Another week goes by in this wretched covid-19 crisis and another dismal week for Boris. Our prime minister gives a major speech on Sunday to tell us that workers can go back the following day and within hours he is contradicted. No, he meant to say Wednesday. Never a great one for facts, detail slips through his fingers like butter. As for his light brigade of yes-men: ‘ramping up tests’, ‘at pace’, ‘going forward’, ‘new normal’, ‘best practice’, ‘unprecedented times’: they all seem horribly out of their depth apart, perhaps from Rishi Sunak…PM in waiting, safe to predict.
But what of buttercups, an altogether more cheerful subject? Well, it’s the time of year when the fields are chock-full of shimmering yellow just waiting for the sun to pop out and make them sparkle. Here’s a few pictures of the Downs to take your minds off Boris and his ragbag cabinet (by the way, there’s no truth that cows graze on buttercups to produce the creamiest milk…because they’re toxic, buttercups, just like Boris’s ministers).
And talking of things yellow, our cloak of Rosa Banksiae that normally wraps its way round the house at this time of year (on the left) has gone on strike (right) - just like our boiler, phone system, computer and even hoover which this week blew up in a cloud of smoke - because, we suspect, of last year’s extreme summer heat and lack of moisture. As it flowers on the previous year’s fresh growth we’ll need to be brave, cut it hard back in a month’s time, train the prolific new growth to replace all the exhausted limbs and hope to give it a fresh start.
It’s not all coronavirus gloom though. The new iris bed in front of the terrace, glimpsed in the photo above, is a great success. And the lavenders, alliums and salvias are yet to come.
I nearly forgot: the answers to the quiz. Top row, left to right: Echium Pininana, Cornus Controversa Varigarta, Medlar Nottingham, Syringa Meyeri Palibin, Viburnum Marisi. Bottom row (l-r): Euphorbia Wulfenii, Choisya Aztec Pearl, Quince Vranja, Malus John Downie, embryonic walnuts. No winners, no points, no prizes. Boris isn’t alone.