Saturday 30th August, 2014
Small things amuse small minds. If one misinterpreted that saying and assumed that "small things" referred to "small physical size" rather than "things of little significance" then I would have to plead guilty to having a very small mind. I have always been fascinated by small things - tiny flowers and insects (although I draw the line at spiders).
I started thinking about this after receiving an email from a friend about a fantastic holiday at the Victoria Falls which included a sunset cruise up the Zambesi with sightings of elephant, hippos and crocodile. A wonderful experience and majestic beasts - but they are not close to my heart like our British butterflies and bumblebees. This seems wrong, as my my early life was all spent in Natal. But although I grew up in Africa I really lived in books - and the books that I read were almost exclusively English.
Apart from being addicted to Enid Blyton adventures, four books made an impression on my early years. We didn't own many children's books but we did have a copy of The Secret Garden. I didn't realise that there was an underlying message until I checked the date of publication recently and read that Frances Hodgson Burnett was a Christian Scientist and the plot revolves around the power of positive thought and common sense triumphing over accepted medical theories. I was just delighted by the friendly robin and the idea of reclaiming a neglected garden.
There was another book that we owned, of which I only have only the vaguest memories. It must have also been pre-war or earlier. It was about some people who became incredibly small. I have been unable to discover the title of the book. All I remember is that the miniature people were so small that grass was like a forest, raindrops were dangerous and I think there was something about pollen as a food source and using the exoskeletons of diatoms as baskets.
But my real favourites were two books about the fictionalised lives of wild ponies on Exmoor and Dartmoor which were in the children's section of the Durban library. I must have read them a number of times before I was ten because we left Durban North then.
There was a common theme to all these books. A fictional plot to hold the interest combined with a factual description of nature and the British countryside.
Back in the here and now it is Manx Grand Prix fortnight. Normally we walk up through the trees on Skyhill in peace but on Sunday the noise of the bikes screaming up the mountain road drowned out the usual cooing of wood pigeons and the occasional twittering (of small birds not self-obsessed celebs).
We paused at the top and I took another photo of glen which included the old quarry in the foreground. This time Snaefell and Claugh Ouyr were both visible.
Then I zoomed in on mountain road. it wasn't possible to zoom enough to see the bikes clearly so I ended up with some boring pictures of the side of the hill and an occasional van.
On Wednesday we walked up through Brookdale to see the heather and this time we got all the way to the top.
Wednesday was a race day and we reached the mountain road before the bikes arrived from Douglas. The roads had closed and the only other people up on the hill were a few sheep and some bored marshals.
While we waited for the first bikes to come past, I took photos of the heather with the northern plain in the distance . . .
. . . and the heather with Guthrie's memorial in the background . . .
. . . and finally, a few patches of heather, some sheep and a blurred bike!
On Friday we walked up though Brookdale again but varied the route. We followed a track that we hadn't been on since the larches were felled. It is sad to see the trees littering the hillside but there are some advantages. The extra sunlight has done wonders for the blackberry crop. And new views have opened up.
This speckled wood was enjoying the sunshine on a previously shady path.
My first task of the autumn gardening schedule is almost complete. I set myself a deadline of the end of August to finish cutting back the ferns and will be tackling the last few tomorrow. The second task will be to clear the weeds/wild flowers from the patches of spring bulbs. The tips of the snowdrop and daffodil leaves emerge quite early in winter and it is best not to walk on the beds once they start growing.
There are many signs of the change in the seasons now. The sun is rising later in the morning. When I woke at twenty past six on Tuesday there was a golden glow shining through the curtains. My first sunrise since last winter.
We saw the first "autumn leaves" in Brookdale.
And great news for the blackbirds - a good crop of autumn berries. As well as the "haws on the thorn" and the hips on the rose there are ripening berries on the rowans . . .
. . . and on the cotoneasters.
The winds are becoming stronger too. We had to drag a fallen ash branch off the path last time we walked on Skyhill. And part of our old dead, ivy-clad, willow broke off on Wednesday night. It was heavy but luckily not too heavy for us to move. I managed to roll it across to the steps and then Tim came out to help and we dragged it up the steps and left it under the rhododendron.
The willow was still very much alive when we bought the property over twenty years ago although it had obviously fallen over when it was young. The trunk rested on the ground for about ten feet and then curved up and forked. The Schipperke boys loved climbing up the tree when they were puppies. They were little dare-devils, especially Alexander. Later, during an autumn gale, one of the main branches twisted and tore away from the trunk. We decided to cut both main branches back to the fork and leave the main trunk in place.
The remains of the willow trunk after about five or six feet broke off.
We had another visit from a hummingbird hawkmoth. I was walking up towards the summerhouse when I saw it hovering over the knapweed on Friday. I rushed down to fetch my camera but it had gone by the time I returned. This is the third time that I have seen one in the garden this summer. The only photos that I managed to take are in the post dated 21st June.
There are still a few flowers - and butterflies. I wanted to get a good photo of a white butterfly on some purple knapweed but there were no whites around. While I was taking a photo of a comma on some oregano, a red admiral settled on a knapweed flower. Not the colour scheme that I wanted but I took its photo anyway.
I haven't used a photo of our hebes yet. We have a few different types. This is a pink seedling which had a white-flowered parent. I am not sure whether the pink genes are a throwback or whether they are the result of cross-pollination. The white parent hebe was the only one which had these narrow leaves but we have a different type with pink flowers.
And my favourite "small things" this week are the cyclamen growing through a ground cover of Soleirolia soleirolii. This little bright green plant has a number of common names, including baby's tears, angel's tears, mind-your-own-business, peace-in-the-home, mother of thousands, and the Corsican curse. The last two names probably refer to its ability to spread too far and too fast.
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