Filling gaps and softening edges

 Here are some photos from the garden today.  I had intended to go through the garden photos I've taken throughout the year and select some for the upcoming Garden Photos Event-

 From the beginning of November, people!  We hope you've been snapping away at your green stuff?!

 Anyway, as I was saying, I'd started to select some photos for the GPE, but nieces descended upon us, so that went out the window leaving us with just enough time to slap together this post of a few hastily taken photos of our tired, end-of-season greenery.

 There's not much in the way of colour, but there are a few splashes here and there, like the pale purple (mauve?) scabious and yellow geum above.

Bitey on the Beach

  I'm on holiday this week.  I made some plans - something to do every day so as not to waste the time - and thought I'd have plenty of time for catching up with your blogs and updating my own.  The universe had other plans, however...

 

  Still, I managed to go to the Old Vicarage Gardens in East Ruston on Saturday, window shopping in Norwich on Monday morning, a long walk & paddle on the beach with Bitey on Tuesday, back down to the beach for a swim (which turned out to be a very deep paddle - more on that later) then gardening and allotmenteering yesterday, and here we are on Thursday already!  I've been swimming (in a heated pool) and done some tidying up in the garden and then came indoors because the forecast is for rain.  

 

  It is not raining.  Rather than put my shoes and socks back on to go back outside, I thought I'd use this opportunity to do some blogging.  So, here are some of the photos from Tuesday's foray down to the beach:

 

Approaching the End-of-the-Line

 

The End-of-the-Line

Four Photos: Nearly a month out of date

This year I actually made something out of the sour, pointless red currants from the allotment: fruit leather.

It's horrible.  It gets stuck to ones teeth and no one likes it.  I only made it because Vom Smallhausen and Count Podgkinson foolishly picked some currants after I'd taken them up the allotment (fruit leather was the least complicated recipe I could find that used the most red currants).  The red currant bush is getting dug up this winter!

 

View up Northrepps Road

 

Parasol mushroom

 

Escaping the heat - and Bitey - was this toad.

 

 

 

P. S. Apologies for my absence, I have been busy with summer and taking photos for the Grand Gardening Competition in October, or sooner??

 

  Oh, no, wait.  That wasn't me.  That was Ms Scarlet.

  While I have been busy with summer and taking photos for the Grand Gardening Competi-  I mean, Garden Photos Event, I have also been sorting out the garden & allotment, engaged in a few social activities (pah!), exhausted myselves trying to eke out some sort of service from a couple of companies so-called "customer service" departments/teams, and have been lumbered with nieces and nephew far more often that I would have liked!

 (Except for the toad, these photos are from 2nd August and I started this post on the 8th!) 

 

  Also, Ms Scarlet had locked me in her attic without food nor a bath mat - but that's a story for another time... 

Four Photos: Elephant!

Last month, we found this in the red greenhouse

 

It's an elephant hawkmoth

 

And last week The Mother discovered this on the lawn.  Well Bitey discovered it and The Mother went over to see what he was staring at. An elephant hawkmoth caterpillar (she thought it was a poo!)

 

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrgh!*  It's going to devour us all!!!!

 

 

*It may or may not be a pirate. 

I saw the underside of a painted lady...

... and her name was Vanessa

 Anyway, before we see more of Vanessa and her ilk, here's a summery tune to accompany your scrolling: 

 

Sophie Ellis-Bextor - Dolce Vita

This tatty silver-washed fritillary alternated between feeding...

 

... and fannying about amongst the webs under garage's eaves.

Hey Hi Hello

Alison Goldfrapp - Hey Hi Hello

 

 

 I think it's about time for a Garden Photos Event reminder, don't you, Very Mistress?

 

The House of

 

I N F O M A N I A C

 

Garden Photos Event 2025

 

 As with previous years, this year's GPE will be held throughout November, with the event kicking off on Hallowe'en with the now traditional Terrifying Triffidery exhibit.  This leaves you little more than three months to take photos of your green spaces (if you haven't already made a start) and curate them before emailing them to me by the end of October.

 

 Infomaniac Bitches should already know the score, but for the muddled, forgetful, and easily startled/distracted - not to mention anyone new who'd like to take part - there's a potted history of the Infomaniac GPE on its own dedicated page at the top of this blog so you can see what you'll be letting yourself in for/getting involved in.  And despite some comments to the contrary, the GPE is NOT a contest, so your gardening efforts (or lack thereof) will not be judged and there will be no winner.  This means you, Savvy!

 There's no particular theme this year - we'll accept photos of pretty much anything garden-related, whether selected prize specimens that would make Monty Don weep or breathtaking vistas of your expansive grounds, to the potted dwellers on your balcony/windowsill, to a resilient plant that you haven't managed to kill yet. 

 And if you have a straggly and unruly bush that you suspect may be a weed but fascinated you enough to wonder what it is, the Official Plant Spotter of Hexenhäusli Device and its Extensive Witchdom, nay, All of Blogdom Itself, Jon, should be on hand to identify your unmentionables. 

 

 Right.  That's that bit done.  Here are a few bits & bobs from my garden this month to goad you into action:

 

View over the Circular Paysho from behind a hebe.

Four Photos: Wishful Thinking?

A hummingbird hawk moth drinking from one of the buddleias in the Hexenhäusli Device gardens this afternoon.

 

Oh my gods!!!  They're almost holding hands!  They're going to do It*!!!!!!

(Two of my three favourite** lowest of the Lower Deckers - Fin*** the super-hot, pretty boy human med tech and Charlie**** the adorable Andorian engineer - from the first episode of Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4, "Twovix".  I took this photo back in April as I couldn't take a screen shot and couldn't find one online [I have found one since then, though] - I wanted it for research purposes, the end result of which will probably be posted here at some point.)

 

Bitey on the beach on Wednesday evening.

 

Someone in this house had this for tea on Wednesday - and it certainly wasn't me!

 

 

* According to First Officer Jack Ransom (in "Parth Ferengi's Heart Place"), the Cerritos is the "horniest ship in the fleet" (and doesn't have any married couples on board).

** The third is Buddy the Vulcan, as featured here with the other two.

*** He's not named in the show as he's just a non-speaking background character, but he looks remarkably like my backup lifeguard at the pool I swim in, so I've given him the same name.

**** Again, unnamed in the show, but someone has named him Charlie.  I'm going with it for now as I haven't thought of anything better.

Four Photos: Bat!

 

Look what I found crawling up the inside of the carport on Tuesday morning: a tiny bat!

Probably a pipistrelle of some description.  Unless it was a young 'future predator'...?

 

An hour or so later it had disappeared - probably having climbed high enough to launch itself into the air and fly away to somewhere more hospitable (and darker) than my carport.

Art vs Artist

 By popular demand-

 What? Since when was two people showing a polite, vague interest "popular demand"?

 Since now.  Go and interfere somewhere else.  This is my post!

 I think you'll find it is our post.  After all, whose name is on all those header images further down, hmm?

 Oh, hush.  Why don't you go and see to that ever widening Cusp interface before someone - or someones - falls in!

 Fine.  I'll leave you to your little doodles, then!

 

 Right.  Now that Witchface has gone, here is the Art vs Artist thingy I mentioned in the last post. It's something I saw on BlueSky so I thought I'd have a go, too.

 The majority that I saw are 3x3 square grids with a photo of the artist in the centre square surrounded by eight pieces of their work, so I followed the same pattern (it's all Star Trek stuff as I rarely produce any other kind):

 

Top left to right:

Four Photos: The Drier Side of Britain

 

Something for Ms Scarlet to consider...

(Proof of North Norfolk's dryness compared to Devon's - well, Cornwall, as Bude is the closest weather station to Ms Scarlet's neck of the woods) 

 

 

Stinking iris or roast-beef plant (Iris foetidissima)

 (A native to Britain, but "exotic" in New Zealand - the tables are turning, Dinah!)

 

 

A practise pose from 2021's Hallowe'en Star Trek Art Challenge

(I've included this as a reminder for me to concoct an Art vs Artist collage)

 

 

An unused photo from 2023's Salt Rooks

 You know, to show how dry it is here and all that...
 

Not the Hexenhäusli Device Gardens IV*

Agave montana flower head

 In the comments of my latest Four Photos post, I said to Jon that I might put up some photos from a recent visit to The Old Vicarage Gardens in East Ruston - and here they are!

 

* III can be found here. 

 

 We shall try to identify the various plants featured here, but The Host couldn't be bothered to stoop down and find the labels and photograph them while at the gardens, despite my nagging urging, so The Official Plant Spotter of Hexenhäusli Device and its Extensive Witchdom - AKA Jon - may have his work cut out.

 I was with a friend!  I had gossiping and laughing to do, not to mention trying to keep Witchface under wraps, so grubbing around in the undergrowth was low on my list of priorities! 

 

 Anyway, before we set off, Alison Goldfrapp has kindly offered to provide a musical accompaniment with her latest release, Sound & Light: 

I think these may be the flowers of Dianella caerulea?

(The plants I grew from seeds liberated from TOVG back in 2019 haven't flowered yet.  They're not doing very well where they are - and get trampled quite a lot by Bitey - so I will probably have to move them.)

 

 

Some sort of cow parsley/angelica thingy.

Tunes on Tuesday - on Thursday!

 Its been a month since my last Tunes on Tuesday, so here's a collection of some new, borrowed, and old music that I've been listening to since then.

 

 Oh, and the reason this is on Thursday is because I forgot to set up the autopublishing thingy at the weekend when I put this post together.  Drat! 

  

Reverberotic - Alison Goldfrapp

Nothing on Me - White Lies

 A couple of new ones from Ms Goldfrapp and my favourite glum, beardy miseryguts and his band.

Four Photos: 4

Male broad-bodied chaser dragonfly

 

 

A Triffid!!!  Agave montana flower head

 

 

End-of-the-Line

 

Friday evening

Last Day of MerMay

Sam Rutherford from Star Trek: Lower Decks as a merman.

(His trident is an elongated trident scanner from the original Star Trek series)

 

 

 

That is all. 

Hawthorn / notHawthorn

 There seems to be a bit of a hawthorn trend going on at the mo. 

 After I featured some in a 4 Photos post last week, Maddie piped up wondering if her rebounded bush (that had been seen to by her "lawn guy" somewhat unsurprisingly) might be a hawthorn.  Ms Scarlet coupled hers with cow parsley for a spring wedding look (no pictures as yet, but here are some from last year sans hawthorn blossom).  Then, over at Maddie's, Jon posited that the hawthorn was a "cockspur hawthorn" (cock!!!), whereas I think it might be a pyracantha (both can surprise you with a big prick, though).

 

 Anyway, just to confuse things even more, I have another hawthorn to share - and this one is rather more moist:

 

Water hawthorn (Aponogeton distachyos) growing in the bath up at my allotment. 

 

. : .

Skyline

  If you arrived here thinking this post is about the entertaining but ridiculous film about brain sucking aliens (or the car made by Nissan), you're going to be disappointed.  Sorry.

 

The Chapelfield Spire sits atop what is now known as Chantry Place shopping centre

 

 

 No, this post just concerns (some of) the skyline of the city of Norwich where I work (and used to live).  I took these photos last June and remembered while constructing this post why I didn't post them back then: I got caught up in researching the various buildings and architecture - so much so, that what was supposed to be a quick, easy post turned out to be all consuming (which happened again this time around, but I managed to break free.  Just). 

 Also, this was going to be a Four Photos post, but I couldn't whittle down the photos I took to just four.  

Four Photos: CCGH

Ceanothus (last featured here)

 

 

Copper beech

 

 

Gorse

 

 

Hawthorn

 

 

 Just a selection of colour seen while out and about over the past week.

Four Photos: Let There Be Light

 The first foxglove of the season - and it's self illuminating!

From six years ago

 

 

G&T time! (July 2023)

 

 

From Madam's Lane (June 2018)

Tunes on Tuesday

 We haven't had one of these for a while.

 Here's a collection of tunes that have caught my ear recently.  No videos (except the last one) so you can be looking at something else while these are playing.

 

 

Love Shy - Kristine Blond (Sandgate Extended Remix)

 This remix is on a cheapo compilation CD I've had for years - if not decades - Chillout Moods.  I must have copied it onto the little memory stick that I plug into Car for music as it popped up yesterday as I was driving home from work.

 

Behind the Mask - Eric Clapton

 A song came on at the swimming pool while I was doing my lengths on Thursday and it reminded me of this.  I didn't know it's name or the artist, but searching YouTube for "Who Do You Love" soon brought it up.  I'm not a fan of Eric Clapton, but I like this.

Behind the Mask - Yellow Magic Orchestra

 And this is the original!

Head on the Highway - Great Waves

 This one took some sleuthing to find.  In Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV series) this track was often heard when the Rowdy 3's van showed up (along with the growling of its engine), and I loved it!  However, it wasn't mentioned in any of the articles or soundtrack lists I found.  It wasn't until a chance googling encounter in which someone had mentioned Great Waves - and then listening to pretty much every track by them on YouTube - that I found it.

You Spin Me Round (Like A Record) / Venus - Bananarama (Glorious: Live in London)

 This one by the Bananas popped up in YouTube's "recommended for you" section. It was right, of course. (Although I do think the transition from "You Spin Me Round" to "Venus" goes on too long.)

Four Photos: Bee Edition

 "Four Photos" is an idea I've just had to help me get back to our little corner of the BlogWorld. 

 Rather than spend hours trying to work out what to say (if I don't have anything to say), or how to say it (if I do), I just need to select four photos that I've taken and slap them up here on my blog with as little or as much accompanying text as I feel is necessary or can be bothered with.  

 There doesn't need to be a theme, or anything that links the chosen photos, and they don't even have to be recent ones, but they do have to be photos I've taken.  (I'm considering family photos as well - just in case I happen to look at old photo albums and see something of interest.)

 

 This first set, you will see, does have a theme.  Well, the first three do, anyway.  Bees!

 Just over three weeks ago I was up at the allotment and noticed a rather loud buzzing.  Once I'd worked out where the noise was coming from, I saw the air over number 37 (next door but two to mine) was rather hazy.  Putting down my tools, I wandered over to investigate.

 

It's not readily noticeable in this photo, but the air was thick with honeybees - I didn't get any closer.

 

I don't know if they were coming or going.

 

You can't really make out the bees in front of the blackthorn blossom, but look at the sky between the branches and twigs.

: : :

 

Oblivious to the danger lurking under the swing, Bitey rolls around on the lawn.

(From 20th April)

: : :

 

 Should anyone else who is suffering from the 'blog uselessness' bug think that this 'Four Photos' treatment may help them, please feel free to use it.