lovely flowers by Maritime Museum Greenwich Park
Have you seen the variety and the colours! It is always a joy for me walking past here, especially when I don't look to the other side, towards the Observatory, as I feel sad about the ruined grass, which they are watering and trying to fix!
So, I look to the right and enjoy the flower power!
WOW!
And trees in Blackheath!
I like looking at trees in Blackheath, which is such a lovely green area of London, the Cator Estate especially; I look up from beneath and see what patterns the leaves make against the sky.
I have a book about trees, their names and how you identify them. For me this is good as I don't know that many trees and some of them I know by their Italian name ( this helps with the Latin name, though )
I am going to read the book and perhaps carry it around with me for tree identification!
Although according to its title I nee to have at home!
It is called 'Out of The Woods' The armchair guide to trees, by Will Cohu
I have to share an extract of this book with you! On page 22 it gives you the:
Bare Essentials
COMMON ALDER- Upright spire when young but fills out.
Conspicuous cones and pink catkins in late winter. Leaves
like tennis racquets.
ITALIAN ALDER- Armani version. Spire when young, stays tall and slender when older. Trunk bends elegantly. Bigger cones and catkins. heart shaped leaves.
HAZEL- Umbrella stand with escaping pot plant in it.
Fawn catkins in winter. Floppy large leaves like wilted vegetable.
Nuts, if you can keep them.
PUSSY WILLOW- Large bush or small tree. Catkins are pussies in early spring on naked twigs. Silver pussies are female flowers; golden ones are male. Often in straggling self-seeded colonies along roadsides.
BIRCH- Silver birch weeps about its plight. Downy birch just gets on with it.
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As you can see it is a fun read and is good at giving pictures in your head that you remember easily!
On page 27 it tells you about Ash trees:
Ash trees are lazy; they don't get out of bed till late in the year. When most other trees are busy doing wholesome spring things, the ash will yawn, turn in its bed, curl up its filthy fingernail and continue to dream of its excesses of the previous autumn, those wild nights swaying in the November winds. It loves winter. On stormy nights, the ash trees sway to and fro like mad old bastards dancing in the nude, their massive limbs wiping the clouds from the moon. Sometimes they do one hula too many, go pop and crack in two, just where a dose of the old rot has finally got them.
Such a fun book!
I have a hardback copy my husband bought for only £1.99 ( original price £14.99 ) in a shop called The Works in Bromley.
here some more pictures of trees I like:
I like the way this looks almost like a holding hands with many fingers!
This tree reminds me of Ostia beach and Rome!
I do recognize a pine tree ( Mediterranean)
Well...got my reading glasses and reading 'Out of The Woods' and will come out with names for each tree I will impress all of you soon! ( And myself!)
x Susannah
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