A flurry of foxgloves

There is something faintly 'Jurassic Park' about this particular stretch of road to my mind, except the rather modern pole and wire of course 

There are few things I enjoy about my daily epic voyage, or ‘commute’ as it is widely known.  Twice in the last couple of weeks I have been held up by cows, actual cows with swinging udders and the slowest pace set by a mammal across a road.  They actually mooch, but then what is the hurry?!  The field isn’t going anywhere, and neither am I.  Very occasionally something turns up on my journey that makes it just faintly bearable.  Strangely during my 32 miles home there are two sections of road that cut through rock producing effectively roofless tunnels and making already narrow roads frighteningly narrow.  On one of these there used to be a whole canopy of trees creating a rather dank dark hollow which I rather liked, so was rather sad when all the trees were cut back last year to reveal the bare rocky sides, I don’t know if this was safety and the trees had become too big for the amount of soil there.  

And so this rocky section has remained exposed and dull, until May when at the same time as the garden in my previous post was in full bloom, suddenly the rocks were smothered in literally hundreds of wild foxgloves.  I know one does get wild flowers en mass like Bluebells for example, but the concentrated nature of this little display really made it quite a sight.  Driving along a perfectly pretty but predominantly flowerless country road for a mile or two and nothing, and then suddenly boom: 500 foxgloves in the space of 30 metres.  I really struggled to do the numbers justice in photos due to the previously mentioned beyond narrow nature of the road and a curve that prevents being able to see it all from the one spot.  The tiniest grass verge on one side allowed me to capture some of it, but I did fear for my life the whole time due to the fact that short of resorting to a spot of impromptu rock climbing I couldn’t get out of the road if something huge came along.  Amusingly whilst virtually clinging to the rock face, camera in hand, somebody stopped to ask me directions but I didn’t know the way.

Did you know that Digitalis Purpurea, the Latin name for Foxgloves, came about because of the ease at which one can stick a finger (a digitus if your wondering) in a foxglove bell.  That has to be the most odd way of naming a plant ever.  I prefer the colours of the cultivated foxglove to the wild ones, but given the setting and scale, it really was stunning to drive for 7 seconds or so through two tall walls of purple.

Almost makes you want to be a bee looking at this doesn't it?