Monday, January 9, 2012

January and summer

Nigella Damascena; courtesey of Commons Wikipedia
This is the time of year when I miss the garden flowers and wildflowers, my mind trails over roses and bluebells and I expect if I was a prisoner the rich hoard of the mind would compensate for the lack of flowers, but no it is winter, albeit a warm one, my geraniums have not even succumbed to the frost yet. Nigella Damascena or love-in-the-mist, favourite words of mine has been going through my head the last two days, it is such a pretty colour the pale blue of the petal surrounded by the green ruff. It came to mind the other day when I noticed that the Bishop of Damascuse had consecrated the Egton Chapel in the 14th century, seemed strange a Bishop coming from an exotic land to the cold North Yorkshire moors.
Margery Blamey says of Nigella -"short, erect branched hairless annual, with soft finely divided feathery leaves, bluish without a ruff of green leaves below" so it is a wild flower of cultivated arable fields but of course strays into gardens, scattering its seeds year after year.

Well last year for my birthday this January I asked for an orchid, I have never been quite at home with exotic indoor flowers but there is always a first time, so I experimented with my camera..... candlelight gives it a lovely warm shade of yellow, the multiple burst is something I had never clicked on before, the white proper flash is the true colour.






Well for the moment blogger is working for me, I have given up on the multi browsers, they sit like little devils at the bottom of my screen waiting to pounce - we'll see.

4 comments:

  1. Like you, I'm not much good with indoor flowers either, though I have a very pretty deep pink Cyclamen at the moment, keeping company with a cluster of Hyacinths sent by my aunty for Christmas.

    Love your exotic orchid. Gabby took one to Uni with her but the combination of cold window air and scolding hot radiator did for it in the end!

    Belated happy birthday by the way.

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  2. Thanks Jenny, that is the problem with orchids, seem to like a particular temperature range, probably won't succeed with this one but it is pretty at the moment ;)

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  3. Your orchid is stunning. I`m hopeless at keeping them going after flowering so I hand them over to a friend of my son`s who is becoming a bit of an enthusiast.

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  4. Hi DW, it started to look sick in the sitting room, so I've moved it into the occasional steamy jungle atmosphere of the bathroom where it has perked up, with some water and food for orchids - expensive creature...

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