#239 - Pink Rose Petals

June roses - in three shades of pink.

#238 - Wild Barley

More long, warm summer days... this grass makes me think of lying down in fields feeling the sun hot on your eyelids. In the city it grows in cracks in the pavement and in little scrubby redundant patches of land between shops and houses, but it makes me think of wide open spaces and the sound of the wind in tall grass.

#237 - Knitted Maple Keys

The sun has dried up the fallen maple keys, turning their lime green to a rusty brown. I was idly arranging them in knitting rows while the children played in the sunshine, admiring the way the colours blend together although they are so different.

#236 - Summertime

Long summer days - high blue skies, the sun warm on your skin, the smell of newly mown grass and an extravagance of buttercups and daisies...

#235 - Veronica

Not sure quite what kind of Speedwell this is, not a creeping variety as it was as tall as the buttercups on the banks of the stream - but what blues and violets and mauves. I like other colours but blues actually fill me up with happiness, no really, they do. 

#234 - Red Campion

Remembering the many grey days through the long winter, it still seems miraculous to be so surrounded by colour. Every field and hedge is bright and beautiful.

#233 - Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon

It has become somewhat of a family activity on our dog walks - finding things for mummy's blog. I love to think that they notice things they may not have before although perhaps they would have anyway and I am just learning to keep pace with them. It was the two girls who called to me excitedly in the meadow to show me this 'giant dandelion clock' hidden in the grass. A dandelion clock is always a thing of beauty, magnified it is possible to see how exquisitely detailed each airy little parachute is. Perfect design.

#232 - Dog Rose on Stone

I have been waiting to take a photo of these roses for a while, every time we get to the park the sun has been going down and the roses closed up for the evening. Today though was the perfect day, bright sunlight and wide open roses, pink and white and gold in the hedges.

#231 - Pink Wild Chervil

Followers of my blog will already know that I am fond of Wild Chervil, walking through another of our local meadows today I saw some with a pink tint. After wading off into the waist high grass to reach it I discovered this most beautiful rosy version of Queen Anne's Lace. 

#230 - Ox-eye Daisies

Summer meadows are making us happy at the moment, even in the rain...

#229 - Ryegrass

My three year old brought me one of these grass heads in her fist today, "Look mummy, it's pretty." In a whole field of waving grass she noticed one she wanted to share. But even in the same type of grass there are variants in colour, faded gold, shades of green and dusky pink. I love the sharpness of Ryegrass, it's bold, hard shapes, both curves and points, it's a contradiction.

#228 - Cornflowers

"There are worlds and worlds of ways to explain, 
to tell you how I feel,
But I am speechless, speechless, that's how you make me feel..."
(Michael Jackson - Speechless)

#227 - Bramble Sepals on Birch

I saw these enchanting, twisty, five-pointed stars caught in the brambles today, in shades of green and pink.

#226 - Meadow Grass

Our favourite place in the park is the place where it lies in curves and hollows and the wild flowers, white and gold and mauve, grow in amongst the tall grasses which blow pink and green and silver in the wind. 

 

#225 - Lesser Stitchwort on moss

More starry shapes in the meadow grass, and beautiful spindly stamens. Exquisite. 

#224 - Dock flowers

Walking through the tall grass this afternoon, the colours in the meadow were heightened by the rain... green, fawn, mauve, dove grey and all shades of pink including these gorgeous fuchsia and lime-green dock weed flowers.

#223 - St. Benedict's herb

These are the flowers that belong to those wonderfully spiky burrs in scarlet and green. I love their starriness - the five sharp pointed sepals with the neat diamonds of gold in between. An emphatic looking flower, nothing tentative or blowsy here, I keep seeing their starry faces in the hedgerows looking somehow regal despite their diminutive size.