%2BBOOK%2B-%2BIMG_0188.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Page of cucumbers in 'The Salad Garden' by Joy Larkcom'." border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AjGJgZd7Lt4/WQdrTNUiYBI/AAAAAAAAGtk/mCCiNK91aTkaC7nBnlPUnRzEA4olB5J6ACLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BFOR%2BREVIEW%2BOF%2BJOY%2BLARKCOM%2BSALAD%2BBOOK%2B-%2BIMG_0188.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Page of cucumbers in 'The Salad Garden' by Joy Larkcom'." width="640" /></a></div>
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"This aphid-borne disease causes mottled, yellowed and distorted leaves; plants may become stunted and die. Remove and destroy infected plants and where possible control aphids. Varieties with a degree of resistance are becoming available."</div>
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Here we go with Red Spider Mite:</div>
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"Cucumbers grown under cover are very susceptible. Use biological control as soon as any signs of attack are noticed."</div>
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Elegant and informative, engaging and somehow inspiring. It makes me think 'Yes, I would like to know more about this.'</div>
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There's loads of the usual information: design, water retention, frames, a little bit of cooking. But rather than feeling these have been stuck in by format or padding, there's the sense that it's an all-in-one book . . . that if you want to grow salads you can put this on your shelf as a pleasure and a reference.</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WLypHIXOBlc/WQdritlBQQI/AAAAAAAAGto/F411UeqTdWYS09iBQOqIR270EazCnKnTwCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BFOR%2BREVIEW%2BOF%2BJOY%2BLARKCOM%2BSALAD%2BBOOK%2B-%2BIMG_0208.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Perpetual Spinach and Swiss Chard in 'The Salad Garden' by Joy Larkcom'." border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WLypHIXOBlc/WQdritlBQQI/AAAAAAAAGto/F411UeqTdWYS09iBQOqIR270EazCnKnTwCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BFOR%2BREVIEW%2BOF%2BJOY%2BLARKCOM%2BSALAD%2BBOOK%2B-%2BIMG_0208.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Perpetual Spinach and Swiss Chard in 'The Salad Garden' by Joy Larkcom'." width="640" /></a></div>
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Shelf - yes. Here's something that matters. I don't know what the average shelf-life of a picture-book is. There are wonderful books about gardens that take a lot of space and I don't know whether people treasure them for life or give them to charity shops when their novelty has worn off. Some books do need to be tall; some pictures, some diagrams, need space to make sense. But the problem with this is that most shelves don't accommodate tall books. I have had bookcases made to measure. One was made precisely to contain the tallest book I happened to own at the time. But I'd say this is unusual. Most people buy book-cases 'off the shelf' as it were; and pre-prepared bookshelves are designed more for paperbacks than tomes. One of the maddening things in life is when a book doesn't warrant a place in the 'tall book' space but doesn't quite fit in the 'ordinary' space either. This one is thick (about an inch and a quarter?) but isn't too tall for an ordinary shelf. It's a work-person-like thing.</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5nn4WMk4EMo/WQdrvyspTyI/AAAAAAAAGts/gI8Q8uMzxWIBhOBk2Bno-09xj90u21SVgCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BFOR%2BREVIEW%2BOF%2BJOY%2BLARKCOM%2BSALAD%2BBOOK%2B-%2BIMG_0206.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Radishes in 'The Salad Garden' by Joy Larkcom'." border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5nn4WMk4EMo/WQdrvyspTyI/AAAAAAAAGts/gI8Q8uMzxWIBhOBk2Bno-09xj90u21SVgCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BFOR%2BREVIEW%2BOF%2BJOY%2BLARKCOM%2BSALAD%2BBOOK%2B-%2BIMG_0206.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Radishes in 'The Salad Garden' by Joy Larkcom'." width="640" /></a></div>
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The paper is lovely. And the pictures are - well, fantastic. There are masses of simple and elegant drawings (or maybe they are photos made to look like drawings) along with enough photographs to give it a more real-life appeal. And there are necessary diagrams. It has a substantial index (good) a list of suppliers (not sure about that - it's bound to be a bit biased) and a year-round 'Saladini Chart'. Saladini (this is new to me) is to do with creating a salad with leafy bulk, sharp flavours, interesting colours and interesting textures. So if you want your salads like this it's useful to have sowing dates so everything can be kept in balance. BUT (here's my one criticism) - the writing in the chart is small (even when wearing my old glasses) and pale; the lines are close together and the colours confusing. One criticism isn't bad though?</div>
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I haven't read everything. But I have dipped in and out enough to think this is a 'keeping' book. It's lovely to hold, fits on an ordinary shelf, has beautiful illustrations, loads of information and will be handy for starters and middlers alike. (I reckon.) I took it on holiday with me. I'll have to learn to stop carrying it around. Yea. This is a good one.</div>
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The Salad Garden by Joy Larkcom</div>
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(Revised and Updated)</div>
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Frances Lincoln</div>
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£16:99</div>
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(Sent from the <a href="https://www.quartoknows.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Quarto Group</a> for review)</div>
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Will be published on 4th May 2017</div>
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-65485583310256350872017-04-23T22:02:00.000+01:002017-04-23T22:08:40.982+01:00STICKING ONE'S FOOT AND CHASING BUTTERFLIES<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HGuXhqPBzCI/WPzyjr72dGI/AAAAAAAAGrM/Y86AqKiD1DQb1-Nzz2CaGnXG2nqG1iJBwCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BHAWTHORN%2BFLOWERS%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B23RD%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0280.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Hawthorn flowers and bramble leaves." border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-HGuXhqPBzCI/WPzyjr72dGI/AAAAAAAAGrM/Y86AqKiD1DQb1-Nzz2CaGnXG2nqG1iJBwCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BHAWTHORN%2BFLOWERS%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B23RD%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0280.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Hawthorn flowers and bramble leaves." width="640" /></a></div>
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For the last few years, every so often, I've planted my foot somewhere, refused to move it, and looked about me to see what I could see. A 'Stuck Foot Post'. And I've encouraged you to do the same. You might begin by thinking 'bother, there's nothing here'. Then bits and bobs emerge from the general blur. A blade of grass. A fallen feather. A stranded worm. A bottle top. A daisy. The original Loose and Leafy practice - which seems very long ago now - was to alternate between Stuck Foot Posts and Street Plant ones; and April should have been for Street Plants. But I'll do a Stuck Foot post today as a way of inviting you to join in next month and stick your foot somewhere - sometime between the 21st and 25th - and tell us about it. What do you think? You can choose your foot-hold randomly (often the best because it's a challenge) or somewhere familiar (and see it through new eyes) and, mostly you will do it according to the rules (not moving that foot) or you might find yourself chasing butterflies. (Which is what happened to me this time.)</div>
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Spring seems late this year. And erratic. I was hoping to show you Blackthorn (which produces sloes). The blossom is fantastic. It's light and airy and early. But for all that it's currently frothing up many Dorset hedgerows it's almost over round where I live. And once it's gone, and it's replaced its flowers with leaves, it's hardly visible again till autumn - when it suddenly shows up with sloes.</div>
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Time for confession. I only thought of reviving the 'Stuck Foot' idea because I was left on a limb. There I was, vaguely in the presence of Blackthorn but too late for its flowers. So I asked myself 'right, now I'm here, what shall I do? I know! Move along a little (away from disappointment) and stick my foot somewhere.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Dgea7JJlwlc/WPzy2pd9ZHI/AAAAAAAAGrQ/_RA_LCuUSJkH05DoD1GiqiZJJLxfw9uSQCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BNETTLES%2B-%2B23RD%2BAPRIL%2B2017%2B%2B-%2BIMG_0253.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="New bramble leaves on new bramble branch" border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Dgea7JJlwlc/WPzy2pd9ZHI/AAAAAAAAGrQ/_RA_LCuUSJkH05DoD1GiqiZJJLxfw9uSQCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BNETTLES%2B-%2B23RD%2BAPRIL%2B2017%2B%2B-%2BIMG_0253.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="New bramble leaves on new bramble branch" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This bramble can have a spotlight of its own.</td></tr>
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I decided I should probably show hawthorn instead so I plonked myself in front of a hawthorn tree and settle in to see what I could see. Hawthorn flowers are very different from blackthorn. Readers from previous years will know I don't like it much. It's too dense. But hawthorn has stolen blackthorn's place. Prominent. (Along with suddenly enthusiastic brambles.)</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IrCm8ic2rbQ/WPzz2vqjZMI/AAAAAAAAGrc/EaN37ZyoDPcI8paBP2DVsQszcsrEx80SgCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BDANDELION%2BCLOCK%2BAND%2BGOOSE%2BGRASS%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B23RD%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0270.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Dandelion Clock and Non-Native Bluebells" border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-IrCm8ic2rbQ/WPzz2vqjZMI/AAAAAAAAGrc/EaN37ZyoDPcI8paBP2DVsQszcsrEx80SgCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BDANDELION%2BCLOCK%2BAND%2BGOOSE%2BGRASS%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B23RD%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0270.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Dandelion Clock and Non-Native Bluebells" width="640" /></a></div>
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The Woodland Trust is having a campaign this year to <a href="https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/bluebell-watch-recording/" target="_blank">record the places where native bluebells grow</a> and where there are Spanish ones. By my hawthorn - I take these to be Spanish bluebells. (Their heads don't hang down as meekly as the native kind, and their petals don't have such turny-uppy frills.) Bluebells are not among my favourite flowers either. They look brilliant en-masse - famous as woodland carpets - but up close they aren't that inspiring. Native bluebells are a bit limp and thin, with flowers on only down one side. Spanish ones are bulkier and have flowers all the way round. A few too many. A bit of a jam. I don't like grape hyacinths for the same reason. As long term readers may now be remembering, Spring brings out the worst in me - I'm a total grump until the early flowers are gone. In my calendar, Blackthorn belongs to late winter.</div>
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(Do you have personal categories where you knowingly put plants or birds or insects between the wrong brackets?)</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hKI1zVIveKs/WPz1zZWeyiI/AAAAAAAAGro/zT73JLbRWEUueIhP9gI1dP0HFeOUgNvEwCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BDANDELION%2BCLOCK%2BAND%2BGOOSE%2BGRASS%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B23RD%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0261.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Goosegrass and Dandelion Clock" border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hKI1zVIveKs/WPz1zZWeyiI/AAAAAAAAGro/zT73JLbRWEUueIhP9gI1dP0HFeOUgNvEwCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BDANDELION%2BCLOCK%2BAND%2BGOOSE%2BGRASS%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B23RD%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0261.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Goosegrass and Dandelion Clock" width="480" /></a></div>
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Dandelions are one of my big-deal favourites. In some areas they are almost as plentiful as the grass they grow in. Here, though, the first burst is over and there are more clocks than pennies . . . </div>
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. . . And Goose Grass (Cleavers) is still young enough to be upright and pretty. Before long it will topple over and stretch along the ground and its leaves will catch hold of you in a slightly sticky way . . . and it will grow little white flowers, then little velcro balls which you'll have to pick off your socks when you get home.</div>
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And the butterfly . . . Right. Along comes a Speckled Wood.</div>
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Away flies the Speckled Wood.</div>
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For a while I stayed steadfast to my intent; stood resolutely facing into the hedge and waited for it to come back again. If it didn't return a bee might arrive and pose for a portrait instead. Nothing.</div>
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(I think there are fewer insects this year. Do you?)</div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xjtz7RgidOc/WPz2SGeijrI/AAAAAAAAGrs/fUpJbbCpsGgYesrvf6MkbjLlDMSV_HuswCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSPECKLED%2BWOOD%2BCLOSED%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B23RD%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0334.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Speckled Wood Butterfly on Buttercup Leaf (?)" border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Xjtz7RgidOc/WPz2SGeijrI/AAAAAAAAGrs/fUpJbbCpsGgYesrvf6MkbjLlDMSV_HuswCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSPECKLED%2BWOOD%2BCLOSED%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B23RD%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0334.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Speckled Wood Butterfly on Buttercup Leaf (?)" width="640" /></a></div>
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There's a limit to the time one can remain staring into a hedgerow on a path that's busy with families out walking on a sunny Sunday afternoon. One can end up feeling a little . . er . . . self-conscious. Could people think I'm dangerous? What if someone stops and asks what I'm doing?</div>
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I will say 'I'm waiting for that butterfly (I point) to come back here so I can takes it's picture on that leaf. (I point to the leaf.) Or perhaps another leaf. I wave my hand vaguely. There are many leaves but not all of them in easy reach when you have to keep that foot stuck.</div>
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I brazened it out till I had no braze left and set off to run after the butterfly. (Uncomfortably aware that the touch-screen controls on my new camera were bleeping happily and randomly re-setting themselves.)</div>
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Inspired?</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-24B0eDSz0KA/WPz5h9SbkwI/AAAAAAAAGr8/sX3UhCk3VMUCjbXouIWGBza2YQyH-rONACEw/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSPECKLED%2BWOOD%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B23RD%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0332.jpg%2B-%2Bcr.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Speckled Wood Butterfly on Cleavers" border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-24B0eDSz0KA/WPz5h9SbkwI/AAAAAAAAGr8/sX3UhCk3VMUCjbXouIWGBza2YQyH-rONACEw/s400/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSPECKLED%2BWOOD%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B23RD%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0332.jpg%2B-%2Bcr.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Speckled Wood Butterfly on Cleavers" width="353" /></a></div>
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If I can still work out how to do it after all this time, I'll put a link box here on 21st of May and close it late on the 25th. Then you can stick your foot somewhere if you like - and tell us all about it. You might manage not to cheat . . or you too may find yourselves chasing butterflies!</div>
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<a href="http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/species.php?species=aegeria" target="_blank">Speckled Wood on the UK Butterflies Site</a>.</div>
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<a href="https://www.woodlandtrust.org.uk/visiting-woods/bluebell-watch/" target="_blank">Woodland Trust 'Big Bluebell Watch'</a></div>
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Another view of the Speckled Wood on Loose and Leafy -<a href="https://looseandleafy.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/the-speckled-woods-bottom.html" target="_blank"> 'The Speckled Wood's Bottom'</a>.</div>
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P.S. The Speckled Wood on the right is the same individual only with its wings open. This Alexanders flower next to it <i>very</i> small - this isn't a giant butterfly! See the Bindweed?<br />
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-15766963549003647852017-04-01T21:32:00.000+01:002017-04-01T21:35:09.735+01:00WHAT RIGHT DO I HAVE TO SEE ANYTHING? (AND SOME ALEXANDERS)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iy4zr2LuMEo/WOAEtWwyA9I/AAAAAAAAGqc/zFp69c4uMIQdrqrS3dM3bGN2fzcmGAyRwCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BALEXANDERS%2B1%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B1ST%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0096.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Alexanders flower. (Smyrnium olusatrum)" border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-iy4zr2LuMEo/WOAEtWwyA9I/AAAAAAAAGqc/zFp69c4uMIQdrqrS3dM3bGN2fzcmGAyRwCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BALEXANDERS%2B1%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B1ST%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0096.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Alexanders flower. (Smyrnium olusatrum)" width="640" /></a></div>
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My camera is irreparable so they've sent me a new one. And it's not just a new camera it's a different model. My old camera is not only bust but extinct.</div>
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The first camera I ever used (the first proper camera) was a Canon. I'd hit on the idea that I'd like to hold a photographic exhibition about life in a factory so I phoned an arts organisation and asked if I could borrow a camera. They were very enthusiastic and lent me a good one. They were very trusting. And I was very . . . very . . ambitious would you say?</div>
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I couldn't afford to do a course in how to develop the film or print in black and white so I agreed with a friend that she'd take the course and show me what she'd learned. The plan worked. While a large group of students beavered away in the teaching lab. I caught up with their last week's lessons in the little lab. next door. Even better, the teacher found out what I was doing and while the large class worked through their latest exercise he'd come through to see how I was getting on. And he'd stop awhile to talk about photography until he reckoned they'd had enough time to complete their task.</div>
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Next I had to work out how to take good pictures of people while they were at work. Wandering around a factory floor would already be distracting and using a flash would compound the problem. So a friend's daughter (who happened to be a professional landscape photographer) showed me how to up-rate the film (now we're all digital there's no particular reason to explain what this means - except I could take crisp pictures in a low light even when people were moving) . . . she then got the film developed at a professional developers and helped me evening after evening after evening to print my pictures huge enough to display. Then I had my exhibition.</div>
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Talk about a grand beginning!</div>
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After that, I had to save to buy my own cameras and the challenge has been that I can't decide on a subject and style then buy a camera to match - I have to have to adapt what I photograph according to what the kind of camera I can afford to buy can do. (And where I live, of course.) Which is why I landed up taking pictures of leaves instead of factories. I suppose my addiction is to seeing and as long as I'm seeing something interesting it doesn't matter too much what it is. That isn't exactly, exactly true but it's near enough.</div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PXOjS1qTZbA/WOAFAUeIKpI/AAAAAAAAGqo/0rkieNC0crUF2ypsdvLzVp8IKd253wD7gCEw/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BALEXANDERS%2B4%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B1ST%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0111.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Alexanders leave with Alexanders Rust. (Smyrnium olusatrum with Pucinnia smyrnii)" border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-PXOjS1qTZbA/WOAFAUeIKpI/AAAAAAAAGqo/0rkieNC0crUF2ypsdvLzVp8IKd253wD7gCEw/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BALEXANDERS%2B4%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B1ST%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0111.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Alexanders leave with Alexanders Rust. (Smyrnium olusatrum with Pucinnia smyrnii)" width="640" /></a></div>
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And being of modest means, I've always had to put a lot of work into researching before purchasing. Now I was being sent 'an unknown' so a stage was missing - and I didn't like it. Something emotional had gone adrift. An email gave a tracking code so I followed the progress of the parcel from Watford to Barking. (Barking?!) And from Barking to Southampton. (Southampton!?) And eventually, having had its own little holiday wandering around the south of England, it arrived. It should have been a moment of joy but I couldn't bring myself to open the box. It sat there and sat there until in the end I pulled back the tape and took out the camera and fiddled around with it a bit . . . then ranted crossly around the house because, I reckoned, it was rubbish. I didn't like it. It was almost unbearable. It was this or nothing - and I didn't like the 'this'.</div>
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As forbearing readers will know, my glasses broke around the same time as my camera.</div>
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Opticians appointment.</div>
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I waltzed in.</div>
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Any problems with my eyes?</div>
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No. Just that I needed new glasses.</div>
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But there was no significant change in the prescription.</div>
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Weird.</div>
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I have the beginning of cataracts.</div>
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"Oh?" I said airily, treating this as a matter of general interest rather than immediate concern, not yet registering the reason I can't see properly isn't because I need new glasses but that my vision is itself already a bit blurred. I asked how long it takes for cataracts to get really bad. Eight years? said the optician. Or twenty? Can't tell. But however long it takes there's nothing that can be done about it. Just one of those things everyone knows but no-one understands.</div>
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The next thing I did was to buy a really good cup of coffee and a specially delicious caramel shortbread with real chocolate on top. (Whoever invented cooking chocolate was a fool.)</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DUmccGhQkSw/WOAFDIMFdsI/AAAAAAAAGqk/N0dIE22v9b04lvkj_8pAbJmIJv4KEnipQCEw/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BALEXANDERS%2B3%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B1ST%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0107.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Alexanders stem. Alexanders leave with Alexanders Rust. (Smyrnium olusatrum)" border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-DUmccGhQkSw/WOAFDIMFdsI/AAAAAAAAGqk/N0dIE22v9b04lvkj_8pAbJmIJv4KEnipQCEw/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BALEXANDERS%2B3%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B1ST%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0107.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Alexanders stem. Alexanders leave with Alexanders Rust. (Smyrnium olusatrum)" width="640" /></a></div>
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And now I'm falling in love with my camera . . . and getting obsessed with focus. Knowing what a picture really looks like is a bit awkward with a laptop. The angle of the screen, the brightness, whether it's my laptop or yours . . so many variables. So now I angle my head from side to side and wonder what the picture really looks like. I don't want to exaggerate . . . but I can't really tell . . . if I look at the screen sideways from the right . . is that how you will see the veins in the leaves best too? Just about? Or from the left? And the patches missing? I'd been thinking I had mild-migraine vision. Who wouldn't have a migraine if their phone, their glasses and their camera all broke at once? But I suppose it isn't a migraine. My eyes are simply getting fed up with bright lights.</div>
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It's interesting how a little bit of information changes the way one sees the world - literally.</div>
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Once I'd digested the caramel shortbread . . and resisted the temptation to go back for more the next day . . I began thinking about what that 'eight years' or 'twenty years' will bring. If my sight will slowly but inevitably go fuzzy, what do I want most to see? What do I most want to do with my camera? Which is more important - the line of the horizon or a grain of pollen? It's too easy to say 'everything' or 'both' because I'm a bit of a specialist. I like to know where my focus lies. (Focus. Ha!) And I want to get the most out of my camera while there's a point in having one. So how I set it up . . . and how I use it . . . becomes a bit philosophical. I'm struggling a bit. I'm asking myself what right do I have to see? Not everyone can. Not everyone has a camera.</div>
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The thing about this new camera (now I've stopped running up and down saying it's rubbish - which it isn't) is that it's easier to set the focus in odd places . . . and although I haven't (yet?) managed to get it to take pictures of pollen or anything with specially impressive close-up detail, it's easier now to play with depth of field as well as centre of interest. So I pottered out this afternoon and messed around with random pictures of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smyrnium_olusatrum" target="_blank">Alexanders</a>. One can get used to everything in the end. I think. No. I don't think that. Not everything. But I'm getting used to my camera and already it's my friend.<br />
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-79069671133377006092017-03-30T23:07:00.000+01:002017-03-31T12:18:09.164+01:00THE DAY I LOST MY NERVE<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MrnM6ZiiQPs/WN13NcuDznI/AAAAAAAAGqA/7vnNUF9PzBk5cQtz56ZzFDK5-LtMDxoIgCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BFIELDS%2BBURTON%2BBRADSTOCK%2B-%2BMARCH%2B30TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0061.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MrnM6ZiiQPs/WN13NcuDznI/AAAAAAAAGqA/7vnNUF9PzBk5cQtz56ZzFDK5-LtMDxoIgCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BFIELDS%2BBURTON%2BBRADSTOCK%2B-%2BMARCH%2B30TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0061.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">On the tops of the cliffs at Burton Bradstock there are sheep fields with dry stone walls.</td></tr>
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This morning I emailed a friend to say I was about to walk beside the Broadchurch cliffs near Burton Bradstock.</div>
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Quick fire he replied; he'd be frightened to go to the Broadchurch Cliffs but for someone living in Midsommer it would probably feel like a holiday.</div>
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Explanations.</div>
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The cliffs along the short stretch of Dorset Coast between <a href="https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/burton-bradstock" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Burton Bradstock</a> and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Bay,_Dorset" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">West Bay</a> are integral to the plot of the television drama '<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadchurch" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Broadchurch</a>'. They loom over it. They set the atmosphere.</div>
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In the <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/Amazon-Video/Broadchurch-Season-1/B00JVVW2Y6" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">first series</a> a boy's body is found beneath them. (Not a spoiler - the start of the story.) I'm not sure what happened in the <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Episode-1/dp/B013VU0B22/ref=sr_1_1?s=instant-video&ie=UTF8&qid=1490907430&sr=1-1&keywords=broadchurch+season+2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">second series</a> because it was all a bit of a blur - so very much overloaded with events and surprises it's forgettable; all but the scenery. - the scenery can never be ignored. We're into the <a href="http://www.itv.com/hub/broadchurch/2a1926" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">third and final series</a> now. It's about rape. It's not cheerful TV. The music is drone. It never lets up. The action is slow. Little happens. But it's well plotted and well acted so each hour-long episode flies as fast as twenty minutes. (Come to think of it, there are three advert breaks in each so it probably is only twenty minutes.)</div>
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<a href="http://midsomermurders.org/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Midsommer Murders</a> is a long-running detective series set in rural Oxfordshire. There are so many people murdered in every episode it's a standing joke there's anyone left to kill. For the residents of Midsommer, one dead boy is nothing. (They are different genres.)</div>
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That's all fiction.</div>
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What is not fiction is that these cliffs are terrifying.</div>
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They are so terrifying I didn't take any photos.</div>
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I didn't walk beside them.</div>
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I didn't walk beneath them.</div>
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I ran away.</div>
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The sea was magnificent.</div>
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The waves were enormous.</div>
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The roar was exciting.</div>
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There was a small crowd of people waiting for the tide to turn so there would be enough safe space between cliffs and water wide enough to pass through safely.</div>
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I was terrified. It wasn't just that the cliffs might crumble (which they might) . . . I couldn't stand the feeling of being loomed over. Nature-bloggers aren't supposed to scream inside and flee from their subject matter. But these cliffs are big and red and cracked and gold and they ripple like tall curtains from sky to beach.</div>
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I don't like them.<br />
(Shame you can't see them!)</div>
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Fortunately, cliffs have grassy tops as well as pebbly bottoms so I walked along up high instead - where there were gulls and fulmars and larks and crows and sunshine and drizzle.</div>
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Of course these tops are the earth and rocks which would fall to the beach if the cliffs were to crack, so the choice was not between living and dying but between being crushed by hundreds of tons of rubble or being part of the rubble hurtling down. But light is good. And it's reassuring to imagine one might be able to leap fast enough to cross an unfolding chasm and run inland if necessary. (Through the sheep-field.)</div>
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I didn't walk far. When I reached the mouth of the River Bride, I turned back. Rain threatened. </div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yWvMRn0Xf-U/WN13tzzqLKI/AAAAAAAAGqI/fS40yK0fPaYthWB41U3_g8mDmB7u_L7GwCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BBRIDE%2BMOUTH%2B-%2BMARCH%2B30TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0059.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-yWvMRn0Xf-U/WN13tzzqLKI/AAAAAAAAGqI/fS40yK0fPaYthWB41U3_g8mDmB7u_L7GwCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BBRIDE%2BMOUTH%2B-%2BMARCH%2B30TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0059.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">If I could have turned it into a sunny day for you, I would have.</td></tr>
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The River Bride is a pretty little river - and pretty creepy too. Here, as it fights its way into the sea, it carves the most extraordinary shapes. (Its birth at Little Bredy, six miles inland, is the setting for the first Broadchurch rape.)</div>
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Dorset is a weird county. It's one of the most beautiful places on earth yet the fiction it inspires is cruel.</div>
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Take Thomas Hardy. He wasn't exactly a barrel of laughs.</div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mayor-Casterbridge-Vintage-Classics/dp/0099529572/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490908440&sr=1-3&keywords=mayor+of+casterbridge" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Mayor of Casterbridge</a> - a drunken man sells his wife to a stranger.</div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Trumpet-Major-Wordsworth-Classics-Thomas-Hardy/dp/1853262463/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490908349&sr=1-2&keywords=trumpet+major" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Trumpet Major</a> - a young woman is sexually harassed by the nephew of the local squire. </div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dUrbervilles-Wordsworth-Classics-Thomas-Hardy/dp/1853260053/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490908512&sr=1-1&keywords=tess+of+the+d%27urbervilles" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Tess of the d'Urbervilles</a> - a young woman is raped, her baby dies, there are all sorts of complications, she eventually kills her 'seducer' and is executed.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AFzc-kNKPGo/WN133ApFnnI/AAAAAAAAGqQ/9gVCVI9WneoihFAjC55_b8DIncUqS7i2ACEw/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BGULLS%2BBURTON%2BBRADSTOCK%2B-%2BMARCH%2B30TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0064.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-AFzc-kNKPGo/WN133ApFnnI/AAAAAAAAGqQ/9gVCVI9WneoihFAjC55_b8DIncUqS7i2ACEw/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BGULLS%2BBURTON%2BBRADSTOCK%2B-%2BMARCH%2B30TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0064.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Because I didn't walk below the cliffs I can only show you views from the top!</td></tr>
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I had a nice walk though.</div>
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P.S. If this were a literary blog I would be wanting to know why there's a cheerful picture of someone hanging out washing on the front cover of Tess of the d'Ubervilles and how come Penguin can describe The Trumpet Major as '<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/dUrbervilles-Wordsworth-Classics-Thomas-Hardy/dp/1853260053/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1490908512&sr=1-1&keywords=tess+of+the+d%27urbervilles" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Lyrical and lighthearted</a>'.</div>
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The links between literature, landscape and sorrow can be pretty weird.<br />
Humans are weird.<br />
Wouldn't you say?<br />
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P.P.S. Readers who've never visited these cliffs may be disappointed there's no picture to show what it's like to look up at them. I just say they frighten me because they loom and might fall over. . . . So I suppose I'll have to go back soon and have another bash at being brave. Not brave for long, you understand. Just brave enough to aim my camera at their stark and dark and rippled faces - before running.<br />
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-13966407068931074202017-03-16T11:51:00.002+00:002017-03-16T15:18:47.708+00:00LIFE ON A BORROWED CAMERA<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img alt="Isle of Portland (Dorset) disappearing into mist." border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-8U57IJSm0CM/WMptO7wSumI/AAAAAAAAGms/qKchNpggQuw7Ayq7hE4sU2QzU576X5TqgCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BPORTLAND%2BIN%2BMIST%2B-%2BMARCH%2B10TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_2605.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" title="Isle of Portland (Dorset) disappearing into mist." width="640" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not that people with perfect vision will be seeing much these days.<br />
A few moments earlier, this was a moderately open view. A few moments later and everything was hidden behind a fast veiling, white curtain.</td></tr>
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<span style="text-align: justify;">The default weather here is currently 'mist'. This somewhat reflects my own state of joyfulness - which could be more nearly described as - 'fog'. It will be another two weeks before my camera is returned from the menders; and just when I was thinking after the demise and replacement of my laptop, the demise and not-replacement of my music speaker, the smashing of my mobile phone (I tripped over a low concrete barrier) - there's nothing else to break . . . my glasses frame has suddenly and unaccountably bent and an arm is falling off so it's not just that the world is out of focus when looked at through a broken lens - I'm walking around with crossed eyes, constantly angling my head up and down and sideways to see if there's any way I can make things look better.</span><br />
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On the up-side . . I've borrowed a camera.</div>
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On the down-side . . . although pictures taken with it may theoretically be in focus I have no idea whether they are or are not. (Broken glasses!)</div>
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I hope by now, you are completely overcome with sympathy, fighting back tears and playing violins.</div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VwEsorC24xk/WMptYqXVazI/AAAAAAAAGm0/hbs92RrXIC8kc8ia9pjw48K2Ntate6D4ACEw/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BREEDS%2BWEYMOUTH%2B-%2BMARCH%2B12TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_2612.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Large expanse of reeds beyond brambles." border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-VwEsorC24xk/WMptYqXVazI/AAAAAAAAGm0/hbs92RrXIC8kc8ia9pjw48K2Ntate6D4ACEw/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BREEDS%2BWEYMOUTH%2B-%2BMARCH%2B12TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_2612.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Large expanse of reeds beyond brambles." width="640" /></a></div>
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Friends don't necessarily help. "I know!" said one. "Come with me for a walk. That'll cheer you up!" After quite a long trek across the grey wastes of an abandoned Park-and-Ride, and after falling up a muddy, brambly bank because everything was so wet, we could see acres of brown reeds sticking up through invisible water-logged ground. I could tart up this picture. I've tried. So I know. With a bit of adjustment I can make it brighter and clearer. But to blog it like that would be to lie. What lay before us was a landscape of stripy murkiness. Which, I hope, is how you see it here.</div>
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Fortunately, I was not invited to put on waders to see if we could get through, nor given an axe and a canoe. Instead, my guide diverted us between clumps and bumps of tough grass, along muddy paths and deep puddles so I could experience the pleasure of cold brown water flowing happily into my only presentable pair of shoes.</div>
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But even in the murk of a warm, dull spring, there are moments of hope . . . </div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zCOsnTulkIw/WMpuNqTv3qI/AAAAAAAAGm4/juQkZbNfB7kY8acyMTbbORTp03AVCMs_wCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BCORDYLINE%2BIN%2BSOUTHAMPTON%2BFLATS%2B-%2BIMG_2629.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Cordyline on balcony of block of flats." border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zCOsnTulkIw/WMpuNqTv3qI/AAAAAAAAGm4/juQkZbNfB7kY8acyMTbbORTp03AVCMs_wCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BCORDYLINE%2BIN%2BSOUTHAMPTON%2BFLATS%2B-%2BIMG_2629.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Cordyline on balcony of block of flats." width="640" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://looseandleafy.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/urban-flowers-by-carolyn-dunster.html" target="_blank">Last week </a>I reviewed a book on how to cheer an urban landscape with flowers. . . and brightened the post with an illustration from it of a balcony crammed with plants. I was in Southampton yesterday and as I climbed despondently up the hill from the station into town (wondering how much joy I could summon up from admiring concrete blocks of flats built to resemble ocean liners) I glanced up (never forget to glance up) and saw this. One Cordyline on one balcony. Is this a cheerful reminder that not everything is as bleak as it seems? Or does it emphasise that apart from itself everything is, indeed, bleak?</div>
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I've not yet decided.<br />
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(I hope you're enjoying this post!)</div>
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Here's a bit of light:</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lm8HUj_8R2o/WMpugxdvM7I/AAAAAAAAGm8/928aqTqAYfcjG3Z7wlmRbydcAOW-_TRKgCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BPLANT%2BON%2BWINDSCREEN%2B-%2BMARCH%2B14TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_2624.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Plant growing on the windscreen of a car." border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lm8HUj_8R2o/WMpugxdvM7I/AAAAAAAAGm8/928aqTqAYfcjG3Z7wlmRbydcAOW-_TRKgCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BPLANT%2BON%2BWINDSCREEN%2B-%2BMARCH%2B14TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_2624.jpg%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Plant growing on the windscreen of a car." width="640" /></a></div>
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Earlier this week, I was going from house to house, posting leaflets through letter boxes suggesting - that plans to close the children's ward and neo-natal unit at our local hospital are not a good idea (that's not the light) when I came across this car. In some ways it could be a sad car. But it wasn't. It wasn't muddy (unlike my shoes) and the paintwork was shiny (unlike my shoes) and growing in the slot where the wipers swish - there was this plant. The photo isn't in focus . . grey day, broken glasses, unfamiliar camera . . . but it brought - I wish I could say 'leap of joy' into a bleak and un-imaginative heart (more violins please) . . . but it inspired a little spark of 'oh, look at this!'-ness A man emerged from the house opposite. After all, I was cavorting in his neighbour's drive, taking photographs of his neighbour's car etc. etc. But I couldn't summon enough enthusiasm to call him over to see . . just nodded, put my camera away and went to push the next leaflet through the nest annoying draft-excluding bristles in the letterbox of the next door along. But a bit of my brain (the tiny part spared from moaning about broken glasses) has, since then, been going around almost on its own - singing a little song.</div>
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-44380966307788864242017-03-04T16:08:00.000+00:002017-03-04T16:16:10.248+00:00URBAN FLOWERS by CAROLYN DUNSTER<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QOu2r7mzVjY/WLq6vesqtyI/AAAAAAAAGlc/FS4NpLxuqYk_9X9ApV5z65__a5STJsicACLcB/s1600/URBAN%2BFLOWERS%2BCOVER%2BCOPIED%2BFROM%2BINTERNET%2BAD%2B-%2BLCON.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Cover of book 'Urban Flowers' by Carolyn Dunser and Jason Ingram." border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QOu2r7mzVjY/WLq6vesqtyI/AAAAAAAAGlc/FS4NpLxuqYk_9X9ApV5z65__a5STJsicACLcB/s640/URBAN%2BFLOWERS%2BCOVER%2BCOPIED%2BFROM%2BINTERNET%2BAD%2B-%2BLCON.png" title="Cover of book 'Urban Flowers' by Carolyn Dunser and Jason Ingram." width="526" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="color: blue;">Because I can't easily take my own photos at present, I've posted<br />some of my own photos of urban wild plants. They aren't exactly relevant because<br />the book reviewed here is about urban gardens rather than urban plants - but<br />I specially admire wild plants which grow in towns so I thought I'd<br />put some here!<br />And because, as you'll see at the end, I might decide it's my calling in life<br />to cast dandelion seeds at the feet of city walls. </span></i></td></tr>
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I may be moving.</div>
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Some readers will already know my next-door neighbours; Esther Montgomery and her family (her husband Ming and their sons, Worthing and Didcott). They are buying a house bang in the middle of Halifax (Yorkshire; not Nova Scotia!) and have asked if I would like to go too and live in a little flat that has been carved into the attic. This is why I was <a href="https://looseandleafy.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/dorset.html" target="_blank">visiting Halifax last autumn</a> . . . to take a look at the town and the house . . . and things like that.</div>
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Nothing is settled They are still checking whether all the beams are in place so it doesn't fall down, and that the roof is not so dilapidated they can't afford to mend it. But hopefully . . .</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7WlH5YmPjkU/VB4CH9p0_RI/AAAAAAAAEts/73hXEA0vaCM/s1600/1F%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BYELLOW%2BFLOWER%2B-%2BSEPTMBER%2B20TH%2B2014%2B-%2BIMG_0732%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Wild plant growing by metal fence, Portland, Dorset." border="0" height="400" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-7WlH5YmPjkU/VB4CH9p0_RI/AAAAAAAAEts/73hXEA0vaCM/s400/1F%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BYELLOW%2BFLOWER%2B-%2BSEPTMBER%2B20TH%2B2014%2B-%2BIMG_0732%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Wild plant growing by metal fence, Portland, Dorset." width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A bleak urban landscape where<br />
wild plants may grow.<br />
(Not in the book.)</td></tr>
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If we do move there, it will be a massive change. The south coast of Dorset is, without question, one of the most beautiful places in the world: huge views of deep-blue seas, warm sunshine, dramatic cliffs, sharp storms with raging waves. Skeletons here are Jurassic, not collapsed mills.</div>
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<br /></div>
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So . . . when I received the book 'Urban Flowers' (Carolyn Dunster and Jason Ingram. Published by Frances Lincoln) for review - I read it with Esther in mind. She could have chosen a house in the country if she'd wanted. Then she would have had somewhere to live <i>and</i> a large garden. But she decided on a back-to-back surrounded by enterprise parks and warehouses - with no garden except a few paving slabs at the front. (She seems to think theatres are worth the trade off - especially as there may be the chance of an allotment not far away.)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Whenever I start a book, I flick through its pages first, look at the pictures, check the contents and see what kind of index it has at the back . . . . and try to gauge who the author wrote it for. Could it be for Esther and people like her? What with her paving slabs and four short walls with iron stumps on - (Second World War reminders of how governments can be . . . not exactly precise in the information they give to the public - see <a href="http://www.londongardenstrust.org/features/railings3.htm" target="_blank">this article</a> about the mystery of the missing railings on the London Parks and Gardens Trust site.)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BpzsIaSXUhQ/WLrA25XuSEI/AAAAAAAAGls/Q-sB8Zka_xkZq3qLlfvFjB8Zpl6S1oGFgCLcB/s1600/ESTHER%2BMONTGOMERY%2B-%2Bfor%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BDANDELIONS%2B-%2BMAY%2B10TH%2B2015%2B-%2BIMG_2891%2B-%2Blcr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Self-seeded dandelions in a small garden." border="0" height="448" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BpzsIaSXUhQ/WLrA25XuSEI/AAAAAAAAGls/Q-sB8Zka_xkZq3qLlfvFjB8Zpl6S1oGFgCLcB/s640/ESTHER%2BMONTGOMERY%2B-%2Bfor%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BDANDELIONS%2B-%2BMAY%2B10TH%2B2015%2B-%2BIMG_2891%2B-%2Blcr.jpg" title="Self-seeded dandelions in a small garden." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My next door neighbour (Esther Montgomery) treasures wild flowers in her garden.<br />
Dandelions - May 10th 2015<br />
Not in the book!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Possibly.<br />
Esther's garden used to be beautiful with roses (they pulled the roof off her shed) and jasmine (it smelled like bubble bath) and clematis (it got scraggly) Spanish broom (plastered with blue aphids) . . . until in the end she had to chop so much down it wasn't beautiful any more. It was a casualty of over-reach; a misjudgement of space. And when I look at the rows of potted plants she's been expecting to take to Yorkshire: bay trees, box bushes, lavenders, geraniums, cordylines, mint, balm, oregano . . . I think she's about to make the same mistake again. It was only when the removal firm advised her that plants cost a lot to move because they can't be piled on top of another) she began to concede she might have to leave quite a lot behind.</div>
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<br /></div>
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The book:</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Perhaps one of the things we might take from it is that you can't fit Kew Gardens into a backyard. And another is how imprecise the definition of<span style="font-family: inherit;"> 'small' is - it's entirely subjective - probably related to the last house one lived in, or one's dream home or what the neighbours have got. The subtitle is 'Creating Abundance in a Small City Garden' but I don't think Amelanchier
lamackii - which grows to about 39 feet high and 13 feet wide would fit into my idea of 'small'. It's not just a matter of space but of light. I often think about this when I see furniture laid out for inspection in department stores and magazines. As soon as you remember there will be a fourth wall, style flies out the window. Whether you are a plant in a garden, or a human wanting a sofa, you'll not survive unless there's enough light to help you grow.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_quWjvvnjjU/WLrO448TP9I/AAAAAAAAGl8/U2v5A3lNZzgmvFpMfLIMgxbqNO3nzxRLgCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BPHOTOGRAPHED%2BFROM%2BURBAN%2BFLOWERS%2BBOOK%2B-%2BIMG_2565.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Photo of a photo of plants on a balcony in book 'Urban Flowers' by Carolyn Dunster and Jason Ingram" border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-_quWjvvnjjU/WLrO448TP9I/AAAAAAAAGl8/U2v5A3lNZzgmvFpMfLIMgxbqNO3nzxRLgCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BPHOTOGRAPHED%2BFROM%2BURBAN%2BFLOWERS%2BBOOK%2B-%2BIMG_2565.JPG" title="Photo of a photo of plants on a balcony in book 'Urban Flowers' by Carolyn Dunster and Jason Ingram" width="640" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(Incidentally, in terms of light and air-flow, I'd disagree with Carolyn's idea that you could sensibly pack a cordyline, a fatsia and a couple of other substantial plants onto one small urban balcony, even if you were prepared to obliterate your only hope of a view.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
</div>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But setting the definition of 'small' aside, I think it's a good book for saving would-be gardeners from despair when moving into an urban home with very little outdoor space. And it's for people who've never had a garden before too; people who suddenly find themselves with a few spare feet and are wondering what they might put in it apart from wheelie bins.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kj8rdkGZE0E/WLrUXbPmulI/AAAAAAAAGmY/8vdCHD6TXFAnBS4PeWJji1kIN_hT3QmnwCLcB/s1600/DANDELION%2BIN%2BPARK%2B-%2BJUNE%2B17TH%2B20132%2B-%2BIMG_5020%2B-%2BLG%2B-%2BMONTH.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Dandelion next to an urban playground." border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kj8rdkGZE0E/WLrUXbPmulI/AAAAAAAAGmY/8vdCHD6TXFAnBS4PeWJji1kIN_hT3QmnwCLcB/s640/DANDELION%2BIN%2BPARK%2B-%2BJUNE%2B17TH%2B20132%2B-%2BIMG_5020%2B-%2BLG%2B-%2BMONTH.JPG" title="Dandelion next to an urban playground." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not in the book.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: inherit;">- Introduce wheelie bins and the answer is probably 'nothing'. I have it in for wheelie bins. Since someone hit on the idea of fooling people into thinking it's 'ecological' to fill the world with these </span>grotesqueries, properly 'small' town gardens have all but been abolished.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Books like this, I have noticed, fall into three sections of varying usefulness - a clear start, a list in the middle (which might be useful or might not) and fripperies at the end. So it is with this one.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The first part of this book really grabs the attention and gets one thinking. Sometimes these thoughts are of good things - like getting plants to grow in small cracks in walls. Sometimes not so good - like growing parsley in old pineapple tins. Even the illustration in the book shows some parsley looking as if it would prefer to be elsewhere.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The middle section is divided usefully into colours and types of plants. (Admittedly with bits of silliness thrown in. Well, I think it's silly to grow geraniums upside down.) Novices are offered answers to questions like 'what is a bulb?' and there are specific plant recommendations - useful for middling gardeners and those struggling with 'downsizing'.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The end bit is, mercifully, short. How to prolong the life of cut flowers is handy. But making a wreath from apples and blackberries is not. Brambles may find their way onto wasteland from time to time but blackberries don't otherwise tend to grow in towns. Certainly one wouldn't want a bramble patch in a small garden even if one could rise to an espaliered apple. And two pages on baking with petals is quite enough. (I tried crystallising violets once and ended up with a small, sweet, soggy compost heap stuck to a piece of grease-proof paper.)</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Sm1kvo8eVYU/WLrSpI5TZgI/AAAAAAAAGmM/eXPrrMScAPMSyDNCAX-Z4ITez0T-_6qKACLcB/s1600/DANDELIONS%2BAND%2BDAISES%2BBY%2BPARK%2BFENCE%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B26TH%2B2013%2B-%2BIMG_3586%2B-%2BLG.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Daisies and dandelions beside the pavement next to an urban park" border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-Sm1kvo8eVYU/WLrSpI5TZgI/AAAAAAAAGmM/eXPrrMScAPMSyDNCAX-Z4ITez0T-_6qKACLcB/s640/DANDELIONS%2BAND%2BDAISES%2BBY%2BPARK%2BFENCE%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B26TH%2B2013%2B-%2BIMG_3586%2B-%2BLG.JPG" title="Daisies and dandelions beside the pavement next to an urban park" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not in the book!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
What do I think after reading the book? My conclusion is that if just one light and airy and feathery bamboo is all that can reasonably be fitted into a small space - let it be so. And if you have a bit more space than a gate and a step - use it and use it well but don't over-fill. You can be bright and cheerful or stark and elegant but planning is essential if you'd prefer to avoid disease and clutter. This applies to all small gardens - even back gardens where there's room for a table, a couple of chairs and a water 'feature'.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For my own part, I do suspect some of the plantings are a bit dense. And I don't take all ideas seriously. Nasturtiums don't grow gracefully - though I love them - and I'm wary when books say things like coffee grounds '<i>are said</i>' to act as deterrents to slugs. ''<i>Said to</i>' isn't enough.</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Another thing I've decided is that buying plants in pots, sticking them in the garden for a while, then chucking them away . . . is not necessarily a bad idea. I can hear gasps of horror so I must stress this is me with a new conviction - not necessarily that of the author. People who live in cities and have ultra-small gardens can't always be gardening snobs. For instance, on p.161 there's a display of snowdrops and hyacinths (do hyacinths really need to be staked?) and candles and things, a table, a chair a lamp . . It all looks very pretty but where will you put all this stuff until you want it again next year? Will these plants ever come up again? Un-established snowdrops are certainly a bit iffy second time round.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UBs6pX-mZT4/WLrR9eJTQyI/AAAAAAAAGmI/lkb_QZim2_wue5Hsiki6CzHIgTBkeOYQwCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BDANDELIONS%2BWITH%2BBRICK%2BWALL%2BAND%2BIVY%2B-%2BJULY%2B4TH%2B2012%2B-%2BIMG_6244%2B-%2B10%2B%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Self seeded dandelions growing through tarmac next to a brick wall" border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UBs6pX-mZT4/WLrR9eJTQyI/AAAAAAAAGmI/lkb_QZim2_wue5Hsiki6CzHIgTBkeOYQwCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BDANDELIONS%2BWITH%2BBRICK%2BWALL%2BAND%2BIVY%2B-%2BJULY%2B4TH%2B2012%2B-%2BIMG_6244%2B-%2B10%2B%25282%2529.jpg" title="Self seeded dandelions growing through tarmac next to a brick wall" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not in the book! (But there can never be too many dandelions to cheer a page!)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So, in Desert Island style . . of the books I've reviewed, which will I take to Halifax? (If I go.)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
This book about small gardens will be one.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<a href="https://looseandleafy.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/rhs-half-hour-allotoment-lia-leendertz.html" target="_blank">Leah Lindeertz' book about allotment</a>s another.<br />
Possibly last week's book '<a href="https://looseandleafy.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/101-gardening-hacks-review.html" target="_blank">101 Gardening Hacks</a>' by Shawna Coronado because I'd like to stay inspired about compost. (But I'm not sure.)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And maybe the '<a href="https://looseandleafy.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/book-review-happy-home-outside-by.html" target="_blank">Happy Home Outside</a>' (by Charlotte Hedeman Gueniau) because it cheers me up and makes me laugh. Or perhaps I'd regretfully leave that behind. It's one thing to joke about filling one's garden with cushions and carpets and outside cinemas. It's another to imagine not having a garden big enough to not put them in. Already I can feel tears stinging.</div>
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Do I want to live in a city? Perhaps. Perhaps not.</div>
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But if I do, I'll take a bit of hedgerow with me and sow dandelions all along the streets - at the foot of as many walls as I can. There are plenty of walls. And plenty of pollution. And plenty of dust. So maybe dandelions would turn their noses up. I hope they wouldn't though. Some are tough.<br />
<br />
<span style="color: blue;"><i>'Urban Flowers - Creating Abundance in a Small City Garden' - Frances Lincoln - £20 - Sent for review in March but not to be published till April 6th 2017.</i></span><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
Gosh! That's ages away yet. Enough time for <a href="https://www.quartoknows.com/Frances-Lincoln" target="_blank">Frances Lincoln</a> (are you listening dear Frances Lincoln?) to commission me to write a book about Street Plants! You know - the wild kinds.<br />
<br /></div>
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-87789173445950477392017-02-25T16:13:00.000+00:002017-02-26T09:04:33.563+00:00101 ORGANIC GARDENING HACKS - A REVIEW<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZYDX2CaQvHU/WLGiGMvrBEI/AAAAAAAAGk4/x6oWsXux1ZUINT7gN2aKKcVJUJNusMgIACLcB/s1600/101%2BOrganic%2BGardening%2BHacks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Cover of 101 Organic Gardening Hacks by Shawna Coronado" border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ZYDX2CaQvHU/WLGiGMvrBEI/AAAAAAAAGk4/x6oWsXux1ZUINT7gN2aKKcVJUJNusMgIACLcB/s640/101%2BOrganic%2BGardening%2BHacks.jpg" title="Cover of 101 Organic Gardening Hacks by Shawna Coronado" width="560" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This picture came with an email before the book arrived.<br />
Maybe one day I'll take pictures of what's inside!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Shall I tell you my woes? My camera isn't mended. I've smashed my phone (I fell over) and the speaker I dance around the house to got knocked off its bookcase so the music it spouts sounds tinny.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Right. Having got that out of my system . . . there's a book I was sent ages ago for reviewing and I've been meaning to tell you about it ever since and would have done if I hadn't been feeling so very bolshy about not being able to take photos of it.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">It's 101 Organic Gardening Hacks by </span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Shawna Coronado.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Cool Springs Press </span>Minnesota<span style="font-family: inherit;">.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">(</span>Minnesota!)</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I like it. (I'll say that fast before you think I'm about to be hyper-critical as usual.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">But before I enthuse, I'll mentions a few 'buts' about the title. It's probably the English / American thing. To me a 'hack' is negative - 'old
hack', 'hacking into a computer', 'hacking a horse' (whatever that means) 'hacks in fingers' during cold weather or after doing too much washing up; and taxis. (Hackney cabs.) Computer hackers have been getting a better press recently. 'Hacking' in computersese seems not so much to mean 'breaking in' or 'cheating' but going straight to the point with skill and disregard for convention. Something like that.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
'Organic' confused me too. It's not really about organic gardening but it's a book about gardening by someone who happens to do organic gardening. In other words, it's practical rather than proselytising. You wouldn't need to be an organic gardener to find it useful.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Getting there!</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The '101' bit.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The book has wonderful advice but there's also what I would call 'padding'. '101' is probably a number publishers (?) like . . . '37' or '93' wouldn't have the same zing. And by padding I mean things like how to renovate a chandelier so you can hang it in your garden . . . or disguising your shed by putting screens and metal gates round it (what's wrong with garden sheds? I like garden sheds!) . . . or how to decorate your fence by sticking spades on it.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And at the risk of spending all the review space on the title, 'hacks' makes it sound as if the 101 ideas are easy - like growing carrots in a wellington boots. You know the kind of thing.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The cover's very jaunty and the insides are attractively displayed and widely spread - so it looks as if we can flick through and imagine gardening's a doddle. (A popular theme on the gardening shelf.)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So why do I like this book?</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It doesn't go for the 'doddle'.</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The big deal thing which won me over was that the first 22 'hacks' are solidly about soil and composting. (I'll miss the bits I found irritating in the introduction.) And while it all sounds fun - like making a muddy mixture with earth and tipping in vinegar or baking soda to measure the ph of soil by seeing if it bubbles (waaaaaaaaay!) . . . it's the first book to make me wish I had an allotment - and that the work involved would be properly serious. All of a sudden I want to experiment with making compost. I'm not sure I'd bother with growing veg. - I'd just spend my days making compost in different ways. Shawna does happen to suggest coffee grounds are useful. Maybe they are but I'm a dubious. In my hands they go white and furry. But my hands are not her hands! Clearly. And I'm not sure she mentions what kind of worms you should use. Ordinary earth worms wouldn't be interested. (If I were a good reviewer I'd re-read it to find out but I'm not going to.) Never mind - the thing is . . . all of a sudden, I'd like to go into compost production. (Can you really buy worm casts at garden centres?)</div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br /></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sphu8yDB7yk/WLGhrHcONgI/AAAAAAAAGk8/ePs9yf18gDsGDuCfiHTLrKj3RvB2ymmdgCEw/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BSIGNPOST%2B-%2BFEBRUARY%2B18TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0457%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Three handed footpath sign." border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sphu8yDB7yk/WLGhrHcONgI/AAAAAAAAGk8/ePs9yf18gDsGDuCfiHTLrKj3RvB2ymmdgCEw/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BSIGNPOST%2B-%2BFEBRUARY%2B18TH%2B2017%2B-%2BIMG_0457%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Three handed footpath sign." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the only picture which has come from my camera in ages so I'll use it.<br />
I've got a grump about notices like these.<br />
What if motorways had signs which pointed just to 'roads' in every direction.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
It's definitely an American book and inclines to hot weather gardening. Cacti don't like Dorset even though it's hot compared with other parts of the British Isles. And succulents are expensive. I don't need to know how to attract hummingbirds (however much I'd like to) and don't think Japanese Beetles cause much of a problem in the UK. (Though one day they might so perhaps it's good to have this book on hand in case they do.) I can't find bee-preservers in our local gardening centre (or even on Amazon) but that's no matter; finding a way to give bees access to water without risking they'll drown is worth thinking about.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Apart from some things (like edging a path with old wine bottles) I think it's a very respectful book. Gardening may be fun but it's not 'a laugh' in the sense of 'anything goes'. It's a sensible mixture of different kinds of information.The easy-to-make garden bench looks ok. And the suggestion that we should try deep-planting tomatoes is interesting - especially when accompanied, as it is, by an explanation about different types of tomatoes. (I didn't know there are 'determinate' and 'indeterminate' ones. Did you?)</div>
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<br /></div>
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And there are a few 'tips' of the kind which are obvious once you've thought of them - like storing hoses in figures of eight to stop them kinking while stored away . . . or using flour on the earth to mark out garden designs before planting.</div>
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Yup. I'd recommend it.<br />
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P.S. I like the instruction that you shouldn't drink tea made from manure.</div>
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And I like it that arthritis gets a nod,</div>
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And that it's the first gardening book I've read with bison in it.</div>
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</div>
Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-26768424083521360992017-01-02T13:12:00.000+00:002017-02-25T16:14:34.467+00:00OH BOTHER<div style="text-align: justify;">
This is going to sound horribly, horribly familiar - but the lack of posts is once again due to camera failure.</div>
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Best wishes folks.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Lucy</div>
Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-56730376522749999662016-12-03T20:57:00.001+00:002016-12-03T21:58:38.755+00:00TAKE SIXTEEN EGGS AND A SLEDGEHAMMER<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qoJ9XIakzao/WEL3M_8sfBI/AAAAAAAAGj0/kooBqu_ToHUMor5fbrxyb9WIN5M-BRy7gCEw/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2B1925%2B-%2B13%2BEGGS%2B-%2BIMG_0283%2B-%2BBRCON%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Part of the menu for Boxing Day 1925 which includes 13 eggs." border="0" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qoJ9XIakzao/WEL3M_8sfBI/AAAAAAAAGj0/kooBqu_ToHUMor5fbrxyb9WIN5M-BRy7gCEw/s320/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2B1925%2B-%2B13%2BEGGS%2B-%2BIMG_0283%2B-%2BBRCON%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Part of the menu for Boxing Day 1925 which includes 13 eggs." width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<i>In my family, when I was growing up, we had a saying 'Take sixteen eggs'. It meant anything which, while desirable in itself, was in-excess of our, or anyone else's, needs; a reference to Mrs Beeton's cookery.</i></div>
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<div style="text-align: center;">
* * *</div>
</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
This post is about a book I've been sent to review.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
'Build a Better Vegetable Garden</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
30 DIY Projects to Improve Your Harvest'. </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
It's by Joyce Russell with photographs by Ben Russell.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Published by Frances Lincoln.<br />
Publication date - 5th January 2017<br />
£16.99</div>
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<br /></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JXAKqFiFG34/WEL9lTApMzI/AAAAAAAAGkI/TKXmFtYrijwShXV8XbqPMp5-_TrFcfUYQCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BCOOKING%2BUTENSILS%2B-%2BBEETON%2B-%2BIMG_0277%2B-%2BCCON%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="An illustrated introduction to cooking utensils, 1903." border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-JXAKqFiFG34/WEL9lTApMzI/AAAAAAAAGkI/TKXmFtYrijwShXV8XbqPMp5-_TrFcfUYQCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BCOOKING%2BUTENSILS%2B-%2BBEETON%2B-%2BIMG_0277%2B-%2BCCON%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="An illustrated introduction to cooking utensils, 1903." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From a 1903 version of Mrs Beeton's Cookery Book.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
If you've been reading <a href="https://looseandleafy.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Loose and Leafy</a> for a while, you will probably have noticed that I tend to be a bit cynical about books I review. When it comes to gardening my thought is that you only need one book. This book, in my narrow-minded opinion, would have information about seasons - when to sow and when to reap - rotation, pruning, a bit about composting, a bit about digging, a large section on pests and friendly insects (instars included). Beyond that, I'd write in big letters - READ THE PACKET and TAKE NOTE OF THE LABEL. That's it. You need nothing more. (If you want to grow cacti on windowsills . . . well . . . . )</div>
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<br /></div>
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Despite this, I get real joy from books recommending you <a href="https://looseandleafy.blogspot.co.uk/2016/06/book-review-happy-home-outside-by.html" target="_blank">take cushions from your house and put them in the garden</a>, or that reckon you'll have the <a href="https://looseandleafy.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/rhs-half-hour-allotoment-lia-leendertz.html" target="_blank">time and wealth to build beautiful paths and sheds</a> on your allotment before spending only half an hour each day on the veg.. I like pictures. I like absurdity.</div>
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<br /></div>
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But I don't review all the books I'm sent. 'Sorry,' I say to the kind promoter. ' Sorry, I really can't recommend this'. (One of these rejects included a garden so boring it has now been completely ripped out and completely re-designed and completely re-planted . . . so I feel my judgement on that one has been justified!)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So . . . I'm about to tell you of a book so peculiar I really and truly have lain awake in the night puzzling about who would read it. It's not for me. I doubt it's for you. So what is it for? None the less, I've not put it aside so . . . there must be something which attracts . . .</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
Back to the sixteen eggs.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YV1twVvdpmI/WEL7uqKDDlI/AAAAAAAAGkA/3NbwD3ya-e8k-e1o0MLpJ8Sl3w4i9rgvACLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BBEETON%2B-%2BTINNED%2BOYSTERS%2B-%2BIMG_0281%2B-%2BC%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="An illustrated introduction to cooking utensils, 1903." border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-YV1twVvdpmI/WEL7uqKDDlI/AAAAAAAAGkA/3NbwD3ya-e8k-e1o0MLpJ8Sl3w4i9rgvACLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BBEETON%2B-%2BTINNED%2BOYSTERS%2B-%2BIMG_0281%2B-%2BC%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="An illustrated introduction to cooking utensils, 1903." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">It surprises me that tinned food was in the shops in 1903<br />
- let alone tinned oysters!<br />
If given the choice of simple meals I'd rather eat baked beans on toast.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
One of the Mrs Beeton cookery books I have at home was published in 1903 - an era in which people of modest means were trying to be less modest in what they cooked; and they wanted to present themselves to the world as wealthier and more sophisticated than they really were. So the tone is confidential. It tries to show how one person in a kitchen can provide a meal which would previously have needed several staff to prepare. And although it advises how to truss snipe and serve a calf's head, it also gives a recipe for 'cheap gravy'. Tinned pineapples and peas figure in lists of ingredients.</div>
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</div>
At the front, someone has handwritten a menu for Christmas Dinner dated 1925. Then at the top of a list of meals for Boxing Day, low and behold, they've written 'thirteen fresh eggs'. (See at the top of this post.)<br />
<br />
Now to the book about how to 'Build a Better Vegetable Garden'. (Using wood.)</div>
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<br /></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lTmopI-KFOA/WEL3nHNxg8I/AAAAAAAAGjc/ettOJQUtJFAXEpEQ_XebIMi9OdnMhFOSACLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BCARROT%2BFORT%2B-%2BIMG_0272%2B-%2BLBR%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Protection against carrot fly - Build a Better Garden by Joyce and Ben Russell." border="0" height="300" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lTmopI-KFOA/WEL3nHNxg8I/AAAAAAAAGjc/ettOJQUtJFAXEpEQ_XebIMi9OdnMhFOSACLcB/s400/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BCARROT%2BFORT%2B-%2BIMG_0272%2B-%2BLBR%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Protection against carrot fly - Build a Better Garden by Joyce and Ben Russell." width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Heavy duty protection for carrots.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The 'recipes' here are as mind boggling as calf's heads and, on the whole, also in excess of what most people would want or need. I've turned it around in my own head, over and over - would anyone really take time to build a huge and heavy wooden fort in which to protect carrots from carrot flies descending from the sky instead of leaping sideways? How would I get the carrots out? Where would I put it in the winter? Who would help me cart it around the place. Would its benefits outweigh its challenges?</div>
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<br /></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zUxB1_mpYAs/WEL34xKdJ7I/AAAAAAAAGjg/tNwodEeyo9wPFyI5L0qB_0E7IAfyQdAHwCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BA%2BFRAME%2B-IMG_0264%2B-%2BCL%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Picture of an hinged A-frame for growing runner beans up. Build a Better Garden by Joyce and Ben Russell." border="0" height="300" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-zUxB1_mpYAs/WEL34xKdJ7I/AAAAAAAAGjg/tNwodEeyo9wPFyI5L0qB_0E7IAfyQdAHwCLcB/s400/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BA%2BFRAME%2B-IMG_0264%2B-%2BCL%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Picture of an hinged A-frame for growing runner beans up. Build a Better Garden by Joyce and Ben Russell." width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A way to grow beans,</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<br />
Then there's the hinged construction for growing beans up. Poles can be a bit awkward to tie into lines or wig-wams . . . but it doesn't really take that long if you only need a few . . and it's very satisfying when they're all neatly in place . . . wouldn't a wooden frame which looks like a clothes airer not fly away in our mid-summer storms?</div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Zj3M91-o2wI/WEL4MTaA6NI/AAAAAAAAGjk/r3_1ejoPF48sz5e6U4oX36q9_TNKF0V2wCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BBOOTS%2B-%2BIMG_0266%2B-%2BL%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Salad trays protected from slugs by putting the legs in wellington boots. Build a Better Garden by Joyce and Ben Russell." border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Zj3M91-o2wI/WEL4MTaA6NI/AAAAAAAAGjk/r3_1ejoPF48sz5e6U4oX36q9_TNKF0V2wCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BBOOTS%2B-%2BIMG_0266%2B-%2BL%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Salad trays protected from slugs by putting the legs in wellington boots. Build a Better Garden by Joyce and Ben Russell." width="640" /></a></div>
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And I seriously doubt that many children are likely to be gripped for very long by seeing the legs of 'salad trays' standing in wellington boots filled with 'slug repellent material'. (Interesting concept that; 'slug repellent material'.)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And when it comes to Raspberry Supports - it's not 'take sixteen eggs' but 'make holes in the ground with a crowbar' and 'use a sledgehammer to knock the posts in place'. (I think Mrs Beeton would have recommended employing a local professional and pretending you'd done it yourself.)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
And in terms of health and safety . . . I don't think using a power-tool to drive screws downwards into the sides of frames supported only by hand is sensible. Nor using the lawn as a work bench. Stones are mysterious creatures. You think you've cleared them but they wriggle underground till they're back exactly where you don't want them; and if they've taken residence right under your whirring power drill . . trouble!</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oKKSAVOFxLA/WEL59H4KUBI/AAAAAAAAGjw/X7O2zQXNF2cOzEh2eWVW6JPAZiPKEbbqgCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BREVIEW%2B-%2BTOOLS%2B-%2BIMG_0270%2B-%2BCBRCONSAT%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Pictures of tools from the 'buying tools' section at the beginning of Salad trays protected from slugs by putting the legs in wellington boots. Build a Better Garden by Joyce and Ben Russell." border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-oKKSAVOFxLA/WEL59H4KUBI/AAAAAAAAGjw/X7O2zQXNF2cOzEh2eWVW6JPAZiPKEbbqgCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BREVIEW%2B-%2BTOOLS%2B-%2BIMG_0270%2B-%2BCBRCONSAT%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Pictures of tools from the 'buying tools' section at the beginning of Salad trays protected from slugs by putting the legs in wellington boots. Build a Better Garden by Joyce and Ben Russell." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of the tools recommended in the 'Build a Better Garden' book.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I've used a power drill, a jigsaw and various other conventional saws and planes . . . and from frustrating experience I know woods wobble and wander; and that while clamps are useful, in my non-expert opinion we can all do with a good vice when dealing with large planks of wood. I've gone through decades of being an amateur and you really shouldn't even <i>think</i> of letting me near projects like these without a sturdy work bench. And everyone using this book will need a big budget. Sledgehammers, crowbars, staple guns, saws, hammers and spirit levels are on the shopping list. (You should see the big box she has of drill bits and power screwdrivers and things and - oh my goodness, I hadn't noticed this till now, she even has a circular saw!)</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LFvHqpht_uY/WEL6kC4vyhI/AAAAAAAAGj4/gxzF8W3e5LcJ8LNdcf4bdqVC7hGjG8VTACLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BBEETON%2BLIST%2B-%2BIMG_0278%2B-%2BCCONBR%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Things (like 6 Wrought Iron Stewpans) recommended for a 1903 kitchen, along with estimates of cost. (Mrs Beeton.)" border="0" height="400" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LFvHqpht_uY/WEL6kC4vyhI/AAAAAAAAGj4/gxzF8W3e5LcJ8LNdcf4bdqVC7hGjG8VTACLcB/s400/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BBEETON%2BLIST%2B-%2BIMG_0278%2B-%2BCCONBR%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Things (like 6 Wrought Iron Stewpans) recommended for a 1903 kitchen, along with estimates of cost. (Mrs Beeton.)" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of the kitchen tools recommended<br />
for home cooking in 1903.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
So . . . why am I telling you about this book when it could be dangerous in the hands of a ham-fisted amateur; and when there's not much point in buying it if you're a professional because you'll know it all already? I enjoy a bit of digging now and then, and I'd like to live in a big house with a big and beautiful garden and space to store carrot forts, but I'm unconvinced everything here is truly useful.</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
(To some degree, it's a matter of taste too. I love cold frames but beyond that I like an uncluttered atmosphere in vegetable gardens.)</div>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
Back to the question then - why am I writing about this book? And, for that matter, why did I lie in bed wondering why I'd decided I would do so?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H_f0jqdaIH4/WEL5OdWaKSI/AAAAAAAAGjo/D6wALiunt4I8c7iBArul_eZ_ryK7ZI8QwCLcB/s1600/LOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BRASPBERRY%2BCANES%2B-%2BIMG_0275%2B-%2BCRCL%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Illustration of raspberries and raspberry canes. Build a Better Garden by Joyce and Ben Russell." border="0" height="460" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-H_f0jqdaIH4/WEL5OdWaKSI/AAAAAAAAGjo/D6wALiunt4I8c7iBArul_eZ_ryK7ZI8QwCLcB/s640/LOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BRASPBERRY%2BCANES%2B-%2BIMG_0275%2B-%2BCRCL%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Illustration of raspberries and raspberry canes. Build a Better Garden by Joyce and Ben Russell." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the kind of thing I admire but can never achieve.<br />
Perfect and beautiful symmetry.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I think it's because I'm not a mathematician. I'm a disorganised muddler. And to be a carpenter you have to be incredibly good at making very precise angles. Precise angles are beyond me. So I admire them; and look at the perfectly placed holes for screws and am struck down by their beauty in round-ness and symmetry. And I read the simple instruction that the sides of a box should reach down beside its base, not be perched upon it . . . and I think 'wow, I would never have thought of that yet I can see clearly now why it should be thus'. And I look at the power drill and admire the writer who is bound to use it well; in contrast with me; for my drill turns itself dangerously on whenever I pick it up. (Because I've never been strong enough to grasp the handle without pressing the 'go' button by mistake.)</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
So, this book is, I've decided, a kind of philosophy of wonder . . . of how can anyone be this precise and clever? . . . and why would anyone want these things? . . . and would I buy all this equipment unless I wanted a career in carrot-fort construction? . . . and why did the 1925 list-maker think it necessary to pencil into the front of her Mrs Beeton cookery book that her family would be subsisting on a relentless diet of potatoes, cold ham, cheese and swedes once Christmas Day was over?</div>
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<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
For the thirteen fresh eggs which figure at the top of 'what's needed for Boxing Day' vanish as soon as they're mentioned. So here's another context in which we can say 'take sixteen eggs'. The strange desire for such superfluities surfaces when, although we don't specially want to be mega-rich, we'd wistfully like to have a little more than we have just at present. So we write 'take sixteen eggs' before knuckling down and trying to pretend, as that list maker did, that serving potato mashed is enough of a variation to make a plain diet festively exciting. And we write 'work bench' on our Father Christmas list before sticking bean poles in the ground as usual.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: right;">
. . . except . . . except . . . I also have a cookery book which advises</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
how to cook spinach . . . </div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
and ignoring all other recipes in it, it's worth the price for that alone . . .</div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
And for some of us </div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
having it explained how to make a wooden raised bed </div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
that doesn't wobble would be </div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
. . . pretty handy . . . hm.</div>
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-45862466146544009622016-11-11T18:51:00.001+00:002016-11-11T18:54:44.420+00:00GOLDEN LIGHT AT THE ASHMOLEAN<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vWdgiLWq2Ww/WCYL-h9EgKI/AAAAAAAAGiY/NoTiCiudxNgI2frsmflqO0yT037JsIkwACLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BASHMOLEAN%2B-%2BNOVEMEBER%2B10TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0214%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Light from the courtyard spilling down some steps onto the street" border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vWdgiLWq2Ww/WCYL-h9EgKI/AAAAAAAAGiY/NoTiCiudxNgI2frsmflqO0yT037JsIkwACLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BASHMOLEAN%2B-%2BNOVEMEBER%2B10TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0214%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Light from the courtyard spilling down some steps onto the street" width="480" /></a></div>
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The other side of Oxford; its golden light. Lots of places have golden light but if the sun happens to shine like mad in the middle of a rainy day in a place where the stones are dull and the pavements grey . . . and you (oh so surprisingly) have your camera to hand . . . well, what do you do? You look for street plants, that's what.</div>
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I'd arranged to meet a friend outside the <a href="http://www.ashmus.ox.ac.uk/" target="_blank">Ashmolean Museum</a> but was a little early. I could have gone in - seen the Rembrandt Paintings . . the Viking Hoard . . masses of things bound to be special. A notice outside says it's the oldest museum in the country. (And of course, as we know, it's one of the best) . . . BUT . . if I were an exhibit, although I'd be proud to be there . . . I'd probably be a little vain by now and wouldn't be too chuffed if a scruffy woman in worn-out shoes came and stared into my eyes. And however famous I was, I reckon I'd be a little overwhelmed too. All those visitors; in-out, in-out. All day. No peace for a statue or a painting! So, respectfully, I decided to leave them alone and potter around looking for plants instead.</div>
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My world is somewhat divided into places where weed-killers are used . . . and places where they are not. The area in front of the Ashmolean must be a killing field. Could I find little seedlings between paving stones? No. Little trees up on the rooftops? No. So, having walked up and down the courtyard for a while ( 'courtyard' is probably the wrong word because it has a side missing) . . . I wandered under an arch, down a flight of steps, into the street.</div>
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By every second, the light was losing day. The clocks have already turned to winter and autumn is settling in. But an odd and brilliant shaft of golden sunlight had landed in front of the museum. Here (above) you can see what I mean. Looking back up the steps . . . you can see that tourists gathered outside the main doors are unfairly standing in summer. And for all that my socks are soggy where the rain has crept through my shoes . . a little bit of summer is leaking down the steps onto the wet pavement and has almost reached my feet.</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A6eXf6343Ls/WCYMO96KEtI/AAAAAAAAGic/XjRHIDXF_QcLRx-HCTDUVFSis8j7vmoggCEw/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2B2%2BLEAVES%2BASHMOLEAN%2B-%2BNOVEMEBER%2B10TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0217%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Leaves on paving stones (flags?) outside Ashmolean Museum, Oxford" border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-A6eXf6343Ls/WCYMO96KEtI/AAAAAAAAGic/XjRHIDXF_QcLRx-HCTDUVFSis8j7vmoggCEw/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2B2%2BLEAVES%2BASHMOLEAN%2B-%2BNOVEMEBER%2B10TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0217%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Leaves on paving stones (flags?) outside Ashmolean Museum, Oxford" width="480" /></a></div>
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Retrospectively, I should have gone and stood in summer and imagined it was there specially for me - but I think it was really trying to get to these particular leaves. Some leaves are . . . some leaves are . . . some leaves are as good as anything you find in a museum. I'm not turning ridiculous. If I had to chose between preserving a Rembrandt or an autumn leaf, I would, definitely, definitely, chose the Rembrandt - though with regret. Because for all that leaves are ephemeral and plentiful in a way great paintings are not, they are still absolutely and marvellously incredible. Actually . . . a leaf is more incredible than the very best, the very most beautifullest and insightful painting. It's obvious how a painting came into being (someone picked up a paintbrush and made it) a leaf just is. And if I were in a scientific mood I'd go into paroxysms of praise for its complexity. And how, when I was at school, words like 'zylem' and 'phloem' were magic. (And 'ox-bow lakes' - but that's geography.) (And 'chlorophyll' is pretty good too.)</div>
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Oh, my goodness, where am I?</div>
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Yes. So. While paintings were busily being protected in the museum . . . I was searching for plants beyond attention.</div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BcSuDMy-p1Y/WCYNVmesU6I/AAAAAAAAGik/bUKRwK1Umg49xBZoxswmh1ESaLtk_FqJgCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BASHMOLEAN%2B-%2BGRASS%2B-%2BNOVEMEBER%2B10TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0234%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Little plants where a paving stone has broken outside the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford" border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BcSuDMy-p1Y/WCYNVmesU6I/AAAAAAAAGik/bUKRwK1Umg49xBZoxswmh1ESaLtk_FqJgCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BASHMOLEAN%2B-%2BGRASS%2B-%2BNOVEMEBER%2B10TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0234%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Little plants where a paving stone has broken outside the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford" width="640" /></a></div>
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Back on the terrace (better description than courtyard?) the golden light had vanished (it does!) but a few foot from the main doors; look! a cracked paving stone and a little garden!</div>
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A magnificently rebellious garden. And the most rebellious, the most defiant of all, a little grass plant in flower. See it? Oxford has it in for grass. University authorities must have arranged for armies of gardeners to keep grass under assault. There are acres and acres of lawns . . . mowed and mowed and mowed, battered into uniformity and into wearily precise, ultra-green stripes. Ne're a daisy to be seen. You can't even walk on most of the grass! What do they think grass is <i>for</i> if it's not for growing daisies in and picnicking on? But there you are. Back to big brains missing the point yet again - and tiny plants re-seizing their world.</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ALElUsDnk-k/WCYNqwMXOZI/AAAAAAAAGio/ttCNJX68tbcDrf_tSPJ80dN2hwjrNaLdACLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BASHMOLEAN%2B-%2BLEDGE%2B-%2B%2BNOVEMEBER%2B10TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0235%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Dead plant on window sill by column at Ashmolean Museum, Oxford" border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ALElUsDnk-k/WCYNqwMXOZI/AAAAAAAAGio/ttCNJX68tbcDrf_tSPJ80dN2hwjrNaLdACLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BASHMOLEAN%2B-%2BLEDGE%2B-%2B%2BNOVEMEBER%2B10TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0235%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Dead plant on window sill by column at Ashmolean Museum, Oxford" width="640" /></a></div>
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And, by chance . . . (it can't really be chance? more that I can't think of a reason?) - one plant on a window sill. A bit of a dead plant admittedly. But that's what most plants ultimately are - dead. It's what they eventually do - die. This one is a real mystery though. Why was it the only one there? How come other window-sills didn't have dead plants too?</div>
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And one last walk under the arch before tea at the top of the museum . . .</div>
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If you have ever wandered between state schools and public ones . . . or FE colleges and wealthy universities . . you notice things like doors. And handrails. The more money a community has to spare, the more it has to live without interesting scratches. Being a bit of a grump-box I tend to think there are better ways to spend money on than polishing doors . . . but . . . Now. Here's a really important question. Why don't statues smile? This isn't the beginning of a joke. I really ask - why it is that citizens in public sculptures stare straight ahead or thoughtfully frown? Cherubs blow out their cheeks and grow fat. Dancing children look dizzily happy and smile past each other as if they've been drugged and frozen mid-prance.</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vMwM4x_Y_Mw/WCYN8XW3uII/AAAAAAAAGis/TY7ask4VHUIBiuG5nOoKrmZr0xmwxL5iQCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BASHMOLEAN%2BSTATUE%2B-%2BNOVEMEBER%2B10TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0231%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Bust of a smiling man beyond windows in polished wooden doors." border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vMwM4x_Y_Mw/WCYN8XW3uII/AAAAAAAAGis/TY7ask4VHUIBiuG5nOoKrmZr0xmwxL5iQCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BASHMOLEAN%2BSTATUE%2B-%2BNOVEMEBER%2B10TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0231%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Bust of a smiling man beyond windows in polished wooden doors." width="640" /></a></div>
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Yet . . . under the arch . . . where the doors are polished and clean . . . looking out and smiling . . . the bust of a smiling man. Does anyone know who he is? Why he is there? Why he is smiling? I took his photograph with a wink of complicity. I doubt many people notice the garden in the broken paving stone . . . or a remnant of summer on a window-sill . . . But he and I shared something. I was looking for a world-un-noticed and he was looking un-noticed onto a world where a little bit of golden light had got itself left behind under an arch.</div>
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(Of course, he may turn out to be a mass murderer, chortling cheerfully over his crimes. Let's hope not!)</div>
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-74152867692882431292016-10-26T16:25:00.003+01:002016-10-26T17:09:57.321+01:00STREET PLANTS AND STREET PEOPLE<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cN3Rpo_Nfw4/WBDGJWTePpI/AAAAAAAAGhM/TkauYL9RexAiSComhzVkR4K4FwYqgafEgCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSOW%2BTHISTLE%2BON%2BWALL%2B-%2BJUNE%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0354%2B-%2B2045.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Sow thistle on wall after flowering." border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-cN3Rpo_Nfw4/WBDGJWTePpI/AAAAAAAAGhM/TkauYL9RexAiSComhzVkR4K4FwYqgafEgCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSOW%2BTHISTLE%2BON%2BWALL%2B-%2BJUNE%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0354%2B-%2B2045.jpg" title="Sow thistle on wall after flowering." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A sow thistle growing on a wall may flower and thrive.<br />
A human with no-where to go will be less successful.</td></tr>
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As you know - can't fail to have missed - I am impressed by street plants. They live in shop doorways and gutters and flourish there. People don't.</div>
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You may also have gathered from previous posts that I visit Oxford from time to time. What I haven't said in these posts is that while photographing street plants, I've been taken aback by how many people live on pavements there too. I mean, in almost every town people sleep rough - but in Oxford, to an outsider like me, the visible numbers are shocking - so many doorways are every night turned into cramped, temporary bedrooms.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JvhjLZCSnV0/WBDG6Ioi2vI/AAAAAAAAGhQ/uNB50PFlX6A5bHbR7K8cWDjKNvWgBG5LgCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BTREE%2BIN%2BA%2BDRAIN%2B-%2BJUNE%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0345%2B-%2B2045.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Sycamore tree growing in rain drain." border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JvhjLZCSnV0/WBDG6Ioi2vI/AAAAAAAAGhQ/uNB50PFlX6A5bHbR7K8cWDjKNvWgBG5LgCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BTREE%2BIN%2BA%2BDRAIN%2B-%2BJUNE%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0345%2B-%2B2045.jpg" title="Sycamore tree growing in rain drain." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The sycamore tree in a drain we have followed for the last few years <br />
still lives but is getting a bit cramped. <br />
Drains are not meant for trees - nor shop doorways for humans.<br />
June 2016</td></tr>
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I don't understand. Oxford is a place with one of the best universities in the world. It's a place stodgy with outstanding brains. You'd have thought they could have set aside some time to put their intellectual heads together and work out what can be done.</div>
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Meanwhile, council funding for charities working with and for homeless people in Oxford has been cut by £1.5 million this year.</div>
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I don't want to go on about Oxford over much. It's just happens to be where I get most shocked. It's the place where I think about homelessness more than I do anywhere else - even more than where I live. It's the place where I think, over and over "what are minds for if not for addressing these kinds of basic needs?" And it's where (I expect you were waiting for this . . . ) where I know someone who is taking part in an event to raise a little of the money charities need to help those who are homeless, or newly homeless, or newly with a roof over their heads. Having somewhere to stay - though important - is not the end of the matter. It means a life-style change and that doesn't necessarily come easy to everyone.</div>
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<a href="http://www.oxhop.org.uk/howyoucanhelp/fundraising/oxfordbigsleepout/" target="_blank">THE BIG OXFORD SLEEP-OUT</a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2laUaEZI2jg/WBDIXnjP0rI/AAAAAAAAGhY/h1LjXsEnMZkZPw4lZG_3ndtCk2bp7V-6ACLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BPLANTS%2BIN%2BGUTTER%2B-%2BJUNE%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0353%2B-%2B2045.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Two plants in a dry kerb" border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2laUaEZI2jg/WBDIXnjP0rI/AAAAAAAAGhY/h1LjXsEnMZkZPw4lZG_3ndtCk2bp7V-6ACLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BPLANTS%2BIN%2BGUTTER%2B-%2BJUNE%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0353%2B-%2B2045.jpg" title="Two plants in a dry kerb" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Weymouth, June 2016</td></tr>
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It's always hard to think of an event that will draw people to raise money, to raise consciousness, to 'make something happen' without it being naff or offensive. Selling jam to raise money for famine victims it's . . . well, there's something uncomfortable about it. So it may be that the group of students and local citizens who will be 'sleeping-out' for one night may find it a bit awkward . . . Being in the open for one night is not the same as curling up under a cardboard box every night in November. However . . . however . . . however awkward it feels . . . sometimes if money is needed you have to go with the ideas you come up with; ideas that are within your reach to fulfil</div>
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By clicking the link you'll go to the Just Giving page of a first-time fundraiser. She won't be the only one coming at this from scratch but she happens to be the one I know . . . And while each participant has been asked to raise £100 by being cold for a few hours . . . it would be good if every one of them were to raise more, for it's not for themselves they are doing it.</div>
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<a href="https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/amysbigsleepout" target="_blank"><br /></a></div>
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<a href="https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/amysbigsleepout" target="_blank">Here's the link</a>.</div>
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If any of you do feel moved to give - perhaps you will think of those street plants</div>
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And how people are rarely as resilient as they are.</div>
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Money raised will be shared between</div>
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<a href="http://www.oxhop.org.uk/" target="_blank">Oxford Homeless Pathways</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.connectionfs.org/" target="_blank">Connection Floating Support</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.aspireoxford.co.uk/" target="_blank">Aspire, Oxford</a></div>
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<i>Photos in this post were taken in Dorset, not in Oxford. But these kinds of plants live in both places.</i></div>
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<a href="http://looseandleafy.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/STREET%20PLANTS" target="_blank">Some other Loose and Leafy Street Plant posts</a>.</div>
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<a class="twitter-share-button" data-dnt="true" data-hashtags="homelessness" data-text="Loose and Leafy - Street Plants and Street People" data-url="http://tinyurl.com/gobje34" data-via="LucyCorrander" href="https://twitter.com/share">Tweet</a> <script>!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0],p=/^http:/.test(d.location)?'http':'https';if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src=p+'://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js';fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document, 'script', 'twitter-wjs');</script><br />
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<i><span style="color: #0b5394;">P.S. I suddenly realise it looks a bit odd, exhorting you to give when it seems (from the list) as if I haven't done so myself! But due to the nature of my card I had to use the 'anonymous' option.</span></i></div>
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-57434180282780097772016-10-23T17:24:00.000+01:002016-10-28T16:50:18.700+01:00DORSET<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ushiFquyCK0/WAySsaWXyCI/AAAAAAAAGgE/5uogdUZDGaAAcyDC3QrfJ5HoE2LO6ZvQwCEw/s1600/1%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSEA%2BWITH%2BMEN%2B-%2BWEST%2BBEXINGTON%2B-%2BAUG%2B28TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0023%2B-%2Bcr1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="The sea at dusk; West Bexington, Dorset" border="0" height="450" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-ushiFquyCK0/WAySsaWXyCI/AAAAAAAAGgE/5uogdUZDGaAAcyDC3QrfJ5HoE2LO6ZvQwCEw/s640/1%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSEA%2BWITH%2BMEN%2B-%2BWEST%2BBEXINGTON%2B-%2BAUG%2B28TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0023%2B-%2Bcr1.jpg" title="The sea at dusk; West Bexington, Dorset" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>West Bexington, Dorset</i></td></tr>
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I was recently in Halifax. I'd not been before. And I was eating out. Something I rarely do.</div>
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The front of house staff seemed all to be university students and I wondered how far they'd had to travel to get to work. But the young man assigned to our table was still (surprisingly) at school - and assiduous in making sure we were happy with our food and happily chatty. We asked him what it's like to live in Halifax. It didn't sound wildly exciting - simply a pleasant place to live. We asked about town centre violence. He didn't seem to think there was any; though it sometimes gets a bit crowded, he said, outside the only late-opening chip shop.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KZ2bHqGELe0/WAySuVVZpsI/AAAAAAAAGgc/4vu0lBo76SEGJXWw_BwxgVl1XM05xIxzQCEw/s1600/2%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BVILLAGE%2BFROM%2BGOLDEN%2BCAP%2B-%2BOCT.%2B22ND%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0051%2B-%2B2045.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Looking down on Chideock, Dorset" border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KZ2bHqGELe0/WAySuVVZpsI/AAAAAAAAGgc/4vu0lBo76SEGJXWw_BwxgVl1XM05xIxzQCEw/s640/2%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BVILLAGE%2BFROM%2BGOLDEN%2BCAP%2B-%2BOCT.%2B22ND%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0051%2B-%2B2045.jpg" title="Looking down on Chideock, Dorset" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Looking down on Chideock, Dorset</i></td></tr>
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He asked about Dorset.</div>
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Well, we had to admit, you need to be careful when you go into Weymouth. There are fights. There are knives. There are drugs. It's a great seaside town; a popular holiday destination. But people get drunk when it's dark. (And earlier.) They can be noisy and querulous.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-67y8f2DGLYU/WAyS51pMtVI/AAAAAAAAGgk/XvPaCaNw_sYXUCbRU453PcmedbpjcoppQCEw/s1600/3%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BCONICAL%2BHILL%2BFROM%2BGOLDEN%2BCAP%2B-%2BOCT.%2B22ND%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0052%2B-%2B2045.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Conical hill, ploughed field and sea taken from the path up to Golden Cap, Dorset" border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-67y8f2DGLYU/WAyS51pMtVI/AAAAAAAAGgk/XvPaCaNw_sYXUCbRU453PcmedbpjcoppQCEw/s640/3%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BCONICAL%2BHILL%2BFROM%2BGOLDEN%2BCAP%2B-%2BOCT.%2B22ND%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0052%2B-%2B2045.jpg" title="Conical hill, ploughed field and sea taken from the path up to Golden Cap, Dorset" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Looking across ploughed fields in shadow on the way up to Golden Cap, Dorset</i></td></tr>
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But apart from that . . . Well, it's stereotypical English countryside only more dramatic: huge hills with soft grass; green valleys, sheep, cows, thatched roofs, cottages, cliffs and the sea.</div>
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Rural England has other stereotypes; calendar images of Essex, Sussex and Kent: village ponds and windmills and interesting Churches. They are all accurate. As are half timbered walls, bricks and flint. Then there's Stone Henge in Wiltshire. (But the plains of England are largely ignored.)</div>
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And there's London. Hm. London. London is London. It's not exactly 'England'.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6B2RIPeB8Vk/WAyS8HCVktI/AAAAAAAAGgk/ET1gh8gJoKMIyfKb9_WsYDhtdV1Vo9wGQCEw/s1600/4%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BCLIFF%2BAND%2BPATH%2BFROM%2BGOLDEN%2BCAP%2B-%2BOCT.%2B22ND%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0054%2B-%2B2045.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="South coast cliffs, the sea and an autumn hedgerow on the way up to Golden Cap, Dorset" border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6B2RIPeB8Vk/WAyS8HCVktI/AAAAAAAAGgk/ET1gh8gJoKMIyfKb9_WsYDhtdV1Vo9wGQCEw/s640/4%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BCLIFF%2BAND%2BPATH%2BFROM%2BGOLDEN%2BCAP%2B-%2BOCT.%2B22ND%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0054%2B-%2B2045.jpg" title="South coast cliffs, the sea and an autumn hedgerow on the way up to Golden Cap, Dorset" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Path and Cliffs from Golden Cap, Dorset</i></td></tr>
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Talking with our waiter, I was a little embarrassed. Yorkshire covers a huge huge area of England. It's a strapping great band going from almost-the-sea in the West to the North Sea in the East. In the North and West there are tremendous hills, almost un-scalable. And plains which seem to go on for ever in the East. But for all that, I don't think these are the areas people in other parts of the world will first think of when they hear the word 'England'. It's odd. Because when we sing 'Jerusalem' (oh so very 'English'!) it's the hills and mills of places like Yorkshire we have in mind.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PWdXd9dnnW4/WAyS9-g2CyI/AAAAAAAAGgk/HrxrJ68378oUPttDG7j4zrEZkLqu6R1agCEw/s1600/5%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BCOAST%2BVIEW%2BFROM%2BGOLDEN%2BCAP%2B-%2BOCT.%2B22ND%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0059%2B-%2B2045.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Cliffs and sea. Looking East from the top of Golden Cap, Dorset." border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PWdXd9dnnW4/WAyS9-g2CyI/AAAAAAAAGgk/HrxrJ68378oUPttDG7j4zrEZkLqu6R1agCEw/s640/5%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BCOAST%2BVIEW%2BFROM%2BGOLDEN%2BCAP%2B-%2BOCT.%2B22ND%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0059%2B-%2B2045.jpg" title="Cliffs and sea. Looking East from the top of Golden Cap, Dorset." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>View East from the top of <u>Golden Cap</u> - the tallest cliff on the South Coast of England. Dorset</i></td></tr>
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In Halifax there are the skeletons of massive mills, a tangle of motorway style bridges and roundabouts, but no thatched cottages. I'm used to looking out over great expanses of water. Halifax has reservoirs dotted around its outskirts but it doesn't have the sea. It doesn't even have a river.</div>
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If you are keen on water . . . In Todmorden (only a few miles west of Halifax) a woman told me it's not so much that you need to like rain to live there but that you have to enjoy swimming through air. And as last winter's floods showed - sometimes you'll find yourself wading up streets.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LO1ymeF-6QU/WAyS_NUNmaI/AAAAAAAAGgY/htZjmrmTZhEiNAO1uG4x_pKYS4vZ6ECAgCEw/s1600/6%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSEA%2B-%2BABBOTSBURY%2B%2BBRIDPORT%2B-%2BAUG.%2B28TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0010%2B-%2B2045.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Pools of sunlight on the sea between Abbotsbury and Bridport, Dorset" border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LO1ymeF-6QU/WAyS_NUNmaI/AAAAAAAAGgY/htZjmrmTZhEiNAO1uG4x_pKYS4vZ6ECAgCEw/s640/6%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSEA%2B-%2BABBOTSBURY%2B%2BBRIDPORT%2B-%2BAUG.%2B28TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_0010%2B-%2B2045.jpg" title="Pools of sunlight on the sea between Abbotsbury and Bridport, Dorset" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>Pools of light on the sea.<br />Taken from the road between Abbotsbury and Bridport in Dorset.<br />This is daytime and the photo is in colour.<br />Sometimes the sun is so bright neither your eyes nor your camera can accommodate<br />the Mediterranean blue of the English Channel here.</i></td></tr>
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I like Halifax. Though I took no photos. (Another time!) Halifax has masses that our part of Dorset lacks. But being asked what Dorset is like . . . I thought of the sea and the rivers and the cliffs and the hills . . . and for all that there's no-where like Yorkshire . . . there's no-where like Dorset either. And the thing about Dorset, as I've said before, hardly anyone knows it's here.</div>
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-19711146778444092772016-06-15T13:40:00.002+01:002016-06-15T19:36:14.309+01:00BOOK REVIEW: HAPPY HOME OUTSIDE BY CHARLOTTE HEDEMAN GUENIAU<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZJILPJmys48/V1rQQQCwxZI/AAAAAAAAGeY/613iYkt3PzYAf-BGIRmEFmK16Bo7yQLlgCLcB/s1600/Happy%2BHome%2BOutside%2B-%2Bfrom%2BQuarto%2Bsite%2B-%2B9781910254110%2B-%2Badj%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Cover of book - Happy Home Outside by Charlotte Hedeman Guéniau" border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ZJILPJmys48/V1rQQQCwxZI/AAAAAAAAGeY/613iYkt3PzYAf-BGIRmEFmK16Bo7yQLlgCLcB/s640/Happy%2BHome%2BOutside%2B-%2Bfrom%2BQuarto%2Bsite%2B-%2B9781910254110%2B-%2Badj%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Cover of book - Happy Home Outside by Charlotte Hedeman Guéniau" width="554" /></a></div>
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I've only ever kept one book beside my bed before and that was a prayer book. When life got tough I would read the psalms. They are rare, those places and books one can go to knowing someone else understands the trauma life can bring, the despair, the loneliness . . . and can express is so well one can experience solidarity down the millennia.</div>
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So . . . that I keep one of the books sent for review beside my bed may seem horribly trivial in comparison. But <i>I do</i> now keep this book beside my bed - because it makes me laugh. And being made to laugh, to be truly happy, is as important as to be 'understood' or to appreciate poetry. (And the psalms are mega-poetry.)</div>
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It's . . . oh, this is so embarrassing given the build-up . . . the book is 'Happy Home Outside - Everyday Magic for Outdoor Life' by Charlotte Hedeman Guéniau - but it's so desperately funny that if ever I feel a little 'down' I pick it up and laugh. And it's even more astonishing than that. When worries seem <i>overwhelming</i> (and, sometimes, they do) - I pick it up then too - and laugh. It hasn't failed me yet. I go to favourite pages - and laugh. And I drive friends up the wall by opening it randomly and reading out whatever is there so they can laugh too.</div>
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It's a kind of Blue Peter for the wealthy. It's for people who have family, friends or servants (?!) who will carry furniture and carpets from the house, place them in the garden and bring them back in again later. It's for people who just happen to have brightly coloured poles lying around the place so they can make wigwams - upon which they can hang cheerful little rucksacks (pp158-9). Or easy access to pallets to turn into swings (p.102). And big gardens where summer houses can be knocked up and filled with cushions. And houses big enough to project films on . . . and friends who just happen to be expert enough to set up sound systems for your outside cinema (p.155).</div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-coBrfc529So/V1rQfK3Hy8I/AAAAAAAAGeg/pJTn70CdsmwW0TgNryAMReVzh355E33FgCLcB/s1600/LOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BCUSHION%2BFROM%2BHAPPY%2BHOME%2BOUTSIDE%2B-%2BFOR%2BREVIEW%2B-%2BIMG_5435%2B-%2BADJ.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Photo of chair and cushion from the book 'Happy Home Outside by Charlotte Hedeman Guéniau'" border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-coBrfc529So/V1rQfK3Hy8I/AAAAAAAAGeg/pJTn70CdsmwW0TgNryAMReVzh355E33FgCLcB/s640/LOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BCUSHION%2BFROM%2BHAPPY%2BHOME%2BOUTSIDE%2B-%2BFOR%2BREVIEW%2B-%2BIMG_5435%2B-%2BADJ.jpg" title="Photo of chair and cushion from the book 'Happy Home Outside by Charlotte Hedeman Guéniau'" width="640" /></a></div>
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And cushions. Cushions everywhere! Which is the nub of it really. For what this boils down to is, in effect, an extended advert for 'Rice' - a chain of shops which sells cushions. So cushions abound. Great piles of them . . . </div>
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It's a dream world. The colours are fantastic - as are the ideas . . . Decorate your trees with shopping bags or lampshades . . . Fix spoons into your fly screens (p.23). Tape slogans like 'Yess!' to boxes and consider them to be uplifting thoughts (p.71). Have a pink hose (p31).</div>
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It's a world where everything is approached sideways. We are shown how to make curtains for camper-vans by hanging tea-towels on string. Fine. Charlotte's husband gave her a camping van for a wedding present. Well, that's the real issue isn't it? How to find someone who will fall into your arms and give you a camper-van.</div>
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And there's a spiritual side . . . Here's one of my favourite quotes.</div>
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"To be creative together is almost like meditating. When you focus on crafting you are together in a different way - Sometimes you chat and talk, other moments you enjoy silently."</div>
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So what does she suggest you do to reach this measure of companionable stillness? . . . Draw faces on conkers! My own face is breaking into the biggest grin possible while I tell you this. It's brilliant. Unfailing hilarity.</div>
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I am not mocking. Most certainly I am not. And I'm not joking about this book being beside my bed. I'm speaking the complete truth when I say it cheers me up and makes me smile. Indeed I'm sure this will have been the intention behind the book - simple and unadulterated fun. (Fun, that is, <i>and</i> buying cushions!) I expect some who buy it will recreate some of the ideas. Even I may be inspired to make tea in a pot on occasions, and carry it into the garden on a tray instead of bunging mugs in the general direction of friends and getting them to carry them out for themselves. Or I might risk pegging plastic mugs on wires to see what they make of it (p.148). But I doubt I'll 'make my heart sing' by putting on boxing gloves (p170) or waste much time painting croquet mallets pastel colours.</div>
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Somewhere around the house I have Kaffe Fasset's book 'Glorious Colour - Sources of Inspiration for Knitting and Needlepoint'; a book of wonderfully colourful objects all crammed in and arranged to take one's breath away. I don't know how many people have been inspired to churn out cushions and garments because of it - but I bet there are masses who've carried it home, gazed at its glories and treasured it regardless of their domestic or creative abilities.</div>
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I've looked through some other reviews of this one. Some take it as a serious selection of ideas to be followed through. Some think it a bit weak and rushed out - or a coffee table book or . . . But I think it's a right ole laugh and having a right ole laugh is so important to all of our health I say - go and buy it. I don't know how successful it's been as a publication. It's been out for several months and <a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Happy-Home-Outside-Everyday-Outdoor/dp/1910254118" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">hasn't one review</a> on the UK Amazon. But I like it.</div>
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Happy Home Outside - Everyday Magic for Outdoor Life - published by <a href="http://www.quartoknows.com/Jacqui-Small" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Jaqui Small</a> and sent me to review by <a href="http://www.quartoknows.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Quarto Books</a>.</div>
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The photo credits are to <a href="http://www.skovdal.dk/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Skovdal&Skovdal</a>. With books like this . . (they are picture books really, aren't they?) those who take the pictures should be right up there on the front cover in BIG letters.</div>
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-23848847279520656402016-06-08T18:51:00.000+01:002016-06-08T19:00:50.648+01:00A WALK IN MAY (YES, UNFORTUNATELY, MAY!)<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5qcwjR0x_qE/V1hRBDSodQI/AAAAAAAAGds/oM4Q71weY6ghSM7vpWxk7CwZfHL4cfFgQCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BDANDELION%2BSEEDS%2B-%2BMAY%2B17TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5415%2B-%2Bcrl.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Dandelion head with no petals and most seeds gone" border="0" height="586" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5qcwjR0x_qE/V1hRBDSodQI/AAAAAAAAGds/oM4Q71weY6ghSM7vpWxk7CwZfHL4cfFgQCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BDANDELION%2BSEEDS%2B-%2BMAY%2B17TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5415%2B-%2Bcrl.jpg" title="Dandelion head with no petals and most seeds gone" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dandelion seeds don't get enough attention.</td></tr>
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This is significantly maddening.</div>
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For ages it was my laptop. Eventually, I bought a new one. Then, on 20th May, my camera stopped. It's away to be mended but in the meantime . . . no new photos.</div>
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However, some things, within a broad season, don't change and although I took this photo on the 17th May - other dandelions are in a similar phase.</div>
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At this point . . . there were more pictures . . . but I've taken them away. I like the dandelion. It can stand alone.</div>
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-8697102747515453712016-05-27T18:12:00.001+01:002016-05-28T10:39:57.297+01:00RAM, EWE, LAMB - A WALK IN THE WOODS BY HOLFORD<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BBl-rT3jfF4/V0hZy_l19eI/AAAAAAAAGcE/h9ZYPHa1T6Ym5tWW4LNL5qclqDd1V4L_wCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BTREE%2BIN%2BQUANTOCKS%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5504%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Large and twisted tree coming into leaf with thinner trees behind." border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-BBl-rT3jfF4/V0hZy_l19eI/AAAAAAAAGcE/h9ZYPHa1T6Ym5tWW4LNL5qclqDd1V4L_wCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BTREE%2BIN%2BQUANTOCKS%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5504%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Large and twisted tree coming into leaf with thinner trees behind." width="640" /></a></div>
Sometimes I find I'm so familiar with the area I usually explore, I wish I were somewhere else! And, briefly, I was!</div>
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I went for another walk in the Quantocks - this time in a forest . . . or a wood . . . . ? I don't know what the difference is but this wood had a lot of trees in it (which is quite foresty) and I never came to the end of them (which is foresty too). But there was light drifting down through the branches (which is wood-ish) and it was 'magical' not 'frightening' . . . which heads it in the 'wood' direction because, in my mind, a forest has to be at least a little bit disconcerting.</div>
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The foot path followed a wide but shallow stream . . . and I followed the path . . . and here are some of the things I saw.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VZ1gLj-FW1g/V0hZ1_CbEMI/AAAAAAAAGcI/2fNniY8nywoW8yoM_RrFbOY1FsRU6Q7sQCKgB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BFUNGUS%2BON%2BTREE%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5508%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Two dilapidated bracket fungi (green and cream and drooping on trunk of tree." border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-VZ1gLj-FW1g/V0hZ1_CbEMI/AAAAAAAAGcI/2fNniY8nywoW8yoM_RrFbOY1FsRU6Q7sQCKgB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BFUNGUS%2BON%2BTREE%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5508%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Two dilapidated bracket fungi (green and cream and drooping on trunk of tree." width="640" /></a></div>
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Fungi. Yup. Lots of Fungi. Here are some on a . . . birch? Um. Are they Birch Polypore Piptoporus betulinus? Um . . . They were about seven inches across and there were more above them in a line up the trunk - spaced into little clumps like this one.</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7IOXTJNoECE/V0haSIUqecI/AAAAAAAAGcQ/Ff7uVgBpEJ46X9RaL_vUhc1w28fvM99SgCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BFUNGI%2BON%2BDEAD%2BTREE%2BOVER%2BSTREAM%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5601%2B-%2BL%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Black ball-shaped fungi on trunk of tree that's fallen across a stream" border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7IOXTJNoECE/V0haSIUqecI/AAAAAAAAGcQ/Ff7uVgBpEJ46X9RaL_vUhc1w28fvM99SgCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BFUNGI%2BON%2BDEAD%2BTREE%2BOVER%2BSTREAM%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5601%2B-%2BL%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Black ball-shaped fungi on trunk of tree that's fallen across a stream" width="640" /></a></div>
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And little black balls on a dead tree that had fallen across the stream. (I don't know precisely what these kind are but they are similar (only larger) to <a href="http://looseandleafy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/12/the-fungi.html" target="_blank">the ones I came across in a Dorset Beech Wood</a>.)</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ehyuGGPljU0/V0hagWy0HaI/AAAAAAAAGcU/5iyN_Q3wP7cGsz_-SiDxyAzC0_r9cJdRwCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BLICHEN%2BON%2BTREE%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5632%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Pale green plates of (shield-like) lichen on treen." border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ehyuGGPljU0/V0hagWy0HaI/AAAAAAAAGcU/5iyN_Q3wP7cGsz_-SiDxyAzC0_r9cJdRwCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BLICHEN%2BON%2BTREE%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5632%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Pale green plates of (shield-like) lichen on treen." width="640" /></a></div>
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And lichen? Yes. Lichen!</div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Cm6n-cBp-dI/V0hawaka_NI/AAAAAAAAGcc/ACBj1CkqjcIhSwTC08H7Y_6z044au-2GACLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BFERN%2BON%2BSESSILE%2BOAK%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5595%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Silhouette of fern on branch of (sessile?) oak tree." border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Cm6n-cBp-dI/V0hawaka_NI/AAAAAAAAGcc/ACBj1CkqjcIhSwTC08H7Y_6z044au-2GACLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BFERN%2BON%2BSESSILE%2BOAK%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5595%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Silhouette of fern on branch of (sessile?) oak tree." width="640" /></a></div>
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And ferns? Yes, lots of ferns. Plenty on the ground and some above our heads. Here's one on the branch of what I think is a Sessile Oak.</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BffjtHIOrcc/V0hbF6B0-NI/AAAAAAAAGck/ROHdjjVeaYoWHnIJ4mFnfXsDGFmJDTRtQCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BHERB%2BROBERT%2BFLOWER%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5523%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Herb Robert flower peeping through the leaves of Enchanter's Nightshade (Circaea lutetiana)" border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-BffjtHIOrcc/V0hbF6B0-NI/AAAAAAAAGck/ROHdjjVeaYoWHnIJ4mFnfXsDGFmJDTRtQCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BHERB%2BROBERT%2BFLOWER%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5523%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Herb Robert flower peeping through the leaves of Enchanter's Nightshade (Circaea lutetiana)" width="640" /></a></div>
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Flowers? Yes, there were oodles of flowers.<br />
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Here, where the trees are a little thinner and there's a tad more light - a Herb Robert Flower peeping through the leaves of Enchanter's Nightshade! (Which is also a gardener's nightmare.)</div>
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-at8OOolmdwE/V0hbOkg10pI/AAAAAAAAGco/pDnBIXEnmrMf47hHekGGfn6JvKxsf1qgACKgB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BWood-Sorrel%2B%2528Oxalis%2Bacetosella%2529%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5594%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Wood sorrel flower peeping through fallen oak leaves, brambles, moss etc" border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-at8OOolmdwE/V0hbOkg10pI/AAAAAAAAGco/pDnBIXEnmrMf47hHekGGfn6JvKxsf1qgACKgB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BWood-Sorrel%2B%2528Oxalis%2Bacetosella%2529%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5594%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Wood sorrel flower peeping through fallen oak leaves, brambles, moss etc" width="640" /></a></div>
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And here's a little Wood-Sorrel (Oxalis acetosella).<br />
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See oak leaves and blackberry leaves too?</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dsDYjOkrxYc/V0hfB28Mm-I/AAAAAAAAGc8/pw-wEkHprkIVlmzLWor55DZSouYrf6_NgCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSTREAM%2BNEAR%2BHORFORD%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5630%2B-%2BC%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Wide, shallow stream beside bank of exposed tree roots with wooded hill beyond " border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-dsDYjOkrxYc/V0hfB28Mm-I/AAAAAAAAGc8/pw-wEkHprkIVlmzLWor55DZSouYrf6_NgCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSTREAM%2BNEAR%2BHORFORD%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5630%2B-%2BC%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Wide, shallow stream beside bank of exposed tree roots with wooded hill beyond " width="640" /></a></div>
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And here's the stream.</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zOLQwxLR2sQ/V0hi93fPnOI/AAAAAAAAGdM/4DbcYhXdL446pIoAah8IJFaMSZzx0m4gACLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BCADDIS%2BFLY%2BLARVAE%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5614%2B-%2BCR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Hand holding flat stone to show caddis fly cases lifted from shallow stream (in background)." border="0" height="602" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-zOLQwxLR2sQ/V0hi93fPnOI/AAAAAAAAGdM/4DbcYhXdL446pIoAah8IJFaMSZzx0m4gACLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BCADDIS%2BFLY%2BLARVAE%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5614%2B-%2BCR.jpg" title="Hand holding flat stone to show caddis fly cases lifted from shallow stream (in background)." width="640" /></a></div>
And here are Caddis Fly larvae encased by the little pebbles they have each gathered round them for protection. You might like to enlarge this to see better. And have you noticed how clear the stream is?</div>
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And sheep? Yes. Since you ask there were sheep in a field on the other side of the stream at a point where it had taken a bit of a dip. So the field was up on a short bank - and there was a single strand of barbed wire around it.<br />
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Most of the sheep were quietly grazing, eyes down. But the ram in with them was running up and down bellowing, its huge fleece swaying dramatically as it leapt up onto a small promontory, roared and ran down again. And for almost every bellow, a smaller call replied from our side of the stream - only high up so we couldn't see who was making it. On and on it went, bellow, cry, bellow, cry. Of course, as soon as I took out my camera, the ram ran down from the highest, most dramatic part of the view, back into the main body of the field. And the moment I began to film . . . it ran behind a tree. So here is a video of a ram behind a tree bellowing . . . but listen. Bellow, cry. Below cry. (Then I'll tell you what happened next.)<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/hnTWFMDSSDg/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/hnTWFMDSSDg?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></div>
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Well . . . as you see, the ram was heading down to the other end of the field. We followed . . . and round a bend . . . there, waiting for him on the path, were the ewe and the lamb he'd been drawing down from the hill. So out he came from the field - under the barbed wire, along a little beach and over a ford in the stream, went right up to them, greeted them; then turned and started to lead them so he could show them the best place to cross the stream.</div>
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But when the ewe and lamb reached the water they hesitated and stopped. It was only a short distance so he was already scrambling up the bank towards the barbed wire but as soon as he realised they'd lost their nerve, he returned to them and encouraged them to get their feet wet. And across they went. And once he could see they really were fording the stream, he walked on a little to wait. And once they'd caught up, he led them under the wire and back into the field - where all of a sudden it was perfectly quiet and peaceful and everyone went back to eating grass.<br />
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(You might also like simply to listen to the video without watching. You will hear more that way.)</div>
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Places to go for more information</div>
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<a href="http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/caddis-fly" target="_blank">Caddis Fly </a> - on the <a href="http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/" target="_blank">Wildlife Trusts</a> site.<br />
<a href="http://www.lifeinfreshwater.org.uk/Species%20Pages/Caddis%20flies.jpg.html" target="_blank">Caddis Fly Larvae</a> (not for the squeamish) in the <a href="http://www.lifeinfreshwater.org.uk/" target="_blank">Life in Freshwater section</a> section of the <a href="http://www.field-studies-council.org/" target="_blank">Field Studies Council site. </a></div>
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IDs with the help of <a href="http://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland" target="_blank">iSpot</a>.</div>
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-84283708500271662992016-05-23T18:38:00.000+01:002016-05-25T21:18:22.607+01:00NATIONAL INSECT WEEK : HOVER FLIES WHICH KILL DAFFODILS, AND BEETLES IN HATS<div style="text-align: justify;">
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<a href="http://www.nationalinsectweek.co.uk/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" height="145" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QzZWh_NkCfE/V0YGTlqUVnI/AAAAAAAAGb4/WgiysvmHg10gomAxDeaq3T5A3vDjoO1ZwCKgB/s200/NIW_Logo2016%252BSlogan_hr_cmyk.jpeg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<a href="http://www.nationalinsectweek.co.uk/" target="_blank">National Insect Week</a> happens once every two years - and this is one of those years. So here's a little nudge to watch out for insects around you - maybe to post about them?</div>
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I've three to mention.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aOVKEV5OJbc/V0MH9PxAlXI/AAAAAAAAGYU/SeeGv19pkO4KR2i5i_pIY6FoiVNS_QXogCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BHOVERFLY%2BFACING%2BHEAD%2B-%2BMARCH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5476%2B-%2BCR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="568" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-aOVKEV5OJbc/V0MH9PxAlXI/AAAAAAAAGYU/SeeGv19pkO4KR2i5i_pIY6FoiVNS_QXogCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BHOVERFLY%2BFACING%2BHEAD%2B-%2BMARCH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5476%2B-%2BCR.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">Merodon equestris (Narcissus Fly)</span></td></tr>
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The first was a bit of a disaster. You know how <a href="http://looseandleafy.blogspot.co.uk/2016/05/the-out-of-focus-brigade.html" target="_blank">I said I was sitting in a friend's garden when</a>, instead of politely drinking tea I leapt up and started taking photographs instead?</div>
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Well, while I was looking at leaves the sun had chosen to spotlight, I noticed a hoverfly on a leaf. It wasn't moving. It was just sitting there. Ridiculously, I was worried about it straight away. Was it ill? Hungry? Dying?</div>
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I say 'ridiculously' because I'm not above sliding my fingers along a stem to rid it of aphids, or clapping my hands together to kill a gnat if it flies into my house. So why did I bother about this hoverfly? (Hover Fly? I'm never sure whether to stick the hover with the fly or leave them apart.) Well, for one things, there's something profoundly different between an individual and a crowd. And for another, it looked a bit like a bumble bee. And for another - when I began this blog I thought a hover-fly is a hover fly is a hoverfly. When I found there are 270 identified species of hoverfly in Britain (*1) . . . I was . . . . . . gob-smacked! And when I began to peer at those around me with my camera (which I use as a microscope as well as a telescope and as a recorder of images) I was overwhelmed by the beauty in the variety of their colours. So - as you may have gathered - I have a bit of a soft spot for hoverflies.</div>
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Ignoring the tea, I tipped a little sugar onto a saucer, added a little warm water, stirred it up and dripped the resulting syrup onto the leaf as a kind of rescue package. I had no idea, no idea whatsoever whether hoverflies drink sugar water . . . but it looked like a bee . . . so I treated it like a bee.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CuSFjuAioAE/V0MIK0IKodI/AAAAAAAAGYY/fxXNwsxFSvAzmHZGUSHANyjkZ2uU7eSRQCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BHOVERFLY%2BON%2BAPPLE%2BBLOSSOM%2B-%2BMAY%2B18TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5486%2B-%2BCR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="552" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-CuSFjuAioAE/V0MIK0IKodI/AAAAAAAAGYY/fxXNwsxFSvAzmHZGUSHANyjkZ2uU7eSRQCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BHOVERFLY%2BON%2BAPPLE%2BBLOSSOM%2B-%2BMAY%2B18TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5486%2B-%2BCR.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">Merodon equestris </span><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">(Narcissus Fly)</span></td></tr>
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After a while, I gently lifted it and took it to the apple tree and lowered it onto a blossom. It must have been recovering by then, I reckoned, because it immediately spurned that particular blossom, and chose another for itself. I didn't know if it would have any interest in apple-blossom-nectar . . . but a little sugar and a little sunshine was all I had to offer.</div>
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I took it's picture and left it to its own devices.</div>
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Next . . . look through google images . . . find a possible ID . . . upload the photo to <a href="http://www.ispotnature.org/communities/uk-and-ireland" target="_blank">iSpot</a> and hope I was wrong. But I wasn't.</div>
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This hoverfly had been sitting on a waning daffodil leaf. This hoverfly was a Narcissus Fly. This hoverfly was a Merodon equestris. This kind of hoverfly lays an egg in the crown of a daffodils. The grub burrows into the bulb, takes up residence and turns it to slush. End of plant! (*2) Oh. Bother. I thought hoverfly larvae eat aphids. Why do there have to be exceptions?</div>
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Next up.<br />
Another Hover Fly.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vmOHGTu4Yzk/V0M3WDaQigI/AAAAAAAAGbQ/qJmg8jukMDE_FARv0J0Fb3mkYvd5J1J_wCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BTHIN%2BHOVERFLY%2B-%2BMAY%2B17TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5416%2B-%2BCR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vmOHGTu4Yzk/V0M3WDaQigI/AAAAAAAAGbQ/qJmg8jukMDE_FARv0J0Fb3mkYvd5J1J_wCLcB/s400/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BTHIN%2BHOVERFLY%2B-%2BMAY%2B17TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5416%2B-%2BCR.jpg" width="398" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small; text-align: justify;">Meliscaieva auricollis?</span></td></tr>
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For all that I've said how often people stop to talk when I'm taking photos, by fortunate chance rarely are they neighbours. But I'd started to take photos of this hover fly (Meliscaieva auricollis?) when a neighbour came down the hill. Just as she hoved a few feet away, a bee (honey bee? a bit too fast to tell) bomb dived the hoverfly and away they flew.<br />
"Oh, you've frightened it!" I exclaimed. <i>Aloud</i>.<br />
(Why do I talk aloud? I don't know. I just do)<br />
My neighbour stopped.<br />
"Not you! You didn't frighten it! It was a bee!"<br />
Then realising she might not understand, I explained about hoverflies as we walked on together . . . and how interesting they are . . . and that although I don't know why I'm interested in finding out which one is which kind . . . I just am . . . even if I forget straight away and have to go back to start every time I see a new one . . . and she seemed to think this was all perfectly acceptable. Phew!</div>
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Next up.</div>
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This beetle.</div>
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A Dor Beetle (Geotrupes) ?</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fJctTMqgGP8/V0M4ikO44yI/AAAAAAAAGbc/vTRFjB1p0SE-5O2w1_mEQwT6hrzqKkFrgCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BBEETLE%2BFACE%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5651%2B-%2BCR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fJctTMqgGP8/V0M4ikO44yI/AAAAAAAAGbc/vTRFjB1p0SE-5O2w1_mEQwT6hrzqKkFrgCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BBEETLE%2BFACE%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5651%2B-%2BCR.jpg" width="588" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Probably a Dor Beetle</td></tr>
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I found it walking along a path through a wood in Somerset. I photographed it from above, from its side and face on. Er. Where is its face? This, I decided, was a spooky monster! Where are its eyes?</div>
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Internet to the rescue . . . to the bizarre . . . to the wonderful. That some beetles have eyes on the tops of their heads so they can see what's above them as well as where they're going.</div>
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And, thence . . . to beetles with hats on.</div>
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Scientists in South Africa have demonstrated that dung beetles, needing to make a fast get-away with their haul of dung (with a possible wife thrown in) can use the Milky Way as a guide when working out the most direct route from pile to burrow. They aren't interested in stars - just that bright straight line overhead. To check this out, the scientists made little hats for the beetles. Some were clear. Some were dark. The beetles with clear hats could walk in straight lines. Those with darkened ones couldn't. I doubt their counterparts in English woodland would have any chance of walking in a straight line over twigs and under leaves - let alone see the Milky Way through branches and clouds . . . but if you find the idea of beetles in hats appealing - <a href="http://tinyurl.com/hnm9nzj" target="_blank">you can read all about them here</a>.<br />
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<span style="color: magenta; font-size: x-large;"><b>Will you be posting about insects in the next few weeks?</b></span></div>
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<span style="color: magenta; font-size: x-large;"><b>If so, let me know and I'll put the links here.</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: magenta;"><b>(Regardless of where you live!)</b></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Here's one from Philip Strange (Science and Nature Writing) </span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="https://philipstrange.wordpress.com/2016/05/11/love-bugs-and-other-surprises-at-bantham-beach-in-south-devon/" target="_blank">Love Bugs and Other Surprises at Bantham Beach in South Devon</a></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TtYgrUFkkC0/V0M3-Fon_5I/AAAAAAAAGbY/Ostldc4QKoURvL8FajvRbv7KPCrczuL-QCKgB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BBEETLE%2BSIDE%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5646%2B-%2BCR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="294" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TtYgrUFkkC0/V0M3-Fon_5I/AAAAAAAAGbY/Ostldc4QKoURvL8FajvRbv7KPCrczuL-QCKgB/s320/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BBEETLE%2BSIDE%2B-%2BMAY%2B20TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5646%2B-%2BCR.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Probably a Dor Beetle</span></td></tr>
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*1 <a href="http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/indexmag.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artmay07/cd-hoverflies.html" target="_blank">What are Hoverflies?</a> - on the <a href="http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/" target="_blank">Microscopy Site</a><br />
*2 <a href="http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/NarcissusBulbFly" target="_blank">Narcissus Bulb Fly</a> - on the <a href="http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/" target="_blank">Pacific Bulb Society Site</a></div>
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* * *</div>
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<u><br /></u><u>NEW ADDITIONS TO THE 'IDENTIFYING THINGS' PAGE</u></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/indexmag.html?http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/mag/artmay07/cd-hoverflies.html" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">ALL ABOUT HOVERFLIES</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px;"> - Including diagram of body parts. This is on the </span><a href="http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Microscopy</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px;"> site - which includes a '</span><a href="http://www.microscopy-uk.org.uk/pond/index.html" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">POND LIFE IDENTIFICATION KIT</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px;">'.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start;" /><a href="http://www.royensoc.co.uk/insect_info/what_is_it.htm" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">WHAT IS THAT INSECT?</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px;"> - On site of the </span><a href="http://www.royensoc.co.uk/" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Royal Entomological Society</a><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start;" /><a href="http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/NarcissusBulbFly" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">MIRODON EQUESTRIS (NARCISSUS BULB FLY)</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px;"> - On </span><a href="http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Pacific Bulb Society</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px;"> site.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start;" /><a href="http://bugguide.net/node/view/15740" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">BUG GUIDE.NET</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px;"> - </span><a href="http://www.ent.iastate.edu/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Iowa State University Department of Entymology</a><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start;" /><a href="http://www.naturefg.com/pages/galleries.htm" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px;"> - DRAGISA SAVIC (Serbia) - Large collection of clear photographs with IDs - flora, fauna, fungi of the kind you may not find elsewhere. A good place for rusts and lichens. Take time for an eye-opening browse.</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start;" /><a href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/135761362@N03/albums" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">IAN BEAVIS ON FLICKR</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px;"> - Photo Gallery with IDs of insects, amphibians etc. . . </span></span><br />
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Remember - <a href="http://www.nationalinsectweek.co.uk/" target="_blank">National Insect Week - 20th - 26th June</a></div>
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-85530240962204965902016-05-17T21:40:00.000+01:002016-05-17T21:44:49.693+01:00THE OUT OF FOCUS BRIGADE<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rXCM2Foc2EE/Vzt6BayFBYI/AAAAAAAAGUs/Yg5_LoKBHbMfBSNxpEbFcWMXvI8jeoVmgCKgB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSNAIL%2BON%2BAPPLE%2BTREE%2B-%2BMAY%2B17%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5465%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Slim apple branch with unopened blossom with a snail on the underside of a leaf." border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-rXCM2Foc2EE/Vzt6BayFBYI/AAAAAAAAGUs/Yg5_LoKBHbMfBSNxpEbFcWMXvI8jeoVmgCKgB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSNAIL%2BON%2BAPPLE%2BTREE%2B-%2BMAY%2B17%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5465%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Slim apple branch with unopened blossom with a snail on the underside of a leaf." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Snail on an apple tree twig.</td></tr>
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Loose and Leafy is primarily for wild plants; street plants and plants of the hedgerows. (Insects too.) From time to time I visit an open-to-the-public kind of garden. Rarely do I show photos from an ordinary garden belonging to an ordinary house. I haven't for ages.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zd9zO2CoIMw/Vzt6CVFKQHI/AAAAAAAAGUw/ji_kHsezj2QMp0Giy_n2PbT07QkObf1XgCKgB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BAPPLE%2BFLOWER%2B-%2BMAY%2B17%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5460%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="The centre of an apple blossom flower." border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zd9zO2CoIMw/Vzt6CVFKQHI/AAAAAAAAGUw/ji_kHsezj2QMp0Giy_n2PbT07QkObf1XgCKgB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BAPPLE%2BFLOWER%2B-%2BMAY%2B17%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5460%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="The centre of an apple blossom flower." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Blurry apple blossom</td></tr>
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This afternoon, I was meant to be sitting outside, drinking tea, chatting, with music in the background. </div>
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Music is difficult outside. You need it loud enough to appreciate but quiet enough not to bother neighbours. With a bit of fiddling around the sound was perfected . . . and it was all very pleasant.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O-NbaLbCc2g/Vzt6DcsesXI/AAAAAAAAGVA/taUaCOlkppYaZASZUbrCsZloWm8k2AjOgCKgB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSCENTED%2BGERANIUM%2B-%2BMAY%2B17%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5457%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Part of a bright green, scented geranium leaf, showing its veins." border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O-NbaLbCc2g/Vzt6DcsesXI/AAAAAAAAGVA/taUaCOlkppYaZASZUbrCsZloWm8k2AjOgCKgB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSCENTED%2BGERANIUM%2B-%2BMAY%2B17%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5457%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Part of a bright green, scented geranium leaf, showing its veins." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This scented geranium leaf is not specially blurry but the light pointed it out.</td></tr>
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But I can't sit long if there are things to see - even if I'm meant to be engaged in relaxed and friendly chatter. And this afternoon there was a special kind of atmosphere. A storm is brewing and it's taking a while to get to the break-out moment. Sometimes, before a storm, the atmosphere goes clear and everything, even at a distance - especially at a distance! - can be seen in more detail than usual.</div>
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Well, having built up your expectations . . . it wasn't that kind of light today. It was . . . not exactly hazy . . . but not quite as clear as it is most of the time either. And there were unaccountable little patches of brightness; a leaf here and another there which seemed to have been out to buy batteries and had turned on torches of their own.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QyXpvq-p8Hs/Vzt6EACjnHI/AAAAAAAAGVA/L-nKMwZI_DgDU09n9OBEvukUFT0d5t43ACKgB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BHOSTA%2B-%2BMAY%2B17%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5450%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Light shining through a new and upright hosta leaf." border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QyXpvq-p8Hs/Vzt6EACjnHI/AAAAAAAAGVA/L-nKMwZI_DgDU09n9OBEvukUFT0d5t43ACKgB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BHOSTA%2B-%2BMAY%2B17%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5450%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Light shining through a new and upright hosta leaf." width="480" /></a></td></tr>
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So up I got, left the tea on the table . . . and pottered off to look at leaves . . . and things.</div>
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But, as I say, the light was odd.</div>
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I can't remember having posted out-of-focus-photos before. But this is what I'm doing here. I could pretend I was using some special technique or camera setting; but I wasn't. They just didn't come out right.</div>
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At the same time . . . by chance . . . they show what it was like this afternoon. Initially I chucked them aside. But I kept coming back to them. And I like them. There are different kinds of beauty.<br />
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(All photos in this post taken on the afternoon of May 17th 2016.)</div>
Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-46636007727426546542016-05-02T15:36:00.001+01:002016-05-02T19:23:10.981+01:00A WALK ON MAY-DAY<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-htDuCTJKoiY/VydfbCjLvMI/AAAAAAAAGTk/RlYWrjX-UhkZWruV_N3C7tKqerCQLp8egCKgB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BDOLL%2B-%2BMAY%2B1ST%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5300%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Tiny, naked, pink, plastic doll on a tarmac path." border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-htDuCTJKoiY/VydfbCjLvMI/AAAAAAAAGTk/RlYWrjX-UhkZWruV_N3C7tKqerCQLp8egCKgB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BDOLL%2B-%2BMAY%2B1ST%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5300%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Tiny, naked, pink, plastic doll on a tarmac path." width="640" /></a></div>
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May Days are celebrations of . . . May . . . and Spring (ish) . . . and manual labour.<br />
Roman Catholic Readers may also be aware it's the Feast of St Joseph the Worker. A pretty good collection of celebrations!</div>
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For most of the day I was at the Lyme Regis Fossil Festival. It was really, really sunny - but not too hot. (Perfect.) There were masses of people. (Good for the town.) But not so many one felt crowded. (Good for me!)</div>
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I bought a T-shirt with a plesiosaur skeleton on it. Took a look at fossils for sale in a tent. (Bought none. Very particularly I didn't buy the £2,000 crocodile head from Africa.) Drank a cup of coffee from a cafetiere and went to a lecture about pre-historic creatures of the Jurassic Coast.</div>
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Then content after a happy day - came home.</div>
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Sunny days at this time of year tend to end in misty evenings and it's an inadvertent tradition that I set out to take photographs for Loose and Leafy when it's dull, or rainy or otherwise not-a-good-moment for taking photographs. My last post was sprinkled with rain-drops. Ready for this one, light decided to fail early. (If you are unfamiliar with Dorset, you may find it hard to believe this is one of the hottest and sunniest parts of the UK!)</div>
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Well, anyway . . . out I went with my camera.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zrLYAMaW4QQ/VydgTqGJO8I/AAAAAAAAGT8/TsBuNEzpG8UsBCehJ7k9QUWsT-8ovum9ACLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BDOLL%2B-%2BMAY%2B1ST%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5300%2B-%2Bcr%2Bto%2Binsect.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Red creature cropped from the plastic cherub photo." border="0" height="225" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-zrLYAMaW4QQ/VydgTqGJO8I/AAAAAAAAGT8/TsBuNEzpG8UsBCehJ7k9QUWsT-8ovum9ACLcB/s320/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BDOLL%2B-%2BMAY%2B1ST%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5300%2B-%2Bcr%2Bto%2Binsect.jpg" title="Red creature cropped from the plastic cherub photo." width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"> </i><i style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">Trombidium holosericeum </i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">do you think?</span><i style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;"><br /></i><span style="background-color: white; font-family: verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; text-align: left;">(Velvet Mite)</span></td></tr>
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Now the picture at the top of the post . . . you may find it a surprise here. Perhaps, you may think, this would have been more appropriate on my other blog - <a href="http://messageinamilkbottle.blogspot.co.uk/" target="_blank">Message in a Milk Bottle</a>. But if you examine it carefully you will find something very specially interesting - apart from finding a plastic cherub lying on the path. This little doll was very small - barely more than an inch from top to toe - but it showed up bright and pink against the black of tar. Unmissable.</div>
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Now do you see why it belongs here? At the bottom edge of the photo, towards the left hand edge, unbeknownst to me at the time, a tiny red creature had walked into frame. The red is extraordinary but I don't know what it is. Anyone?</div>
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1qUpLZ4EN1w/Vydfc6OC3rI/AAAAAAAAGT4/EYYC4iBt4L0mi-PlhW_BJG7klwxGGuKbQCKgB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BWASHING%2BMACHINE%2B-%2BMAY%2B1ST%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5302%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Washing machine (or tumble drier?) in a ditch." border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1qUpLZ4EN1w/Vydfc6OC3rI/AAAAAAAAGT4/EYYC4iBt4L0mi-PlhW_BJG7klwxGGuKbQCKgB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BWASHING%2BMACHINE%2B-%2BMAY%2B1ST%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5302%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Washing machine (or tumble drier?) in a ditch." width="640" /></a></div>
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This next picture . . . I know it will get much blood boiling among readers. Even I, one usually more conscious of the photographic potential in things left lying around than its status as rubbish . . . even I don't like to see washing machines or tumble driers or whacking great bits of board in ditches. But it is fascinating, isn't it? That someone has gone to the trouble of trundling it to a place where cars don't go so they can tip it under a span of honeysuckle and hawthorn.</div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Zm6AY58PT7g/Vydfe0MCTiI/AAAAAAAAGUA/FJfEO9i-RI8_uok9HWIYJa9h3xTQ4u1FACKgB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BEDGE%2BOF%2BPATH%2B-%2BIMG_5326%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Plants hanging on at the edge of a tarmac path." border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-Zm6AY58PT7g/Vydfe0MCTiI/AAAAAAAAGUA/FJfEO9i-RI8_uok9HWIYJa9h3xTQ4u1FACKgB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BEDGE%2BOF%2BPATH%2B-%2BIMG_5326%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Plants hanging on at the edge of a tarmac path." width="640" /></a></div>
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Next up on my walk . . . </div>
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I tend to call all sorts of plants dandelions when they aren't. Here's one of them which might be . . . or might not be. I don't mean the groundsel (with the little yellow flower) but the one with the bigger leaves. You know how I'm fascinated by urban plants? This is not one, despite the path. Behind me is the sea. Ahead you can see the blur of Alexanders. This is an urban-wannabe.</div>
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u5XO9ptYBk8/VydfgGtFSqI/AAAAAAAAGUA/oeTZiQXwkkwAP1BkRbvTD5KAkih7RtWwwCKgB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2BSYCAMORE%2BBUD%2B-%2BMAY%2B1ST%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5316%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Silhouette of a sycamore bud with a little bit of colour showing." border="0" height="480" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u5XO9ptYBk8/VydfgGtFSqI/AAAAAAAAGUA/oeTZiQXwkkwAP1BkRbvTD5KAkih7RtWwwCKgB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2BSYCAMORE%2BBUD%2B-%2BMAY%2B1ST%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5316%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Silhouette of a sycamore bud with a little bit of colour showing." width="640" /></a></div>
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Here's another thing you will have gathered over the years - that I get to like particular trees and photograph them over and over - even if, like this one - it's impossible to photograph them other than against the light. I've watched a bud from this tree morph into a summer leaf and into autumn. And its seeds ripen. Here we go again - yet more silhouettes on this friendly sycamore.</div>
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B9S24ZvFZLs/VydfhTw4r1I/AAAAAAAAGUA/mXzENUYI-LQ9JIiH5YXWo7nBDhaqkw6WwCKgB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BSYCAMORE%2BFLOWER%2B-%2BMAY%2B1ST%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5318%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Newly opened sycamore leaves with flowers." border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-B9S24ZvFZLs/VydfhTw4r1I/AAAAAAAAGUA/mXzENUYI-LQ9JIiH5YXWo7nBDhaqkw6WwCKgB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BSYCAMORE%2BFLOWER%2B-%2BMAY%2B1ST%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5318%2B-%2B2047.jpg" title="Newly opened sycamore leaves with flowers." width="640" /></a></div>
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If you are a long-time reader, you will be familiar with these kind of posts. If you are new to Loose and Leafy, perhaps I should assure you I sometimes take photos of pretty flowers in bright sunlight. In summer there will be butterflies and hoverflies and . . . and . . . things like that. And come autumn there will be hips and haws and blackberries. </div>
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And I've noticed, over time, that despite the ordinariness of what I show you here - I've never yet found anything rare - Loose and Leafy has an indefinable yet specific identity. I reckon if I were to take its name away from the header, and that you found yourself here by chance, you'd know in a trice you'd landed on the Loose and Leafy blog. (Don't you agree?)<br />
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-85217480775883311112016-04-19T10:14:00.000+01:002016-04-19T13:59:58.383+01:00PRETTY AND GRUESOME<div style="text-align: justify;">
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I won't bore you with too many details - though I'm tempted to. I could go on and on about laptops. The important thing though is to say I have a new one. There! Self restraint!<br />
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Given that the only thing I want to talk about is adventures with laptops . . . I'm finding it hard to say anything useful or interesting about plants.<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QPoEVDJ5ZvY/VxVEAcahVPI/AAAAAAAAGSI/4G0LTZWprQQkqQZ2p3k30LNIGXPvE3ZFACKgB/s1600/1%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BBLUEBELL%2BCLUMP%2B-%2B15TH%2BAPRIL%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5202%2BCR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="446" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-QPoEVDJ5ZvY/VxVEAcahVPI/AAAAAAAAGSI/4G0LTZWprQQkqQZ2p3k30LNIGXPvE3ZFACKgB/s640/1%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BBLUEBELL%2BCLUMP%2B-%2B15TH%2BAPRIL%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5202%2BCR.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
My old one started making fizzing electrical noises. It was quite sca . . . no!<br />
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Here are some bluebells. English or hybrid or . . . ( ? ? ? ?) - yellow pollen, drooping heads, curled up edges.<br />
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The <a href="http://www.plantlife.org.uk/" target="_blank">Plantlife</a> site has information about <a href="http://www.plantlife.org.uk/about_us/faq/bluebells/" target="_blank">how to tell them from Spanish ones</a>.<br />
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<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KifOUMWzhBg/VxVEuTXRv4I/AAAAAAAAGSM/Ay1idivtnJ0iE16-SZFGxl0j_8ormC9aQCLcB/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BHAWTHORN%2BFLOWER%2BBUDS%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B18TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5231%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KifOUMWzhBg/VxVEuTXRv4I/AAAAAAAAGSM/Ay1idivtnJ0iE16-SZFGxl0j_8ormC9aQCLcB/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BHAWTHORN%2BFLOWER%2BBUDS%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B18TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5231%2B-%2B2047.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
And beside them are hawthorn trees. The flower buds are pretty but once they've opened they get bashed around by rain which comes in sharp bursts then goes.<br />
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But not everything is lovely. In a moment I'm going to show you something quite gruesome. If you are brave, a doctor, a nurse or a vampire you may have no trouble . . . I'm hoping you'll be interested but I'd better let you know in advance so you won't scroll too far ahead if you don't want to. (There will be a second warning so you can keep reading for the moment)<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QtbxCuJ4szA/VxVHGypwtvI/AAAAAAAAGSc/aW0LpYvQj34M5RK7v8ostcKMWQf3mfxJwCLcB/s1600/2%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSYCAMORE%2BIN%2BDRAIN%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B13TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5191%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-QtbxCuJ4szA/VxVHGypwtvI/AAAAAAAAGSc/aW0LpYvQj34M5RK7v8ostcKMWQf3mfxJwCLcB/s640/2%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BSYCAMORE%2BIN%2BDRAIN%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B13TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5191%2B2047.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
Being at last able to use a laptop (. . . why do they sell ones so shoddy one has to take them back to the sh . . . NO!) . . . having a laptop means there's been a point to carrying my camera again so I've been pottering around without a theme; simply re-visiting old places to see what's going on and where. Remember the sycamore in a drain? It's still there!<br />
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<a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EIBaWnRoPqQ/VxXx5WUYK3I/AAAAAAAAGSs/OCkF0PQ0s3o18ihE1TazpL04m2_FIf7sgCLcB/s1600/3%2B-%2BUSE%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEFAY%2B-%2BANT%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B15TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5223%2B-%2BCR2CSAT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="261" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-EIBaWnRoPqQ/VxXx5WUYK3I/AAAAAAAAGSs/OCkF0PQ0s3o18ihE1TazpL04m2_FIf7sgCLcB/s320/3%2B-%2BUSE%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEFAY%2B-%2BANT%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B15TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5223%2B-%2BCR2CSAT.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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In a minute, I'm going to show you part of a dead gull and a clear photo of some of its insides. In the meantime . . . here's an ant on a front door.<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P6DtUFU5tEs/VxXyMp6IYuI/AAAAAAAAGSw/1z1cDzod9xMpf14bdOQbjhE5V7UgEB8uACLcB/s1600/4%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BHEADLESS%2BGULL%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B15TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5205%2BCR%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="456" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P6DtUFU5tEs/VxXyMp6IYuI/AAAAAAAAGSw/1z1cDzod9xMpf14bdOQbjhE5V7UgEB8uACLcB/s640/4%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BHEADLESS%2BGULL%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B15TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5205%2BCR%2B2047.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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The gull was on the grassy bank beside the bluebells and hawthorn trees. Its head was missing, its guts exposed and its entrails stretched straight. I'm sparing you somewhat. This is only part of the picture - but it was an interesting opportunity.<br />
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<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YoFzPFPI5LE/VxX0cE_nohI/AAAAAAAAGTA/TMNtzD5x8k0mouLrgwUWqnXbsu9SGHqnQCLcB/s1600/5%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BGULL%2527S%2BINSIDES%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B16TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5213%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="480" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YoFzPFPI5LE/VxX0cE_nohI/AAAAAAAAGTA/TMNtzD5x8k0mouLrgwUWqnXbsu9SGHqnQCLcB/s640/5%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BGULL%2527S%2BINSIDES%2B-%2BAPRIL%2B16TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5213%2B-%2B2047.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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When I found a dead goose on a beach I was <a href="http://looseandleafy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/of-course-geese-have-teeth.html" target="_blank">able to photograph it in detail</a> and I would have liked to do the same with this bird but instead of the trees protecting me from a new onset of rain, the onset of rain was knocking drops from an earlier shower onto my camera. So I beat a retreat.<br />
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I photographed this first. I don't know what body part it is. Do you? I've never seen the inside of a gull before!<br />
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<a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N0HUBiVRhcM/VxX1EFALzMI/AAAAAAAAGTI/9YafWOQrtm0MeI6wgaVrWhn8JW7De9NzACLcB/s1600/7%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BBLUEBELL%2BCLUMP%2B-%2B15TH%2BAPRIL%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5202%2B-%2B2047.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-N0HUBiVRhcM/VxX1EFALzMI/AAAAAAAAGTI/9YafWOQrtm0MeI6wgaVrWhn8JW7De9NzACLcB/s640/7%2B-%2BLUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BBLUEBELL%2BCLUMP%2B-%2B15TH%2BAPRIL%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5202%2B-%2B2047.jpg" width="480" /></a></div>
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And a few footsteps further - more bluebells.<br />
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It's all nature!<br />
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It's good to be back, it's good to be back, hello! hello!<br />
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We go way back with the sycamore in the drain. <a href="http://looseandleafy.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/tree-in-drain.html" target="_blank">Click here and you'll see it in April and May 2012.</a></div>
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-63566056197394834792016-02-11T16:38:00.001+00:002016-02-11T16:42:42.918+00:00A BRIEF NOTE TO BE BACK<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-K1ty9UNsa8k/VryuFFYYEaI/AAAAAAAAGQc/YuE6tR9ZI9M/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BTURKEY%2BOAK%2B-%2BFEB%2B11TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5119%2BcrCCONBR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="Turkey oak twig, high in a tree, against blue sky." border="0" height="640" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-K1ty9UNsa8k/VryuFFYYEaI/AAAAAAAAGQc/YuE6tR9ZI9M/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2B-%2BTURKEY%2BOAK%2B-%2BFEB%2B11TH%2B2016%2B-%2BIMG_5119%2BcrCCONBR.jpg" title="Turkey oak twig, high in a tree, against blue sky." width="482" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: large;">This twig is right at the top of the tree.</span></span></td></tr>
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A short note to say there may be some short posts coming up.</div>
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I've learned a few tricks to keep my laptop going. It's still a nuisance so I won't be pounding out millions of pictures and mountains of information but there will be more than there has been of late.</div>
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Here's a challenge I delight in at this time of year - will I get any decent pictures of Turkey Oak twigs? (The new growth is so twiddly!)</div>
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The next challenge will be Turkey Oak flowers. (Little red blobs.) After that, spring should be plain sailing.</div>
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***</div>
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I don't know if you've already noticed but I've added a few links under the '<a href="http://looseandleafy.blogspot.co.uk/p/help-with-identifying-etc.html" target="_blank">Identifying Things</a>' tab.</div>
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Sometimes information is grouped into topics but mostly I add to the foot of the list so it's generally easy to find new entries.</div>
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You can get clicking straight away, here they are:</div>
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<a href="http://www.nbn.org.uk/nbn_wide/media/Documents/ID%20Resources/Shell-identification-February-2012-version-Ian-Wallace.pdf" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; font-family: inherit; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">SHELL GUIDE</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 31.878px;"> ( from NBN - </span><a href="http://www.nbn.org.uk/" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; font-family: inherit; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">National BioDiversity Network</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: inherit; line-height: 31.878px;">)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.woodlands.co.uk/blog/tree-identification/" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">A GUIDE TO TREE IDENTIFICATION</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px;"> - on </span><a href="http://www.woodlands.co.uk/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Woodlands.co.uk</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px;"> - a site where you can buy woodland!</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start;" /><a href="https://sites.google.com/site/natureguideuk/" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">NATURE GUIDE UK</a> - Very straightforward. Click 'bees' and you get bees. Click 'grasshoppers' and that's what you'll get. Point at a picture - it'll tell you what it is.<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start;" /><a href="http://www.inaturalist.org/" rel="nofollow" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">iNATURALIST</a> - try pottering around it.<br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start;" /><a href="http://www.vinehousefarm.co.uk/the-bird-library" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">BIRD LIBRARY</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px;"> - An illustrated list of some common British birds. (Page on </span><a href="http://www.vinehousefarm.co.uk/" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Vine House Farm</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px;"> site selling seed etc. for wild birds.)</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start;" /><a href="http://www.froglife.org/amphibians-and-reptiles/" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">AMPHIBIANS AND REPTILES</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px;"> - Pictorial guide to UK amphibians and reptiles. On the </span><a href="http://www.froglife.org/" style="background-color: white; color: #cc0000; line-height: 31.878px; text-align: start; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">Froglife</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; line-height: 31.878px;"> site.</span></span></div>
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(P.S. Hi, everyone!)</div>
Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-63959845953074197202015-11-29T16:04:00.000+00:002015-11-29T16:06:44.606+00:00IT'S WINTER HERE<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JTwTnv-OK48/VlsguKIZkaI/AAAAAAAAGPM/7fZmtdKiKNM/s1600/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BCHESIL%2BCOVE%2B-%2BNOV.%2B29TH%2B2015%2B-%2BIMG_4999.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Man on Chesil Beach looks out to sea." border="0" height="480" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JTwTnv-OK48/VlsguKIZkaI/AAAAAAAAGPM/7fZmtdKiKNM/s640/LUCY%2BCORRANDER%2B-%2BCHESIL%2BCOVE%2B-%2BNOV.%2B29TH%2B2015%2B-%2BIMG_4999.JPG" title="Man on Chesil Beach looks out to sea." width="640" /></a></div>
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I've nearly gone. There was to be another book review before the sleep-tight round up but I decided if I couldn't say anything nice about it, it would be pointless even to mention. So now I need the wind to calm and the sun to come out so I can trot around with my camera to say a temporary 'Goodbye' to the plants and trees and streets which form the subject matter for this blog.</div>
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But I can't let you miss today.</div>
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This was here at mid-day. It's not a sea to swim in, to paddle in or to surf in. It's a sea to die in. You go too close at your peril.</div>
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This man is not as close as he seems. Chesil Beach goes down in steps so although it looks as though he is standing at the edge of the surf, he isn't. The sea is below him - which may give you an idea of the size of these waves.</div>
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There were lots of people. By 'lots' I suppose at any one time there were a dozen. But they were coming and going - and virtually every one of them with a camera. I have not done justice to this sea - but the air was dense with salt and spray. It was reckless. Cameras don't like salt and spray. But I wasn't the only one who couldn't resist it. (Camera menders may be in for a bonanza!)</div>
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Incidentally, the black blodge on the waves is a huge mat of seaweed.<br />
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com16tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4083229388630903702.post-72361558113853310212015-11-18T11:26:00.002+00:002015-11-18T19:30:48.593+00:00RHS: THE HALF-HOUR ALLOTMENT ( LIA LEENDERTZ) - A REVIEW<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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To say you can give merely half-an-hour a day to an allotment is tempting but is it possible? No.</div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eA26VmHfmv0/VkxfA4UtCzI/AAAAAAAAGO0/F2dWeu36cGs/s1600/FOR%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2BFROM%2BHALF%2BHOUR%2BALLOT%2B-%2BIMG_4974%2B-%2BSAT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img alt="Photo of page 31 from RHS: Half-Hour Allotment by Lia Leenderzt." border="0" height="480" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eA26VmHfmv0/VkxfA4UtCzI/AAAAAAAAGO0/F2dWeu36cGs/s640/FOR%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2BFROM%2BHALF%2BHOUR%2BALLOT%2B-%2BIMG_4974%2B-%2BSAT.jpg" title="Photo of page 31 from RHS: Half-Hour Allotment by Lia Leenderzt." width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The Half-Hour Allotment was first published in 2006.<br />
This revised edition was released in October 2015</td></tr>
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I'm treading on icy ground here. <a href="http://www.lialeendertz.com/" target="_blank">Lia Leendertz</a> is a gardening journalist and has an allotment. I'm just me and I don't have an allotment. But by the end of the first chapter I was exhausted and (in my imagination) broke. Before any time at all I'd got the idea that setting up an allotment is expensive and time consuming. Right on the second page to the introduction Lia herself suggests 'half-an-hour' might might be re-interpreted to mean 'two hour-and-a-quarter visits over two days'. She also says the idea of half-hour allotmenteering was developed by someone called Will Sibley so I spent a while wondering why he hadn't written the book himself, or in collaboration.</div>
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And I'm just about to confuse you. My test for whether I like or value a book is whether I want to keep a book after reviewing it or whether I'd like to donate it to my local horticultural society. I'm keeping this. Why? It's fun. Well written. And engaging. And there aren't many gardening books I can happily read from beginning to end without abandoning them in favour of dipping. But I did this.</div>
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Here's the wildly frustrating thing though. By the end of the first chapter I'd chosen a good allotment (some hope!) established a shed, laid a path and built raised beds - some of them about waist high to save my bad back. Lia does suggest people might like to work in pairs to take account of differing ages, strengths and skills. I'd say you'd need a team of people. There would need to be a car and a lot of spare cash. The allotment would have to be on a route travelled every day or be very close to home. As I read through the book I found I might need old pallets (where would I get them?) which I'd need to nail together. (How would I do that?) And that if I don't have access to logs, I could use a piece of corrugated iron (for slow-worms to creep under). I don't know about you but I'd find it easier to buy logs than rummage around for an old piece of corrugated iron. I might like to pin pieces of card to the ground with large stones. (To suppress weeds.) That sounds ok until you start looking for stones large enough. The earth may seem full of them while you're trying to dig but there are rarely many small rocks. And if I'm to protect potatoes as they begin to grow where will I find a stash of cabbage leaves to cover them with? (Especially at that time of year.) (And will they stay put?) And a garden shredder is not something one is likely to have about one's person.</div>
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I remember as a student reading that an easy, free and attractive bookcase could be made from some old bricks and couple of planks. Sounds good until you go looking for old bricks and abandoned planks.</div>
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Who, I am asking myself, is this book for?</div>
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For young professionals with spare cash who like the idea of having an allotment but don't necessarily <i>need</i> it? With friends who'd like to come and help them out in return for a taste of the good life and a glass of wine? This, of course, could be you!</div>
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And people prepared blindly to discount 'preparation' time. It's a bit like buying a book called 'Five Minute Recipes' only to discover you will need to spend hours traipsing around in search of unusual ingredients and have a fridge or freezer already stocked with sauces 'made earlier'. 'Five minutes' turns out to mean several days. </div>
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Then I wondered if it might be for people who are thinking of having an allotment next year, even the year after. People who might need to be put off for a bit until they have thought through the kind of challenges they will meet and have worked out how and whether they can overcome them.</div>
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I doubt any but those with well established allotments are likely to benefit from the half-hour advice. (Which is pretty thin: don't hang around talking to other people or standing there wondering what to do, have your work planned in advance . . . )</div>
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But allotmenteers who have already got their sheds and paths and lawnmowers and compost . . . have already learnt that blackflies like to eat broad bean plants . . . and who are not challenged by the idea that they might simultaneously rotate the planting of roots and alliums and mix spring onions in with the carrots . . . I doubt these gardeners will need the kind of advice about growing things offered in this book. (Though it's often helpful to have a revision lesson. You go 'Oh, I'd forgotten that! or 'Hmm. Here's another angle.')</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ef4VXELUx0g/VkxfAiVAwBI/AAAAAAAAGOw/rFCwDKU-VJA/s1600/FOR%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2BFROM%2BHALF%2BHOUR%2BALLOT%2B-%2BIMG_4973%2B-%2BHCSAT.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Photo of page 147 from RHS: Half-Hour Allotment by Lia Leenderzt." border="0" height="480" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ef4VXELUx0g/VkxfAiVAwBI/AAAAAAAAGOw/rFCwDKU-VJA/s640/FOR%2BLOOSE%2BAND%2BLEAFY%2BFROM%2BHALF%2BHOUR%2BALLOT%2B-%2BIMG_4973%2B-%2BHCSAT.jpg" title="Photo of page 147 from RHS: Half-Hour Allotment by Lia Leenderzt." width="640" /></a></div>
In the end I decided that as well as for people with money to sling at a hobby, it's for re-starters; people who had an allotment in the past but gave up; people who've had time to think about it and would like another go; people who have already experienced problems with their gardening so they know what they are looking for in the way of solutions. It isn't I reckon, for people who are right at the beginning of their growing career - for all that it gives advice on what allotment to choose. (Some hope that - having a choice!)</div>
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And the final problem - the pictures. The pictures are alluring. They are of runner beans growing in straight rows. (The text doesn't mention that parallel rows aren't necessarily easy to create or that bamboo poles can be a pain - one end won't go in the ground properly, the other wobbles around on the green string you are trying to tie it to the others with. It takes more than ten minutes to get the hang of it, let along make a strong, neat row.) There are smart fences and brand new trowels. There are perfect apples, greenhouses and polytunnels. A beautiful scarecrow. (How long does it take to make a scarecrow? Ages!) I've found this with a lot of books. It's not an uncommon problem; this disjunction between photos and text. There we are reading about struggling to get things right while being blasted by humiliating perfection. (They are lovely though.)</div>
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So if you are an indifferent allotmenteer who would genuinely like to do better . . . would I recommend this book to you? Well yes. Yes, I would. I find it inspiring. If I were in a position to have another go at having an allotment, (I've done it you know) I'd probably be phoning the council right now, asking to have my name put on the list instead of writing this review. (I'll gloss over the idea that brambles can be cut back and rooted out in the blink of a half-hour eye. I'd need a day on them alone if they'd encroached very far.)</div>
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The sub-title is 'Timely Tips For The Most Productive Plot Ever' - which is rather hopeful (!) but a clearer indication of what the book's about. And I'd add to that 'With Handy Hints on How to Get on With Your Allotment Neighbours'. (A trickier task than anyone who's not had an allotment might think!)</div>
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I'm a sucker for charts and tables. I'd like it if there were charts to show when to do what rather than relying on the reader to make notes as they go through the book.</div>
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And it would be amusing (says she meanly!) to have a timetable to show how you can do all this in half hour slots broken up into ten minute pieces.</div>
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Now I'll go and see what other reviewers have said. They'll probably all be saying how easy it is to set up and run an allotment on two and a half hours a week - and I'll feel stupid. But I'll risk it though. Here I go. Press 'Publish'!</div>
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(The Half-Hour Gardener is published by <a href="http://www.quartoknows.com/brand/1028/Frances-Lincoln/" target="_blank">Frances Lincoln</a> in collaboration with the Royal Horticulture Society. </div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-us9FCRRCLj4/VknyGyEq2ZI/AAAAAAAAGOk/-WFR5QI5zCQ/s1600/HALF%2BHOUR%2BALLOTMENT%2BCOVER.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Cover picture - RHS: The Half-Hour Allotment by Lia Leendertz" border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-us9FCRRCLj4/VknyGyEq2ZI/AAAAAAAAGOk/-WFR5QI5zCQ/s320/HALF%2BHOUR%2BALLOTMENT%2BCOVER.jpg" title="Cover picture - RHS: The Half-Hour Allotment by Lia Leendertz" width="240" /></a></div>
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<u>READER OFFER!</u></div>
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To order 'RHS: The Half Hour Allotment' at the discounted price of £13:99 including p&p* (RRP £16:99) telephone 01903 828 503 or email mailorders@lbsltd.co.uk and quote the offer code APG378. </div>
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*UK only. If ordering from overseas, please add £2:50</div>
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* * *</div>
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<u>AND FOR ANOTHER APPROACH TO GROWING FRUIT AND VEG</u></div>
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watch this little film for children</div>
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'<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tIppLJW3OsM" target="_blank">Hey Duggee and the Food Growing Badge</a>'</div>
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It's WONDERFUL.</div>
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(It's sometimes only available in Australia so the link may not work</div>
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but try it - you will like if if you get through but the link works at the time of posting.)</div>
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Lucy Corrander Now in Halifax!http://www.blogger.com/profile/14685242329129914772noreply@blogger.com11