Like the rest of Britain, we're having a heat wave after a very cold spring. Of course one should be pleased, but actually it makes it difficult to do things outside. The sun has made my face go all red itchy blotches - so attractive. It's too hot to garden with any energy or walk during the day with any speed. However, Mr Life and I went for a wander along the nearby cycle path, which is a former railway line. The first picture here could be the middle of nowhere, don't you think? But actually on the other side of that field is the main road to Glasgow and the west and the city centre is only a couple of miles away. 
(Oh, grrr, I do find this new Blogger arrangement difficult. I have to keep struggling to get the words anywhere near the right pictures.) Here you can see what used to be the platform for the trains. Mr Life and I were once cycling here with the children when he rode up on to the platform and managed to fall off, ripping his shorts from back to front on a shrub (no longer there) and transforming them into a sort of kilt. Quite hard to cycle home thus attired. 
But here he is now, quite respectable. 
I love the scent of hawthorn - it reminds me of my youth.
These are - what are they? Celandines? Sort of buttercuppy things, anyway. 
Cow parsley - sweet-smelling and pretty in flower arrangements but, in my experience, somewhat covered in greenfly. Bring it inside at your peril. 
And these... I used to be a Girl Guide and knew wild flowers quite well. Now most of them have entered the category of Things I Used To Know. I've just tried Googling "purple wild flowers", found a picture of them and clicked in triumph. They were labelled "purple wild flowers". Thanks, Google.
(PS On trying harder, I think I've established that the purple flowers are annual honesty, lunaria annua. And the buttercuppy things are.. buttercups.)
Now that I live in a hot country, I can recommend the perfect way to reduce 'red face syndrome', wear a hat with a broad brim. No worries then!
ReplyDeleteHINT: If, when creating a new post, you click the "HTML" tab at the top left area of the creating page, you can enter spaces between your photos and your prose. Then switch back to "compose" (tab is right next to the "HTML" tab) and continue on! Good luck!
ReplyDeleteLovely pictures. I have a lot of lunaria around the edges of my yard and sometimes peel the seed pod to have the silver coins in winter.
ReplyDeleteThe list of "Things I used to know" grows longer every day. You are far from alone on this!
ReplyDeleteI can confirm that those purple flowers look like annual honesty, we had some in the garden in Portobello.
ReplyDeleteNow, could you come help me identify all the pretties I see in California? Having learned quite a few common flora and fauna in Scotland I am completely stumped and have to just refer to local birds as things like "the little black and white ones" and "the bigger black and white ones".
This summer I will be planting tall white papery poppy things and some of the purple stuff that resembles mallow but isn 't. If I can find the seeds.