Allium Head

It has been a hot day (a rare event in these parts), and we've spent most of it sorting garden stuff out.

I took a few pics. The one I like best is this allium head. It has gone to seed, it is leaning 45 degrees touching J's car. I quite like the reflections on the metalwork.

Fact of the week. I learnt  lot about Manchester Cathedral yesterday. My favourite fact was the link to James Bond. John Dee was exiled to Manchester from Elizabeth I's court and took up a post as church warden at the then collegiate church. There he acted as a spy for Francis Walsingham, the Queen's spymaster general. Following Mary I's reign, these were dangerous times and Walsingham had a spy network through the country (there is apparently a very good book called The Watchers). So that Walsingham knew that correspondence was from the individual spies, they used monikers. John Dee's was ........ OO7. Ian Fleming was reading a biography of Dee (who was one of the most colourful characters of the age) when writing Casino Royale and grabbed the OO7 signature. He was also reading a book about or by an American ornithologist - one James Bond.