Lenten Rose.

I really must get out more, particularly on the trike, as I spent this morning recovering from yesterday’s club run. It’s not that it was particularly long or hard, just that I’m not as fit as I should be. Now is the time to spare a thought for Steve Abraham who was attempting to beat the 1939 Tommy Godwin record  of cycling 75,065 miles in a year. By the 29th of March he had clocked up 16,888 miles (compared with Tommy’s 14,364) when he was knocked off his bike by a drunken moped rider and broke his ankle. He is planning to restart cycling, continuing with this attempt AND starting a concurrent attempt, in the summer. He is receiving encouragement from Kurt Searvogel from Arizona who launched his attack on the same record a few days after Steve, it's good to know that there are some nice people about.

Today’s blip is of a Lenten Rose, a different specie to that posted a few weeks ago, I don’t know the precise variety but it is similar to Helleborus purpurascens and is poisonous to dogs; Merlin had better not take a liking to it. Rather curiously, this specimen seems to have three sexes, there appear to be two distinctly different types of anther (the male bits) and one type of stigma (the female bits). Even if I am right, this is nothing compared to the promiscuity of some fungi which have up to a dozen different viable sexes.

This was actually a bit of a bugger to photograph as the flowers hang downwards and are about six inches from the ground; they also wave about in the breeze with great enthusiasm. positioning a camera and flash in the available space while holding the framing and focus proved to be a little challenging.

This evening we had a "natural history" competition at the camera club, I came away a bit miffed even though I did reasonably well. I found myself competing with, and beaten by, cultivated garden flower species (i.e. they don't exist in the wild) and dog portraits amongst other dubious subjects. It's the AGM in a couple of weeks, I may offer some suggestions.