PORTLAND BILL IN WINTER

Rain.

That's what this winter's been about round here.

And wind.

And high tides.

And floods.

So I've been indoors and, on the whole, have kept away from the cliffs and the sea (they could be lethal) and from the rain which would finish off my camera.

Thus - silence.

Here and there, hawthorn leaves open, alexander seedlings spring up and . . . and I expect all sorts of other things are happening which would be interesting to notice if I could see anything beyond my streaming spectacles. Even when the rain takes a rain break the wind carries on and everything not set in stone keeps dancing. Nothing is still. So it's all a spin of water here and everything's blurred and not very blog-friendly.

But I wouldn't want you to think I've dissolved or have been swept out to sea - so I went to look at Portland Bill. My intention had been to walk between the rock gullies where plants are stiff and protected from the wind. I've been there before. It's interesting to see change . . . or lack of it . . . Except on that side of the headland the sea was rougher than usual and I was scared. It wasn't going to leap over and 'get' me - not at that moment, it wasn't - but there are big rocks missing from the sea, shattered by recent storms. I didn't want to go missing from land. The waves coming in were fifteen or twenty foot high. A ship was ploughing along, dipping in and out of view as it hit even bigger waves further out.

Erigeron glaucus  (I think).
(I'll take its picture again when it flowers.)

Being a coward . . . I pottered round to the other side of the lighthouse where everything was much calmer than it often is in winter and found . . . not a lot.

Which isn't quite true. There probably was a lot but I didn't stay long enough to do much more than photograph a few plants a million times so something would be in focus - and come home.

Proves I exist though!

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Burdock (Arctium)

PHOTOS TAKEN on 28th January 2013

Portland Bill is the southernmost tip of the Island of Portland - which isn't quite an island and which is joined to the mainland of Dorset by a causeway and a bridge.

Other Portland Posts on Loose and Leafy:

The Last Plant in England

Lights and Bells, Mists and Flowers

Sea and Sea and Rocks and Stones and Sea

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SPRING AND AUTUMN - CAN WE TELL THE DIFFERENCE?

Always, at this time of year, I go looking for what's left of autumn.

Usually, this means taking photos of leaves which have survived the winter, disintegrated flowers that never fell. That kind of thing. It's my version of spring cleaning.

And, as usual, at the moment I chose (which is another way of saying the only one I had available) the weather was dull. I fiddled around a bit, trying to make visible for the blog things which my eyes could barely make out in the gloom. Not a great success! So I turned the camera round the other way and decided on silhouettes instead. It was only when I got home and looked at the results that I decided the shapes I like so much weren't, on this occasion, the most interesting things there. What I had been seeing as the old stuff was really the new stuff held back from autumn and made ready and ripe for the spring. (Wonderfully scientific language on Loose and Leafy!)

I'd previously thought of dessicated blackberries as the fruits summer forgot.

I'd seen old willow herb shapes as just that - shapes left from when seeds fell.

Now, now, I see them as the winter's hoard - not for birds to eat, though with some, like teasels, this is indeed a side effect, but as plant's packets of seeds, ready to sow in the spring - and they've begun sowing.

This should not have been as much a revelation as it was. But that's the advantage of being ignorant. The pleasure when one's eyes open is immense.

Some Alexanders still have seeds in reserve.

Others  have let them all go.

Old Man's Beard (wild clematis) tends to look pretty euchy by now. The deliciously white fluff of autumn has turned into dirty gray drifts of ancient cotton wool - the kind left behind by the dustmen.

But, kept safe in the mess, the seeds are opening and dropping. They are tiny. Smaller than tomato pips.

And prickly balls of burdock are opening to release theirs.

See them? Quite large and lumpy inside.

Isn't autumn wonderful to save some of itself for spring?

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All pictures were taken on 16th February 2013

Last year's post looking at the year before's leaves.

Silhouettes in January 2011

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