The thing I like most about this charming and very very orange flower, is it's scrunched up curly-wurly petal. The thing I like least is my photography skills. WHY GOD WHY did I have to cut half the petals out of the shot? It looks very ungainly. Originally this was not going on the blog for that precise reason, but I'm so low on picture stocks right now that I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel. Or possibly bouquet.

Oh well. Into each life some rain must fall.

So I've been racking my brains to think of something interesting to discuss in this post but unfortunately I have realised that I'm not very good at it. I have lots of interesting thoughts whilst wandering around the place, but few when sat at the computer. What I need is a dictaphone. Then I can be one of those people who strides around the place grasping a small black box to my face and shouting "NOTE TO SELF: TURN OVEN OFF" and "MUST BUY BINBAGS".

Ooh, binbags!

"What a dull topic!", I hear you cry. "There is nothing exciting about binbags!"

That is where you are wrong. Did you know that the binbag was invented by Herbert A. Resplendency-Potts of Wiltshire in 1894, after a careless servant dropped a lead dustbin on his foot? Of course you don't, because it's a huge lie. In fact, they were invented in the 1950s by three Canadians, who to the best of my knowledge had suffered no garbage-related trauma. But it's not such a good story.

Also exciting are the novelty Christmas pudding binbags which I recently came across in John lewis. I was extremely excited ...until I realised that I don't take out the rubbish. But one day, when I have my own house, my rubbish will out-Christmas everyone else's. Plus, even when it's not Christmas you can get these novelty goldfish binbags. Your neighbours probably won't judge you at all.

Still Lily

Just found a lily, sitting in a bit of wood. And took a photo, because obviously that's the right and proper reaction to such a situation.

Sunshine After the Rain 2: Sunshine Harder

I am proud to announce that I have worked out what this flower is! Exciting because these were some of my favourite flowers to see this summer, even though I found them really tricky to get a good picture of. It is a crocosmia, although I have no clue what kind. The damp kind?

Anyway, this website proved helpful in narrowing it down! Even though all I really had to go on was "it's orange" and "it's probably not a tree", we got there.

Balancing Act

I believe this is a european honeybee, aka apis mellifera, although I'm not entirely sure. I hope it is, because honeybees are nice. For one thing, they make honey, and honey with butter on toast is one of my favourite breakfasts (second only to toasted cinammon fruit bread. And ice cream, except obviously I don't actually allow myself to have that for breakfast because I don't want to turn entirely spherical). For another, they pollinate things in a useful and civic-minded manner. What's not to like?

And of course the poor honeybees are suffering from colony collapse disorder, which seems to me a rather ridiculous name, but there you go. No-one knows why the bees are disappearing, and it probably doesn't help that, bizarrely, there is genuinely a booming black market for bees, with thefts happening all over the place. On the one hand, it shows that British criminals are displaying an impressive level of knowledge and expertise in the field of beekeeping, which can only be admired.
On the other hand, they're stealing all the bees.

Pink Wednesday

When I was at school, my group of friends had a tradition of naming days of the week after items of clothing, and there was a rule that you had to wear whatever item of clothing it happened to be. Sadly I have long since forgotten most of them, but Mondays were always Pretty Knicker Monday (attractive underwear obligatory, and we weren't above conducting spot checks to ensure compliance), the idea being that Mondays could be rather depressing and a nice pair of pants would only improve matters. Then there was Odd Sock Friday, on which you had to wear odd socks. That one was, admittedly, less logical.

Later, we extrapolated this general principle to drinks at the local pub - used to meet once a week, usually mid-week. If we went out for drinks on a Wednesday, it was Woo-Woo Wednesday and we shared a cocktail pitcher of Woo-Woo. If we met on a Thursday, it was Rose Thursday, and at least one bottle of rose wine would be purchased.

Happy days.

Blue Monday

I'm going to make a terrible confession here and admit that I tend to write these posts well in advance and schedule them to post automatically. I know, it's cheating! But it means I can keep new photos appearing regularly even while I'm away or just extra busy. Or extra lazy, but obviously that never happens.

I was originally going to accompany this cheery vision of floral extravagance with an equally cheery aside about the Billie Holiday song of the same name which allegedly inspired huge numbers of suicides and was banned by the BBC. However, to my chagrin, I discovered that, in fact, said song was called Gloomy Sunday, not Blue Monday at all. Damnit!

In fact, 'Blue Monday' is the last Monday in January, allegedly scientifically proven to be the most depressing day of the year. Allegedly this was alleged by Sky Travel and the cough-cough scientific proof may have more than a couple of holes in it. So if you're reading this in January, fret not. Just go book a holiday, you'll feel much better...

Om nom nom

Once again I must confess that, shamefully, I don't know the name of the insect or the flower. All I know is that it's pretty and excitingly orange. And it came from somewhere in Warwickshire.