Derwentwater Sunset

It’s hard for me to believe that this sunset was little over a month ago – so much has happened since then, summer has all but arrived and I’ve been to so many other places both physically and mentally. It was the evening of our first full day of camping on the shore of Derwentwater, a day of speeding clouds and thick, blanketing drizzle of the kind that is utterly miserable everywhere else but familiar and atmospheric on the fells.

Just as we were starting to cook dinner back at the tent, the clouds parted and we were treated to a spectacular sunset that went on for an hour or more, the clouds that were passing across Catbells somehow still catching sunlight long after higher cloud had bled to grey.

For more beautiful and fascinating images of the sky around the world, visit Skywatch Friday!

Gardening Grounds Me

It’s been a busy and disjointed time for me lately, too much living out of a backpack for one reason and another. One thing that’s helped no end is our garden;  our little plot isn’t huge, but this year we’ve all got gardening fever and I’ve been so glad of the garden as a way to ground me when I am home.

We’ve cobbled together an eccentric bunch of containers to grow potatoes and carrots in, and it’s amazing how many generous people have donated seed. Home made compost, home made bottle cloches, pots recycled from last years annuals and our garden table is groaning under the weight of potted seedlings raised on high as protection from slugs. The courgettes we sowed in an old water container about six weeks ago are already in the ground and almost ready to flower; I’ve barely been able to keep up with their growth. Our potatoes, buried experimentally in tyres stacked up near the house are already showing promise. Jerusalem Artichokes have shot up like rockets, with a promise of cheerful sunflower blooms and tasty tubers for the pot.

We’ve got beans, we’ve got chilli peppers – we’ve got whatever random things we could easily cadge or lay our hands on, and the practical tasks of planting, watering, weeding and just getting my fingers into the sweet earth has been bliss.

I’d been hoping to photograph our little seedling babies right from the start – a little garden diary documenting their growth, but the growing season is already in full swing and most of them are seedlings no more. Still, my experiment of growing carrots in a window-box is in early days yet so perhaps the second wave of plantings will make good subjects.

We’re not just tending a vegetable patch though. The garden also contains a fascinating and totally unplanned selection of ornamentals, things planted by tenants long gone, self seeded annuals that have made their way over the fence broadcast by wind, birds or in the fur of cats and foxes, and there are the humble garden centre plants we couldn’t resist for their cheap and cheerful resilience. A friend who works for the council frequently brings us rescued municipal strays; when the bedding displays in the local park gets changed she rescues plants that would otherwise get thrown away, and our garden is home to many.

The loveliest things so far have been the native plants – Lungwort earlier in the spring has been overtaken by its handsome and showy relative Comfrey, and both have sung with bees from the opening of the first flower.

The Long Man of Wilmington

A misty spring morning a couple of weekends ago saw a group of us set out to explore the Long Man of Wilmington.  At the start of our walk, in a valley buried in cloud and noisy with birdsong we couldn’t quite believe we would see anything, but as we climbed the haze lifted to give us one of our first truly glorious spring days and a vast panorama dissolving into the horizon.

On the approach to Windover Hill we chose to first climb the ridge to the top, thus hiding the Long Man from our view until we had picnicked at the top and made our descent. Spurred on by the exhilarating song flight of skylarks, buffeted by chilly winds and squinting in harsh sunshine we gained the top of the ridge, sank down into the stubbly grass and unpacked our goodies. Our bellies did very well for themselves, but perched on the precarious ridge with our legs braced against the drop we also feasted on this…

I’ve walked in higher places but this still felt like the top of the world. Where we sat and gobbled our food it was possible to steal a glance at the giant inscribed on the hillside  just below our feet, but he’s so huge (and designed to be seen from below) that we could not make much sense of what we saw. Once we’d eaten it was time to go and inspect our enigmatic friend.

It seems no-one can agree on much where the Long man is concerned; although he looks ancient there are many who believe him to be a relatively modern creation. There is controversy over whether his outline was changed during a restoration attempt, and whether he is a war god wielding weapons or a man standing in a doorway. Even up close he is not as he seems; as we descended the hill and approached the white outlines which we had assumed were scratched directly into the chalk hillside they resolved into a kind of narrow stone pavement laid into the turf.

Whoever made him, he was designed to be seen from below and at a distance, and this is the best way to look at him and make your own mind up. He is an astonishingly powerful presence even if, as we agreed, it did look as if someone had botched up his feet a bit. I couldn’t see the war god in him at all, preferring the interpretation of someone standing at an entrance, hands on either side as if flinging open a set of doors, paused before entering or emerging. Of course no-one really has a clue or ever will, and therein lies the Long Man’s true secret… he makes you see what you want to see, we are all free to interpret him as we wish.

At a distance the sinuous curves of Windover Hill took on the aspect of a sleeping woman, curled up on her side.  “He’s being born!” D exclaimed, and once he’d said that we could all see it too.

Spring Adventures

In the time since I last wrote here spring has arrived and I’ve been so immersed in it that I’ve neglected to share. Shame on me! From turning part of our tiny back garden into a vegetable patch, hedge planting in Hampshire, discovering a Neolithic Giant on a chalky hill and Osprey spotting in the Lake District I have a huge backlog of stories to tell… plus I’m off to Scotland again next week for another adventure. My itchy feet are giving me plenty to do and no time in which to record what I have seen. I love the busyness of spring, but capturing it is one task too many.

The gradual unfurling of blossom, then green, the release of delicious new scents into the air, the reappearance of old migratory friends (we were lucky enough to be there when the Swallows returned to Derwentwater) has felt like celebration after our unusually hard winter here. On the banks of the Thames, the dainty yet screechily foul mouthed Black headed Gulls have regained their smart summer plumage. A few weeks ago when I took the pictures below some were still growing in the handsome chocolate brown head feathers for which they are named, now all sport their fine new plumage as they squabble and wheel.

Crammed into an unpromising corner of  our garden a small, self seeded plum tree has sprung up from a plum pit fallen from our neighbours tree; a week ago this little wild fruit tree was covered in delicate pure white blossom. Dandelions spring up in cheerful clumps wherever we turned the earth for planting, leaving me regretful at having to grub up their rubbery carrot like roots.

Sunflower seedlings bravely defy the slugs and snails, and in the rotton ash tree wood pigeons have settled into lazy displays of affection after the comical territorial disputes of early spring. I’ve been wandering the countryside, but spring in a small London garden is as beautiful and full of potential as anywhere I’ve been.

Lords And Ladies is a polite name for…

What? The beautiful and alien looking Arum Maculatum, a native of much of northern Europe, lurker of the dark, dappled shady places. This incredibly common plant with its strikingly sculptural flower like spathe, elegant spotted leaves and brilliant scarlet berries unsurprisingly has many common names in the British Isles – and some of them are distinctly suggestive! Here is a short list of local names given to this plant:-

Cuckoo pint, Jack-in-the-pulpit, Devils and angels, Naked boys, Snake’s meat, Cows and bulls, Adders root, Wake robin, and my all time favorite…Willy lily!

The word “pint” in the common name “Cuckoo pint” is considered to be a shortening of the old English word “Pintle”, which refers to a certain portion of a gentleman’s anatomy. For those not familiar with British slang, the word “Willy” in the name “Willy lily” fulfills the same purpose. I absolutely love it that Lords and ladies has been considered a prim Victorian name for the plant, coined by those who couldn’t bear to say the cruder ones. And I love it that there is a counter argument, that if you look at the flower and how it is made you could easily say that calling it Lords and ladies is actually ruder still (If you are innocent of mind, think about human anatomy and what makes the boys different from the girls. What were those Lords and ladies up to?). No matter, these plants are, as my mum would say, “common as muck” and don’t care what you think they look like. I would love to coin a new name for them, but all the best ones seem to have already been taken.

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