Our particularly unsettled weather, since the aberration that was Wimbledon fortnight, has been considerably ameliorated by several hours coverage each day of the three-week-long Tour de France. That all came to a stunning end on Sunday when the young Manxman Mark Cavendish, brilliantly aided by his Columbia HTC team, utterly annihilated all opposition on the final sprint finish on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées in Paris. It’s been a great Tour de France for us with Cav’s amazing six stage wins and Bradley Wiggins finishing a very creditable fourth. Bravo!
Now we are left wondering what to do as the entertainment ends but the showers and/or threat of showers continues.
One thing I’d been doing is leaping out during commercial breaks stalking butterflies that were visiting our buddleia bush. I’d also been trying less successfully to stalk some Daylilies that Carol has blooming in our garden. One might have thought, since butterflies move whereas plants remain rooted to the spot, that flowers might have proved easier to snap. Not so for me, apparently. Whilst I grabbed a few acceptable shots of butterflies, an acceptable rendition of a Daylily had eluded me.
Today however, with the sunshine intervals being little longer than commercial breaks, the mixture of sunshine and showers combined to provide a suitable subject pleasantly beaded with glistening raindrops. After a little judicious dead-heading by Carol during which the lily pollen attacked her clothing (oops, sorry!), I finally managed to capture a shot that I liked. I’m particularly taken with the tiny bead of moisture sparkling atop the flower’s stigma (that’s the pollen receptor though I doubt any pollen is going to make it through that water).
Most species need a decent summer. Let’s hope the weather improves soon, for us, the flowers and the butterflies.
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