Desert Rose...

Yesterday I thought my cold had just about burned itself out, I was wrong! This morning I woke up with painful sinuses and generally feeling yuk!

We did go into Cambridge this morning for a quick visit to Tom but haven't done much else...

I took this photo on the kitchen table, a bit of an emergency Blip really. This Desert Rose is a (more or less) rose-like crystal group formed by precipitation in (usually) arid desert regions containing trapped sand particles. Usually gypsum is the host mineral (Gypsum Rose), but baryte (Baryte Rose), celestine and other minerals can form Desert Rose groups, too.

An exhibit in Margaret's treasured and much admired mineral collection. I seem to remember from my army days that a desert rose was something altogether different...