Meadow Waxcap

This gallery contains 5 photos.

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Light through leaves

Autumn progresses. When the sun shines the shadows are long. It’s the time of light through leaves.

Find the Fire Point

When I trundled a bin down the hill yesterday I came across a blue blob in the middle of the lane which hadn’t been there that morning. ❓🤔 I trundled on.

Then, in front of our neighbours’ wall appeared more blue marks. These made sense because of where they were and where one of them ‘pointed’: to the fire hydrant marker by the wall.

So I continued my trundle downhill and deposited the bin for emptying. When I got back to the house… well… the bike shed, I rummaged around for a can of spray paint. Then Toad went and sprayed more marks on our bit of lane to show the fire hydrant monitors which way to go to actually find what they were looking for.

Perhaps it was an inexperienced fire hydrant hunter, someone who wouldn’t recognise a prehistoric fire point with a scruffy “FP” plaque rusting into the surroundings ever since the gate post it was on was shifted decades ago. I’ve since de-scruffed the yellow FP as best I can.

The fire point in March:

Perhaps I’ll get some yellow spray paint and smarten it up.

3 grans walk beside the River Kelvin & the Clyde-Forth Canal

Little She Bear (LSB) and I set off (left & middle in the photo above) from beside our wee sea loch to drive to the train station at the end of our proposed walk in order to leave the car there for coming home. We discovered that trains travelling west out of Glasgow were “off” for the weekend. We decided to drive right to where we had arranged to meet Lanarkshire Gran (LG). Finding a car park that wasn’t already full or cordoned off was the next challenge. We got to the open space beside the SEC Armadillo and Hydro where we were meeting LG, who was travelling from south of the city, and realised that Something was happening. Crowds of people, many dressed up in all sorts of fancy dress costumes were queueing. Here is a photo of a small section of the queue ranging in front of the SEC Hydro building.

Along the River Kelvin we saw the Glasgow motto “Let Glasgow flourish” on bridges, along with one saying “Je maintiendrai” which, Wiki tells me, is the motto of the royal family of The Netherlands. Not sure what that’s doing on a Scottish bridge but, as the saying goes… whatever! And, after all, one does want a bridge to ‘maintain’ whatever’s on it.

Along the way we found a well-loaded apple tree. LSB picked three and we ate them as we walked along. They were good.

Still beside the river, we came across the site of an old flint mill.
At Maryhill Locks on the canal we found three volunteers sprucing up the lock gate bars with new paint. One of them took the photo of we three. LB told us that as a child she had sometimes sat astride the lock gate bars while the gates were being opened or closed! A little way along the canal LB recognised the place where her grandma used to live and went to take a couple of photos for old time’s sake.

At Clydebank we caught a “rail replacement bus” back to Partick and walked the short distance back to SEC. And so passed another pleasant Three Grans Day.

Monkeyflower & two liverworts

Monkeyflower leaves (right) are appearing in quite a few new places in the Boggy Brae garden. Here are some  near Hart’s-tongue fern. The two liverworts to the left of the monkeyflower leaves are Crescent-cup Liverwort (Lunularia cruciata) and Endive Pellia (Pellia endiviifolia). All these are growing on a damp retaining wall.

Close-ups below of the liverworts and a tiny monkeyflower plant.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dragon slaying

A quarter of a year after breaking my wrist I’m back to slaying garden dragons, tearing them limb from limb.

garden dragon limbs

dragon bones from previous slayings

came off in my hand, guv

Flat rosebay willowherb stem

Waiting for a bus this morning, I noticed how the green stem of this rosebay willowherb caught the light. It seemed more than usual. Then I found out why. It was flat and quite wide compared with the usual round stems.

Got my scythe out

We had some sunshine today so I got my scythe out and swished at long grass around this spiraea bush and part of the yarrow patch. It was a wrist test as well as a grass cutting exercise. There was none of the jarring that I expected, which was a nice surprise, and now, several hours later, my wrist is still fine. Phew! I won’t overdo the scything though.

The yarrow has been decidedly leafy but not very flowery this year. I noticed a lot of young plants of Lesser Stitchwort in the same area. That was a nice find.I also spotted an apple—an actual apple—on the old apple tree. It was all of about one and a half inches in diameter and very zingy to taste. I shared it with Toad 🍏 It had fallen from its growing place and lodged itself in a convenient forky bit.Last year the old apple tree produced two apples. This year one, at least one that I saw. Jays do come and investigate the tree each year and eat any they find. Our visiting sheep chomped some of the lower branches this year too, which is fine. I’ll need to do some pruning myself.

old apple tree

old apple tree sheep pruned

Colchicum autumnale & Tricholoma fulvum

At first light this morning I noticed that the autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale) was flowering. Between showers of rain, often heavy, I dashed out to get a recording shot.

On the bank below there was this fungus. Last time there was one in this spot it was a Birch Knight (Tricholoma fulvum) so I presumed this one was too. Then the rain began again and I stuffed the camera up my jumper and came inside.

On neighbourly recognition and helpfulness

Headgear of choice during the very rainy weather we’re having at the moment is my deep pink and stripey Seasalt snood. It’s easy to pull one’s jacket hood over it when required. Given that so few people seem to wear headgear at all nowadays, using their cars as hooded raincoats instead, I suppose, the stripey Seasalt snood makes me easily recognisable. It was at any rate to Brian the taxi coordinator for the people who use the day care centre at which I’m helping out with daily cleaning while the usual person is off work.

Walking in the rain beats standing around waiting in the rain so Brian spotted me walking along the shore road to a convenient place for the bus to stop and transport me along the loch to the bottom of our hill and he stopped to offer me a lift. Where the garden walls of old houses by the loch, built before there was much traffic other than people walking, are right beside the road with no space for pavements there are no actual bus stops. You just stand at the edge of the road and flag a bus down.

I apologised for my general dampness—it was raining quite heavily again—and got in the car. A few weeks ago, during warmer drier sunnier weather, it was my Tilley hat that made me recognisable and that made someone else stop and offer me a lift.

The photo of me with my grandsons was taken a few weeks ago. The pot (cast/plaster) was just off my broken wrist. That bruise still hasn’t completely disappeared but my hand is no longer swollen. The pic of Boy2 wearing the snood made into a cap was taken in summer last year.