Saw a solitary flower open on a Hairy Willowherb plant. 

Great Willowherb, Epilobium hirsutum, AKA Hairy Willowherb, Codlins and Cream and Cherry pie. 

I should have got round to taking a series earlier in the summer.

Snipped it off and took some shots. One advantage was I could take some pix of the seeding.

Once again such small seeds for so large a plant. No wonder that it can spread so easily.

The lightest of breezes would carry this achene and papus for miles.

Decided to give a last clip to the extending creepers of the 

Virginia creeper, Parthenocissus quinquefolia,  in the pathway to the back of the flat. When it rains it always manages to sprinkle water when we go past. I suppose it will be soon that we get the superb red leaf show.

I snipped off a flower sprig when doing it so decided to take macro shots. It seems peculiar that such a large spreading creeper can have such a small blossom. Hardly noticeable hidden within the mass of green leaves.

It isn't a pretty flower yet it has a beauty all of its own. No petals but a pattern that opens out from the pea-shaped bud.

Surprised a housewife in the Pens this morning. I knocked on the door and asked if she minded if I removed a weed growing on the verge of her lawn.

She looked at me at first as though I were mad perhaps (Could there be some truth in that?). 

I explained that I took pix of flowers and that it was one that I had photographed years back but had lost when my hard drive corrupted.

Orange Hawkweed, AKA Fox and Cubs, Devil’s paintbrush, Hieracium aurantiacum  or Pilosella aurantiaca, a branch of the aster species once a garden flower but now scattered far and wide.

A extremely hairy calyx but a really striking orangey-red flower.

The 'clock' is a bare 10mm across and the seeds are black rather than brown like the hawkbeard sp. I carefully took some and hopefully planted them in one of the flower pots. 

Of Hawkweed in general Culpeper says - -

There are several sorts of Hawk-weed, but they are similar in virtues.

Government and virtues :— Saturn owns it, Hawkweed (saith Dioscorides) is cooling, somewhat drying and binding, and therefore good for the heat of the stomach, and gnawings therein; for inflammations and the hot fits of agues. The juice thereof in wine, helps digestion, discusses wind, hinders crudities abiding in the stomach, and helps the difficulty of making water, the biting of venomous serpents, and stinging of the scorpion, if the herb be also outwardly applied to the place, and is very good against all other poisons, A scruple of the dried root given in wine and vinegar, is profitable for those that have the dropsy. The decoction of the herb taken in honey, digests the phlegm in the chest or lungs, and with Hyssop helps the cough. The decoction thereof, and of wild Succory, made with wine, and taken, helps the wind cholic and hardness of the spleen; it procures rest and sleep, hinders venery and venerous dreams, cooling heats, purges the stomach, increases blood, and helps the diseases of the reins and bladder. Outwardly applied, it is singularly good for all the defects and diseases of the eyes, used with some women's milk; and used with good success in fretting or creeping ulcers, especially in the beginning.

Amongst a further discourse. 

We have gone; we have fled
out into the world we go;
we have left our home,
and we will wander
and roam, until we find
a new haven. Then we will 
in turn put forth a new generation.
People will curse us
they will say “Damned Weeds”;
but we know we are not damned
for we are the beauty
of nature and we too are
children of the Mother Goddess
as people themselves are.

Just had he delivery of the controller and twin flash set. Cost me an arm and TWO legs. However I was delighted to see on EBay a set in Japan with the 1200 AF flash head for sale at £200 more than I paid for the twin flash set. I can use it with my 1200AF ring flash  as a TTL setting or as manual which-ever I choose.

Set it up and took a 2nd series of Geranium robertianum in the pot on my concrete slab in the porch.

The above shot was the only one that I needed to load up Adobe Elements 3 to darken the highlights from the TTL image.
 I wa so elated that I treated myself to a bottle of James Cook rum at Liddl's to toast the success.

Now I need to buy a 1200AF ring-flash head. If I can find one I can then sell my 1200 AF flash control unit as well as my 80 one. 

Can it possibly be that I have come out on the winning side at last?

I am now waiting for the bomb to drop.

Tokk the sports pages over for John this morning and noticed some flowers growing along the outside of the garden wall. I wondered if it was the Purple Toadflax that he had been talking about Saturday

However after I cut a sprig and photographed it I could not find it in either my Octopus book or the Readers Digest wild flower book

I combined a couple of the pix and set it up in Flowers and the ID groups on Flickr.

Yes it is Purple Toadflax, Linaria purpurea, so I renamed all the JPG's and set them in my flower folder. Once again such a small flower but such a little beauty.

 

Sorting through negative scans and came upon a couple of mid 1960's of jumping the Middle Yeo. Must have been taken before 1967 because the Brighton Terrace houses are still there.
Used to be a popular challenge to issue, "Can you jump the river" Those who failed to land on the top of the bank used to find midway down the bank there were stinging nettles. Often they would let go and end up falling backward into the river. 

Because of rain threatening I went out to Yatton station for pix of the Torbay Express. I had been intending to go to Nailsea & Backwell station but there is no cover there. Loco was late and barrelled through the station fast. Trouble with the camera on/off switch meant I could only get one shot, however that was acceptable.
On the way back I stopped at the M5 bridge in Davis Lane to see what the little yellow flower patches were.

It was Meadow Vetchling Lathyrus pratensis so I snipped off a small spray and took a series of shots when I got back.

 

One pic also showed a couple of seed pods, I took them off afterwards and put them on the top of a flower pot. If they grow Good, if not nothing is lost anyway.