My week

The above is the corner of the garden where we've been growing plants with white flowers.  There are two new plants, an evergreen daisy-like rhodanthemum 'African Spring' and a delphinium 'Guardian White'. The white foxgloves are opening and soon a white rose 'White Star' that's climbing up the former washing line pole will bloom.  A third bud on the Regale trumpet lily has just opened.

Not all the 'white' pelargoniums were pure white, but that doesn't matter.  Every bloom is beautiful in its own way.

New buds on the red rose 'Anniversary'  will soon be out and in time for our 51st wedding anniversary which also coincides with Father's Day here in the UK and elsewhere. Pansies continue to give a good show.  Foxgloves are also flowering in the front garden.  I have to smile because we don't have them growing in the garden every year, but when they do I cannot resist taking photos of them especially when the bees are around them.  I recall that one of the first blog posts I did was of a bee climbing inside a foxglove flower. 

The vegetables, especially the tomatoes are doing well.  There are the usual plum and cherry tomatoes from old seed, but he's also trying Gardener's Delight and Heartbreaker Vita from the packets of seed in the Sutton seed gift box.  The Heartbreaker are below.  I haven't shown all of them as the pots fill the covered yard.

Tomorrow I have an MRI scan which I've never experienced before. On Saturday we'll be at Sheffield Anglican Cathedral for an event to commemorate and celebrate Queen Elizabeth II's 90th birthday this year joining with other seniors from across Sheffield, a day that has been in the planning for many months and which we're looking forward to.  There are displays in shop windows on most of our local high streets at the moment.

Up in the mountains

Today I'm continuing the walk in the woods near the Charterhouse of Trisulti on the trail that leads up to St. Dominic's hermitage.  It was obvious that some of the rustic railings had been damaged by falling trees so I didn't walk too far up the trail knowing that there would be twists and turns and the path would get steeper.  I took photos of wild flowers and then returned to where my husband was waiting in the car which was in a parking space on the track below. 

wood anemone and cyclamen

Another charity shop find, I used this useful little book to identify some of the wild flowers I saw.

euphorbia (sun spurge) with small grape hyacinth, yellow trefoil, blue sheep's bit scabious, white and pink flower ? (of the nettle family?), white helleborine cephalanthera longifolia (orchid family)

blue cornflower, white campion, pink candy tuft,  yellow rock rose, pink campion

When we pass this old oak tree growing on the edge of the mountain I like to stop and take a look at it. The trunk appears to be dead, but the upper branches are growing and producing new foliage.

Just off the side of the main track is a path that leads to the ruins of the old monastery built long before the Charterhouse was constructed.  This small construction, I'm not sure how old it is, might have been a gatekeeper's hut or a mountain look-out point.

the old monastery ruins

The gardens of the ancient pharmacy in the Charterhouse which we visited earlier in the day.