The million-petalled flower ...

Today's photo collage smacks slightly of desperation, although I was rather taken with the individual components. Fact is, I had a perfectly satisfying, unremarkable sort of day in which I don't think I really thought much about anything, which in itself is unproductive but probably good for me. So, I went to Pilates in the morning; two friends from church had clearly listened to my extolling the benefits and decided to come along, so it was a bigger class than of late. It was also pretty tough at the end - I find half-planks (leaning on elbows) incredibly demanding.

My resolve for the afternoon had been to cut back the wisteria before the neighbour with the slash and burn tendencies decided to savage it from his side of the wall. I got the wee ladder out, and the long-handled loppers and the secateurs - and then decided to pop along to my friends' garden along the lane to see if they'd done theirs yet. An hour later we were still talking ...

However, I got back in time to trim it a bit, to tidy up the mess, to sit in the sudden sun and do some Italian on my phone. I inspected my biggest sunflower plant - did I mention in the spring when Morrison's were giving out packets of sunflower seeds with the groceries? - and concluded that if we don't descend, as seems likely, into weeks of rain after this week of high pressure, I may yet see the green whatever-they-ares turn into petals. It made me think of the lines from a very powerful poem by Philip Larkin, The Old Fools: 
                  It’s only oblivion, true:

We had it before, but then it was going to end,

And was all the time merging with a unique endeavour

To bring to bloom the million-petalled flower

Of being here.
(Don't read it if you're feeling gloomy, or vulnerable - save it for a sunny morning.) I was remembering how much my S5 students used to enjoy studying this poem about being old; even at the time I realised it was because they were young and immortal and untouched by the forebodings expressed therein.

The other photos come from wisterias - my pals' and ours. I love the dangling seed pods, and the crazy long red shoots that appear suddenly along the path like something out of Star Trek.

I suspect there are things in Vigil that make submariners shout at their screens, but golly, I love a good thriller!