Cow Parsley

I don't the proper name for it, but that's what it's called round these parts, where it grows like a bad weed along the roadsides.  We even have some in our garden - cough - by design, of course.   And that is so 'in', don't you know?  It was Mother who had been watching the Chelsea Flower Show earlier this year and informed me it was very popular and that you could even buy plugs of Cow Parsley.   Well maybe in Chelsea, but not round here - I mean, folk in the Liberties would just look at you as if you weren't wise if you tried selling it to them.

Anyway, here is some, captured on film, down our road.

Cow Parsley

It really is quite lovely when you actually stop to look at it in the flesh, so to speak - not on these very mediocre snaps.

Down our road

So this is our little patch, our road and we don't like anyone else using it - although they do.  We know they do as they throw their rubbish out of their cars as they drive along it.  Last year we couldn't stand it any more and took Direct Action.  Yes...that's right, we picked it up, all 12 large black sacks full of it - just along the bit in the snap above.   And 2 car tyres.   All of which is very annoying considering there are 2 council recycling yards within a mile of here.   But clearly that's too much trouble for some people, who want the insides of their car to be rubbish-free right-now-this-minute and give not a jot about the beautiful countryside.  I just don't get it.

By the way, you see that little shed-thing there above, in the field on the right?  Looks fairly innocuous, doesn't it.  Well that is our connection to the InformationSuperHighway, don't you know.  It's a high-speed Internet hub, which links directly to the undersea fibre-optic cable running from the UK to the USA.  From here it goes all around Northern Ireland (and links to Dublin somewhere along the way) - it takes about 1 millisecond for a single bit of information to travel all round Ulster, apparently.  Unfortunately - or fortunately depending on your point of view - we can't avail of it, being only normal people.  We have to rely on good old copper connections from the nearest BT cabinet, which is over a mile away and so we get rubbish broadband speeds.  Not that I'm really that bothered to be honest, since neither my cameras, developing tanks nor darkroom need bits and bytes to work...and when I think about that, I think I'm OK with the state of things as they are.  

View from our house

Anyway, this last one shows the view from our house - well, if you step outside the front door and turn your head, that is.  Note the Cow Parsley at the entrance - kind of a greeting to visitors what to expect, or rather what not to expect should they choose to enter our humble abode.  I hesitate to call this a driveway, since it used to be part of the field on the right and when it's been raining solid for a few days it starts to resemble a field again a little too much for my liking.  But don't you just love the grass growing down the middle?...nearly as nice as Mother's lane, which you saw here, if you remember.