Wild carrot

The most distinctive characteristic of the wild carrot (Daucus Carota) is the way the pretty but unexceptional umbellifer flower head curls up to form a nest-like seed head. I love their intricate complexity, the wide colour variations and the tiny, spiky hairs on the seeds. When I returned from my walk on Friday, I found a large expanse of them, mixed with seeing hogweed, yarrow and thistles, in the meadow at the bottom of the valley beside the Nailbourne . The photos were not good - wrong lens, too windy, in too much of a hurry - so when J agreed to a teatime walk, I took my macro lens and wheeled her down Vicarage Lane to see the harvested fields and the wild carrots. They were still billowing in the breeze, but a few are better focused than last time and they were beautifully lit by low evening sun.

Earlier in the day, while J had her PA supporting her, I cleaned and stewed elderberries and blackberries, then poured the mush into the jelly bag for more cordial; picked tomatoes, cucumbers, herbs and leaves for our lunchtime plate of salads, which we ate with our Charlotte potatoes and P's excellent sunflower seed hummus - he's allergic to sesame, so hummus made with tahini is not an option - and sorted out the supermarket delivery. The warm weather means we've had to return to watering too, after weeks, maybe months, of not needing to water anything outside. It's ripening the raspberries beautifully, and there's now a little more chance of a few aubergines worth eating.