Magic water

Water on a nasturtium leaf. The leaves have a surficant property that affects the water, making it behave like liquid mercury. I haven't really captured what I wanted here, if I manage to get a nice shot I'll update it later.

Not a bee.

Neither a bee nor a wasp, this little chap is a hoverfly. Perfectly harmless, buzzing round like a tiny hummingbird. The flower is Red Hot Poker or Torch Lily - Kniphofia uvaria.

Opium Poppy

Soon be ready for this year's opium harvest - not! Nice flowers though. Anyway this is a 'Norman' type Papaver somniferum, Laciniatum Group which will not yield any opiate substances, although it is widely held that eating foods with poppy seed will give a false positive if you are tested for 'substances'!

Tropaeolum majus - nasturtium

Pale variagated nasturtium flowers in dappled light.

Old fashioned values

Some autumnal jams. This is recycling folks! Fruit all picked in hedgerows or growing in my garden, jars courtesy of anyone. I couldn't believe how hard it was to get a half-decent picture of some jars in a cupboard!

Worcester Pearmain

This is the one solitary apple that has grown on my lone apple tree this year. As the title might suggest, this is an old type of apple, a Worcester Pearmain. Nice name, the only reason I bought the tree and planted it - oooh - three years ago. I haven't done anything to the tree since, no spraying or pruning, nothing, so perhaps I've got what I deserve! It doesn't look exactly appetising but I'm going to have to eat it. Because it's there.


Afternote: I tried the apple, it was fragrant and delicious. Totally belied by it's appearance.

This is a Pineapple Lily, eucomis bicolor, taken against a background of nasturtiums. I stronly recommend this plant to the novice gardner, it is easy and cheap to buy as a bulb for spring planting, it is a very, very easy plant to grow and fortunately, slugs and other pests tend to avoid it.

Mean, moody and magnificent! This is Jack, our Jack Russell terrier (imaginative name, eh?), taken at Malham Cove in North Yorkshire in Winter 2006. Jack has a blue eye and a brown eye. Pretty cool, eh?

This is Sophie, my 'step-daughter', on her 18th birthday - a few day's ago. She is getting ready for a night on the town. Note the immense handbag on the sofa. She's probably going to be dancing round that later...

Not a brilliant picture. Blackberries, ready to be made into more jam.