Recent flooding in my back garden had gone down nicely - until more rain arrived late yesterday.
Over an inch of rain in eight hours and still steadily precipitating this morning.
I've seen it far worse than this in the past.
Fortunately the lawn is lower than the building so not a danger to property.
Result
Not all bad though.
Blackbirds love it as it forces the worms to the surface
Just the sort of morning to have a bit of a change to my usual breakfast.
Instead of my daily Weetabix I cracked open a tin of country vegetable soup.
Sliced a burgerless burger bun and covered the slices with Pro Active spread.
Dunked in the hot soup - lovely jubbly.
Last April I wrote about the Salvia Hot Lips I had bought.
I was disappointed at the time that the flowers were completely red in colour.
It was pointed out to me it takes a while for the plants to mature and show their true colour.
Now they are looking as I expected:
Quite a startling combination of pure white and brilliant red.
All being well they will probably continue flowering right through the Summer.
Today Lincolnshire seems to have taken the brunt of the wet weather.
Possibility of a month's rainfall to be dumped on us in a couple of days.
Quite a few trees down, blocking roads.
A great long list of roads closed by flooding.
Fire and rescue inundated with calls to pump out flood water.
These about sum it up locally:
Garden
Overflowing drain
At least one more day, maybe two, of rain to come this week.
To think a few of days ago there were calls for farmers to take less water from our local rivers as levels were so low. Now many have burst their banks.
How time flies. It has been ten years since I first visited and wrote about South Thoresby Warren, Lincolnshire. This piece of land was once a sand quarry, then used for land fill and finally made in to a small nature reserve open to the public. Yesterday it was a toss up as to whether I cut my grass or we had a trip out. As it looks as though the weather is going to become changeable with showers forecast the trip out won.
We both enjoyed a stroll round the shorter route, just having to double back at one stage as we were heading out instead of round. I sampled the sights and sounds and Penny sampled a whole lot of new odours.
The reserve consists of a mixture of open grassland and a small wooded area. New native trees are being added.
For a change I made the photos I took into a slide show with a soundtrack of sounds recorded while we had a short rest on one of the benches provided.
As there was a stiff breeze at times there is some wind noise and a few flowers moved too much for sharp photos. Disappointing in that I saw not one mammal, a few birds rushing about, and just one bee.
The only insect which stayed still was this beetle I found resting on the car door on our return.
We had just returned from our early morning walk.
As I was about to undo Penny's harness I spotted the hitch-hiker.
A Hawthorn Shieldbug
It stayed long enough for me to take the Nikon out of my shirt pocket and take a few shots
A bit of a morning for close encounters.
I had spent a while watching Swifts hurtling overhead, sometimes diving down to just a couple of feet above my head as they careered past on their endless hunt for flying insects. They were still feeding their young but didn't land on the nest. Just hovered next to it for a brief moment to hand over the food before setting off again.
In May last year I planted a Callistemon citrinus (bottlebrush plant) in the front garden.
I wondered how well it would grow outdoors. In just one year it has grown to
Recently I've been keeping an eye on it to see whether it would flower this year.
Yippee! Two branches are showing buds. Unusual in that the flowers are produced part way along new growth.
Why it is called a bottlebrush plant will, I hope, become evident when the flowers open.
Many years ago I had one flowering in my old conservatory but one hard Winter it disappeared.
How long the outdoor one lives could depend on how severe future Winters are.
