Hogweed

A sunny, breezy start to today - so I got a couple of loads of washing sorted - and as I was hanging the second out it began to rain a little. First load was almost dry so that came in! Rain soon stopped.

On our walk today we went through the woods - the wild garlic is in full bloom now - the floor is just covered in a white carpet. The smell is great too.

Near Clifford there is a large horse chestnut tree that has got a full canopy of leaves and loads of 'candles' of flowers - however there is an ominous carpet of shrivelled brown leaves on the ground and looking closely at the tree there are loads of dying leaves on the branches - it may be an infection of the leaf miner, which makes the trees look like autumn in mid summer!

Further round Heygate lane there is lots of cow parsley emerging and there is also loads of this Hogweed. It is not really giant - I just took the shot quite low down to isolate the flowering part against the sky.