These irises have only just come into flower in the last day or two. I love them not only for their vivid purple colour, but for their amazing array of shapes and markings. I noticed that they have little, if any, scent, yet bees find their way quickly and unerringly to the centre of each bloom. Do they navigate by those markings, I wonder?
I love the challenge of portraying textures in a photo – it isn’t always easy! Here, yesterday, I spotted these beech leaves. This hedge is made more interesting by the presence of one copper beech among all the other ordinary ones, which only augments the contrast between the glossy flat upper surfaces, and the fluffy, hairy edges of the youngest leaves. Nature is fascinating.
This year, the Ecclesbourne Valley Rallway is 150 years old. I thought this scene was somehow poignant and symbolic, because sleeper changing has to go on all the time. It made me think about those platelayers of the 19th century, who worked so skillfully (for derisory wages) to literally lay the foundations of a railway. Those iron mountings for the rails, known as chairs, would have been cast at a foundry somewhere not too far away. How many working iron foundries have we got left in Britain, now? Not that I would wish the return of the ‘Bedlam’ furnaces…
Amazing, how the random sight of a stack of worn-out railway sleepers evokes personal debate of the socio-economic history of England, eh? But history, too, is an ever-advancing thing; time moves from the future to history, a second at a time.
Lithospermum is a plant related to borage, that grows in many parts of the world, and makes a lovely garden flower in Britain. This clump seemed to cheer up a dull day – and blue is rather a favourite colour of mine.
If you click on this picture to enlarge it, you’ll see the detail in the blooms (they’re actually about 15mm across.)
