Peacock

A close-up of a peacock's tail. Taken while the peacock in question was strutting merrily around the place and very rudely refused to stand stil, so it was a bit of a challenge! Especially as we were in the shade of a group of trees so I was trying to get a picture that was not entirely dark and murky. But I feel it came out well in the end.

This particular peacock was at Trevarno Gardens in Cornwall. As soon as we stepped into the garden we could hear the screech of a peacock, and it seemed almost to trail us as we wandered about, but staying high up and invisible in the trees. It felt like we were hunting the Snipe. It wasn't until we reached the tea garden that we actually saw the peafowl running happily about.

Incidentally, I hadn't realised that the snipe is a real kind of bird, one that's notoriously difficult for hunters to catch - and that's where the word "sniper" comes from. Who knew?

Sunrise, Sunset

It's a sunset, actually, but that's not the point. Although Wikipedia tells me that sunset colours are "typically more brilliant than sunrise colours, because the evening air contains more particles than morning air". Who knew?

One of the most depressing things about winter is when the nights start drawing in. I do not appreciate night arriving while I am still in the office. It is rude.

A Brief History of Thyme

In Ancient Egypt, thyme was used in the embalming process; in ancient Greece, it was used as incense and believed to be a source of courage; the Romans spread the herb across Europe through their use of it to purify their rooms and flavour certain foods; in the Middle Ages it was used to ward off nightmares and promote a good night's sleep.

Okay, I'm done now. Thanks again, Wikipedia!

Obviously the above photograph is not of a thyme plant, it's some kind of very pretty iris, one of my favourite kinds of flower.

Red Earth

Another picture from my holiday in Devon, to show how bright red the cliffs by the railway are.

One of the fun things we did on holiday was to go visit one of my relatives and her husband who live near Dartmoor in a gorgeous house. They were really welcoming and lovely and served an absolutely incredible cream tea (and anyone who knows me knows I love cream teas immensely), with teeny delicious sandwiches and cute little scones with two kinds of jam, real clotted cream and an incredible slab of cake covered in strawberries. I made an absolute pig of myself.

But moving away from the food aspect of things, we also had fun discussing star signs and I resolved that on my return I would look up what I'm supposed to be like (I'm a Cancerian). Apparently Cancerians are the "least clear cut" of all the star signs. Negative traits according to this site include: untidy, sulky, devious, moody, inclined to self-pity, inferiority complex, brood on insults (very often imagined), easily flattered, tactless and difficult, often change their opinions and loyalties, lack stability, easily corrupted and (my favourite) can make successful confidence tricksters.

You have been warned.

Give Me Your Answer, Do

Taken on a cliff-top walk in Cornwall. It was a really lovely walk, although unfortunately like an idiot I managed to get a fairly horrific sunburn on the back of my legs and spent the next few days slathering them in
olive oil and E45 moisturiser. Also, because we were camping, every time I had to crawl into the tent, the backs of my knees registered serious complaints with my brain. It was painful! So don't do that.

Interestingly, I was reading recently that the song "Daisy Daisy" (you know the one… about a bicycle made for two), was apparently first written about Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick and mistress of Edward VII. Apparently she was known as the "Babbling Brooke" for her inability to keep things discreet and was thought to be partially responsible for the leaking of the Royal Baccarat Scandal in 1890, which resulted in Edward being called to testify in court and the whole affair turned into a bit of a society spectacle. It's strangely comforting to know that even a hundred years ago, tabloid gossip was still tabloid gossip.

I also like how the Wikipedia article on the scandal states that Prince Edward restrained his gambling afterwards, by taking up whist instead of baccarat. An altogether more respectable card game. And, incidentally, one which I learned how to play whilst on holiday in Cornwall. So the cycle of facts turns full circle.

Cairn

Another photograph of my summer holiay in Cornwall; there was a whole herd of cairns scattered across this beach. I don't know who built them or why, but it looked very picturesque.

In a not-unrelated note, my word of the day is tumulus, a "mound of earth and stones raised over a grave or graves". Purely because it sounds good. Also known as a barrow, a less awesome word which greatly confused me as a ten-year-old reading Lord of the Rings for the first time. Near the beginning of the book there's a bit which involves much unexciting messing around in/near barrows, and as I had only come across the word in the context of a wheelbarrow (and was too lazy to go get a dictionary), it caused me a great deal of confusion.

Elephant Rhubarb

This is a photograph of the leaf of a giant gunnera plant (I'm guessing gunnera manicata?) taken at Trebah Gardens in Cornwall. Along with other curiosities (including a Stumpery and bamboo maze), the Gardens sport a Gunnera Passage, which winds along underneath the huge leaves of these plants. They have giant spikes on their stems, and their leaves are several foot across (there's even a picture of me pretending to sit on one). It was one of my favourite areas in the garden; it's very cool to feal like a tiny midget creature creeping along in the shade of leaves the size of umbrellas.

Even though gunnera manicata is known as Elephant's Rhubarb, it's not related to rhubarb at all and sadly isn't edible. If it were then I guess we'd be one step closer to solving the world food crisis because one stalk could probably feed you for a week - some of the stalks were as thick as my arm. Interestingly, although rhubarb is usually classed as a vegetable, it's legally a fruit in the United States. For tax purposes.

Also, rhubarb leaves are poisonous, although you'd have to eat about five kilograms for it to kill you. In news of other toxic plants, I recently discovered that wild almonds are all poisonous as well! They contain cyanide. So if you're ever wandering desolate through a forest and you're feeling peckish, avoid anything that looks almondy.

Snooty

This fine fellow is a South African Fur Seal, aka Brown Fur Seal, aka Cape Fur Seal, aka Arctocephalus Pusillus, and he lives at the National Seal Sanctuary in Gweek, Cornwall. It has a hideous website but is actually a pretty cool place. If you like seals. If you do not like seals, it is hell on earth.

Fortunately I do like seals greatly, so I had a whale* of a time. Cape fur seals like the one in the above photo are a protected species now in South Africa; sadly the pups are still killed in huge numbers elsewhere in Namibia for their fur (hence the name).

Elsewhere in Gweek you can buy Seal Sanctuary Wine, but rest assured that this is not made out of seals but is in fact the normal kind from grapes, with a picture of a seal on the front.


* Or insert-water-dwelling-mammal-of-your choice

Petals

This is one of my absolute favourite photos. And one of my less original post titles, oops. The disadvantage of the way I post pictures on this blog is that they're all teeny so you don't get to appreciate the clarity of the photo at full resolution. I originally intended to put them all up on flickr and then cross post them here, but a) it seemed like effort and b) I managed to lock myself out of my flickr account (genius, I know).

I am considering adding some of the photos to posts at full size under a cut, if I can work out how to do it, and this is a prime candidate! No clue what kind of flower it is, though. A pink one?

I did consider using it as my desktop background, but it would mean ousting two very charming narwhals, to whom I am very attached. Did you know that the narwhal's tusk is actually a tooth which grows right through the top lip of the male narwhals? Some of them even have two.

National Geographic's website does the classic "size of whale compared to a bus" analogy on all its whale pages (a humpback is the size of one large bus; a blue whale about three buses; a narwhal less than one bus). Why is it that whales are always compared to buses? It seems strange that "a bus" has become an informal unit of measurement for sea mammals.(And dinosaurs). How did this begin? Why the relentless association with buses? Why not a train? or a tank? or a herb garden? Has anyone found the first instance in which a whale was compared in size to a bus? And how does it work across national boundaries? A London double-decker bus seems to be the standard measurement in the UK, but judging by the pictures on Nat Geo's website, they're using an American yellow school bus. These buses are different sizes. Is this accounted for in the comparison? Will we ever know?

Vanishing Point

Originally this was supposed to be a photograph just of the water but given how wonky it came out, I feel it works much better upside-down - it's an interesting optical illusion. Taken at the lovely Trevarno Gardens in Cornwall, which is definitely worth a visit.

On The Cusp

I love orange! As, presumably, does this marmalade fly, episyrphus balteatus. They're super common and live all over the place. Strangely I've never been a big fan of marmalade, despite my passion for all things orangey - it's much too bitter. Apparently the whole reason it's so bitter is that English marmalade uses Seville oranges for their high pectin content, which enables the preserve to set well - California marmalade uses sweet oranges (and is therefore probably much nicer).

Wikipedia tells us that in 1524, Henry VIII received a box of marmalade from a Mr Hull of Exeter, allthough quite why is unclear. Apparently it was originally made from quinces and imported into Britain in wooden boxes rather than jars, and it wasn't until the 1700s that it started to be eaten as an accompaniment rather than just as a sweetmeat in its own right.

I remember as a child I had high expectations regarding the deliciousness of marmalade, thanks to the charming Paddington Bear, who had such a serious addiction to the stuff that, were he human, questions would have been asked regarding his suitability as a role model for small children. As far as I was concerned at the time, however, if a cartoon bear liked it, then it must be pretty delicious. You can imagine my disappointment when I actually tried it.

End of the Lavender

Another bumblebee picture - again I think it's a red-tailed bumblebee, bombus lapidarius (see the photograph in this previous post) although as it has a golden ruff and is rather smaller, I think it's a male, whereas the other bee was female.

It was really tricky getting this photograph to work, my poor camera was completely baffled as to what it was supposed to be focusing on. I have a few pictures of other bumblebees and honeybees which I took on the same day (the lavender was a real magnet for them) which I might put up at some point - this isn't actually the best of them in terms of focus, but I particularly like the colours and the last few bedraggled looking flowers.

There's a lavender farm quite close to where I grew up, and it's absolutely beautiful at the height of summer, particularly if, like me, you fanatically love anything purple-coloured. Plus, it smells fantastic.

Canopy

I like the contrast between the texture of the tree bark and the smooth black surface- I assume the tree was damaged and had to be sealed to repair it or something. I don't know much about treelore, alas! This is a sibling of the hollow tree I showed a picture of recently. Or maybe not a sibling but just a neighbour. Who knows? I'm sure they have been

Glass Light

This is actually a shot of the very modern stained glass windows at Buckfast Abbey which I mentioned previously. As well as the very traditional main building of the church, complete with elegant windows depicting various saints, they have a large and startlingly modern chapel section right at the back. The entire east wall of this chapel is taken up with a stained glass depiction of Jesus which, to be honest, I found wildly disconcerting. It's something that I would associate more with the very commercialised wings of American evangelism rather than a community of Benedictine monks, but there you go. Personally I'd rather not be stared at by a giant Jesus with square pupils, but whatever floats your boat. Or illuminates your monastery, possibly.

Anyway, alongside freaky Jesus there were some modern abstract stained glass windows which I actually rather liked, and this is a close-up short of some of the chunks of glass. I like the texture particularly.

Ooze

I have been traumatised twice by this fungus; firstly when taking pictures of it and secondly when having to look through loads of pictures of hideous fungi in order to identify it. However, I believe it to be an Oak Bracket Fungus, a.k.a. Inonotus Dryadeus, identifiable by its weird amber oozings. It has several other excellent names of course, my favourite being Weeping Conk. What can I say, it's a week for good words. And speaking of good words, this fine site describes the fungus as "finely hairy at first, becoming glabrous", which sounds like a highly undesirable shipping forecast.

Anyhow, its a mean old mushroom and causes rot of the tree. I've not been able to find much information about the strange oozing substance.I imagine a scientist would tell me that it's not oozing stuff purely to be as revolting as possible, but as with jellyfish I am highly suspicious. I bet they just want to freak me out.

I don't like fungi; when I was quite young, I was playing hide and seek with my parents and sister in a wood near our home one autumn. I thought I had found the perfect hiding spot in a bush and was perfectly concealed as the seeker bumbled past. Then I turned around and saw an absolutely huge toadstool, bright red with twisted white warts, sitting right next to me. To my parents' initial confusion, I leapt out of my cunning hidey-hole, shrieking at the top of my lungs. And to this day, I remain scarred by that experience.

It seems most likely that the toadstool I saw was the famous fly agaric, although the internet tells me it's usually 8-20cm across and I'm confident that the mushroom I saw must have had a diameter of 30cm, even accounting for the fact that I was quite small at the time. Maybe it was freakishly large, or maybe it was another species, or maybe I'm remembering it wrong, but it sure surprised the hell out of my younger self.