MARROW AND CATERPILLARS FOR SUPPER

Blue heaven -

So C and J came with B and the day was good - weather and company. Flowers cut for the house and I put a Magnolia grandiflora flower in the living room. When we came in in the evening the whole place was filled with its scent. I quite like it but R is nor so sure.

It is only mid September and the autumn tidy is underway - cutting out old flowered stems (which reveals hidden weeds like creeping buttercup), clearing the undergrowth in the wood now campion and such have set seed - at least the veg beds are done. (Which reminds me to go and pick the broccoli). And the broccoli and sprouts are caterpillared - cabbage white and small white - so I have picked them off and squished them. I have also replaced the netting I had taken off to try and prevent egg laying.
I wonder how I can squish a caterpillar but not a squirrel - perhaps the insects do not answer back.
In the end we did not eat it as the veg had steamed caterpillars as a bonus treat on our plates.

The nuthatch is back.

The first marrow is cut and half of it stuffed with mince etc. It is baking in the oven. Now R does not like it much but I remember, in those olden days when much food was seasonal, looking forward to the September stuffed marrow.

This is our passion flower finally deigning to come out at the end of September. It is a white version without the blue and purple colour often seen.
The flower is full of Christian symbolism - with a little manipulation -
The ten petals are the ten apostles less Judas who betrayed Jesus and Peter who denied him.
The frilly bits represent the crown of thorns, the three stigmas the thee nails and the five anthers the five wounds. Other bits refer to the flagellation, the Holy Lance and the Holy Grail.

"It is ten past three," she said. "Aren't you going to the doctor's for a 'flu' jab?"
And I was - at 3.27, eight miles away, and every tractor in the area in the road, and I got there just in time. As I walked in the nurse beckoned to me with her finger, I was injected and had left within two minutes!
So home I come, job done.
R is out at the hairdresser.
I have the wrong keys in my pocket and no 'phone.
Locked out!
An hour and a half to pass doing what?
I mowed most of the steep banking below the house and mooched around for a while until I heard the crunch of tyres on the track and rattle over the cattle grid.

I am now having small Peroni and a bag of Walkers' Plain Light Crisps. (Not quite - actually I am sitting at the computer typing.) (And I remembered to compliment R on her hair.)(This time.)