Garden 7

Days of bees and roses . . . and baby birds . . . and mad bikers.

 

Saturday 7th June, 2014.

 

During TT fortnight, the Sunday between practice week and race week is known as Mad Sunday. There is no practice or race session scheduled and not much local traffic on the roads, so the fans take over the course to show off their impressive motorcycles.   According to the aficionados it is now a pale imitation of its former self in the hell-raising glory days of the 1970's.  But I wasn't taking any chances so I was out early to get the Sunday papers and back in the glen while the majority of the fans were still nursing  their hangovers. Although I managed to avoid the mad bikers, I was held up on my way home by a couple of mad pheasants . . . having a fight in the middle of the glen road near the bridge. 

 

The Mad Sunday bikers were probably in a more sober mood than usual this year because a popular road racing star, Simon Andrews, died in a racing accident in Northern Ireland earlier in May.  The bikers gathered in Douglas and rode around the course in a memorial lap.   It was estimated that the convoy stretched for fifteen miles and that five thousand bikers took part in the memorial lap.  Sgt Andy Kneen was on duty in Parliament Square and said "It took 40 minutes to come through town. An elderly gent on the Square told me that he noted 1900 motorcycles, before he gave up counting." 

On Sunday morning I caught my first glimpse of the baby great tits.  There were two in the kowhai tree near the birdfeeder and one of the parents was feeding them with bits of peanut.  I opened the dining room window and tried to get a photo but they kept moving and it was difficult to focus on them amongst the branches.  Then they flew away so I gave up.  Later I went back to close the window and one baby was back . . . and in a better position.

 

 

Rough winds should no longer be shaking the darling buds of May - because it is June and summer is officially here.  But the weather demonstrated its contempt for the calendar.  After a pleasant day the clouds gathered and it turned wet, windy and foggy by the time our son's flight from London landed at Ronaldsway on the first night of June.  But island weather is nothing if not changeable and after a cloudy start the sun was back the next morning.  The racing was postponed for a couple of hours to let the fog disperse and the road dry out but I walked to the Hairpin Bend with our son in the afternoon to watch the first lap of the Supersport race.  We can reach the Hairpin on foot from the glen road - along a path behind the golf course and then across a few fields and along a track above Claughbane.  It is the slowest corner of the course and the easiest place to get a photo which is not just a blur (or an empty road because the bike had passed before I clicked the shutter).  This is Conor Cummins, our local hero - a Ramsey lad (if you can call a six foot four inch 28 year old a lad).

 

 

It turned out to be the only race on Monday because the second one was delayed until Tuesday after the Clerk of the Course announced  "The weather is closing in."  Tuesday is also Ramsey Sprint Day and there is usually a display by the Red Arrows.  They performed again this year.  We didn't go the Mooragh to watch but stood out in the sun on our patio and watched from a safe distance.  I have mixed feelings about these displays - awe at their precision flying but a sense of unease about anything resembling war games or the glorification of war.

 

 

In the glen it has been a week of early morning shopping trips, cooking and pottering around, taking endless blurred photographs of birds . . .  and then spending hours deleting them.  Trying to photograph the birds through an open window wasn't the best idea because the midges are starting to bite - so I had to clean the kitchen window and take photos through the glass - not ideal.  The birds didn't cooperate.  They kept sitting with their backs towards the camera, fidgeting around or taking off just when I was ready to click the shutter.  Other hazards are the twiggy bits of tree that blow around and interfere with the focus - resulting in blurred birds and perfectly sharp but unwanted images of kowhai leaves.  Half of the problem was my fault because I was using the zoom and didn't hold the camera steady enough.  Using a tripod helped with that difficulty but then it took longer to get the birds in the frame.  Oh well, I am getting plenty of practice and they say that practice makes perfect.  I was happy with this late afternoon shot of a baby great tit . . .

 

 

. . . and this one of the first baby coal tit that we have seen this year.  It was still being fed by a parent and was begging for food.

 

There were plenty of adult birds too - some grabbing a quick snack and others bringing their brood along for a "happy meal".  We even had a visiting gold finch.

 

There aren't many new flowers in the garden this week but some are starting to open on one of my favourite shrubs - the philadelphus or mock orange.

There are also a few new varieties of weeds are starting coming into flower.  There is the red clover which brings joy to the bees and has pretty markings on its leaves too.

 

 

The bees also love the purple toadflax Linaria purpurea - not a local weed as it originated in Italy.  I stole a root from a clump growing at the base of a tree in the little park at Pooyldooey a few years ago.  I didn't feel too guilty because the small bit that I took had been strimmed or mowed so I assumed the Ramsey commissioners wouldn't mind parting with it.  It is happily seeding itself in various parts of the back garden now.  The smaller types of bumble bee can almost fit into the tiny flowers.

 

 

 

And the bees are still enjoying the sage flowers.

 

 

 

The purple honesty flowers are long gone but the pods remain.  They are still green with a purple flush on one side but will fade to near white by the end of autumn.

 

 

 

June should be the month for roses and Cécile Brunner is looking lovely - sprawling over the summerhouse roof.

 

 

But there are very few flowers on my other roses yet.  I don't have many rose plants - just a few hardy varieties.  Some years ago a small branch blew off my Cornelia.  I stuck it into the side of a handy plant pot and was rather surprised when it decided to grow.  The poor thing is still in the pot and I must remember to plant it in a suitable place.  It is flowering although none of the buds on the parent plant has opened yet.  Cornelia dates back to 1924, has sprays of small flowers with a delicious scent.

 

 

It was one of those TT race weeks when the weather caused postponements - so the roads were closed every day.  But it ended on a high note.  The weather on Friday was glorious.  There were no life-threatening accidents in the Senior TT.   And Conor Cummins finished second behind the invincible Michael Dunlop, who won his fourth race of TT 2014 bringing his total number of TT wins to eleven.  So that is the end of TT2014 - no more young and not so young men risking their lives by riding round our twisty roads at speeds of up to 200mph - until next year.  James, who looks after the trollies at the local supermarket - and thinks I am incapable of taking my shopping back to the car without his help - says that he doesn't know whether the TT racers are incredibly brave or just plain mad.  I suggested that they may be both.  Philip McCallen, another TT hero, should know.  So I will let him have the last word . . . "I keep hearing it from people who should know better: Michael Dunlop is a madman. Michael Dunlop is a lunatic. . . . . . Let me tell you what Michael Dunlop is: a genius."

Now it is Saturday morning and the week is ending as it began - wind and heavy rain, with a soupçon of  thunder and lightning mixed in.  The back lawn was littered with larger petals than usual this morning and I realised that the wild roses, which grow up through the hawthorns, were starting to flower.