As soon as I dictated this, Ba got quite agitated, Where did she come down from? And, Who's been complaining?
Oh dear, she's not very good with these figures of speech, so I had to explain it was nothing like Moses coming down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments on the Tablets of Stone.
Even then, Ba was wondering if Alice would need to swallow pills of stone (tablets). We looked for a good link, but they were all rather religiously complicated, so it's Wikipedia again.
We've kept this image small, in case you're squeamish about anatomy etc. The Lymphatic System is shown in green, though it's not really. Click and it comes up bigger. Bigger still in this long explanatory article - you have been warned!
Back to the flowers
Alice put these four photos together, as they all show more or less the same flowers, and it saves us composing lots of different captions to fill up the spaces! [Click to see larger.]
Top left: March 24th, and really Spring at last! A couple of the daffodils came out and it was a lot warmer. Bottom left: a better view of the daffodils, but not us. Top right: A few days later the second bud has opened and a hyacinth is looking more lively, but it's turned cold again.
AND Bottom right: How it usually appears, without any cheating. The flowers are facing the sun, not you; there are distracting cars behind, nasty double yellow lines and signs on the road, plus a dangling cable. You can see why Alice likes to avoid or edit out the rubbish.
Nothing to do with the rock group, called the Grateful Dead, in case you're confused by the term. It means to prune away the dying bits to help the rest, including the buried bulbs, fare better.
Although there's a bare patch where Ba is sitting, there were ten bright daffodils in this one.
Off to the Park
We're lucky enough to live very close to Harrison Park, (see here too) a lovely open space in the city. Here we're perched in a decorative guard for a young sapling.
It keeps the dogs, kids and footballs off, I assume.What a wonderful spread of daffodils in the background!
Taken later, with the sinking sun behind, this gives a better picture of how decorative it is. [Do click!]
There's even a Community Garden space near the entrance. In the background you can see our favourite tree - more of which later.
Here's a closer view of some of the planting boxes, at a sensible height to avoid back-breaking bending down. You can just glimpse the play area behind, which is well used by the local parents with young children.
Here we are, perched up on the trunk of our Favourite Tree! Notice the healthy green moss - or is it lichen? There's a good view of the leaves at this angle, but it's hard get the full lovliness of the wonderful pink flowers.
Alice's composite below is the best for colour, especially against the early evening's deep blue sky. In the distance, beyond the Church, you can just glimpse the nearby Pentland Hills.
Ba was at first busy snuffling to see if they had any perfume. No, they didn't.
In the end, with a little help from Alice, she managed to see what I'd found. It stayed perfectly still, maybe having a snooze? Make this photo and the specimen the last one to click on and see in its full detail! We do hope you've all enjoyed our Spring medley and found it interesting.
