Foxgloves

We have my better-halfs family with us at the moment. The thunderstorms and heavy rain in the morning did box us up indoors a bit though. Thankfully the clouds went away by the afternoon and we were able to get into the garden. This blip is a common foxglove (Digitalis purpurea) in the bed in the rear garden. As everyone knows William Withering figured out you could extract from the plant an active agent that could be used to treat certain heart conditions and which is named after the plant: digitalis. While it has been used as a heart medicine for years it is also what makes this pretty plant toxic to mammals, so don't eat them..

After we lounged about in the garden for a bit we went to a friend's for a barbecue, which was nice as some of the other guests were keen to practice their French which took the load off my better half doing a running simultaneous translation.

Finally it was Wallander on BBC4 then time for bed.

(back blip)