Foxglove

This is a late blip, because it's been a pretty full day. We took the dogs to Stratford this morning for their biweekly bath and brush, then I spent the afternoon clearing another section of the pear tree bed. It was full of rocks, and riddled with weeds and bramble, so pretty heavy work. R came out and helped when he could, but he had actual money-earning work to do too, so mostly I was slogging through it on my own.

By late afternoon I was almost on my knees and only keeping going out of bloody-mindedness - but then I realised that if I wasn't careful I'd be useful for nothing tomorrow, so I packed up, cleaned up, and went indoors and made a lovely salad for dinner. Tomorrow (assuming I can actually move) I need to dig a large amount of soil improver into part of the area that I cleared today so that I can plant the new blue hydrangea.

Everything in the garden is desperately dry at the moment - I know, I know... I know what I've always said about Worcestershire, but right now we're perilously short of rain, and even the plantings from a year ago that I'd started to think were reasonably secure are currently looking sickly. So while we had dinner I used the sprinkler on the pear tree and corner beds - and then I saw how lovely this foxglove was looking with the water droplets on it, and thought that it would make a good blip.

R's favourite shot today is the longer view I've put in as an extra, but I couldn't quite resist featuring this one, which was taken with the 31mm extension tube - I love the lens effect through some of the droplets, especially on the flower at the left side of the image. I know that because it's a portrait shot it will come through on Facebook looking as though it was cropped with a blunt pair of lawn edgers by an extremely short-sighted person, but you can't have everything.

We spent the evening watching the last double episode of the Danish TV drama 1864,  and having been rather lukewarm about it when it started I'm now really sorry it's over - who would have thought that an historical romance set against the backdrop of an ill-advised mid-C19th military campaign by the Danes against Prussia could be so gripping to an English audience? I can't wait to see what BBC4 serves us up next week!