Tuesday Treats: Summer’s Harvest

Posted on August 25, 2026 by crispina kemp

An assortment of photos of flowers and mid-summer berries taken on our walk on 11th August 2026. Enjoy

11th August 2026

🔼 Where there were Dog Roses there now are Rose Hips 🔽 Where the Briars blossomed there now are Blackberries

11th August 2026

🔽 Where there were pink blossoms there now are Apples

11th August 2026

11th August 2026

🔼 Tucked into the lush grass at the edge of the marsh, this pea-flowered Trefoil 🔽 Thistle, in flower and in seed

11th August 2026

🔽 Water Mint. Well, of course

11th August 2026

11th August 2026

🔼 Tangled into the thorn trees that edge our way, Bindweed 🔽 Forming thick yellow carpets amongst the marshland grasses, Common Fleabane

11th August 2026

11th August 2026

Where a water-filled drain edges our path and trees cast shade: 🔼 Bittersweet and 🔽 Elder in berry

11th August 2026

11th August 2026

🔼 Where May blossoms decked the hedges alongside arable fields, now the red Haws hang 🔽and still the White Campion flowers

11th August 2026

11th August 2026

🔼 The last of the Poppies, all-but hidden amongst the stubble that’s the last of the wheat 🔽 Bracken (a fern) as usual, it’s the first to don autumnal colours

11th August 2026

🔽 Finally, for the curious, here’s one of those beets!

11th August 2026

Hope you enjoyed. We did. It was a wonderful walk, culminating in a wonderful lunch. Though I will say it was a trifle windy!

Don’t forget Friday Flyers, though I didn’t manage to photograph many

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Sunday Picture Post: Walking the Edge of the Marsh

Posted on August 23, 2026 by crispina kemp

11th August 2026. The summer heat continues, so rather than waste the cooler morning hours in travelling, once again we keep our walk local. We’re heading to Burgh Castle, where we’ll lunch. But this isn’t our usual walk along Breydon wall. Instead, we’re walking at the back of the grazing marsh, the edge of the Great Estuary-that-was when the Romans invaded. Fill those water bottles, and let’s go

11th August 2026

🔼 To reach the start of our route we first must thread a way through an industrial estate, then cross the town’s bypass. Here’s a bridge that helps us with that. Happy it’s still very early, not much happening 🔽 And here we (officially) begin with a footbridge over a drain

11th August 2026

11th August 2026

🔼 To our right (north) the marsh, not much grazed these days.  Too wet, even after these weeks without rain 🔽 To our left (south) signs of industry. Not sure what that red car is doing up there!

11th August 2026

11th August 2026

🔼 More signs of industry 🔽 But as you can see, the marshland nudges right tight against it

11th August 2026

11th August 2026

🔼 Despite our drought the marshland remains green. And yellow! That’s fleabane, run rampant this year 🔽 I forego foreground focus as I zoom in on the distant water-tower. Distance concertinas. Between my camera and that tower there’s a river, more marshland, a railway line, a busy major road, and finally the far shore of the former Great Estuary. Yes, it is the same tower as I featured last week

11th August 2026

11th August 2026

🔼 Moving a tad away from the marsh… 🔽 Arable replaces grazing

11th August 2026

🔽 But we’re still close to that luscious grassland

11th August 2026

🔽 This house has been abandoned since I can remember. What’s to become of it? In the foreground is a field of sugar beat, our path thick with mugwort (photo taken looking back)

11th August 2026

🔽 From sugar beat and a path easily walked to unkempt grass grown tall entangled with thistles and nettles and… it’s not nice to walk, especially with the sun now beating down fierce on us

11th August 2026

11th August 2026

🔼 So pleased to see this gate! It ushers us onto a proper road. We’ve reached the village, oh yay! 🔽 Still a way to reach the pub, but no hurry, it’s not open yet. This is Burgh Castle’s Back Lane. Wonderfully cool in the shade when the weather is hot.

11th August 2026

More photos from this walk in Tuesday Treats. And yes, there are some ‘flyers’ this week, on Friday.

I hope you enjoyed 😃💖

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Beware…

Posted on August 22, 2026 by crispina kemp

Image credit: Couleur on Pixabay

Beware the man with the silver beard
You’ll fall headlong into his arms
Where you belong
That’s weird

18 words written for Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Headlong

Posted in Poems (Some Silly), Prompt | Tagged , , | 23 Comments

Friday Flyers

Posted on August 21, 2026 by crispina kemp

We didn’t see many butterflies on our walk, 6th August 2026, so I’ve included some birdie pics. Hope you enjoy

6th August 2026

Not the best focus: I blame the wind 🔼 Common Blue butterfly on Lucerne (alfalfa) 🔽

6th August 2026

🔽 Not a butterfly but a day-time flying Burnet moth

6th August 2026

6th August 2026

🔼 Younglings. One of the Wagtails, probably the Pied 🔽

6th August 2026

And my final photo for you this week 🔽 Cormorants roosting in a pine tree

6th August 2026

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CCC100: Entangled Dreams

Posted on August 20, 2026 by crispina kemp

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

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos, Poems (Some Silly), Prompt | Tagged , , , , | 22 Comments

Crimson’s Creative Challenge #100

Posted on August 19, 2026 by crispina kemp

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

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos, Prompt | Tagged , , , | 19 Comments

Tuesday Treats: All Those Details

Posted on August 18, 2026 by crispina kemp

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.

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Sunday Picture Post: A Breezy Easy Seashore Stroll

Posted on August 16, 2026 by crispina kemp

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 😎

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Best Known For Her Eccentricity

Posted on August 15, 2026 by crispina kemp

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

 

 

Posted in Poems (Some Silly), Prompt | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

CCC099: Sister Suzie

Posted on August 13, 2026 by crispina kemp

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

Posted in Crimson's Creative Challenge, Photos, Poems (Some Silly), Prompt | Tagged , , , , | 25 Comments