The Old Forge (Saturday 23rd May 2020)

This was my seventieth birthday and it was going to be very strange due to people self isolating and so forth, but the day was rescued very happily by Refna who came over in the afternoon bearing gifts, and we spent time convivially socially distanced but drinking rather good wine, eating and chatting. Consequently, I was not in a fit state to return to Caen Hill in the evening.

The only picture I took was of this Woodland Garden climbing rose. I think it is a kind of cultivated dog rose, known as Rosa rubrifolia or Rosa glauca. According to my computer records in an entry dated 10 June 1995, this came as a cutting from a plant sale of the Bishop's Garden in Salisbury on 9 June 1995. It was described as having cerise-pink flowers and growing up to nine feet - an accurate description except it is much taller. The problem is I hadn't been to Salisbury since that April and my diary entries for 9 and 10 June only record my neighbour May giving me a cutting of variegated ground elder (which I still have) from her garden, but make no allusion to roses and show there were no car trips. There was no charge made for the plant or the lost frost sensitive Swedish ivy I acquired  at the same time as they weren't expected to survive. Anyway, it is doing extremely well in my fernery but can only be admired from the driveway beyond the garden as it flowers purely above the car port roof.

So much better resolution in Large (Gallery) view

L.
24.5.2020 (1615 hr)

Blip #3226 (#2976 + 250 archived blips taken 27.8.1960-18.3.2010)
Consecutive Blip #021
Blips/Extras In 2020 #77/265 + #043/100 Extras
Day #3711 (840 gaps from 26.3.2010)
LOTD #2355 (#2196 + 159 in archived blips)

Old Forge series
Woodland Garden
Flora series

Woodland Garden (May 2020) (Flickr album)(Work in progress)

Taken with Nikon Coolpix P900 (24-2000mm equivalent bridge camera)

Lozarhythm Of The Day:
Simon and Garfunkel - Old Friends (recorded 8 March 1968, New York NY)
"How terribly strange to be seventy..."
With thanks to Colin West for the exclusive illustration.

One year ago:
Foxhangers