Wisley poppies

A big day in the garden - digging, weeding, snipping, shaping. I managed to clear three bits of bare earth that looked prime candidates for something new. I'd wanted an excuse to drive the shiny car so set off to RHS Wisley to buy a couple of plants (five). It's always packed on a Sunday but I took the camera and thought it worth a quick butcher's. The garden was full of happy families playing and enjoying themselves.

This brings out the curmudgeon in me because I've been a member for 25 years and there was a time that it was members only on a Sunday and there were strict no ball games rules and strictly no picnicking. I think the last two rules still exist but nobody seems to take much notice of them and that's a shame because it is a garden and gardens are supposed to be tranquil places. Or am I just being a miserable old git? No, don't tell me, I hear it all the time from son George. He's right too. It was nice to see the middle-class mums and dads playing with their kids - like something out of a Boden catalogue.

Anyway it was far too bright to get anything good, I thought, but there's always something good in Wisley. I thought these poppies looked sensational but wasn't sure I could capture just how good they looked. There was no-one around when I started clicking, but within a minute I had quite a crowd around me all cooing and snapping and marvelling at the poppies that they'd ignored minutes earlier. I wanted to say "bugger off they're my poppies" but stood back until people got bored as they always do. Besides they're not my poppies. It's just that sometimes things are so beautiful I want to keep them in a box just for myself. I suppose that's what the camera is and this is the place where we let them out of our magic boxes for everyone else to see.

I had a few more nice ones (first eight here) and don't know whether I got it right. On the way to Wisley I noticed quite a few houses with Union Jacks flying. Olympic fever, or were they celebrating a Brit winning the Tour de France? I know I am. It's bloody marvellous.