Melancholy thistle

I have to start with thanks to everyone who commented on yesterday's blip and my 1460 big day, of which I was totally unaware. Thank you all for your kind and generous comments.

Today Penelope and I went to the nature reserve at Gowk Bank. (Gowk is another word for cuckoo.) Most of the orchids were over, but we found a patch of beautiful fragrant orchids on the bank down to the river Irthing. We climbed down there to see the frog orchids. I was able to find them, but the flowers were over. It was the same with the twayblade.

Then we went to Lampert Farm where there is a bankside of lovely hay meadow plants. To my great delight I found a few melancholy thistles. I have blipped one previously and explained how glad I was to discover that the thistles are not melancholy in themselves, but were used to treat melancholia!

We had lunch at Slack House Farm, saw the cheese making there, then went on to Haltwhistle and Hexham. We saw an exhibition of Japanese Art then looked around the Abbey.

This evening we saw Skylight with Bill Nighy and Carey Mulligan at the local cinema. It was compelling if uncomfortable viewing that left us with lots of questions.

If you would like to see a few of my photos from Saturday's Corbridge Music Festival, then click here. I'm really pleased with my first attempts at gig photography.