Coombe Wood walk between rain showers

It's taken me quite a while to get around to completing this - the walk was  on Thursday morning - it's Sunday evening now!

Thursday began grey and overcast and downpours were forecast. I took a big umbrella and went to Coombe Wood expecting to be drenched but it didn't rain while I was there fortunately and I ended up using the umbrella as a walking stick because I was so stiff and slow. I was relieved that the downpours waited till I had finished my walk.

I noticed some white lavender which I haven't seen there before

Some of the more colourful little fluffy flowers are coming out - and the white ones are looking good too

Tiny yellow flowers with raindrops on

Rose hips

The big daisies are past their best but I still find it interesting to see what they do next

I spent quite a while wandering along the paths between the prairie plants - it's not a very big area but I can easily spend ages in there enjoying the contrasting colours and textures and watching the bees and other insects

We used to have this plant in our garden when my children were young. They used to pull the heads off and use them as missiles

These funny little ragged daisy like flowers are opening more now

The gardener was hard at work among the prairie beds

There he is again

I find it interesting to see how the centre of the flowers change. The dome like structures in the centre of these flowers produce tufts which open from the base of the petals upwards, like a fluffy collar which gradually creeps all the way up to the top of the dome, as the petals curl further downwards

Raindrops on gorgeous orange/yellow flowers

In the background you can see that the gardener had finished in the prairie beds and had moved on to trimming the hedges. He works extremely hard and does a wonderful job there - with very obvious passion for what he is doing

These are the plants I described in a previous post as pink trees. The buds are opening now and look as if shaggy threads are hanging out of them

Honesty seeds - I like the way they change colour and become fragile and papery

From a distance these purple flowers look quite spikey

but looking closer. now that the petals are falling off, the structure of the plant is more visible. It looks as if a stack of fuzzy green ring doughnuts have been threaded on each stem

These might be michaelmas daisies. The look and smell remind me of some we had growing in our garden when I was a child, although these are shorter and are flowering earlier than ours did. I seem to remember that they flowered at the right time to take a bunch to school for harvest festival

The picture below isn't like my usual photos but if you look under the seat in the hut you' can see an empty crisp bag and a chocolate wrapper. Look how close the bin is. I don't understand why people drop rubbish in hte first place but specially so close to a bin! It upsets me when I see people treating the gardens carelessly - I can't imagine what it must be like for the gardener having to clear up after people (yes I did pick them up and put them in the bin).

I like the curly middles and the raindrops on these delicately striped petals

Berries starting to go red

Not long after I got home the rain poured down - and I felt very pleased that I had gone out early.

Thank you very much for joining me