Walking East Stoke's lanes this May

This month’s post once again has pictures from Moor Lane - a time poor month this time round as a good part of it was spent exploring and walking Italy’s Gargano Peninsular.

As I started my walk I was quite quickly reminded of our own little laburnum tree in our previous garden in London - it was never quite as magnificent, nor anywhere near as big, but I’d almost forgotten that they come into their own in May. It’s worth its place in this post though.

Moving further along the lane and approaching the bridge over the A46 it was easy to spot that the verges were full of life, and well, weeds. Though as ever if you live by the definition of a weed that it’s a plant in the wrong place, then that’s probably up for some debate with these. Clearly before the seedheads there would have been flowers, but somehow I think the seedheads are more dramatic - and I’m happy to admire them, just as long as they’re not in my own garden!

I’m not 100% sure what the plant is above - my phone suggests it’s a ribwort, and it’s been pretty accurate so I’m tended to go with that, though if you know then please do let me know.

The star of the month though was most definitely the cow parsley. I started to get an inkling it would be a big feature as soon as I caught sight up the lane.

The fluffy strip of clouds above the hedgerows somehow seemed to add an accent to its frothiness and I’ve probably way too many photos of cow parsley than anyone person needs. Later on in my walk I was joined out of the blue by a chirpy robin who most obligingly posed on the post next to the gas marker, and I’m rather keen on him silhouetted against the pylon in the distance.

Reaching the bridge it wasn’t surprising to see the hedgerow on the right in bloom, and nor was it a surprise to see the yellow flowering rape - thankfully that doesn’t set my hayfever off, I’ve a month or two yet before I start to sneeze (something to look forward too!)

As I turned to head back I was mesmerised by the clouds once again as I looked towards Newark. Living here I really should start to learn about the types of clouds, as with such big skies there’s often different types on display.

And one last photo before I end, this hedgerow seems to be as appreciative of the lichen as I am, and rather than ‘greening up’ in the more traditional spring growth way, it’s keep it’s lichen front and centre. I’m sure it will soon be covered in new growth though, and that’s ok too.

Thanks for joining me this month, I’ll be back to sharing the next instalment around the third week of the month, but in the meantime if you enjoyed this post you may also like some previous series where I revisit the same place - there’s my year in Greenwich Park and remember that time when I followed a tree?

Post Comment Love 21 - 23 June

Hello there, and welcome back to this week’s #PoCoLo - a friendly linky which I co-host with Suzanne, where you can link any blog post published in the last week. We know you’ll find some great posts to read, and maybe some new-to-you blogs too, so do pop over and visit some of the posts linked, comment and share some of that love.

Please don’t link up posts which are older as they will be removed from the linky, and if older posts are linked then please don’t feel that it’s necessary to comment on those. If you were here last week it was great to have you along, if you’re new here this week we’re pleased you’ve joined us.

Thanks for your well wishes last week for my tooth, it has on the whole improved and the pain lessened, though I did need an unplanned visit back to the dentist on Tuesday. I thought I might be developing an infection, and was concerned as my chin was tingling, but everything was ok and healing better than expected. He took the stitches out as it was doing so well and since then things have improved, so hopefully they were the cause of my continued discomfort.

It’s been another quiet week here, though I did spend some time gardening yesterday finally getting around to potting up some herbs - and I think, I may have made some progress with my garden plans. Slow progress, but progress but more on that another time.

My photo this week is one from last night as we headed home after watching the England game, let’s just say the view was way better than the game!

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Four black and white pictures

I’d been at a loss for some artwork for our bedroom wall. We had one picture on the wall in our previous house, and that wasn’t right for here so I needed to come up with something else. And I really wasn’t sure.

In the end I took inspiration from an existing picture we had - remember back in March 2020 I shared a photo of mine that finally got on the wall with some help from Photowall?

But I wasn’t sure if where I had in mind would work, so I mocked it up.

And so for the next few weeks or so, I tweaked their positions - up a bit, down a bit, together a bit more and so on. Finally I was happy and then my attention turned to choosing the images.

We had the rocks from our holiday in Cornwall back in 2014, and I knew I had a picture of storks nesting from a holiday in Portugal. But what else? The good news is I found some.

And I used Photowall again, this time paying for my additional three images to be framed.

The service was still good, and it was easy to upload my images and create my artwork, though I hadn’t realised that they’d changed their frames so the three new frames are a slightly different finish to the one I already had. I was disappointed that the frames and pictures came separately though, and I had to assemble them myself once they arrived - not a huge thing, but a definite difference to my previous experience.

That said, I’m still very happy with the end result. Of course when they arrived I spent more than intended on their layout - thankfully for MOH on the carpet rather than the wall (as there was also a difference in the positioning of the sawtooth picture hanger).

I decided on this layout.

And don’t they look great on the wall?

MOH did a great job, under extreme pressure to get the gaps right!!

And as you’re wondering what the images are, they’re (clockwise from top left):

• A view towards Greenwich from the Thames Path

• Storks nesting on telegraph poles in the Alentejo in Portugal

• A flooded field in Elston, one of the villages close to our new home

• A rock formation from our trip to Cornwall back in 2014.

And all are photos we’ve taken ourselves, and there’s nothing better to have on our walls - our memories captured by us - at some point I’ll do a post about each of the four photos we chose and why.