Tom Thumbs

We went up to the allotment before it got too hot and did some watering and clipping and hoeing etc etc. I took a few photos of a helicopter that buzzed us a couple of times, but that brings back dark memories of Maxwell's helicopter hovering overhead eying up the real estate as I toiled on the allotment site in East Oxford. But that was in another country, and besides...

I tried to take a photo of a bee having a fine old time in the comfrey, but only managed a furry bottom shot. So I checked out this little plant, which has seeded itself around the edges of the stone flags. I'd always assumed it to be a minature variety of clover, but I think it's a relative called Hop Vetch, Trifolium campestre. The flower heads are tiny, less than 1 cm across, so it wasn't until I looked at the photo on the computer screen that I realised that the petals curl back on themselves in this fashion.