Thistle down

It was the first really sunny day for a while, and a perfect temperature for walking or working outside. At the bottom of the lane I found the gate into the meadow open, so took the opportunity to walk up a unofficial but fairly well used path inside the hedgerow. There are lots of wild flowers in the grass and the hedge: I photographed red and white clover, vetch and some pretty pale mauve flowers which look like a kind of mallow but I have yet to identify, and saw others which I've already photographed recently. My favourites were the thistles, which are a currently a huge, fluffy mess of down far larger than the original smallish mauve flower heads. I walked on into the wood, enjoying the bright sunshine backlighting the leaves above my head and the different patterns formed by beech and sweet chestnut leaves. 

I didn't have time to walk very far: it was time for J's PA to go home and for J to "help" me make chocolate cake which we will eat with her other PA, who celebrated her birthday this week. She told me confidently that what S would like best would be a chocolate cake with chocolate ganache frosting. As it happens, that's J's favourite too...