More TED Walks in the ... well, we think it's still the time of Coronavirus Pt 9

Not been anywhere. Crap weather, for the most part.  Also, it's the worst bits about life that seem to have been reinstated, despite the continuing presence of Coronavirus - working from work, Wetherspoons, golf, shopping as a hobby, queuing traffic. The best bits - poetry events and writing groups, theatre and gigs, hugging people you love, and feeling safe - have not. 

Though there's still the meadow and the common to explore in good weather and bad. And I even caught an almost midsummer sunrise from my bedroom window one morning ...

... and a picture book moon over thistles.

And wildlife! Here's some of my wildlife photography. (I'm prepared to wait for seconds to get the perfect shot.)


A rabbit

A bumble on bramble

A wood pigeon stripping cherries from a tree

A kestrel

A flock of rooks and jackdaws 

A dead hedgehog (or a very uncomfy slipper). My cousin reliably informs me that this is the work of a badger. 

The fox who is always waiting for us in the road when we get home, ready for a stand-off with the eponymous TED

My photos of trees and flowers are generally more successful. 

Here's some June blackberries ...

... and two of my favourite trees which we don't see so often now most of the golf course is out-of-bounds.

(It was dusk on a Saturday night and no one was playing.) 

And this is the magnificent ash in the ditch, nearly hidden from view now by brambles and bindweed.  

Purple hogweed seeds

Wild carrot, entering the Queen Mother's Hat circa 1965 stage of seed-setting

My favourite not-an-umbellifer, yarrow ... 

... and another beloved, the red-berried rowan

Golden rod

I've stopped wondering whether this year's ubiquitous crow garlic is the triffid component of Covid-19, and now think it might be the cure, right under our anosmic noses. After all, there's lungwort for pulmonary problems, and woundwort for wounds. So why not crow garlic for Corvid-19?

As well as walking over the golf course to the meadow and Charlton Common, we've also had cause to walk past Horfield Common the other evening. It was lovely. 

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The Church of the Holy Trinity with St Edmund

And it made a change to be watching the sunset from a different viewpoint from usual, in this case the former parade ground opposite what used to be Horfield Barracks but is now a housing development full of assorted shoe boxes ... 

... even though the meadow and Charlton Common sunsets remain a huge bonus of life in (varying stages of) lockdown.

Charlton Common

Solstice sunsets on the highest part of the Welsh Hills 

Getting a bit Old Testament

These walks in the same small area have been as much a mapping of an era (and a very strange one at that) as of place and the changing seasons. Bud to flower to berry. Floret to seed. I've committed Lady Macbeth's speech to memory for hand-washing purposes and can now identify at least some of the more common umbellifers. I've made an important decision about my future. And already the jackdaws and rooks are starting to flock again, and the setting sun is beginning its crawl back along the Welsh hilltops towards winter.

  

TED Walks in the time of coronavirus Pt ... er ... 8

The break in the weather has meant fewer TED Walks lately.  

This was the scene that greeted us a couple of weeks ago when I took Son the Younger up the meadow with the promise of views all the way down to the wind turbines and the coal chute at Avonmouth, near where he works. 

And the sunset on the longest day of the year looked like this. 

At least there's water in the ditches now.

When the longer view isn't so great, I find myself focusing on stuff that's under my nose and that I might otherwise have missed ... 

... like these poppies and cornflowers and corn marigolds ... 

... and the first rosebay willowherb of the season ...

... and this very large, very hungry cabbage white caterpillar, munching on honesty ... 

... and this greenbottle ... 

... and these rose chafers, both on hogweed.

And just look at the colours of this - a five-spot burnet moth on vetch. Just amazing.  

I've also been furthering my umbellifer identification skills, so while we're on the subject of burnets, here's the beautifully delicate lesser burnet saxifrage.

The etymology of 'burnet' is Middle English 'a dark brown woollen cloth', which is a bit perplexing.

Here's another lovely: daucus carota, also known as wild carrot, bird's nest, bishop's lace and Queen Anne's lace. (You can tell it by the single red flower near the centre of the umbel, which is there (though not always) to attract insects.) (And is also blood from the lace-maker's pricked finger, obviously.)

Different stages of hogweed setting seed

I've also learnt some new-to-me flowers with wonderful names. This is hedge woundwort, with my favourite moon daisies ... 

... and marsh woundwort.

And here's marsh woundwort with ... well, for a while I didn't know what this red globular onion-y plant was. I just took some photos and decided I'd look it up when I got around to it.

But then the very next day my cousin, 3000 miles away in New Jersey, posted a photo of the same plant on Facebook. (She didn't know what it was either.) And the next day Mitch, just outside Bath, did the same, only she could identify it - Allium vineale, or crow garlic. 

How strange, I thought, to have been unaware of it all my life and suddenly it's pimpling the edges of the playing field, and infesting my timeline. 

On Saturday I spotted some in my front garden. 'It's everywhere!' I wailed to my cousin. 'It must be the triffid component to Covid-19. It's going to wait until everyone of us is weakened and immobile and then it's going to eat us.'

Yesterday I realised  they weren't strays in my garden at all, but scouts reporting back to a garrison of the stuff stationed at the end of the road ... 

... wild-haired as a result of the lockdown and sending urgent messages ... 

Deadly nightshade and the witchy whitethorn of the fairway

It's a shame that the moment the Northerner finished his coursework, the football started up again, but with the weather set to change back to sunny summer days, hopefully there'll be a few more TED Walks for me and my dog.