Tiny, purple tinged flowers on insignificant, wiry stems often growing on waste ground - but once considered to be a cure-all and probably introduced to the UK for that reason in the neolithic.
It's my SO's birthday tomorrow, so we are off out to her chosen museum followed by a meal - and, apparently, potentially picking up a chest of drawers in between.
Nothing much lined up for Sunday, but I have agreed to do a mock interview for a friend sometime in the next few days. The real one is on Weds.
Some might say the lawn needs mowing again, but with rain a foregone conclusion, that's out of the question now. What a pity.
Not native to the UK - originally from South America - but widely naturalised as garden escapes.
Huge - up to 2m tall - and unmistakable.
Looking remarkably like a trireme here, with struts in place of oars and the anchor hole in place of a painted eye.
That's a really difficult one. The book Bond is a snob in a way that doesn't really translate to the later culture in which so many of the films are set. Plus, I stopped watching the movies after Quantum of Solace - and had only been slightly interested from around Licence to Kill onwards, until Casino Royale.
If I had to say then perhaps a mix of Craig in Casino and Connery in the very early ones. Book Bond was a bit rough around the edges and definitely not dropping 'witty' one-liners all the time.
Yes, they are. They are stylish and pacy and all the rest. They are also very much of their time and, as well, are a completely different beast to the movies: they are spy stories primarily - not action adventures (though both of those are still there), and are much more low key overall.
Looks like a white specimen too, rather than the more usual pink. So much of this around me - on the east coast of England - has suffered due to the drought last year and is pretty much dead. Not all though, and we will get a better view of how it is doing when the flowers open in another few days
In the immediate wake of the first Star Wars film I was soaking up everything I could about the film and its influences. Taoism was mentioned in relation to 'the force' of course and that sent me straight to a three volume Readers Digest encyclopedia that we had on the shelves, which had a brief but informative entry on it. I didn't go a lot further for a good many years, but it was the first spark.
I spent some time when most of what I was doing was leading volunteer groups and giving talks and tours etc, some years as the only permanent resident on what was effectively an island and quite a range in between. It would depend entirely on where you are, I think.
Either way, I had no regrets and wished I had made the change some time earlier.
When I left IT and changed careers, I became a tree surgeon for a while and then a wildlife ranger, which I stuck with for 20-odd years.
It has to be said that you need a particular motivation to work as a ranger though - at least in the UK. You certainly don't get into it for the money.
Not upside down - this is a juvenile, and they have these markings. Females may retain them, but adult males will lose the darker markings.
Slow worms are legless lizards rather than snakes. They have eyelids, unlike snakes, for example.
That's a slightly different tale. M.R.James was very much in favour of the Three Crowns of East Anglia, which includes the arms attributed (much later) to the Wuffing dynasty which ruled East Anglia a couple of centuries earlier - and who seem to have come from Sweden - which also uses these arms - and based his tale on those arms.
Evidently a crown was dug up near the Wuffing palace at Rendlesham in the C15th and melted down - as in James' tale - but, according to legend, Edmund's crown was recovered soon after his death. The legend tells that a wolf guarded his decapitated head until it was found - still wearing the crown, according to most depictions, however improbable that seems.
Bafflegab's Baker's End series and Radio Static's Minister of Chance are two excellent Doctor Who adjacent shows. The BBC podcast The Whisperer in Darkness is a great Lovecraft adaptation.
There isn't a lot of today left here in the UK, but I'll be getting bed early and listening to an audio drama shortly.
Tomorrow, I have some shelves to put up, and there may be some clearing up in the garden after the winds today.
And CF the British comic strip "Jane" - which ran from the 1930s through to the end of the '50s.