Mid-summer

In Midsummer now

brightest green and lush

lasting only moments

counting every one

through one half shut eye

 land bathed in light

still promising

so many balmy days

ahead

Also posted on Vision and Verb today

~Another evening amongst the wild Foxgloves~

I've spent many years now photographing the stunning and exotic wild Foxgloves (Digitalis Purpurea) on the lane here. So when I started this blog 2 years ago I named it after them. A regular feature of childhood games, magical drawings in fairy stories and romantic cottage gardens, Foxgloves are an annual blissful treat. 

Being biennial, where they will bloom each season remains a last moment surprise.  Last year the local council sprayed a large corner on the main road and to my amazement dozens of Foxgloves flowered there in the bare ditch. 

Those dormant verges have harboured the wild things during winter. Suddenly all has been revealed again this month in great abundance. Best of all they have scattered themselves all over my wild garden, getting closer to the front door every year.

The mystery and beauty of wild flowers is an endless fascination. The survival of so many Foxgloves in spite of agricultural "progress" and pesticide spraying here and there, is also an inspiration. Resilience, adaptation, showy blooming.......I like to think that's me too.......except maybe for the showy blooming!!




Read more about Foxgloves on the Kew Gardens site here

Digitalis purpurea was named by the Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus in his pivotal publicationSpecies Plantarum in 1753. The generic name Digitalis comes from the Latin for finger (digitus), referring to the shape of the flowers. The specific epithet purpurea refers to the colour of the flowers, which are frequently purple (although a white-flowered form is fairly common). Common foxglove is a popular ornamental, and many hybrids and cultivars are available. It is a source of digitoxin, a glycoside used in the drug digitalis, which has been used as a heart stimulant since 1785. It is also well-known for its toxicity, and ingestion of the leaves (usually as a result of misidentification for comfrey, Symphytum officinale) can result in severe poisoning.

Architecture, build it and they'll come

In another dream life I live in the big smoke. Which city? Well any of them to be honest, but at the moment it's London. I wander around from theatre to cafe and from river to park, I write, I snap, I breathe.

In any city it takes time to adjust to the proximity of so many people, the hurrying, the intriguing number of choices and the offerrings of consumerism. But when you settle into the endless stimulation your heart rate goes up, the blood rushes a bit faster, the brain kicks into gear. You feel yourself quickening, sharpening and responding to the world in a braver way.

But the biggest charge for me, is the scale and significance of the architecture. I connect with it instantly. Steeples, towers and bridges catch my eye and it's all up there where the trees usually are. I am looking up, I am elevated so I forget my feet. I am so rapt that I forget how far I am walking!

Isn't this what makes a town into a city? The quality of the architecture, the designers, the typographers, the planners? And again it's the conservationists who understand the importance of hearing the sounds and songs of our history through great buildings, streetscapes and gardens. Meticulously guarding heritage and encouraging experimentation from the very small to the royally grand.

And then we the people create the stories of the streets and villages within it. We add the heartbeat.





There's a previous London post here

News Flash!! This photo of the Shard taken that day was a runner up in the Open House, AJ, Gallery of Photography Photo Competition, 2013

~ Wild, free and wearing pink high heels~

I certainly know what it means to be cold to the bone, yet today I know sun on my skin again. Summer flowers have just sprung into life, my own patch is wildly self seeding, even lavender is appearing everywhere on the gravel.

So what's the news?

While work begins to blossom again in new ways I now have one foot firmly back in the meadow. 

Ireland goes green and the wild hedgerows so threatened by recent progress (like myself) survive another year. 

Big re-vamp going on in the day job and in my own head. 

More travel on the cards before the summer is out. 

Work, home and light........ bleeding into one.

These lane walks teach about imperfection, about the simplicity of real beauty, about how all the best things grow wild and free. Glancing at the high heels lined up to wear to a wedding tomorrow I wonder how vanity suddenly won out over comfort? Flat sandals would be grand (that voice said) but when I saw the high-heeled pink ones, the teenager in me succumbed! (I have happy feet btw as I never ever squish them into "foot-binding" shoes! But once would be OK?)

So now I'm telling myself it's just like gardening. A bit of preening, weeding, watering, and a few days staring up into the sun will do wonders? And while we're at it a wee bit of toe-nail painting wouldn't go astray either!

~ In the bluebell wood ~

It's quiet here and in spite of the proximity to the road, it remains wild. Darker than usual, fresh leaves block the sky. At dusk the light fliters through at a rakish angle making long shadows and spotlighting the little blue flowers I have come to see. 

To get to the woods I have to hop a few walls and climb down a steep hill of rocks and young trees. Every time it's worth it. Changes take place over these few weeks, and yet fundamentally everything remains the same over so many years.....

It can be spooky in the woods. It's isolated and I feel vulnerable in these lonely places. But a camera is a companion, and although I am a bit rushed by my caution, time passes and I soon forget the rest of the world.

June is the best month here, bright and new. I wish it would go on until at least November......





All these images are for sale here