2 October: A mythical creature

I think it’s a centaur, stepping out from the trees beside Morcambe Bay. Thank goodness no-one has seen fit to remove it as a public safety measure.

A moment in the life of Ivy

At the end of last month we passed this ivy covered wall, the tight clusters of flower buds about to burst out into clusters, and then, as Autumn eases down into winter, the bees will have their last outing before hibernation, living off the stored honey till Spring calls them out once more.

30 March: Peeping into a poet’s diary.

End of March and beginning of April, 1871 —

One bay or hollow of Hodder Wood is curled all over with bright green garlic.

In Gerard Manley Hopkins, Selected Poems and Prose, Edited by Ruth Padel, London, Folio Society, 2012, p125.

Did the Jesuits of Stonyhurst gather the garlic for their Lenten kitchen, I wonder?