Wild garlic

What a glorious day!

I took the dogs down to the river for a swim as it was so HOT. Immediately we turned onto the river path we were asssaulted, in the nicest possible way, by the pungent smell of the wild garlic. It is in full bloom and I honestly don't think i have seen it looking so abundant as this year. It carpeted the sides of the path in huge swathes of white and later, down beside the river, it ran amok amongst what I think were wild purple geraniums.. Everywhere you looked there were pockets nestled in nooks and crannies of decaying tree trunks or around stones at the river's edge and even one group which adorned the base of the red dog waste bin! As you will see from the Flickr shot, it was actually difficult to isolate one flower head but as I have seen a few gorgeous blips of these flowers along pathways I wanted to show the actual flower in more detail. If you can go large you will see the almost heart shape of the green centre but I think what tickled me most about them was the pom pom style of the stamens!

The dogs enjoyed a fabulous romp in the river, although Bruce mostly confined himself to guddling for stones, and on our way back we came across this magnificent and hopeful sight.. I popped both dogs on the lead as we passed them as I didn't want Cara, in particular, to start swimming towards them which would have given them a fright. I sincerely hope they all survive to adulthood.

Thanks to bignonsense the purple flowers have been identified as pink purslane.