Tish Farrell Writer

Wall to Wall Poppies In Wenlock

I spotted the blood red field across the town from Windmill Hill on Midsummer’s Eve. Yesterday at sunset, I gave up picking field beans and strawberries at the allotment, and went to seek it out. After a dull afternoon and early evening, the sun suddenly put in an appearance and I surmised it would be shining right on the poppies, and it was.

What a glorious sight. I have never seen such a profusion of scarlet heads, pushing their way up through the ripening stems of oil seed rape.

Of course the question I ask myself – is this happenstance or has someone gone in for some guerrilla gardening on an epic scale? Either way, it cannot be rivalled as a piece of earth art. And of course with the hundred year anniversary of the Battle of the Somme upon us, it strikes other chords – the pointless waste of so much promise; of so many brave young men. Today, too, just over half of the British voting public opted to leave the Europe Union, one of whose founding objectives was the avoidance of another European conflict. I feel very sad about this outcome. I think change can be best effected by participation and engagement from within. In fact we Farrells were so fed up this afternoon we had to visit the poppy field once more to cheer ourselves up.

So here’s to poppy power and creative cultivation. A potent beautiful force.

Thursday’s Special Mirroring: An Afternoon At Home

Reflected worlds are endlessly fascinating. I often wonder what kind of people live on the other side of our sitting room mirror.

Thursday’s Special: Mirroring Please visit Paula for further reflections on this theme.

Changing Seasons: June On Windmill Hill

With this shot I’m back to what Meg at 12monthsinWarsaw calls my Monet’s Haystack mode – i.e. there just cannot be too many shots of the old windmill near my house. I succumb every single time I’m there with a camera to hand. I snapped it yesterday in celebration of the summer solstice, caught in a quick walk between supper’s first course of dhal and Staffordshire oat cakes, and the strawberry crumble that was to follow.

I was also taken by the midsummer meadow in all its lushness – so many different kinds of grasses that I cannot name, and masses of pyramidal orchids – far more than last year. There were also spotted orchids, meadow sweet, vetch, red and white clovers, ladies bedstraw, and white bladder campion which is most usually seen growing on seaside cliffs. And also the sky above was filled with clouds that looked like dragons.

Please visit Cardinal Guzman’s Changing Seasons for more on this challenge.

Unexpected: Monochrome Mawddach Sunset

The most unexpected thing about this shot is that it came out at all in such low light conditions. I do love the Dynamic Monochrome setting on my Lumix. It creates all kinds of unforeseen magic, even with much added zoom.

I suppose the other piece of unexpectedness here is the perversity of shooting a limpidly pastel sunset in monochrome. But I like the way it silhouettes the old railway viaduct across the estuary mouth. In Welsh it is called Pont Abermaw, and in English, Barmouth Bridge. It was constructed mostly from wood during the 1860s, and included a drawbridge section that would open allow tall masted ships to pass through, sadly not a facility much needed these days. It would be fine sight though, so please add your own sailing ship to this vista.

Black & White Sunday This week Paula requests we show her the unexpected. Please drop in there for more creative renditions of the theme.

#MagesticMagicalMawddach

My Wenlock Summer Garden

For her June Sunday Garden Challenge, Jude asks us to show her what summer means to us. So here are a few views of our garden on Sheinton Street. I should say straight away that I don’t give it the attention it deserves, and that daily I abandon it as I walk through and out the back gate and across the field to the allotment.

The plot is long and thin, following the width of the cottage, and on three different levels, which I don’t make enough of. For one thing, I know it must be possible to have beautiful plants growing somewhere within it all the year round if only I would sit down and do some proper planning and research.

Instead I tinker here and there, and let the garden do a lot of its own gardening. This includes encouraging the self-sown foxgloves, and the wonderfully scented purple, mauve and white Dame’s-violet (Hesperis matronalis) seen in the photo behind the foxglove, both of which follow on from the clouds of self-sown columbines. My garden, then, comes into its own only in summer, and otherwise can look rather dreary. But while it’s here, it’s wonderful – total cottage garden exuberance and chaos.

Welcome to my garden.

Oriental Poppy, crab spider and Dame’s-violets

Wild corn cockle (bottom right), foxgloves, purple toadflax; variegated lemon balm, oregano and golden marjoram in between, and the coppery foliage of Smoke Bush (Cotinus) in the background.

Columbine break-out

Magnificent Magical Mawddach

We drove through one hundred miles of rain to reach it. From South Shropshire to the Welsh coast clouds piled on clouds and the rain dashed down the windscreen with only brief interludes of drizzle. Climbing and climbing the precipitous road through Dinas Mawddy, sky and mountains closed in, reminding us that we humans are rather puny ineffectual things, and that the motorized carapace that transports and shelters us may just not be enough in a land like this. Even the sheep, inured to the place, stand hunched and motionless on the hillsides, backs to the downpour.

And then at last we’re here, on the banks of the Mawddach Estuary, just downstream of Penmaenpool, and the rain recedes, leaving stillness and shadow, the slow curves of the river, Welsh Black cattle grazing the salt marsh, a buzzard calling, canoeists returning to base, and on the far horizon the knowledge of the sea, though unseen, marked by a sudden flush of brightness out in the bay.

Curve

#SnowdoniaNationalPark

Who Has Lost This Small Pure Heart?

It is tear-stained too. Fallen on the field path among the pignut flowers, a plant also known as Earth Chestnut, because its tubers were once grubbed up and relished by country children. And as for the heart? Eglantine. Sweet Briar. Dog Rose. Rosa canina.

If this image inspires anyone to a bit of storytelling in whatever form, and short as you like; then leave a link here so I can read it. I won’t be back in blog world until Saturday, so no rush.

Pure

Over The Garden Fence At Sunset Yesterday

After tropical days in Wenlock we now have rain and more rain. There were showers between downpours for most of yesterday, and only at the last lap, as it was about to set, did the sun coming bursting hotly through the clouds. I caught its last beams here before it disappeared behind Wenlock Edge.

With all the sudden rain the wheat in the field behind our house is growing before our very eyes. So is our wildflower garden along the fence below it. Seen here are Moon Daisies (also known as Oxeye Daisy, Dog Daisy and Moonpenny). I love that last name. And keeping company with the daisies is one stately white foxglove, with a spray of cow parsley or Queen Anne’s Lace in the background.

According to Richard Mabey’s Flora Britannica cow parsley (a member of the carrot family) has a whole lexicon of country names – some obvious, others not so. So here we go with a few more: Fairy Lace, Spanish Lace, Mother die, Step-mother, Badman’s oatmeal, Blackman’s tobacco, Kecksie, and Rabbit meat.

And as for the foxglove, it was also known as Fairy Gloves and Fairy Bells. It has long been used as a herbal remedy that at times proved more killing than curing. And of course until recent times a compound version of the toxin found in foxglove leaves was the drug of choice for various heart conditions.

It is anyway one of my favourite plants. I like the way it grows itself around the garden and crops up in a variety of subtle shades from white to purple, although it perhaps looks a little sinister, looming here in the failing light across Townsend Meadow.

Posted for:

Mundane Monday #63 at Jithin’s PhoTraBlogger

On The Diagonal ~ Around Wenlock In Winter And Summer

This week’s diagonals theme at Black & White Sunday is right up my street, or at least in my neighbourhood. Looking through my file of Lumix monochrome images, it seems that the diagonal often features. I think it’s because it appeals to both my visual and my writing mind. Things on the slant; one thing leading to another that’s not quite in view; unexpected angles; the monochrome subliminally suggestive of the written word and printed pages: storytelling then.

The first photo was taken on my well-worn path to the allotment. It’s a scene I photograph in all seasons, but I especially like the ash tree silhouettes in winter, their boughs cloaked in ivy which always reminds me of Tolkein’s Ents. I think this is where the lost Ent Women ended up, guarding our Wenlock Edge field boundaries.

Photo 2 was taken from the old railway line, leaning over the fence and shooting from deep shade into bright sunlight and with some zoom – not quite the best thing to do, though it gives the hilltop wood a touch of dark mystery.

Photo 3 is the field path from Wenlock to Bradley Farm, once the site of a medieval settlement.

Photo 4 – we are back at the allotment, the field behind our plots looking at the ash trees from another angle. I like the way the barbed wire adds a bleak and faintly sinister air.

Now please visit Paula at the link above for more photo essays on the slant.

Ludlow Castle In Its Autumn Glory

I recently posted a dramatic black & white photo of this thousand-year old castle – one of Shropshire’s finest. Here are the perimeter walls from a different angle, on their clifftop eyrie above the River Teme. It must have been a daunting sight for any peasant foot soldier commanded by his lord to get on and besiege the place. It might explain why so much of the castle is still standing.

Traces of the past is the theme over at Paula’s Thursday’s Special.