Saw the water-lily bloom...

But not, alas, the helmet and the plume. What is it about poetry you learn when you're young? How many of my generation can chant bits of Tennyson's The Lady of Shalott?  In fact, I realise when I looked for this link to illustrate, I don't know great chunks of this long poem, but the bit about the water-lily is so ingrained that when my first result came up I saw immediately that the site misquoted that bit, inserting "water-flower" where it should have been "water-lily". Pah!

I tend to avoid writing much rhyming poetry myself, but it's clear that rhyme and metre render verse much easier to remember - you have the business of fitting the words in to help your recall. And I certainly remember my sister chanting this, as well as bits of Keats' St Agnes' Eve, when she was in perhaps S2 ...

Anyway, this photo was taken in the late afternoon in Benmore Gardens. I was glad to see the lilies flourish; a couple of years ago they cleaned out the pond and replanted lilies in interesting underwater boxes. A little later we saw birds feeding with squirrels romping up and down a rope walkway behind them.

No sign of the hedgehog, though - but then, we weren't sitting outside with the gin ...