Catching up - walk on Monday (Coombe Wood)

What a strange week - such a mixture of extremes - extremes of weather and extremes of lovely things and not so lovely things and I'm only just getting round to writing about the only walk I managed to squeeze into the week.

So many fish basking in the clear water. 

 Many little dark fish among the bigger pale ones.

I can only see the little dark fish when they swim in front of a bigger pale one.

White lavender coming to an end. 

Pink faces turned to the sun. 

Lovely to see so many bees. 

Raspberry red - I must remember to get a close up next time - I might be too late though. They may have finished when I get there next.

Bright orange and yellow. I find the way the little yellow curls travel up the centre fascinating. A close up time lapse film would be interesting.

Tall yellow flowers. 

Much shorter darker yellow flowers. 

The pale area in front is full of papery honesty seed containers and the rest is drifts of flowers between mounds of swaying grasses.

Looking closer. 

Banana tree trunks.

There were little flowers on these hairy red stems but I missed them - a few creamy berries remain.

Buddleia 

Sedums beginning to open. 

I like these neat bobbly buds and the soft lilac coloured flowers - no idea what they are.

Herbaecous border

Flowers leaning in against each other. 

Pollen all over the petals. 

Mustard yellow and raspberry colours intermingling.

Cricket? I thought there was a strand of hair across the picture - it's the crickets very long antennae which happen to be pointing in opposite directions making him look as if he is walking a tightrope.

Bee

Petals fading. 

I love all these deep pinky red colours. 

 More reds. 

Slender purple spikes pushing through the mass of soft green cosmos leaves.

Plenty of buds waiting to open. 

Cosmos - starry centre.

Single dahlia with bee.

There are some very tall stems with tiny tubular flowers on -- I thought I'd missed the flowers, most have gone to seed now.

Blue agapanthus buds. This should be lovely next time I get there.

These leaves remind me of calligraphic brush strokes.

Twisty pods. 

These close like a nest and insects can shelter inside them. 

From a distance all of these white umbelliferous flowers look very similar

but close up it's easy to see the difference. These aren't even white - these are pink.

Yellow rattle. 

Abutilon

Another one with tiny white flowers. 

Tiny orange flowers - you have to look close to see these

unlike these big showy flowers! 

Moving to purple. 

 Love in a mist pods. 

 More shades of purple. 

A last look at the lovely clear pond. 

Thank you very much for joining me.