Meet Spike

I really wanted to photograph the sea today. It's so windy I bet it looks very dramatic on the beach. But I woke up feeling dizzy and had to take things slowly.
By this afternoon I was feeling much better but it rained after lunch and by the time it had stopped it was too close to school kicking-out time to go anywhere.
It's so frustrating when you plan your day and things conspire against you.

I also had some work I needed to do and didn't get that done in time for the daily Chaos In The Carter House, so decided to take my frustrations out on a poor buddleia bush that's casting a big shadow across our garden. I had a lot of help from the dog who isn't as nervous as he should be around my shears and always tries to eat everything I'm cutting. Obviously anything to do with gardening looks like foraging to him. Why else would we bother if there's no food involved?!

I'm incredibly fond of these big spiky seed heads from our Love in the Mist flowers. The flowers themselves didn't do so well. The seeds were scattered a little late in the year by a 6-year-old - who was losing interest by then, disturbed by blackbirds - who were more interested in what was in the earth below, and - to put it politely - dumped on by cats and a dog.
When the plants finally appeared they were a bit thin on the ground and not where we were expecting them. But the seed pods are tremendous, and so full of character.

Last night I went out and cut a handful of the seed pods, stuck them in a vase, and called them alien flowers.

They're beautifully symmetrical, have 5 or 6 points which look like antennae (there seem to be 2 different types), enormous friendly heads - about 10 times the size of the flowers they once produced, and arm-like fronds reaching up and around. Some of the segments of the pods are claret-striped (always good to sneak in a wine reference)

I have a nice cup of tea and sunlight streaming into the garden where it wasn't before so Bah! to the unreliable weather and my unreliable health. If you look hard enough you can see a point to every day (sometimes 5 or 6 ;))