Colour Bingo – Autumn

Posted on October 21, 2018 by Christine Lucas

27503153_10156137451853281_3427213563140472877_o The first time I completed The Woodland Trust’s Nature Detectives – Colour Bingo, was in February this year, you can read that post here.

Since then, I forgot to participate in spring and summer. So I decided that I was overdue to do another one. I chose the glorious season of autumn in the hope of finding new variations of the colours.

The colours of the bingo are: red, black, white, grey, yellow, pink, cream, brown and green. Here’s what I came up with from my yarden for each colour.

The striking colour red features highly in the yarden this year. There are falling blueberry leaves, cotoneaster berries and ripening autumn growing raspberries.

Raspberries

Wet soil

Black is a hard colour to find. As it had been raining today I chose the black of wet soil. Not very imaginative I know, sorry!

White was a no-brainer. I picked the white of the late blooming dahlia. The hot summer of 2018 had severely stunted the growth of the dahlia, but I managed to get three flowers from it this year. Better than nothing!

Bumblebee on Dahlia

Grey Jasmine bark

Bee on honeysuckle

For grey I chose the bark of the jasmine, while for the yellow I selected the lone honeysuckle flower still soldering on.

Pink was an easier colour. I could have chosen the pink of the penstemon or the delicate flowers of the verbena but I decided to go with the successful sedum.

Sedum

Fuschia

The luscious petals of the fuchsia I chose for cream. This year has been the best showing of the fuschia. Perhaps the heat of the summer helped?

For brown I picked the brown leaves of the heuchera.

Ivy

The colour Green, as you can imagine is abundant in the yarden. The ivy plant I deliberated was the best to depict this colour.

There were also the colour blue and purple in the yarden. For blue I chose the lithodora blue, while the purple I chose the beautiful salvia mystic spires. My yarden isn’t complete without this autumn flowering shrub.

Common Carder Bee on Lithodora Blue

Honey bee on Salvia

Perhaps you too can join in the colour bingo? Let me know what colours you find?

Thanks for reading,

Christine.

Sunday Sevens #52

Posted on July 15, 2018 by Christine Lucas

I’m back to writing a Sunday Sevens, the wonderful series devised by Natalie at Threads and bobbins.

Bees Needs Week 2018:

It was George on his gardening blog, here, who alerted me to this annual initiative, coordinated by Defra. The aim of this week (9th-15th July 2018) is to raise awareness of pollinators and help in sustaining their numbers by planting more flowers, cutting grass less and letting your garden grow wild!

delphinium

Male Early Bumblebee

The Yarden:

At the weekend we visited Rivendell Garden Centre, Widnes. I bought a beautiful delphinium and also managed to replace my salvia mystic spires. I was so happy, it’s the small things! Among the many bee species that visit the yarden, I spied a male early bumblebee enjoying the cat mint.

Common Frog

Later on in the week David and I had a surprise in the yarden. I had thought our tadpoles, who had seemed happy in our little urban pond, had sadly passed away. We had not seen any in or around the pond for weeks. However on pottering about the yarden David called me over excitedly and pointed to a frog clinging to the wall. I was amazed! One of our tiny tadpoles had grown and metamorphosed into a frog!

Hoodwinked:

Green Man of Sherwood Forest

Robin Hood and Christine

Where’s Robin

Major Oak

This week David and I visited Nottingham to see their round of robins. (I tried to find the collective for robins, but there were numerous suggestions!) Once we had spotted 17 of the 33 we decided to have lunch at Sherwood Forest. I blogged about the day here.

Book I am reading:

The Ice Twins by S K Tremayne

The current book I am reading is The Ice Twins, a suggestion by my mum. She said it was a page turner. It is billed as a psychological thriller, based around the death of a twin girl, the other claims mistaken identity. Set among the highlands of Scotland, the plot follows a family who have been broken by the death of a child and an affair. They relocate to an isolated island in the hope of a new beginning. I doubt very much that will happen!

Have you read this book? What were your thoughts?

#walk1000miles:

I broke the 1000 mile mark on 13th July 2018. I celebrated in typical Christine-style by taking a swim at Llyn Dinas, Snowdonia. I will write further on that adventure soon.

Celebrating at Llyn Dinas

So, that was my eventful week, how was yours?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

Sunday Sevens #49

Posted on April 29, 2018 by Christine Lucas

I love sharing my weekly updates with you in the form of a Sunday Sevens. Thanks to Natalie at Threads and bobbins for creating the series. 🙂

Book I’m reading:

Seven Wonders of the Industrial World – Deborah Cadbury.

I’ve picked up a book from my library, (OMG I can say library!) OK, a very small library! :p (David is cringing with the amount of books I am buying!) It’s a book I bought years ago and not had the time to read. So I thought I would read it for my 2018 Year in Books. Deborah Cadbury’s book accompanied the acclaimed 2004 BBC series Seven Wonders of the Industrial World.

I have to admit the series was inspirational. The Industrial Revolution created revolutionary thinkers such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, whose world changing designs were built by the superhuman navvies who toiled, bled and died creating a modern world! It made me stop and think of how we take for granted these wonderful works of engineering.

Awe-inspiring accounts of the building of the Brooklyn Bridge, (which to me will always be the Roebling Bridge), and of Joseph Bazalgette’s Cholera defying London sewers are among the best episodes of the series. Add wonderful music by the then up and coming Hollywood composer Steve Jablonsky and you have the ingredients for a superb TV series. I was gifted the DVD set for a birthday and the book only adds to the incredible achievement of these men of vision.

Have you seen this TV series, read the book? What are your favorite industrial wonders?

Cooking:

Returning to the mundane, this week I managed to do some cooking. It’s been a while since I cooked a meal from scratch. It may have been for one (as David cooked himself a curry) but I was happy with the result. I followed the recipe from the Quorn site, of Fajitas with Quorn Pieces. I served with warmed tortillas. The meal was filling yet ultimately healthy as the main base was vegetables.

Spicy Quorn Fajitas

Honey bee on Salvia

Red Campion

Yarden:

All the sun of last week has made a big difference to the yarden. The potato chits and wildflower seedlings have pushed through the soil and the red campion has started to flower. The only sad demise from this winter was my beautiful Salvia Mystic Spires. It was loved by bees well into the autumn months. I am mourning this beautiful plant and hope to find a replacement in the shops in future.

download

#walk1000miles:

My miles this week have been an accumulation of walks with Riley, housework and sessions on the cross trainer. My miles this week has been 30, bringing my annual total to 607 miles.

Walking the Dog:

Christine and Riley

Riley and Bennie

This Sunday David and I got up at the ungodly hour of 5.30am to take a drive to Formby Point for an early morning walk with David’s sister, partner and doggy nephew, Bennie! It was the first time both dogs had met each other. After a good sniff both dogs walked side by side as we took to the sand dunes and walked along the beach. I think they both enjoyed their 3.5 mile walk.

That was my week, how was yours?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

Wild October – Week One.

Posted on October 7, 2016 by Christine Lucas

Huge thanks to Sharon from the wonderful, Sunshine and Celandines, for bringing this little initiative to my attention. The premise, to do something wild every day for the month of October. It’s a bit like 30 Days Wild, though this is a celebration of all things autumnal! I thought I would give it a go!

The lovely Louise on her blog is also embarking on Wild October, as are a host of others on the Facebook 30 Days Wild page! Go check them out for inspiration!

Autumn seems to be slowly creeping into my yarden. The Japanese anemone has flowered, a shore sign of autumn and the salvia ‘mystic spires’ are as tall as me!

Sadly summer for the NW of England wasn’t quite as nice as it was in other areas of the country. This has had an effect on the vegetables I have attempted to grow in the yarden. There are three tomatoes still green on the vine and I noticed the other day that I have two peppers also growing!! Think I’ll need to bring them both inside to grow and ripen more.

Since I have become a sort of recluse these past few weeks, there isn’t really much wild going on! Mid week while washing the dishes I stood watching in awe as a garden spider reconstructed his/her web.

I am happy to still report that the flock of 6+ sparrows are continuing to visit the feeders, as are a pair of blue tits, charms of goldfinches, hoards of starlings and pigeons! The dawn chorus has been replaced by the cackle of corvids!

This week, with the weather being settled, I have seen some lovely sunrises. So today I managed to snap a picture along with the condensation clinging to the windows! Brrrr… it’s getting colder!

Today, while doing the laundry I noticed the garden spider had a fresh kill, all wrapped up in thread. It was fascinating watching the spider tuck into its meal!