I’m starting this blog on my second botany day.  The weather is decent for once and I have the whole garden at my mercy.

It took me a while to get into it, fine days require clothes washing.  I’m a bit strange, as you will eventually discover, I wont let John hang the washing out because I like doing it.  He doesn’t seem to mind……

To add to the cocktail today my botanising is taking place to the sound track of the ‘World Toe Wrestling Championships’ being held at the pub on the corner.

As the title of this post suggests I’m rattling through the quick wins.   That’s flowering plants and the lichens I can identify by sight.  Getting stuck on a difficult moss or an uncooperative slug right from the off wouldn’t do much for my morale (especially when I can hear a distant John getting himself into a flap with the kids).

I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how easy the grasses have been. When you’ve got Francis Rose’ ‘Grasses, Sedges, Rushes and Ferns’ book, a dissecting microscope and the luxurious ‘labavan’ it’s much easier than battling with a steamed up hand lens on an exposed hillside.

A caravan with a microscope, surely that makes it a ‘labavan’.

One slight disadvantage I have is that my face smells vaguely of curry (free moisturiser from the local health food shop).  So I can’t smell the sweet vernal grass (Anthoxanthum odoratum).  It’s supposed to smell of coconut, perhaps it just turned my curry from Indian to Thai.

Anyway, I’m now up to 53 plants and lichens and a handful of opportunistically identified creepy crawlies.  Here’s one of my favourites:

‘Jack in the Shed’

Check out the full list on the species list tab.

Bye for now.