Jaggy new life

I love these delicate little yellow things - cones? - growing at the ends of these pine branches in Benmore Gardens. They seem so rounded by comparison with the long spears of needles around them. Of course, although the tree looks jaggy, the needles are in fact soft - but who ever let facts get in the way of a good headline? I think it's a Japanese Umbrella Pine, Sciadopitys verticillata,

This grey weather is hard to adjust to after the warm blue of Crete. But I remind myself that on the odd grey day in Crete, the island looked even drearier than Dunoon. 

Sort of ...