My first, second and (new) third little red book of books read…

It’s a small thing, but I feel I need to note a milestone in my life. T S Eliot’s J Alfred Prufrock measured out his life with coffee spoons. In my case I have measured out my life in books.

Recently I came to the end of my second little red notebook listing “books I have read”. I was surprised to find I could still buy a new notebook just the same, although now it has a barcode on the back.

The back of books one and two was blank, but now there’s a barcode…

Some people love lists, some hate them. My list-loving has lapsed in most cases, but I do keep up to date with this record of all the books I have read. I started the first book when I was a young teenager at grammar school, although that first red book is partly a copy of an earlier list of books read. My first book was a greeny-brown and I abandoned it when I started scribbling other things in the back.

My first attempt at a book of books, which I soon copied over into a red one…

My writing was very different in those school days…

The first pages of my first book of books…

This list was not chronological when it started but a round-up of everything I could remember reading at that stage. Most of the first page is science fiction and the second entry is still one of my all-time favourites, Captive Universe by Harry Harrison. It combines two of my favourite subjects – space travel and the Aztecs.

When I first started listing books, I clearly thought it was relevant what the genre was and whether I owned the books or not – probably because I read a lot of library books, many of them plain yellow-bound Gollancz science fiction, volumes of world mythology and all sorts of art books. Some people say you are what you eat. I believe you are what you read.

I was poor and working class and lived in a village. My older brothers hadn’t been interested in books so when I was born the only books in the house were the 10 volumes of Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopedia.

A set of Arthur Mee’s Children’s Encyclopedia a bit like the one we had…

It was a set bound in blue and dated from somewhere between 1922 and 1946, bought from a travelling salesman. Until I came along the pages had hardly been turned. By the time I said goodbye to them the spine was hanging off volume 10 – which contained the well-thumbed index.

The encyclopedia was on a top shelf in an alcove and I had to climb on to the back of an armchair to reach them – even when I was a grown-up! But these wonderful pre-WWII treasure-troves of knowledge were not the sort of thing you read cover to cover and to be listed in my notebooks a book had to be read in its entirety.

The first novels I read were given to me by a richer friend of the family. They were all boarding schools, ballet and ponies. I remember Damaris Dances by Elsie J Oxenham and the Secret Seven by Enid Blyton. It was a start to my reading but too early to enter my little red books.

Some books from my junior school days did make it to the list because I have re-read them several times since. Here are my three best childhood reads:

Three best books of my junior school days – Space Agent and the Ancient Peril, Knight’s Fee and A Wrinkle in Time…

# Space Agent and the Ancient Peril by Angus MacVicar – a time and space travel adventure, featuring ancient Tiahuanaco (which they now spell Tiwanaku) in South America and the possibility that the Moon will crash into the earth…
# Knight’s Fee by Rosemary Sutcliff – about the friendship of two boys, one Norman, one Saxon – I particularly loved the illustrations by Charles Keeping and copied them in pen and ink…
# A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle – I remember it most for introducing me to a new word, tesseract - a four-space hypercube. I made one out of pipe-cleaners!

These were among the treasures in the mobile library crates we had at junior school. Loosely-built wooden boxes held together with leather straps. I always wanted to be the first to get to the box but of course the teachers chose a different row of desks to go first each time.

But I am digressing more than a bit. Back to the books of books…

You can see how my handwriting had changed by these pages from the middle of my first red book of books – and there’s more variety of reading here, including classics and non-fiction.

The books I was reading in the 1970s…

In my notebooks I underscore the names of the best books – occasionally double underscoring and twice triple underscoring – that was for George Eliot’s Adam Bede and for Philip Pullman’s The Amber Spyglass.

When we move on to the second book of books, we are back to science fiction and at last we have definite dates for the reading…

The cover page and first page of my second book of books, dating to 1985…

And that book has lasted for nearly 28 years. It has started filling up more rapidly in the last nine months, since I bought my Amazon Kindle Touch. From reading one novel every two or three months I have gone to reading one every week or so.

The Kindle has (slightly) changed my reading, too. Although you can never have too many books, in a small house you soon run out of space. It is such a relief to be able to read a book without having to go out and buy it, store it and then take it to the Oxfam shop when you are done with it. This particularly applies to books I know I wouldn’t want to keep for ever, such as most modern novels and a lot of “young adult” fiction and fantasies.

The last pages of my second book of books – all read on Kindle…

Although I fear for the future of physical books – and civilisation itself – be reassured that I do still buy illustrated books and those I will want to read again and again.

The first novel in my second little red book was a science fiction post-apocalyptic classic – Greybeard by Brian Aldiss – and the last was The Grey King by Susan Cooper, part of the Dark is Rising series for young adults.

The beginning of my new book of books…

I have now started the new little red book. I reckon it will hold around 560 books. I may not live long enough to fill it – what a distressing thought. I’d better get reading!

What are the books of your life, I wonder?

And if you are more interested in the notebooks than their content, you may like the Stationery Love section of Jera’s Jamboree by book blogger Shaz…

Lesser celandine in the garden in April (iPhone image)…

Spring has been a long time coming this year. After auspicious signs of Spring in February, the weather took a cooler turn and although we have had plenty of dry weather, there is not yet much heat in the sunshine.

But the garden is catching up with itself, so here are some pictures taken in April and the early days of May.

On the nature front, there seem to be dandelions everywhere at the moment, as if they all sprang up and into bloom in a hurry, in case the sunshine didn’t last.

Dandelion in May…

I was horrified to find from Lucy Corrander’s Loose and Leafy blog that there are at least 235 species of dandelion in the UK. And I thought there was only one! I will NEVER be able to identify all those…

Arum lilies (lords and ladies, cuckoo pint) are also springing up…

Wild violets grow among wild strawberries on the gravel…

The neighbour’s cat keeping an eye on the Hostas in April…

The same Hostas in May…

Blue Hostas in a pot in May…

Red Japanese Acer starting to come into leaf in April…

Red Japanese Acer in May…

This was my Fuchsia coming into leaf in March…

This was the same Fuchsia nipped by a cold snap in March…

Recovering Fuchsia in May…

Standard-style Fuchsia in May…

The snake’s head fritillaries were out in April but have now faded…

The ferns were also starting to unfurl…

A favourite with the bees, flowering currant – Ribes sanguineum – in May…

Lily-of-the-valley in bud on the shady rockery…

Spiraea japonica after rain…

There are only two flowering branches left on this old Rhododendron…

This deciduous Azalea luteum in a pot is also getting old and won’t have any yellow flowers this year…

Heuchera Root Beer, bought at the Cardiff RHS Show in 2012…

This Tiarella, like the Heuchera, belongs to the Saxifrage family. The two species can be interbred to create Heucherellas…

My Euphorbia martinii kolibri bought at last year’s Cardiff RHS Show, is also flourishing…

The leaves of the same Euphorbia a few days ago after rain…

…and this is the Euphorbia amygdaloides purpurea I bought from the RHS Cardiff Show this year…

Some people dislike Euphorbias, as their white sap is poisonous and irritant, but I love the shape of them. See my blog post from a year ago, Euphorbia is just my cup of three…

Bluebells in a neighbour’s garden…

Tulips in a neighbour’s garden…

And the neighbour has this dog statue that makes me think it’s real every time I catch sight of it…

A neighbour’s model dog…

The neighbour’s Pieris Forest Flame is growing old and woody…

The fallen Pieris flowers on the ground remind me of pulled teeth…

A very welcome return for the mint I grow in a pot – roast lamb with fresh mint sauce is what you might call a Welsh delicacy!

I haven’t mentioned the wildlife, but here’s a summary. The grey squirrels abound and we occasionally see the fox. On the bird front, we hear the green woodpecker, great spotted woodpecker and chiffchaff and see all the usual native garden birds as well as the visiting blackcaps and chaffinches.

This feral pigeon seems to have taken up permanent residence and keeps an eagle eye on our bird table…

Feral pigeon on the roof…

My first butterfly of the year was a peacock on April 29. Since then I have seen many holly blues, even on the streets of the city centre, cabbage whites (probably small whites) and speckled wood butterflies, often in pairs, twirling in a way that reminds me of the Welsh word for butterfly – pili-pala.

I have discarded my winter coat for another year, but it is not yet time to “cast a clout” and venture forth without a jacket. The may blossom (hawthorn) is not yet out…

Carthaginian war elephant by Zig Zlick on deviantART…

I first thought of putting together this image collection about war elephants months ago, when listening to In Our Time with Melvin Bragg, in which he and guests were talking about Hannibal of Carthage and his invasion of Italy, 218-203 BC.

Hannibal, son of Hamilcar, is famous for leading his army, which included war elephants, across the Pyrenees and Alps from what is now Spain. For all his fame, he used elephants only briefly and they had first been utilised in India, by at least the 4th century BC, the battle elephant idea spreading from there to the Mediterranean in the west and to the Far East.

There’s a certain sadness in using a living creature as a weapon, especially one as intelligent-seeming as the elephant. And especially when it is out of its comfort zone and risks falling into Alpine crevasses…

Hannibal’s crossing of the Alps was not without incident! Original picture source unknown – image from Wikimedia Commons…

You can find out more about what was called the Second Punic War on one of the links I have highlighted, but for now I will stick with some images of armoured and richly-caparisoned elephants. Quite a few are from the excellent deviantART website. In every case click on the picture to go to the original source…

Hannibal’s war elephants by Miguel Coimbra…

Rather cute ‘Realistic’ Battle of Cannae (one of Hannibal’s victories) by Tarmo Flake…

Hannibal had African elephants (Loxodonta africana), small African forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) and big, imported Indian elephants (Elephas maximus). One of the big Indian elephants was called The Syrian and had a bronze tusk. As a child at the zoo I always recognised African elephants by their bigger ears, although there are other differences.

Here are some more Africans…

War Elephant by Kory Hamaker…

Beautifully-drawn war elephant by ~marvel10…

War elephant by H-Ell…

Stylised war elephant by Vitogoni…

And here are some Indian battle elephants…

Indian armour now in the Royal Armouries in Leeds, England, from Random Acts…

Sinhala war elephant by Prasanna Weerakkody…

This painting from the 16th century Book of Akbar shows war elephant Citranand attacking another, Udiya, during the Mughal campaign against rebel forces in 1567…

King Naresuan of Siam also used war elephants in his battles to overturn Burmese rule of his country (now called Thailand) in the 16th century.

Memorial to King Naresuan the Great at Don Chedi, Thailand – image by Lek…

Then there is a world of fantasy war elephants…

Brother of Conflict by Ashley Luttrell – click on the image to see the Lord Byron poem this is based on…

War elephant after battle from the Deadliest Fiction Wiki…

A war mammoth – click on the picture to see how Mark Bulahao created this image…

Incredibly HUGE four-tusked oliphants from Lord of the Rings…

More fantasy four-tuskers, by Afda Trihatma…

Fantasy war elephant in iridescent insect colours by ~carnivore-art…

Armed to the tusk – Foggy Night for Ambush by Izzal Suhaimi…

I’m not sure if this one looks Aztec or Japanese Samurai – a war elephant by Clayton Kashuba…

Indian elephant used in battle in Persia, from the Age of Mythology Heaven site…

Sri Lankan ebony and silver armoured elephant from Nirvana Oriental Antiques on Trocadero…

Finally a few happier elephants…

Decorated elephant in Jaipur, Rajasthan, from Wikimedia Commons…

And these are armoured only in jewels…

Jewelled silver elephant from Sophisticated Stones…

Swarovski jewelled elephant by Michal Negrin from Saffron Marigold…

This Edwardian ivory and jewel elephant sold for $170,500 at Christies in New York…

Shiny! And perhaps it will take our minds off all those poor elephants being used as battering rams and tanks…

Rather fantastic Hooded Figure wood sculpture by Ed Elliott at Cardiff RHS Show 2013 – see http://www.edelliott.co.uk …

At the weekend we made our annual visit to the Cardiff RHS (Royal Horticultural Society) Show and this year the weather stayed fine. Here are some of my pictures and I will identify the suppliers’ websites where I can.

It was a very friendly show…

The friendly Bob the Butterfly and Gerry the Gerbera entertained…

We bought three begonias to replace recent house-plant losses, some pink lily bulbs, Gloriosa lily tubers, Euphorbia amygdaloides Purpurea and some spiral plant supports. I tasted grey squirrel sausages, which were fine but a bit like weak pork in flavour, and we bought locally-made wild boar sausages, meat pies, crab cakes, chutneys, locally-brewed real ale and some honeyed cashew nuts.

We also ended up buying one of those handy folding box trolleys to carry everything in.

We were tempted by the African stone carvings, but they were a bit heavy!

Stone sculpture from the Zimbabwean company Mara – see http://www.marasculpture.com …

In the world outside Spring is a bit delayed this year after a cold spell, but the tulips are starting to bloom and there were plenty of them in the floral marquees…

I think this display of tulips with a bicycle and Dutch signpost was from Brighter Blooms – see http://www.brighterbloomseshop.co.uk …

Single early Candy Prince tulips…

Darwin hybrid Day Dream tulips – going over a bit!

Fringed tulip Oviedo from Hyde of Reading – see http://www.hwhyde.co.uk …

I wasn’t very impressed by the half-dozen small show gardens this year – although this one caught my eye…

Show garden made from old wooden shipping pallets by Wade & Nicol – see http://www.wadeandnicol.com …

Another view of the Wade & Nicol garden…

As I took so many good flower pictures last year, this time I chose different subjects, especially the plants I love, like Hostas…

Hosta Paradise Island from Brookfield Plants in Kent – see the website http://www.brookfieldplants.com …

Hosta Hanky Panky from Brookfield Plants http://www.brookfieldplants.com …

Hosta Night Before Christmas from Brookfield Plants http://www.brookfieldplants.com …

Hosta Sagae, also from Brookfield Plants – see http://www.brookfieldplants.com …

I also love hellebores…

Green Corsican hellebore…

We spent a lot of time looking around the trade and craft stalls, which were good this year…

Mosaic geckos inspired by Gaudi, from Wilde Style – see http://www.wildestyle.co.uk …

Ceramic picture wall tiles from Wilde Style – see http://www.wildestyle.co.uk …

Family of wart hogs made of recycled metal in Zimbabwe from African Creations – see http://www.africancreations.co.uk …

These characters made from recycled engine and motor parts in Thailand are from African Creations – see http://www.africancreations.co.uk …

These ducks have names. They were on the African Creations stand but I can’t find them on their website…

This rusty bull would look great in the garden – it’s an antique find from Tom Critchley but I don’t think he has a website…

Old lanterns from Tom Critchley…

As usual there were a couple of big (or is it small?) bonsai displays – I think this one was on the Mendip Bonsai stand http://www.mendipbonsai.co.uk …

Another of my favourite plants is the fritillary – here are a few I spotted on the way around the floral marquees…

Fritillary – I think it’s a Fritillaria michailovskyi…

Magnificent crown imperials – Fritillaria imperialis…

Snake’s head fritillaries – Fritillaria meleagris, which I also have in my own garden…

Fritillaria persica…

Another favourite – I have bought many Heucheras, Heucherellas and Tiarellas from Plantagogo in previous years…

Heuchera Blackberry Jam from Plantagogo – see http://www.plantagogo.com …

The cacti and succulents always make a good display…

Cacti and succulents from Richard and Sheena Drane of Suffolk – see http://www.cactiandsucculents.co.uk …

Adromischus maculatus from http://www.cactiandsucculents.co.uk …

There were dainty alpine plants…

Pulsatilla vulgaris from Ice Alpines of Bewdley, Worcestershire – see http://www.icealpines.co.uk …

And bold indoor Begonias – I bought three from the Dibleys Nurseries stand and the man there was very friendly and helpful…

Begonia Sal’s Comet from Dibleys Nurseries – see http://www.dibleys.com …

Last but not least – the ridiculously glamorous orchids…

Cattleya cariad’s mini quinee Angel Kiss from Chantelle Orchids of Warwickshire, the UK branch of a Taiwanese grower – see http://www.chantelle-orchids.com …

Rhyncholaeliocattleya
Harbal Valley from Chantelle Orchids…

For more flower pictures see my post from last year’s Cardiff show here …

Face above the door, a Cardiff side street…

This magnificent face is above all the front doors of a row of old semi-detached houses in a small Cardiff side street that I often walk along.

He intrigues me so much that I have taken a picture of six versions – although now I have noticed there are another three painted in an off-white colour, which is why I didn’t spot them when I was there with my camera.

Old stoneface times six…

The question I ask myself is, who is this man?

He looks Greek (or Roman), so my first thought would be Janus, the god of beginnings and transitions, gates and doors. January is named after him as it opens the year.

Janus (Latin Ianus) is always two faced, looking back and forward (in time) or out and in, so the man at the door probably isn’t Janus, unless he has a hidden face on the other side, inside the house (which would be a really neat idea!)

This is Janus:

A Roman bust of Janus in the Vatican – click on the image to go to the source…

Sometimes Janus is shown as an old and a young man…

This Janus bust is in the Summer Garden in St Petersburg, Russia – click on the image to go to the source…

So my man probably isn’t Janus. What other Greek or Roman god could he be? Perhaps Zeus (Jupiter), king of the gods?

This is a rather lovely Roman marble bust of Zeus, copied from a Greek original, in the Palazzo Altemps in Rome – click on the image to go to the source…

A bit of a resemblance, do you think? Or, as Cardiff is or was a great port, especially in Victorian and Edwardian times, perhaps the face is of the sea god Poseidon (Neptune)?

Statue of Poseidon at Virginia Beach, USA – click on the image to go to the source…

My favourite statue of Poseidon, which is very different, is this bronze from the National Archaeological Museum in Athens. I have seen and admired this one “in the flesh”! It was found in the sea off Cape Artemision in 1928 (to be accurate his arms had been found two years earlier). The bronze was being carried in a ship wrecked in the late first century BC. Some people believe the statue shows Zeus hurling a (now missing) thunderbolt, but most people think he is Poseidon hurling a (now missing) trident.

Poseidon bronze from Cape Artemisio – click on the image to go to the source…

So OK, it may be Poseidon, although the face over the door is missing any obviously fishy attributes. He does look a bit angry, though!

There is another, rather obscure god to whom this face bears a slight resemblance – Serapis, a hybrid god made up in the third century BC on the orders of Ptolemy I of Egypt to try to unify the Greeks and Egyptians in his land. The god is usually represented with a basket on his head, symbol of resurrection, but this one looks like he has a Phrygian cap on…

A marble head of Serapis from Carthage, now in the Louvre in Paris – click on the image to go to the source…

I admit it is a bit unlikely Serapis would have found his way to Cardiff, but he is rather handsome! Unlike one of “my” faces, which is a bit damaged – and has been painted with blue lips!

One of the Cardiff faces over the door – with broken nose and blue lips…

That one reminds me of this boxer…

Bronze head of a boxer at the National Archaeological Museum in Athens – click on the image to go to the source…

For a moment I thought the face might be Dionysus (Bacchus), god of wine, but his nose isn’t pointed enough and he isn’t wreathed in grapes…

This picture of a colourful Bacchus head in Italy is by Mike Reyher – click on the image to go to the source…

There is another person this face could represent – maybe the Green Man? An old pagan fertility god throughout Britain and Europe, his face is often seen as an architectural adornment in churches, or occasionally non-religious buildings.

Usually the Green Man’s face is very much covered in greenery and he even has leaves or shoots pouring out of his eyes, nose and mouth.

This lovely rainbow-hued Green Man mask is by xotique and can be found on Deviant Art…

This Green Man face above a window in Paris looks more human…

Green man over a window in Paris – click on the image to go to the source…

The Romans also had their own household gods for protection, the Lares and Penates (I used to call them “Lerz” and “Penn-eights” but now realise they are pronounced “Larries and Penn-arties”). These were hearth gods and ancestor gods, but they are usually depicted as domestic helpers rather than hero types. Which reminds me a bit of Dobbie the house elf in the Harry Potter stories…

Dobbie the house elf from the Warner Bros Harry Potter movies…

But I digress. Although I would like it to be Poseidon or Zeus, wouldn’t it be more logical to have a pagan fertility god like the Green Man above the front door of a house for luck, like a horse-shoe? What do you think?

Six green men at the door…

Native ivy (Hedera helix) on a wet ash-tree trunk in March…

The cold weather persists, so I feel there is still time to enjoy the ivy, which stays luxuriant and green throughout the snowiest of winters but is so often forgotten when nature is in full, colourful bloom in the warmer months.

Ivy in December…

There is wild native ivy on the trees in the wooded part of my garden, and several “cultivated” ivies in the tamer part, planted by myself over the years but I foolishly didn’t make a note of the cultivar names.

An unidentified ivy cultivar…

I also see plenty of ivy while walking along suburban streets or waiting at bus stops beside stone walls.

My favourite bus-stop-wall ivy in April in a warmer spring than this year’s…

I had hoped to share with you EVERYTHING there is to know about ivy, but I have found it is far more complicated than I had expected. The excellent American Ivy Society uses the Pierot system to classify ivies by their leaf shapes (and there are more than you would think), but more of that later.

Generally, ivies have veined, evergreen leaves that alternate on long stems that happily dangle down, creep sideways or climb up, if given support, always in search of sunlight.

Ivy growing up an ash-tree trunk…

The basic Hedera helix (English ivy) has two leaf types, with palmate (hand-shaped) lobed young leaves on the spreading stems and then cordate (heart-shaped – although they look like diamonds to me) adult leaves on the mature flowering stems when they reach the sunshine. The young shoots are thinner and have aerial roots to cling to rocks or trees, while the adult stems are thicker and stand up without any aerial roots.

Mature ivy stems with developing flower buds in March…

The flowers aren’t anything flashy, yellow-green with five little petals, although insects appreciate the nectar. Then the fruit comes along, usually black, in late winter or spring. Birds eat the berries, especially in hard winters when there is not much else around.

Ivy flowers in September, well on the way to becoming berries…

Most ivy plants are in the species H helix, which has around 400 named cultivars. But one or two other ivy species can also be found in our gardens…

Hedera hibernica is also known as Irish ivy or Atlantic ivy. It is not that different from H helix although may be a bit paler. Some classifiers count it as a subspecies, H helix hibernica.

This lovely image of Hedera hibernica with berries is by Michael Maggs on Wikimedia Commons…

Hedera canariensis is Canary ivy or Algerian ivy. As far as I can tell, the most notable thing about it is the dark red stems. But apparently the leaves also bronze in autumn.

Do the red stems and bronzed leaves mean this is a Hedera canariensis, on the wall beside my bus stop?

There is also a variety of H canariensis called “Variegata”, or more beautifully “Gloire de Marengo”…

I think this is Hedera canariensis Gloire de Marengo, growing over a wall on a Cardiff street…

Hedera colchica is Persian ivy and it has heart-shaped dark green leaves which look a bit droopy to me. One of the most popular garden varieties is variegated with yellow – it’s called “Sulphur Heart”.

Hedera colchica Sulphur Heart, a picture by Douneika on Flickr – click on the image to go to the source…

So forgetting most of these little sidelines, let’s get back to the excellent American Ivy Society and its classification of garden ivies.

Apart from the leaf shape, the ivies are also classified by size – there are miniatures, which have leaves under an inch across (but perhaps it would be useful to have small, medium and large as well).

This ivy in my garden is small-leaved, but not quite miniature…

The AIS also has a classification “variegated” (although to me you could helpfully add white variegated and yellow variegated).

This ivy in my garden is also dainty but not miniature – and this one is variegated…

And here’s another splotchy variegated form…

Then it’s all about leaf shape:

Ivy-types have “classical” leaves that are flat and have five pointed lobes.

A standard ivy-leaf shape when new…

…and the same leaves when older – although the red stems suggest this is Hedera canariensis…

Most ivies seem to have variations, as seen here…

This one is just strangely proportioned, but attracted my attention at the bus stop…

A variegated leaf with softened edges…

Then there are heart-shape types, which may have triangular or three-lobed leaves.

This is heart-shaped Hedera helix Teardrop – the image is from the AIS, click on it to go to their site…

Fan types have wide, fan-like leaves with many pointed lobes of equal length.

Fan-shaped Hedera helix Medusa from the AIS – click for the link

Bird’s foot types have narrow lobes or willow-like leaves without lobes.

Although I don’t think this is a bird’s foot variety, these leaves on the wall at my bus stop almost have the bird’s foot shape…

This is a true miniature bird’s foot ivy called Hedera helix Minigreen. The picture is by Rachel Cobb and it’s the AIS Ivy of the Year for 2013…

Ivies classified as curly have ruffled, rippled, or pleated leaves…

Ivalace is a curly type of ivy – image from the AIS, click on the link…

There is so much variety in the world of ivies, but just one more thing before you go. There is also a rather nice house plant called Fatshedera lizei…

Fatshedera lizei…

It’s also available in variegated form, but I found it a little annoying as a house plant as the stems have a tendency to grow straight up and not branch out. This is not surprising as one of its parents is Hedera helix. The other is another member of the Aralioideae subfamily, Fatsia japonica, or the (false) castor-oil plant.

One look at the Fatsia’s black fruits and you can see the relationship…

Fatsia fruit – an iPhone snapshot I took on the path through Sofia Gardens, Cardiff…

A luscious wet fallen Fatsia leaf in the garden in November…

Shiny and forever green.
That’s all, folks…

Primroses beside the old canal at Pembrey in April 2006…

It’s April now, and icy as midwinter here in Wales. Spring’s growth has been set back a few weeks and my thoughts turn to an earlier and warmer Spring, when we walked beside the old canal at Pembrey, near Llanelli, Carmarthenshire.

Footpath beside the old canal at Pembrey…

These pictures were taken in an area called Ffrwd Farm Mire in Pembrey in April 2006, when I was looking for places associated with my paternal ancestors.

Blackthorn in bloom beside the old canal at Pembrey…

My great grandmother Ann Peregrine, whose parents James and Mary came originally from Llangendeirne, was born here in 1851.

Lichen on a tree beside the old canal at Pembrey…

Her address then was Canal End, so when I found an old canal in Pembrey I assumed this was the canal whose end she lived at. However, I later found there had been at least three canals in Pembrey. This was the last, while Ann had been born alongside the second canal, much nearer to the shore, in houses sometimes called Glo Caled or Stone Coal Houses. But more of that, along with more pictures, on my gallery page…

For now, this post features a few of my favourite images from that gallery page.

Watery trees in the old canal…

Fungi on a tree beside the old canal at Pembrey…

Are those green shoots flag irises coming through?

Hopefully warmer Spring days will soon return again here in 2013…

And here’s the link to that full gallery page again

Institutional blue reappearing on a green-painted fence, March 2, 2013…

The above is an iPhone snapshot and this is just a short post to launch my 2013 gallery, which you can see here.

But it’s also to ask if anyone else out there recognises this turquoise colour as “institutional blue”. A couple of decades ago it seemed to be THE colour for paintwork on schools and council “homes” in Cardiff. I’m not sure if the council just bought a job lot of paint and it happened to be this colour, or if there was a reason for the choice.

Institutional blue reappearing on a green-painted fence, March 2, 2013…

You can see in these pictures that someone took over a Victorian-looking school and has tried to paint over the blue with a moss green. But this is peeling off and the colour underneath is forcing its way through again.

And I think there may be some tins of institutional blue paint left, as suggested by this sign on the restaurant they have opened at Cardiff Prison…

Cardiff Prison’s public restaurant, where the inmates work, is called The Clink…

There are many hues of blue in my life – see my posts on:

Colours: Lost between Wedgwood blue and eau de nil…

Colours: A certain shade of blue…

Rushing around like a bluebottle…

Lavender’s blue (maybe) – but roses are not…

Anyway, that Clink image wasn’t an iPhone snapshot, but here are a couple more pictures that are…

Moss on a wall, February 13, 2013…

Ugly fish, Cardiff Central Market, March 2013…

As mentioned a the top of this post, you can see my iPhone gallery here.

Euphorbia after recent rain…

It has been a while since I have written about my garden, so this is a catch-up. Although I gloried in one spring day in February, since then we have gone back to winter. We had a very dry spell at the end of February – which is statistically quite common, even though traditionally it is called February fill-dyke because ditches are supposed to fill with melting snow or rain at that time of year as the water runs off from empty fields.

In my own garden the daffodils weren’t quite out in time for St David’s Day on March 1. My miniature daffodils were in flower outdoors for the Welsh patron saint’s day last year, but this time I had brought them indoors and enjoyed them early.

Shop-bought double daffodil…

March followed the pattern of February and also began dry and I was starting to think I needed to water the garden, but then relief came a week or so ago with some cold rain – and some snow flurries. We were lucky here in Cardiff, but the Channel Islands, south-east of England and northern France had proper, disruptive snow.

Then when that had passed we had an air frost one morning last week and I couldn’t believe it had been bad enough to nip my Fuchsia leaves in the bud…

New Fuchsia leaves before the air frost last week…

New Fuchsia leaves killed off by the frost in March..

There is also bad news for the birds at the moment – a new cat on the block. It’s a young one and a strange pinky ginger with golden eyes. I have no idea if it belongs to a neighbour or is feral. One thing is for sure. It has no collar or bell and is a bird killer. The last cat to cause this sort of problem was also ginger, and we were so relieved when its owners took it with them to a new home in London. I recall the day it leaped five feet into the air to snatch a wood pigeon!

The other day I was looking out of my window and saw the new cat playing with something on a neighbour’s lawn. I was gobsmacked to see it was a magpie, already dead, but the cat was tossing it into the air to make it imitate flight again, just so it could play with it.

Very soon it tired of the game and abandoned its prey, to go off in search of another target.

The proud cat with the dead magpie at its feet – the picture doesn’t do justice to the strange pinkness of the cat’s coat…

Later the magpie’s body had gone, so I am hoping the garden fox ate it and that it didn’t go to waste.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the garden after rain this weekend…

The euphorbia heads after rain…

White crocus after rain…

New spiraea leaves after rain…

Hebe after rain…

Hellebore after rain…

Day lily (Hemerocallis) leaves after rain…

Unripe Mahonia berries after rain…

Heuchera leaves after rain…

Although taken at the same time, these next images don’t appear to be quite so raindrop blessed…

Dry Hydrangea I missed when pruning…

Budding snake’s-head fritillary and a leaf of Hydrangea petiolaris…

Red shoots of peony with some Campanula at their feet…

New Hydrangea leaves…

In the wild, wooded part of my garden nature is also rediscovering green…

Wild parsley and wild arum leaves under the trees…

The lesser celandine is starting to flower on the wooded bank…

And then there is always the miniature magic of moss…

My old iron…

The other day, when I was in the middle of ironing, all the electrical power went off in the house. I assumed it was a power cut and checked with neighbours. I was surprised to find it affected only our house.

I turned the power-supply trip-switches off and back on. Nothing. I switched off the lights, radio, iron, etc and tried again, realising I had missed one of the trip-switches the first time. Hooray! Let there be light!

I switched the iron back on. Bang! Everything went again. But at least I knew what it was now. I have long had a spare iron in a box in the back of the cupboard under the stairs for just such an emergency, so I rummaged and got it out. I took it from its box.

My spare iron…

Just one problem…

No plug…

I hadn’t realised that it was SO old that it was manufactured at a time when we used to put our own plugs on electrical appliances. I was always very good at it. But just at that moment I couldn’t be bothered to find one in the toolbox and fix it.

Modern moulded and rewireable British Standard (BS 1363) square-pin plugs – image from Wikipedia…

Thanks to the Plugs and Sockets etc (Safety) Regulations 1994, in the UK plugs must already be fitted to appliances by the supplier when we buy them. Manufacturers and importers had to do this from February 1, 1995. Now small appliances may come with three-pin plugs in an assortment of colours, although they tend to be white or black.

With hindsight, I must have acquired the iron a very long time ago, as it was at a time in my life when I still bought women’s magazines! It is about the only thing I have ever won – in a reader giveaway – a just-send-your-name-and-address-on-a-postcard kind of thing.

At least it had the “modern” wiring colours – brown for live, blue for neutral and green and yellow striped for the earth. Before the 1970s it used to be red, black and green.

But all this took me back, much farther, to my childhood days of round-pinned plugs made of Bakelite (pronounced Baker-lite). We had three-pronged plugs that were “earthed” and for some items two-pin plugs, a bit like those still used for shavers and electric toothbrushes, except that they were bulky and round. And all of these plugs were dark brown.

Bakelite plugs sold recently on ebay…

In fact, the whole house in those days seemed dark brown. We didn’t have bright colours until I was a teenager and rebelled by painting the living room yellow and my bedroom emerald, purple and white…

In my mind Bakelite was the plastic we had before we knew the word plastic existed. According to Wikipedia it was developed by Belgian-born chemist Leo Baekeland in New York in 1907.

The story of synthetic plastics is very complicated. All I know is that we suddenly seemed to have lots of polythene, expanded polystyrene (Styrofoam) and PVC in the 1960s – but Wikipedia suggests many of these things had existed in a small way for decades before that.

Anyway, as well as the Bakelite plugs and sockets, we had a Bakelite TV. Not quite like this image, but you will get the general idea…

A Bush Bakelite TV from the 1950s – click on the image to go to a very informative vintage TV site…

We didn’t have a Bakelite radio, as we went straight from a valve radio in a wooden cabinet to a tiny Dansette transistor radio in blue and cream plastic just like this one.

But there were a lot of Bakelite radios around and this one is beautiful…

Bush Bakelite radio from the 1940s…

I chose this radio as an illustration because it brings back all the old stations we tuned into on the dial, such as BBC Light, BBC Third, Hilversum and Luxembourg…

Old radio stations…

If we had owned a telephone (we didn’t), that would also have been of brown Bakelite…

Those were the days… a heavy Bakelite phone – an image from Wikimedia Commons…

Bakelite was apparently also used for cameras and jewellery…

A Kodak Brownie 127 camera of Bakelite from the 1950s – picture from Wikimedia Commons…

This Bakelite jewellery, now valuable in its own right, imitated amber. There’s a lot more information on the Amerikanki site, click on the image…

Oh, and then there were Bakelite guitars!

Magnificent 1935 Rickenbacker electro Spanish guitar of metal-trimmed Bakelite – image from Wikimedia Commons…

But what of my broken iron? By modern standards it had a good innings – maybe eight years? It’s a sad fact that these days it is impossible to get small electrical appliances mended. So it went for recycling at the civic dump. Meanwhile it took me precisely an hour to catch a bus into town, dash to Argos and come back with a brand new iron. What took the longest was browsing the catalogue to decide what to get. I ended up with another Tefal, but with several useful new features.

My new iron…

It’s a far cry from my first iron, which was something like this…

A vintage iron on ebay – although this is American, my first iron was similar, but with no go-faster wing at the back and with a crimson trim…

In those days we had no steam irons, so used a damp tea-towel under the iron to press clothes. But don’t get me started on my trip down memory lane again! What are your memories of Bakelite? Or of ironing in “the olden days”?