The fruit on the Swiss cheese plant has just turned into a massive, and slightly un-nerving flower.
When I say un-nerving, actually I mean it. It would be quite terrifying if it was not rooted firmly into the flower bed. I can entirely see the inspiration for triffids.
I have attached a photograph, but really it is not actually worth a thousand words, maybe about six hundred, because it just does not convey the size and weight of the thing. There is nothing light and airy about its petals, or rather, its single, enormous petal. It is heavy and solid and unbreakable. You would not like to be clonked over the head with it.
The mildly obscene-looking bit in the middle is the fruit. You can’t eat it until it has gone green and begun to shed its dragon-skin scales, which takes about a year.
I am a bit afraid to touch it anyway, in case it seizes my hand and starts to digest me. You never know with Nature.
It is by the back door. I am sliding past it with some caution. I am sure it would put off any would-be burglars.
It has been a very lovely day, actually. The summer is slowly dripping to its close, and in its place we have had a glorious early autumn day. The sun was shining on my walk this morning, that sort of gentle, golden sunshine that you don’t get in the middle of a bright summer, not that we have had one of those. I dawdled about for ages, chatting to fellow dog-walkers, and congratulating ourselves on having the good judgement to live in the Lake District this morning, when almost everybody has gone home, and it has actually stopped raining.
The air was soft with the first the scents of autumn, and I ambled along picking sun-warmed blackberries and eating them as I went, until my fingers and mouth were stained purple, as if I was a six-year-old sent out to collect them for dinner. In the end I remembered I was a person with responsibilities, and took some home for Oliver as well, which we ate in the kitchen for breakfast.
After that the day became a bit frantic, because we are going to take him to Norland next week, and I have been so busy that there are hundreds of things I have still not done, not least sewing labels in his clothes.
We had a wearisome hour purchasing necessities on Amazon – an iron and a clothes airer and some new bedding and a new back pack. He has got a perfectly good backpack, but can’t use it because it is the wrong colour. This one has got to be black or brown without any company logo on it anywhere. His existing grey and yellow one just won’t do.
The casual trousers sent by Schoolblazer did not fit, so we sent them back, and in any case they were horrid, slippery and lined with polyester. We ordered some from Marks and Spencer, but had to call Norland first to check they would be all right. They insisted that we sent them a picture, and eventually agreed, not without reservations, that they would probably be acceptable. These are not his smart uniform trousers, but the ones from the Getting Dirty part of the uniform, but they still need to be respectable and immaculately pressed with razor creases.
He has been practising ironing.
We did some ironing practice in the attic afterwards. We had a convivial hour or two sewing and pressing things ready to be carefully laid in the suitcase, which is laid out on the bed now that the cats have gone. It would be terrible to spend weeks and weeks getting everything tidily polished for the cats to go and turn it into a nice furry nest and dig up the corners.
It has turned into the middle of the night and I am going to go to bed. I have had a difficult night because I have been reading a Stephen King book and have frightened myself into becoming a useless jelly. I have left it downstairs. I think I am going to have to take it back to the library without ever finding out how the terrifying murderer from beyond the grave did it.
Life has got quite enough real problems without making them up.
If I want a nasty fright I only need to look at my Amazon bill.
