Naycha

[smokingboot]

When you walk from here to the distinctly unpicturesque hamlet of Royton (for which exercise you could have no purpose save to visit the quack or to buy excellent fish and chips) you pass a lot of land that is covered with rosebay willowherb, which looks like this:



http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://www.british-wild-flowers.co.uk/040628%2520Carrington%2520Moss/Willowherb,-Rosebay-1.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.british-wild-flowers.co.uk/W-Flowers/Willowherb,%2520Rosebay.htm&h=432&w=360&sz=54&hl=en&start=4&tbnid=aP3jH-Yn6miErM:&tbnh=126&tbnw=105&prev=/images%3Fq%3Drosebay%252Bwillowherb%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG



One particular dip in the land, presumably bombed into nada in WWII, is full of the stuff and nothing else. It stands there like a vegetable army, ready to take over when no-one is looking. Why it would want Royton is anyone's guess, but I, for one, am prepared to hand it over to its plant masters as long as they leave the chippy.

Repetition of any one object becomes sinister. Consider; one baby = cute (or so mothers tell me) many babies = weird, especially if they are all blue haired and blonde-eyed. Some billiard balls on a billiard table = expected, a table crammed with them = weird, especially if they are all the same colour and number. It's just trippy.

The national wildflower centre in Liverpool, ready to help me in my attempts to create a natural wildflower garden, rather than the grassy wasteland out the back,tutted when I mentioned its presence at the side of the house. 'Ooh,' they said, 'That'll have to go.' However, Plantlife International, a charity I joined courtesy of gift membership from velvet_the_cat and Dan sans lj, told me to let it be because an increasingly rare moth known as the Elephant Hawks-moth (who names these things?) lays its eggs in rosebay willowherb and very few other places. I don't know, these endangered species, sometimes I swear they don't make the effort. The moth itself is a beautiful creature:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4683129.stm

So ok, the rosebay willowherb is safe. Now I have to sort out the rest of the garden. I may be gone some time...