Idle dreams and idle schemes
Drifting up on warm air streams
Breezes stirred by spinning blades
Gathering dreams reduced to shades
[Im]material spun like wool
Attracted like a Tudor fool
Entangled then congealed
My dreams are clouds that are unreal
Every Wednesday I’ll post FOUR photos (if you want to get a head start you’ll find them marked in that week’s Sunday Picture Post and Tuesday Treats). Lots of choice!
And here they are:
You respond with something CREATIVE. Perhaps an answering photo, or micro-fiction, or a poem, or just a caption
As before, there are only two criteria:
!!!!! Your creative offering is indeed yours !!!!!
!!!!! Your writing is kept to 150 words or less !!!!!
If you post a link in the comments section of this post I’ll be able to find it.
Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN
A dozen or so extra photos from our walk northward along our shore on 6th August 2026. Enjoy…
6th August 2026
No apologies for posting water-pics first! 🔼 You think my focus was the mallards? Nope. It was that reflected lamppost 🔽 Water Lilies, shadow-banded
6th August 2026
6th August 2026
🔼 Methinks the pond safer sailing for this model boat than would be the tumbling sea 🔽
6th August 2026
6th August 2026
Flowers 🔼 Valerian is happy rooted into gaps in a wall, so it has no problem here where dune meets prom 🔽 Sea Holly (spot the bee) ⏬ No, not dandelion. This is Hawksbeard
6th August 2026
6th August 2026
6th August 2026
🔼 Sheepsbit-Scabious 🔽 Ditto, with exceedingly crisped looking moss
6th August 2026
6th August 2026
For me, this is very sad to see, so used to seeing the dune plants looking fresh and green, even when winter winds and frosts have seared everything else. But… 🔼 the grey curling things are what remains of the Ferns. Though that Bedstraw looks wonderfully bright! 🔽 Sedum, ever green, it’ll flourish in an inch of soil, or not even that
6th August 2026
6th August 2026
🔼 I’ve heard it called ‘Beach Rose’ but to me it’s Japanese Rose. Whatever it’s name, like everything else, it’s suffering from our heat and lack of rain 🔽 Restharrow, a member of the pea family, much cursed by farmers back in the days when a horse pulled their ploughs and harrows
6th August 2026
🔽 I couldn’t resist adding this. After all these beige photos, we need the blue sky and sea!
6th August 2026
I hope you didn’t find that too depressing. I have no doubt when I return to the dunes sometime around December to February all will be green again
And yes, we have some flyers this week. Just a few.
We’ve decided, while this heat lasts, to keep our walks local (saves sweltering in airless buses). So…6th August 2026, a rather windy day, but cooler than of late, we head down to the sea front and take an easy stroll along to the fishing village of Caister. About 4 miles. Fill the water bottles, and let’s go
6th August 2026
🔼 We start with a gentle meander through the Venetian Gardens and Waterway, on our seafront. I’m a little bit horrified to see how the grass is dried to a crisp 🔽
6th August 2026
6th August 2026
🔼 Thank goodness for the water! The birds enjoy it, and so do we 🔽 One section of the gardens is available for sailing… bring your own yacht!
6th August 2026
6th August 2026
🔼 Then it’s down to the shore where the sun on the sea is blinding 🔽 We’ve missed high tide, though not by much
6th August 2026
🔽 So restful, listening to the rushing waves as they turn and tumble the stones. Then the tide pulls the water back into the sea
6th August 2026
6th August 2026
🔼 The dunes with its rich plant community is always green. But not this summer. Combination of heat and drought has left the dunes looking rather browned off! 🔽
6th August 2026
🔽 We yip-yip on seeing this narrow fringe of green
6th August 2026
6th August 2026
Caister 🔼 The water tower which serves the area with the cleanest water, naturally filtered through layers of chalk subsoil. It’s a landmark visible for miles in this lowland environment 🔽 The old lifeboat station. Now replaced by a modern building. Caister Lifeboat is voluntary aided, not part of the RNLI
6th August 2026
6th August 2026
🔼 The dunes grow tall at Caister, climbing into the cliffs further along the coast, cliffs that have drastically eroded over recent years 🔽 And yes, Caister is a fishing village. It has no quay, no harbour, no inlet to moor the boats. Tractors haul them ashore and up the beach to rest up here
6th August 2026
That’s all for now. Hope you enjoyed this saunter northward along our shore. More photos from this walk on Tuesday 😎
Image credit: Name not given, from Pixabay
Felicity: Like a porcelain doll with her fragility
Sweet and gentle, acting delicately
Knows how to conduct herself exquisitely
In all her ways and manners shows civility
Never a hint of that killer, duplicity
Has what’s known as breeding, aka gentility
And yet always demonstrates perfect humility
Her tutors remark on her unusual sensitivity
Her trainer says of her marvellous agility
When chaos erupts, she’s the centre of tranquillity
And yet she’s most well known for her eccentricity
78 words written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Felicity
Introducing the nimble-fingered seamstress, Suzie
Mrs Bennett’s sister
Suzie has a ‘liking’ for sexy soldiers
She won for herself a contract
To sew shirts for all the Militia’s men
Such sexy short-sleeved shirts, Sister Suzie sewed
Those sexy soldiers then wrote epistles
Said they’d rather sleep on thistles
Than wear those sexy short-sleeved shirts
That Mrs Bennett’s sister Suzie sewed
Note: If you’ve read Pride and Prejudice you’ll know that Mrs Bennett had a hankering for soldiers.
And apologies for using my favourite tongue-twister, though I’ve changed it a tad
Every Wednesday I’ll post FOUR photos (if you want to get a head start you’ll find them marked in that week’s Sunday Picture Post and Tuesday Treats). Lots of choice!
And here they are:
You respond with something CREATIVE. Perhaps an answering photo, or micro-fiction, or a poem, or just a caption
As before, there are only two criteria:
!!!!! Your creative offering is indeed yours !!!!!
!!!!! Your writing is kept to 150 words or less !!!!!
If you post a link in the comments section of this post I’ll be able to find it.
Here’s wishing you inspirational explosions. And FUN
A parade of photos taken during the second part of our walk along Marriott’s Way to Costessey Ponds on 27th July 2026. Enjoy
27th July 2026
🔼 Sweet Peas run rampant at the turn off from Marriott’s Way to the Tud meadow 🔽 Yarrow and an incredibly vibrant Thistle
27th July 2026
27th July 2026
🔼 Another look at the Thistle. It’s everywhere in the ultra-dry meadow 🔽 A late Poppy, and seed pods
27th July 2026
27th July 2026
🔼 What, you mean I’m obsessed with those Thistles? Um, yes. But that purple against the dry grasses just jumps up and yell at you 🔽
27th July 2026
🔽 Not more thistles? No, but the same botanic family. Knapweed
27th July 2026
27th July 2026
🔼 This water mint continues the purple theme 🔽 The Water Soldier plant lives beneath water only rising to flower in June to August. Those flowers much resemble its cousin, Frogbit, which is the other plant here
27th July 2026
27th July 2026
🔼 Water Plantain, left high and dry with the shrinking water 🔽 White Water Lily, the flower almost hidden beneath the luxuriant growth of ‘pads’
27th July 2026
27th July 2026
🔼 Water Lilies, Yellow and (pink-tinged) White 🔽 ⏬
27th July 2026
27th July 2026
Now if you’re thinking we’d chosen our destination for the lilies, I will confess, this is so! But they are beautiful. And when we’re officially in drought, the rivers and ponds are a blessed sight.
Hope you enjoyed. And next week, something altogether different (weather permitting)
Continuing our walk of 27th July 2026 – when we reach our beautiful wet destination. Stay with us, you’ll see what I mean. Let’s go…
27th July 2026
🔼 To our left, a grazing marsh which over recent years has become a nature reserve stands between Marriott’s Way and the higher ground of the last of Norwich suburbs 🔽 To our right, the Wensum with one of its many bridges glimpsed beyond a wind-torn willow
27th July 2026
🔽 Marriott’s Way at the city/county boundary
27th July 2026
27th July 2026
🔼 A meadow lies alongside the river Tud, a tributary of the Wensum. I don’t know when it last was grazed, but I do know it’s now thoroughly overgrown with grassland plants (see Tuesday Treats) which attract butterflies (which refuse our lens!) Although, seen here is Himalayan Balsam, clustered around the Tud 🔽 The Tud is a chalkland stream with crystal clear waters, though of late the bankside vegetation has somewhat encroached
27th July 2026
27th July 2026
🔼 Today it’s known as Gunton Lane Recreation Ground. Until the twentieth century it was Costessey common. To claim parish relief, the men (women too?) were sent to the common to dig gravel and sand for road repairs. They’re not deep pits, and they weren’t yet flooded in the early 1960s. They are now. Now they’re marked on Google Maps as Costessey Ponds 🔽 The river Tud flows through the former common
27th July 2026
27th July 2026
🔼 Back in the days (my teens, 1960s) the ground here was mostly open. A few saplings and scrub (brambles, broom and gorse). But that oak must have been there too, and even then been a sturdy fella 🔽 The rest has grown up over the past 50/60 years
27th July 2026
27th July 2026
Costessey Ponds 🔼 I’ve not seen the water this low in recent years. Yet the water soldiers, and water lilies are surviving. Fingers crossed they’ll continue. 🔽
27th July 2026
🔽 This old giant stands sentry to wish us a safe journey home. Sad to see it lopped so low. But with so much fungi around it, I doubt it would have stood (safely) much longer
27th July 2026
And here, my friends, we must part company. We’re off to catch a bus into Norwich, to find some food, before tackling the bus back to the coast.
Hope you’ve enjoyed 😁 Don’t forget to check out Tuesday Treats 🙂
Rosehips – 6th August 2027
August First: Lughnasadh
When we make a start on gathering in Nature’s gain
But Nature’s only harvest will be rust
If the sky doesn’t soon give us plentiful rain
Cornucopia’s precious fruits will turn to dust
36 words written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Cornucopia
crispina kemp 