Prawn crackers

Yesterday's good weather disappeared again overnight, and the prevailing dank gloom returned. There were a couple of intrepid hairy-footed flower bees out and about today; one sat briefly on a leaf in this flower bed and allowed me a photo, but I had higher hopes of the one I found in the front garden. I wanted a shot of one feeding, and as the one thing all plumpie lovers know is that A. plumipes cannot resist pulmonaria nectar, I checked out the pulmonaria patch in the front border and discovered one hovering over it. Sadly though, it seems that the early boys are still living on their nerves and their fat reserves, because he zoomed away without landing.

With no other invertebrates to be found anywhere, I was reduced to photographing just about the only flowering thing in the garden I don't believe I've posted yet this year, which is this Daphne odora aureomarginata. Trust me, it would be a much more impressive post if you could smell it as well - the scent almost knocks you off your feet when you walk past it.

Whenever I look at this blossom closely, I'm strongly reminded of the texture of prawn crackers, and get an almost irresistible urge to make some - which is something R and I used to do quite regularly back in the day, until the time I dropped some in the boiling oil and then got distracted and forgot them, and almost set fire to the kitchen. Happy times.