TINY TUESDAY - ON THEME - BECAUSE THERE ISN'T ONE!

Mr. HCB went out walking with his friend quite early, so I just got up in a leisurely fashion, had some breakfast after my shower and generally lazed around - I would love today to be a PRD - Pink Robe Day for the uninitiated - but I need to go to the Post Office a bit later, so guess I should get dressed - although I know many go in their jim-jams to Tescos and the like!  The trouble is, I don’t have anything on underneath my pink robe, so if it was windy.........I will leave the rest to your imagination!  When the Amazon man arrived at 10.35 and looked slightly askance at the state of my dress, or undress, I just said that it was a "Pink Robe Day" and he did laugh - but not sure he understood me! ;-)

I decided to go out into the garden to pick up a little pot of Grape Hyacinths because I thought it was a bit cold to sit on the wall and anyway, it would get my PR dirty!  

I’m not sure about this shot - many photographs I see on here are so much sharper, but I guess my small Panasonic camera - and even my larger Canon - just aren’t up to the job.  My iPhone wasn’t much better either, so I decided this was the best of the bunch.  Perhaps I am being too "picky"!

So here we have Grape Hyacinth or Muscari Armeniacum and Mr. Google told me the following that may - or may not - be of interest to you.  I did wonder why it was called “Grape Hyacinth” and this explains it:

“Grape hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum) is a mid-spring blooming, perennial bulb in the Lily Family (Liliaceae) native to southeastern Europe. It is not a true hyacinth (genus Hyacinthus). The name of the genus, Muscari, comes from the Greek word for musk, referring to the scent produced by the flowers of many species in the genus. The common name comes from the resemblance of the clusters of the small, bell-shaped, cobalt-blue flowers to upside-down clusters of grapes.

Each bell-shaped floret has a thin white band on the rim. Most have a mildly sweet fragrance variously described as slightly grassy or grapey. They are excellent as cut flowers and can be used for indoor forcing. The flowers open sequentially from the bottom up the inflorescence, with the lowest flowers withering as the top ones open. Pollinated flowers are followed by tripartite seed pods. They readily naturalise, reproducing by division and self-seeding, and may even become invasive in some situations.”

Hope you all have a good day - the sun is trying to break through - so it should be quite warm in our conservatory, where I may spend sometime, probably listening to music or a podcast, as my eyes are still quite sore, once I have posted my cards.

While I was typing this, Mr. HCB came home - he was thrilled to tell me he had used the Merlin Bird I/D app and the three birds he was most pleased to hear, but didn’t see, unfortunately, were a song thrush, chaffinch and a gold crest.  He also heard a wren, dunnock, robin, jackdaw, great tit,  and blue tit.  However, he did see, and watched for sometime, a pair of tree creepers - I asked if he had heard them, and when he said he hadn’t, said they were probably too busy creeping up the tree!  

PS I did have a PRD - Mr HCB took my cards over to the Royal Mail sorting office - he’s so kind!