Our Worcestershire Garden

[nanila]

As part of my attempt to establish a routine on my work-from-home days, I take a cup of tea and my macro lens out into the garden at the end of the day. (When it’s raining, I sit in the conservatory instead. It’s like being outside without having to get wet! Telstar sits in the conservatory for this reason, too, I think - except he does it even when it’s not raining, because he is lazy.)

“The girls”, as our neighbour refers to the previous owners, did a beautiful job of landscaping the garden, creating winding beds and a path that curves around its odd, elongated teardrop shape in an aesthetically pleasing way. They also filled it with flowers that bees adore, particularly lavender, roses and nasturtiums. Those of you who remember the condition of our Cambridge garden (jungle, concealing badly-line leaking pond) when we first moved there will understand why we’re a bit baffled trying to work out what we can possibly add to it to make it any better. It’s an unexpected pleasure to have moved in when the garden is showing itself off at its best. I can sit on our handmade wooden bench (crafted by our friend who lives in the woods near Battle) and watch patiently for photogenic insects to land in the correct places for optimal lighting and composition.

Featuring a holly blue, a hoverfly, a white-tailed bumblebee and a rotund spider (consuming a bee, I think).

Comments

[pipisafoat]

When I came home this afternoon, I got sidetracked and sat down on the walk to watch the bees and the butterflies and the insects-I-can't-identify on the flowers here. Only I don't know what the flowers are. Well, whatever, I still like to look!

All to say, I also like to look at your pictures. These and the last ones, I didn't comment yet, they're just so nice. Photography is one of those hobbies where I kind of wish I could take pictures like that, but the actual taking of pictures doesn't appeal to me, just the end result, hahaha. It'd be nice to say "I made this!" but the actual making, uh, not for me! So I appreciate other people's pictures even more.

[ironed_orchid]

Lovely.

Having a defined end of work day ritual is really helpful.

[lark_ascends]

Beautiful!!

[nanila]

I feel like my "Thank you" should really be on behalf of The Girls!

[nanila]

It is. Now I have to work on the start-of-day ritual, too. Also, the proper lunch ritual - I worked through lunch today and am consequently worn out now. Still need to put in more time...

[nanila]

I don't know what all the flowers are in our garden either. The bloke & I are trying to learn the Latin as well as the common names for things, but some of them just won't stick and hence are forevermore known as "that pretty spikey purple thing." :D

Thank you very much! I'm glad they aren't just an annoying bandwidth hog. I try to keep them small but goodness knows what Google/Flickr/insert-other-image-host-here do when you're actually trying to view a post. I fell into photography as a way to share my paintings, but it's dominated most of my creative efforts for the past three years. I'm hoping to turn that around again once the new house is in order.