Veg Plotting

A day trip to Salisbury and a glorious find on our walk into town from the station in the shape of this fab Paddington bench. I'd forgotten that many of this design were placed around the country last year as publicity for the latest film Paddington in Peru . It was lovely to see the bench being used by this gentleman who generously gave his consent to be photographed. I hope Paddington also agreed! 🤣

It's the final day of this year's National Tree Week today and I want to celebrate the tree which stopped me in my tracks recently. At other times this has been a very big week for me, having organised and helped to plant thousands of trees in south Wales as part of an Earthwatch project in the 1990s. Those days feel like they're part of another life, but it's good to be reminded how important trees still are to me, simply by just being there.  The pictured tree is towards the end of my walk into town and I must have walked past it hundreds of times, but for once I saw it properly for the first time. It was just as the different combinations of colour from green through yellow and orange to red were at their finest which helped to catch my undivided attention. It's not the tallest specimen in the world, but wow, it really helps to soften the brutalist concrete of the shops behind it. Then I looked at the leaves more closely, and realised it's a liquidambar aka...

A number of these signs have popped up around Chippenham lately, which are heartening to see. Since the Town Council took over management of the town's parks and open spaces, it's clear they want to manage them in quite a different way to when they were in the hands of the County Council. In this case, it turns out a number of open spaces across town are designated in the same way as this one I found in the Donkey Field when I walked home recently. There's a map which shows where they are, together with information on the new management policy for these areas and the other open spaces they manage. I love the Donkey Field at this time of the year as it billows with oodles of wild meadow cranesbill aka Geranium pratense   flowers* I was concerned they were dying out as nettles have out competed them strongly in recent years, so it's good to see they've made a comeback this year. A few years ago Wiltshire Wildlife Trust did a survey and proposed a management plan sp...

This image makes my heart sing and is why I love the National Gardens Scheme (NGS). It doesn't cost much to visit a garden tended by an enthusiast, yet see how all those entrance fees can grow into something life changing. My visits are going to start early this year with a trip to Westcroft  next month, a Wiltshire garden near Salisbury which is stuffed with snowdrops and so is opening happily as part of the NGS's Snowdrop Festival. See you there Helen !

As you can see, Chippenham's Knatty Knitters have once again cheered up the town with their postbox toppers. This one greeted me outside our main sorting office when I went to post our Christmas cards and there are more to be found elsewhere; some familiar from previous years, others are new like this one. We're in the process of changing our Christmas plans as my BIL and wife have tested positive for Covid, thankfully with just mild symptoms but we thought it best for them to concentrate on getting back to full health for now. We plan to meet up in New Year for jolly times, so we'll have a quiet Christmas here instead. Thank goodness we'd already bought our own turkey! Have a healthy, peaceful, and wonderful Christmas and New Year wherever you may be.

Some days just make your heart sing and Saturday was one of them. One of my WI friends arranged for us to walk to Calne along the old railway line  and laid on the perfect day for us to enjoy six miles of walking in the finest of company. Lockdown made this a familiar walk for us all. it's one of the few which takes you to a destination instead of around in a circle and has more of a sense of a journey as a result. Familiarity doesn't mean there aren't any surprises - we were delighted to find extensive bluebell woods either side of the track once we were close to the Bowood Estate . I thought I'd found all the local, walkable bluebell woods during the past two years, and I'm delighted to be proven wrong. There was plenty of wild garlic too - walks there during the rest of May are going to be quite pungent! May the month of May be as delightful for you, whatever's happening in your neck of the woods.

Sometimes all it takes is a slight detour of a few yards and the most familiar of walks has something completely new to offer. A recent trip to the cinema meant I had to cross the road on my usual walk into town and there it was: the next entry in my Unusual Gardens strand. It turns out the topiary shape here has some meaning. The houses along this road belong to a listed building group  which I photographed in 2000 as a volunteer for English Heritage. The houses were built by Rowland Brotherhood in 1858 to house workers at his railway engineering company in Foundry Lane nearby. Therefore a topiary train is perfect for this setting. Look carefully and you'll see there's another - shaggier version - in the background, awaiting a haircut from its owner. This company has meaning for us too as - like many people who live here - NAH worked at subsequent iterations of the company: Westinghouse and Invensys. The railway station signs now show the company name as Siemens, but for man...

It's the May bank holiday and coincidentally peak flowering time for two of our most iconic spring wildflowers; fritillaries and English bluebells .  It's a good year for the fritillaries at North Meadow in nearby Cricklade, so NAH and I headed out yesterday morning to see them. It's hard to show how marvellous this location is in a photograph as the fritillaries are small and there are dire warnings not to leave the marked footpaths so the flowers can get on with doing their thing. We chose the blue route which is the longest walk around the meadow, around two miles in total. It doesn't encompass them all and soon we were walking amongst thousands of fritillaries, with a pale pinky, purple haze on the horizon showing there were thousands more still to see. It's a few years since we were last there, and I'm sure there were more white forms dotted amongst their darker cousins this time. I haven't managed to find what determines the variation: genetics, or en...

Last weekend's walk was a new-to-me-route from home and full of surprises. The quest was to find Lanhill Longbarrow, something I've known about for a while and probably Chippenham's oldest feature, as it dates back to between 3,500 and 2,500 BC i.e. Neolithic times.  The first surprise I found was the pictured intriguing stone at the side of the road... it looked ancient - especially as my head was full of images of standing stones at the time - but what looks like a mason's mark towards the bottom made me think it's not quite as old as it might be.   Then I found the footpath to the barrow, which was surprisingly not at the top of the hill where I thought it would be, especially as there's a tell-tale clump of trees, but I liked the view over the surrounding countryside anyway.   As I walked down the hill, I suddenly saw a low-ish mound with a gaping black hole. I had found the barrow! The chamber is one of three the mound is reported to contain, but this is th...

A sunny day earlier in the week, a new walk to explore courtesy of the Bremhill Parish History Group , and a good friend* to explore it with, what could be better? A new-to-me discovery in the shape of the pictured postbox was the icing on the cake.  Not only is it a particularly attractive one, it also bears the intriguing sticker " Priority Postbox ". A little light googling when I returned home tells me this is one of 35,000 in the country which are standing by to accept completed home coronavirus test kits. Apparently special arrangements are needed to ensure kits are collected promptly (from postboxes and homes) to maximise the chance of a correct result for the test taken. Unsurprisingly the one closest to me is at Chippenham's main sorting office, a short walk away, though the two actually on our estate aren't included in the scheme. This one is at Charlcutt , a tiny hamlet of 20 properties in the heart of Wiltshire's countryside. It's a reassuring find...

It's been almost impossible to go out for a walk lately and not get bonked on the head by a falling acorn or beech nut. The paths through the woods are strewn with the trees' bounty, far too much for the squirrels to hide away as is their usual wont. I'm sure they're as busy as they usually are; they just can't keep up with what's available. I was reminded recently of the term mast year , which describes exactly what we're experiencing this autumn. My reasoning on why this is happening is: We had a mild, wet winter so the trees had a good drink and had plenty of opportunity to prime themselves ready for spring without snow, frost and ice getting in the way Blossom came early, and for once it wasn't blown away by a winter storm or loosened by a frost It was a warm spring so the bees and other pollinators maximised their activities in the sunshine They were so efficient that even the later spring and early summer drought wasn't sufficient to bring frui...

I had a marvellous hour with Eli on Saturday at her Wiltshire Ceramics Studio in Foxham where we had a play with rolled clay and cutting out shapes then adding coloured glaze ready for firing. Eli took on the studio the weekend just before Lockdown began (timing!) and she was only able to start offering taster sessions like the one on Saturday recently. As you can see we masked up for the occasion, everything was sparkling clean in the studio, and I was offered fresh clay to work with. She also supplies clean aprons, but I was pleased I'd taken my own as it'll save her some work afterwards.  Eli hails from the States and her bubbly personality is full of enthusiasm for her craft. She encouraged me to try all aspects of the process, from cutting the clay to work with from the large block, bashing it down with a large rolling pin before using the the large roller to produce the final flattened piece of clay. I then transferred it to a board, gently smoothed it out with a scraper...

As promised last month , here's the latest wildflower addition I've found here at VP Gardens . We don't need to go far to see it because it's popped up at the edge of the front lawn, just a few feet away from our front door. There aren't that many orange wildflowers here in the UK in my experience*, so this time a simple Google of 'orange wildflower UK' came up with the instant answer. We're looking at Pilosella aurantiaca aka fox and cubs, the latter name is so much easier to remember! **   I guess it was only a matter of time before this plant arrived in my garden, as I've admired quite a few broad swathes of it on the grassed areas on our estate here in Chippenham. I now have a dilemma; whether to leave or not as it's invasive. The site linked to above has dire warnings about it, despite its attractive appearance: "This attractive member of the daisy family makes a wonderful display in summer when it appears on roadside verges and bank...

I couldn't resist another visit to the sunflower field at Kellaways after my recent Weekend Wandering   there. The first four lines of William Blake's poem are the perfect sentiment to accompany our return and you can read the full poem here .

Chippenham is currently all a-buzz with news of the appearance of a huge field of sunflowers to the north of the town this week.  Come with me on the three or so mile stroll to see them in their full glory - the photo above is a mere teaser of what truly greets us at the end of our walk... As you can see our countryside's having a bit of a blonde moment as the grasses which line many of our roads have now dried to show off their decorative seed heads. We're lucky on this walk as we're following Maud Heath's Causeway for much of the way. It means we have a nice safe path to walk along away from any passing traffic. We go under the railway and even here the path remains as... ... we have our own pedestrian tunnel. The path predates the railway by centuries (15th vs 19th). Here we're looking back the way I've come so we can see the evening light through the tunnel. More blonde moments... ... a pause by a shadowy bench... ... over the ancient clapper bridge , then...

Last week I set a Sudoko puzzle with a difference, using the letters from Stourhead instead of the numbers one to nine. Here's the solution. How did you do? Did you find letters easier or more difficult than the usual Sudoko puzzle? Would you do one of these again? Other puzzles published previously on Veg Plotting : Connections   Cryptic Word Grid Garden Scramble  (the solution is here ) Garden Wordsearch  (NB no solution is given for this one as you'll know when you've found them all) Happy Families Shows of Hands special (quick ID quiz) What's in a Name? What's in a Name? Part 2

This puzzle has been waiting in the wings for a while and I'm pleased to bring you a letter based Suduko using one of Wiltshire's most famous gardens, Stourhead . In this case the letters of S-t-o-u-r-h-e-a-d are used instead of the numbers one to nine and your task is to add further letters to the grid below so that each line of nine both across and down, plus each box of nine only contains one instance of each letter. The grid is based on one published in the Radio Times which had a difficulty rating of 11/20. A printer friendly version can be found here . I'll post the solution next week, though you'll know when you've cracked it! If you enjoyed this puzzle, Sue Garrett over at Green Lane Allotments has another couple for you to try. Other puzzles published previously on Veg Plotting : Connections   Cryptic Word Grid Garden Scramble  (the solution is here ) Garden Wordsearch  (NB no solution is given for this one as you'll know when y...