Pastel Perfect

I was surprised to see that I hadn't already blogged this picture, because I am quite fond of it! I love the colours of the hydrangea and the contrast with the little marmalade hoverfly (which looks like it's balancing on one leg in that picture).

Whilst I don't know the name of this kind of hydrangea (I would guess it's hydrangea macrophylla?), it's apparently a lacecap as opposed to a mophead - meaning that it has large, showy but sterile flowers around the outer edge of a number of much smaller fertile ones -you can see the two types in the picture. Mophead hydrangeas are the ones you immediately think of when someone leaps out from behind a wall and shouts "hydrangea!" - i.e., the ones with big round fluffy-looking flowerheads. The colour of your hydrangeas will be affected by the pH of the soil, which is rather interesting.

Grapes!

A couple of weeks ago, as I was leaving the house, I heard the sound of someone singing a song - apparently a song entitled "everyone loves grapes". I deduced that this was the title because these were the only words.

I walked my usual route and quickly noticed that a stick was protruding from the high fence around the house at the end of the road. From the stick hung a piece of string, and a small bunch of grapes was tied to the string so they dangled at about head height for anyone walking by. Two children were sitting at the top of the fence and appeared to be the grape-stewards.

"Do you want a grape?" the small girl cried jubilantly as I approached.
"Er, no thank you," I said. "But it's very kind of you to ask."
"Grapes!" she said. "Grapes!"
"Grapes!" cried her brother. And they resumed singing.

***

When I returned from work at the end of the day, the empty grapestalk was hanging forlornly at the end of its string next to a hand-written sign that said "Grapes! Help yourselves!"