I made a strategic error this morning, in not checking the weather forecast before I went out. R needed to be dropped in Stratford mid-morning, after which if I’d come straight home I could have enjoyed a couple of hours of pleasant gardening weather. Instead I frittered the time away, sitting in a café with coffee, a pastry and my newspaper apps, and then searching the garden centre thoroughly for any unmissable plants they might happen to have.
In the event I did come home with plants (and compost, and a new patio pot that I’m happy to say R doesn’t seem to have noticed yet). But by the time I arrived the sun was gone, the wind was rising, and the temperature was dropping fast. I grabbed the camera and rushed to the pulmonaria patch, but no-one was in sight, and when I tracked the loud Plumpie buzzing I could hear to its source, I discovered several of the boys searching out holes in the lime mortar in the end wall of the house, into which, one by one, they disappeared. It’s charming, of course, that we have Hairy-footed Flower Bees living in the wall of the house, but not photographically useful when their holes are at least eight feet up, and I don’t own a probe macro.
On hearing buzzing behind me I scuttled back to the pulmonaria, and found this solitary male taking quick drink of nectar, before he too disappeared to look for shelter. And that was that, for the rest of the day. Every time the cloud thinned and the light improved I toured the likely flowers to check for the little guys reappearing, but they stayed firmly tucked up in their nice warm mortary beds. Having stayed out working in the garden myself, and getting steadily colder and more windswept, until it was time for me to go and collect R, I really can’t say that I blame them.
R: L2, C6, D12.
