PRETTY AND GRUESOME

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!

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.

My old one started making fizzing electrical noises. It was quite sca . . . no!

Here are some bluebells. English or hybrid or . . . ( ? ? ? ?) - yellow pollen, drooping heads, curled up edges.

The Plantlife site has information about how to tell them from Spanish ones.

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.

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)

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!

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.

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.

When I found a dead goose on a beach I was able to photograph it in detail 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.


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!

And a few footsteps further - more bluebells.

It's all nature!

It's good to be back, it's good to be back, hello! hello!

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We go way back with the sycamore in the drain. Click here and you'll see it in April and May 2012.

SO HERE IT IS - A BOX TO STICK YOUR FOOT IN

What is a Stuck Foot Post?

Easy.

It's where you stick your foot in one place and refuse to move it till you've seen what you can see - then you post about it.

It's astonishing what you can see while standing still.


Take this picture as an example. There's seaweed at the top of the picture and the retreating tide has left ripples in the sand. There are the feet-imprints of a gull who's been stamping on the spot. Gulls trick worms into coming to the surface by pretending to be rain tapping as it lands on the ground. I don't know if lugworms are interested in rain but on the left hand edge of the picture (quite low down) there's a circular depression. If we were to dig there I think we'd find the head end of of a lugworm underneath. And back up almost to the top - below the seaweed and to the right of the footprints - a beached sea squirt. And this is in only one picture! Stuck footing is about the least energetic form of blogging!

So how about joining in and becoming a Stuck Footer too?

There's a box on the blog alternate months.

Here's the one for 21st - 25th May. (The next will be July.)

(If you see a note which asks you to leave a comment, don't feel compelled. It's an exhortation that comes with the widget.)

To find out more, go to the Loose and Leafy Page about Stuck Footing.

Twitter hashtag - #stuckfootposts
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