Beauty and the beast

This afternoon I finally reached the end of the project which has been keeping me at my desk and driving me up the wall for the past couple of weeks. I celebrated by doing some accounts, and then walking about to see if I could remember how to do it - firstly round the house, using an app on my iPhone (joy!) to do a supermarket order, and then briskly round the village to see what I could find to photograph.

I apologise if this little flesh fly made you go "Eeeeurgh!" - I'm not especially partial to them myself, but I spotted it sitting on the Verbena bonariensis, thought it made an interesting focal point, and having snapped it and uploaded the shot was pretty pleased with myself for getting it so sharp. If you don't know this plant, the flower heads sit atop slender stems which are about a metre and a half tall, so they whip about the place if there's even a breath of a breeze. You might need to look full-screen to properly appreciate the little chap.

I did find some prettier things too, and I've uploaded one as an extra. I can't be bothered to grow dahlias myself - planting something once is almost too much effort for me, let alone having to dig the thing up every autumn and keep it safe through the winter for replanting the following spring - but I do appreciate them when other people grow them. Provided they're not planted in a huge swathe of clashing acid colours, that is - and there is one garden in the village where they are - but this garden has just a few pink ones dotted in amongst other plants, and luckily it's on a hill and raised above the road, so I didn't even have to lean over the wall to photograph them.

This evening R and I have been out for dinner and a nice long chat. Tomorrow I'm going to have to work out what to do with all the time I now have available - weeding my own garden would probably be a good idea, rather than obsessively reading everything I can find on line about the US election, and watching stupid cat videos on Facebook, as I've been doing for the past couple of hours - but right now I'm off to read a chapter of The Glorious Heresies and get some sleep.

Laters!