Thursday 20th July 2023 - Thankful, Spiders and Umbellifer

The weather has been cooler and we have also had rain and thunder. Not the best of summer weather but I’m not complaining. I’m just thankful we are not experiencing the high temperatures and subsequent wildfires other countries in Europe are having to endure. Looking ahead at the forecast, there will be little change here over the coming week.

It’s the season for spiders. I keep finding webs in our home, the sort which are like candy floss - sticky. I have been removing these, on pretty well a daily basis, with a micro fibre duster. I heard, if you keep destroying their webs, spiders get the message they are not wanted, and move on elsewhere. On Tuesday when I went to take the sheets and pillow cases off the washing line, there were tiny spiders which had come in on the wind and who were busy starting on their webs. I shook out the bed linen before I brought it back indoors.

Rather than risk, getting a soaking, we have been restricting our afternoon walks to around the village but this afternoon we decided to take umbrellas with us and wander across the back of the allotments and continue on to Madams Lane. Following the rain, everything has had a growth spurt, including the weeds on the allotment plots. Some of the plots are badly overgrown, which is a shame as they should be producing fruit and vegetables. However, without a water supply to the allotment field, I can see how it can be soul destroying, in periods of drought, to see your plants struggling. Following the path, leading to Madams Lane, the grasses are standing high, blackberries are starting to form in the hedgerows and meadow brown and gatekeeper butterflies were flitting about. I tend to refer to a certain type of flower as cow parsley but there are many variants within this family of umbellifers. This afternoon I took a photo (see below) of an umbellifer flower which rather than the usual white had a pink tinge. Back home, using Simon Harrap’s Wild Flower book and the app on my phone, I was able to verify this is hogweed. Searches on the internet have failed to come up with the definitive as to whether hogweed sap causes burns in the same way as giant hogweed.