Fields of yellow, and snakes

Yep Im standing in a field of Rapeseed

I don’t usually find that farmland holds a great deal of interest for me, but working in Kent ‘the garden of England’ I see more than my fair share of it.  Theres a lot of farms, and a lot of farmers in a fair few tractors and all are in front of me generally.  Where are they going?? Farmers appear to live next to their fields, so where the hell are they commuting to in these epically slow and unhelpfully wide vehicles at 8.30 in the morning?

I digress. Rapeseed: it’s just so yellow and its this yellowness that fascinates me.  I make my living designing wallpaper, which is more interesting than I imagine it sounds.  When one comes across a field of rapeseed yes it is unusually bright, but it doesn’t seem unnatural.  What I mean by this is, a rapeseed flower is pure, solid, unapologetic, primary yellow.  Unsurprising that it’s a member of the mustard family isn’t it?  If you were trying to mix it in paint you would only need to whip out the pot of yellow and you’d be done.  The number of times we use a primary colour in the products at work are zero.  Its just considered too jarring, too unnatural and yet here it is in nature.  In fact the only colour we do use is beige, or a lovely shade of grey beige.  I know a whole field stands out rather but it only grows like that because of human intervention.  I wonder why we choose to limit the colour palettes we use in our own houses so?  Also I was once told that green is the hardest colour to sell clothes in, and yet we are surrounded by it.  And that is why I love a good field of Rapeseed, as much as anyone can.

When taking a few shots the other night on my way home from work I came across a little surprise in the field.  There are a few fields along a stretch of road that are only separated by a deep ditch (this was also the scene of the pheasant butchery for interest) so I wandered in the entrance to one just to get some close ups.  Compositions captured I turned to go when there was a rustling around my feet and this little guy slithered out!  Being long, thin, legless and remarkably snake-like I naturally presumed it was a snake but some time on google has proved it to be a slow worm; a legless lizard.  Definitely less exotic, but no less exiting for me.  Oddly my friend was only telling me how he accidentally sliced one in half with his lawnmower the other day.  At the time I imagined a smaller worm sized thing, but actually its quite meaty so that must have taken some doing!  I talk about the death of wildlife far more than I thought I would on here…

The leg-less lizard

The Great British Bluebell

I have a very long drive to work, which on the whole, is a pain in the ass.  Thirty-two miles morning and night on some of the most narrow, winding roads Kent and Sussex have to offer.  Barely a day goes by when somebody doesn’t threaten my life, be it a bad driver or a deer bouncing out of bush in front of me closely followed by all of his friends.  But there is an upside, the views of the countryside I get to see everyday.  I can’t say this means much when Im skidding round on ice or wheel deep in flood water but in the summer it has its’ moments. 

In the past I would spend the hour commute listening to the radio, contemplating my navel and generally being bored but since I started this blog I have been spending my time scanning the hedgerows for interesting things to possibly feature on here as much as I have been the road.  Maybe Im the bad driver actually!  This is how I arrived at thinking about bluebells.

Bluebells have always appeared to be intrinsically British, hell they are even protected by law.  No rooting around in woodlands collecting a few bulbs for a garden display allowed here.  I just presumed that they were a native flower that we were inexplicably rather fond of as a nation.  What I did not realise is that they only grow in Northern Europe and that we have over half the world’s population here in Britain.  I can believe this.  During my drive to work every day I must literally see millions.  Being British and a country dweller I of course take this completely for granted and on the whole ignore them.  I can imagine though that my readers from the US would find our Bluebell carpets really something.

I took these last week to illustrate.  I did not go for a walk to a particularly lovely spot in some woods to take them.  Instead I dumped my car in a muddy layby and between fighting with my headlight which chose this moment to get stuck on, took a few snaps.  I admit these woods are part of the Ashdown Forest, an ancient wood which is also the setting of Winnie the Pooh, but this is not a notable bit of it.  Right next to a busy road and with a bag of rubbish strewn just out of shot, but with a thickly carpeted by these little flowers anyway.  Obviously not a snobby flower, as long as it is damp and woody.  They really are sight don’t you think?  Whoever called them bluebells was obviously colour blind though as they are clearly purple. 

Bluebells as seen from a muddy lay-by on the A264 Sussex

Note the pheasant.  I would like to say his inclusion was planned but I only noticed him when I uploaded

 

Death be to all slugs who eat peppers

My one solitary pepper

There are few occasions in a gardening situation that should leave one feeling murderous, but last Thursday was one of them.  Six-ish weeks ago I sowed a tray of Minimix Peppers that eventually sprouted into eleven little seedlings and I successfully transferred them outside without immediately dying two weeks ago.  Even so I had my seedlings under careful watch as a couple looked a little droopy and I hoped not to lose too many.  

Its’ my own fault, I blame myself.  I was a little neglectful and didn’t check on them for a couple of days, foolishly believing they would remain safe and happy under their fleecy covering.  It didn’t occur to me that it been rather wet for a couple of days.  When at last I checked on them there was but one seedling standing tall in the tray.  I was stumped.  Where had all the others gone?!  Only little green stumps remained to mark their previous existence.  I had one of those situations where your mind can’t understand what is before your eyes so comes up with a ridiculous explanation.  Like the time my exhaust exploded and my immediate reaction was it was a horse’s tail hanging out the end.  My only conclusion to begin with was that somehow, I had hit a horse even though I was pretty sure Id have noticed it at the time.  Turns out exhausts are actually full of carbon fibre strands, not horse hair.   I found myself questioning whether the mother had cut off the heads of my seedlings…then it all became clear.

The slug in question, look at him nonchalant and unaware of his fate sitting feasting on my runner bean seeds 

There, lounging in one of the cells in a tray of yet to sprout runner beans was a slug; One of those really big, juicy grey ones.  The very slug who had eaten all but one of my peppers, the little toad.  I so could have cried.  Rage bubbled up inside of me; I would have my revenge.  I don’t normally like killing things, being a vegetarian I am not responsible for many animal deaths.  I accidentally mowed down a male pheasant a couple of months ago, hitting it square on the number plate.  Horrifically it flew up over the bonnet in a bloody feathery mess as if to confront me and I felt awful about it for the rest of the day.   However the rage gave me proverbial balls so I dug him and his little skinny friend out and unceremoniacly dumped them on the patio took a garden knife and sliced them in half.  Only it wasn’t as quick and painless as that.  The little skinny one was surprisingly tough and rubbery and it took five or six slices before I realized I was using the blunt side of the knife.   The big one split in an eruption of juices, and as he gently oozed out I sat there, not feeling like I had had my revenge but instead feeling bad.  I was a murderer.  I got all moral on my ass, who am I to serve judgment on this slug? It was only doing what slugs do.  I then found it had thoroughly munched its’ way through one of my peas and several of the runner bean seeds and you know what, suddenly I didn’t feel so bad.

At least I had one left though right?  Well I did until another dastardly slug brunched on it the next day.  I had no qualms of ridding the world of him; I had him out and sliced before I even knew it.  So it turns out slugs find peppers a little Moorish, and I’m going have to re sow and stake out at night to protect them, that or buy them a pint of Guinness.  I hear they like getting truly sloshed in the froth.

Thriving peas

Less than thriving pea/completely lunched and munched upon, i.e.. decimated

Bee watch at the Greengage Tree

A little greengage blossom and not a bee in sight

My mother has an unrequited love.  It does give back, but only in the form of plums.  If she was made to choose between it and I, I couldn’t be 100% sure she would actually choose me.  She came by this love in a relic of the British highstreet: good old Woolworths.  Excellent for pick and mix and tucked away at the back of our local one, cheap plants.  She thought she was getting an excellently priced but regular plum tree, which she was nonetheless fond of, but as it eventually produced fruit it became apparent that this was no ordinary plum.  As its’ fruits formed and ripened, they resolutely refused to change colour, stubbornly remaining green.  Turns out it was actually a mislabelled and much more sought after greengage.  

No other plant is so highly prized by her in our garden, so much so she has to be berated into pruning it every year and even then it now stands at least ten feet tall and somebody has to be sent up a ladder come picking time.  My brother cycled to our house last summer and ironically chained his beloved bike to my mother’s beloved tree.  I couldn’t help thinking that if a thief had cut through the tree to take the bike, I genuinely wouldn’t know who would have been more devastated.

I phoned her from work recently and the tree came up in conversation.  She was concerned she hadn’t seen any bees on her tree and I was left thinking how the hell does she even know this?!  Has she spent all day stationed by it on bee watch!  I feel my mother may need to get out more.  Im not concerned, no doubt we will be eating greengages for breakfast, lunch and dinner and spending the rest of the time in the loo again this year.  I say ‘we’ but I don’t actually like them, shame.