Thank you, Auntie! It's been bugging me a lot as I'm usually pretty good with plant names. Not so good with the plants but I do usually know what they're called before I kill them.

I have Solomon's Seal in my yard as well (it doesn't bloom til June for me though). It's not an invasive plant (here, at least, whereas things like lily of the valley are), so please don't kill them flopsy! lol. Great shade plants, I have them combined with Anemones, jacob's ladder, bleeding hearts, pulmonaria ("girl and boy plants"), hostas and hops in the area between the houses that doesn't get much sun. I would go take a picture, but lately it's been nothing but thunderstorms or a plague of mosquitoes, so nobody is venturing outside much after work here!

Visited St Albans Church in Earsdon today and took this picture of the Hartley Colliery Disaster memorial, one of the worst ever in UK



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hartley_Colliery_Disaster

My goodness Gees, you sure have LOTS of fascinating things to take pictures of where you live. Might have to put your area on my "bucket list". I think it's wonderful when folks like you and zorba and szabs (and many others) take so many photos of where YOU live.. it's like a travelogue almost. So thanks to everybody here who allows each of us to take a "dream journey" from the comfort (and low expense) of our favourite computer chairs : )))

I agree with Jake. Even when I visit certain places, I don't get to see as much as I get through photos on this forum.

An old style house in South India. The water surrounding it is usually filled with lotus flowers.

I think the root of Solomon's seal is used to cure backache. I will look it up later but I think it is that one.

The bouquet flowers were...

* Lily of the valley – Return of happiness
* Sweet william – Gallantry
* Hyacinth – Constancy of love
* Ivy – Fidelity; marriage; wedded love; friendship; affection
* Myrtle – The emblem of marriage; love

The Solomon's Seal flowers were over the High Altar in the Abbey and the doors the wedding party used to enter and exit the chapel where the registers were signed. I paid particular attention to them as they were the mystery flowers in the photo I'd taken, lol.

Somebody mention flowers? I took this photo of a floral arrangement as the coach passed
through Dawlish which is just to the north of Torbay in Devon. I've visited the town many
times through the years and as far as I can remember, they've always had a similar floral
feature here - right in the middle of the Crazy Golf course!

Martin_cube, I visited the area of Dawlish and also Babbacombe model village three years ago - a really beautiful place to visit.


It's Elliot's second birthday today, and Mum made the traditional Victoria sponge Birthday cake (with jam and butter-cream). Be assured it is as tasty as it looks

Cannon Beach, OR

An awesome lightbulb.

Welcome Vanya98 Please read my pm.

Welcome - and nice picture Vanya, especially since you can't really identify the folks that are in it, but I have to wonder... who is having more fun - the adult or the child? lol

We spent several days of our "honeymoon" (way back in the late 70's) in Oregon. I'm hoping it is still the "wonderland" of natural beauty that it was back then : )

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Re: Solomon's Seal
quote from my "Magic and Medicine of Plants" book (ISBN 0-89577-221-3):
"The 16th Century herbalist John Gerard claimed Solomon's seal rhizome was a panacea for cuts, wounds and bruises of all kinds, including those 'gotten by falls or women's willfulness in stumbling on their hasty husbands' fists'.

Each year the rhizome produces a new stem that withers in the summer, leaving a scar resembling the wax seals once used to close letters. Theses seal-like knobs (which inspire the botanical name Polygonatum, meaning "many-jointed") gave rise to the belief that it was effective in curing water on the knee and in stemming blood flow"

The book also states that pharmacological studies find no evidence that it is effective (as traditionally believed) as a hemostatic (agent that stops bleeding), nor as an antiemetic (agent that stops vomiting). However, they did find that the roots contain allantoin, which when derived from other plant sources is used today for external treatment of wounds and skin ulcers.

As for Kate Middleton, she assigned "confirmation of love" as the symbolism for her usage of the plant in the wedding decor. Poetic license regarding a "stamp" or a "seal", perhaps, but hey, it was her wedding I guess lol.
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JaneM: that cake looks (and sounds) delicious!

This was taken at Whitley Bay beach last Sunday about midday, it was a pleasant summer day a few years ago it would have been crowded with people there for the day, now most of those in the photo are walking dogs.A day at the seaside is something that is not done anymore

Gees - Beautiful beach, but I am a bit confused with your statement " A day at the seaside is something that is not done anymore", living on the seaside myself, I find it hard to believe, because our beaches are always crowded.

A stork on her way back to the nest. We have an area not far from here where hundreds of storks come to nest each year on high tension towers.

I thought this odd. It was outside a hotel on the corner of 51st & Lexington, NY and was
warning of bed bugs in the building. It was there all the time that I was over there though it
looks nothing like a bed bug to me. I'm no expert but...
Incidentally, I wasn't staying at that hotel - mine had something FAR more disturbing, at
least my room did! <shudders>

That's a New York bed bug? They say everything is bigger across the pond but if the bed bugs have grown to be that size, I'm not going back!


PS What was in your room? You have to tell now!

Twas a cockroach, big one as well. I tried to stomp on it but it scuttled under the bed. The front desk sent up a flunky who, on finding nothing, accused me of being drunk & imagining it. They offered me another room which I accepted. It was all rather inconvenient as I was due to be meeting up with one of my FT team mates a couple of hours later. (I made doubly sure that there was nothing hiding in my stuff as I shifted it to the other room!)

Ah, cockroaches... we're not used to encountering them in the UK, they're here but small and generally outwith most people's experience and you forget what other people almost take for granted. When I lived in Singapore the roaches did a soft shoe shuffle every evening - we turned on a light, they shuffled down a drain. They were over an inch long, not counting antenna, but in parts of Indonesia they're considerably bigger than that.

Same here Flopsy, they appear, however careful and clean you are. The worst are the flying sort that get in your hair. They seem to be seasonal, thank goodness. I do hate it when the crawly ones come up the drain into the shower floor. Yes at least an inch long, some of them, or even more. Ew!

When I stayed in Hong Kong it was in a five star hotel so if they had roaches there I bet each one had its own personal flunky to shoo it out of the way before the guests appeared.

Here in southern Spain, they seem to hibernate and only appear in late June for a couple of weeks, and then dissapear, luckily they don't fly but they are an inch long. Now when I lived in South America, the roaches would fly all year round and they where bigger than an inch in body. You could be at the most luxurious place immaculately clean and they would just fly in and land on your dinner table .

Yesterday I showed you my stork, well today I am showing you their duplex, with an extra terrace for additional comfort .

I bet those storks think that pylon was put there for their benefit.

On the second floor down, to the left... is that the kids' room? Or the en suite?