the tryst

hoverfly on ligularia


Vibrant shades of yellow
Reflecting sunshine colours
Sipping nectar
Clear glass wings
Hovering on the air.


Yellow petals unfurl
Emerging from the opening bud
stretching to the sun
Perfect symetry
Nature in unison.

Insect and flower
A lovers tryst.

Hummingbird Hawk Moth

Hummingbird Hawk Moth

Chipping & whipping from blossom to blossom
Constantly dipping, the nectar to sip.
Little brown moth with your whirring wing beat
Humming and hovering you hang on the air.
Wings all ablur, your proboscus you dip
Riding the breeze with never a care.
Regular as clockwork, every two hours
To take your refreshment from nectar filled flowers.

the path

Glimpse at Jackson's Wold Farm


Shaved meadow grasses invite you to walk to the glimpse at the end of the way
Skirting the geese that eternally peck at the greenery throughout the day.
Rusty and brown, created from wire they beckon you ever more near
To see how the sculptor has fashioned this beautiful pair, you can walk by without any fear.

Grasses arustle dance and sway with the breeze
Big white dog daisies are buzzing with bees.
To sit on the bench, what a treat when the weather's so hot
To find a cool haven under the beech leaves, it's really a beautiful spot.

Gaze back down the ride as you sit and relax and think of the tearoom, so cool
Where a nice hunk of cake and a coffee are waiting.....
Oh! please, you're making me drool!!

Cygnets ahoy!

Mute swan cygnets at Kings Mill


Six little cygnets swimming to and fro
Soft and grey and downy, always on the go
Mother sails majestically
Fathers guarding too
Bunching up together just like he wants them too.
Emulating parents, heads beneath the flow
Six little cygnets always on the go.

Mother Nature's Handiwork

Mother Nature's handiwork I gaze,
Bees lolling drowsily through the summer days.
Droning busily they hum
Portents of bounties yet to come.
The barley ripening in the fields
Farmers eagerly await their yields.
Patchwork quilt of earthy hues,
Cloudy skies of myriad blues.
A rich and varied artist she
Paints from her palette for all to see.
Greens, browns and golds her harvest key
With added blues of textured skies
A masterpiece before our eyes.

cochin haiku

cochin cockerel


pretty buffy grey
scarlet comb upon your head
cochin walks away

clucky chuntering
scrabbling in the dirt filled grooves
happily scratching

pretty feathered feet
scritchy scratchy claws find food
sharp beak pecks it up

feathery plumage
softly ruffled in the breeze
see the colours play

sharp eyed strong and quick
magnificent cockerel king
of all you survey

marvelous malas

Malas blossom

We went to the Hull New Theatre matinee performance of Calendar Girls, I really enjoyed it. It was as good if not better than the film, different but brilliant.
When we eventually found a place to park and walked into Kingston Square the theatre doors were still closed and the garden was awash with people.
The spring sunshine was warm and the borders were full of colour.
Tulips, wallflowers, forget-me-nots, crown imperials, anemones, palms and jasmine all vying for a place.
The Malas Floribunda, or Japanese Crab Apple trees were magnificent. Their rich almost maroony pink blossom stood proud against a bright blue sky....I was almost sorry when it was time to go in!!

Whitby Goth Festival week-end

The Whitby Goth Festiival was held last week-end. Whitby has become the Goth capital of England over the last few years but I've never been able to take photographs before. This year I decided I'd just ask anyone who I wanted to take and go with the flow. Everyone was really nice, happy to pose and talk and I got some good shots. This is just a couple of them. It was the last day of the festival and they were parading up and down and wonderful to see. I was told there are many types of Goths but my pictures were mostly Traditional or Romantic.

Quackers....

Unlike the old woman who lived in a shoe and had so many children she didn't know what to do this mallard, mother of seventeen puffy little fluffball ducklings knew exactly what to do when they were attacked by a mute swan.
She ushered them all up on to the safety of the bank side encouraging them to settle down there whilst hurling occasional abusive quacks at the hissing cob swan.
He eventually swam off leaving the family in peace.

Mum mallard and a trio of her ducklings

rockery

I finally finished planting up the rockery with the plants I have,
I still need a few more to plug the odd gaps but I'm pleased with
the overall effect of re-designing it and the waterfall.
Just need to keep that blasted cat from next door off it now!

weeping

Majestic willow why do you weep?

Your delicate fronds, like angels hair, reflect the sunlight from their new green growth and flutter gently in the wafting breeze.

Your beauty's unsurpassed.

forget-me-nots

The same forget-me-nots after I played about with the colours

forget-me-nots

Delicate tiny flowers of the forget-me-not smiling out amid the green foliage

spring

Spring has finally got her act together and produced a mass of colour in the garden. This collage shows just a small portion.

The cherry tree has come into it's own over the last couple of days, luxuriously hung with delicate cascades of soft pink blossom it's awash with bees buzzing from flower to flower. I love to sit on the bench by the pond, it's just underneath the cherry, listening to their hum and watching the fish gliding through the water, flashing glints of silver, gold and orange. The frogs are still singing love songs and adorning the plants with clumps of spawn.

The magnolia has opened it's delicate pink tinged buds displaying it's white blooms for the sun and closing them again in the shade of evening, daffodils and tulips are vying for a space in the borders and the grape hyacinths are a carpet of blue.
The bleeding heart stems are arching delicately, covered in tight red buds just waiting to burst forth and the snakes head fritilaries are bowing their checkered heads and swaying gently on their spindly stalks which always look too delicate to support them.
Hosta's are popping their tightly twisted budding leaves through the brown soil and the peony shoots have turned from red to green.....

Bees buzz, butterflies cruise and spotty red ladybirds are waking from sleep....

An abundance of growth and colour, just a small snapshot of Mother Nature's diversity albeit she was hampered a little by Winter this year.

blurry

This picture didn't quite come out right but I love the effect with the bluey softness.

We walked the new ponds and woodland trails at Tophill Low Nature Reserve, it was cold and bleak with an intermittent watery sunshine but we saw lots of little birds in amongst the pine trees. Goldfinch and chaffinch flitted here and there and the happily singing bluetits worked the branches.
Squirrels revelled in their playful games, running up and down the tree trunks with fiendish glee and pheasants pecked in the undergrowth disappearing in a flash as soon as they saw us.
Snowdrops adorned the underbrush and myriads of small flies seemed to twinkle as they gathered in the warm sunlight shafts above the water.
Crispy dried flowerheads looked like spidery mutants against the blue sky and the ponds reflected their bankside trees.
A pair of waterhens swam lazily, occasionally dipping their heads into the water to feed.
There's a new hide too which smelled wonderful...that just sawn resin smell of new wood...and warm and welcoming in the cold wind.

Home

Peter Jaconelli of the famous icecream family always said Scarborough Bay reminded him of the Bay of Naples, his home. Well Scarborough was my birthplace and though I've never been to Naples and I don't live in Scarborough now, it'll always continue be my spiritual home.

Scarborough:

Hearts desire, my yearning for home
Watching & waiting & longing to roam.
Scrunching the sand with each hallowed footfall
Seabirds a scrying, surveying us all.
Looking up to the castle silhouetted in black
I'm back in my heartland but it's hard to keep track.
The view is the same, the sea & the shore
Lifting my senses, promising more.
With the castle & keep, the lighthouse stands proud,
The gaudy amusements with music so loud.
It still seems much the same as the days of my youth
But it's different as well...more brash & uncouth.
But my heart always yearns for a look back to home
Wherever I wander, wherever I roam
My heart always knows that Scarborough's my home.

carpeted by Martha-Ann

We visited Burton Agnes Hall for the snowdrop walk.
We go every year and always enjoy it.
It was a cold day but fine and the threatened snow hadn't arrived so we had a good view of the snowdrops. We strolled through the woodland and around the walled garden ending up in the tearoom for a mug of steaming hot chocolate.

filigree by Martha-Ann

delicate lace design
a gossamer of crocheted mesh
complex latticed veins
orange beauty turned to
winter's fragile filigree

...I am the swift uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight by Martha-Ann

The snowy rape field was full of hungry wood pigeons which rose up in a giant flock of rushing wings to circle above the field before dropping down again.
This is just a snapshot of the few, there were hundreds of them like a dark cloud meandering across the beautiful blue sky.

heralds of spring by Martha-Ann

these have appeared in the rockery today.


In the middle of winter the first shoot appears
Lancing the ground like tiny green spears.
Daily they're growing pushing up through the mud
And safe in the middle a delicate bud.
The stalk elongates, the bud bows, so polite
To hang almost shyly 'til the time is just right
For the flower to open, so white and pristine,
The edges are picoted a delicate green.
Blown by the north wind they curtsy and dance.
The herald of springtime, the snowdrops all prance

delicate by Martha-Ann

Mother nature weaves her web as evening shadows fall
The blue-grey sky adjusts her tone as change comes over all.
Delicate shades with orange hue cover o'er the sky
As sunsets paints her palette there to dazzle every eye.

Happy New Year 2010 from Martha-Ann

Happy 2010
A bit late I know but better late than never...

The weather has been different to say the least, all this snow reminds me of when I was about fifteen and it snowed worse than we've had this year....and it lasted longer.
Nobody took time off work or school, we just got on with it!

I remember my dad setting off for work with snow up somewhere round his middle, he was so bundled up with clothes my mother said he looked like 'Nanook of the North', he had about three miles to walk!

Us kids walked a couple of miles to school in it too...we got a hot drink when we got there and the radiators steamed all morning with wet clothes...I can still recall the smell..and we put them back on either still wet or damp for playtimes and home time!!
They were squat radiators, about eighteen inches high and the same width. We sat on them like warm seats, no health and safety then.
Fingers, toes and knees turned bright red and tingled as they thawed but we were back out playing in it when they had...Happy days!