Friday Smiles 2025 # Week 34

It is getting exciting. This time next week we will have the keys to our new home. We seem to have gathered quite a few new pieces since we arrived here, so I have started packing some items into small boxes. Our son Tom is collecting us in a hired car and we have to get our cases, lots of small boxes, and three bodies into it, so hopefully he will get one big enough to cope.

I have done a bit of baking this week though it has been too hot to do much, but I tried out a recipe I saw for rock cakes cooked in the airfryer, and they were fairly successful. Today I bought the first bramley apples (cooking apples) I have seen this season, and they are one thing I really missed in Spain, especially as I had a very prolific Bramley tree in my garden here before. So I bought a couple and mixed them with some plums to make a big family sized fruit crumble today.

Summer came quite early in UK this year and I am wondering whether Autumn will also be earlier than usual. One day I walked to the local park again and I took this photo. 

As you can see the wild rose shrub is already covered in ripe red hip berries, and in front of them there are some stems of cardoon cynara . These are a semi-wild version of the globe artichoke. First they have a big, purple thistle flower and then this very impressive seed head which does resemble a globe artichoke. The picture just shouts Autumn to me.

As I was walking through the park I stopped at the croquet lawn where these two were engrossed in a game, and were taking it very seriously. I watched for some time but never quite understood what the aim of the game was. I know they have to use their mallet to knock a ball through a series of hoops, but there was also a 'jack' ball which confused me a bit.

The garden continues to surprise us with plants we didn't really know were there. This week there was a beautiful pink lily. The first flowers are fading now but there are lots of buds, so it will go on delighting us for some time.

Last week I showed you the blanket that I made for our new baby in November. It now has a pink rabbit in each corner. I had quite a lot of wool left over so I made a matching cushion for her big sister, with one rabbit in the centre.

Another little treasure from the garden is this pretty butterfly that was flitting between the little daisies and coltsfoot on the lawn, and it actually sat still enough for me to take a photo. I looked it up and found it is a Gatekeeper Butterfly, also known as a hedge brown.

I wonder whether you have seen these funny shaped nuts on the floor near you. They are malformed acorns caused by a Knopper wasp laying an egg inside each acorn as it is forming. As the lava grows it causes the acorn to mutate, and then it crawls out and feeds on it. After some years when knopper wasps have been relatively scarce, they are making a come-back this year. Sometimes they only affect one tree, but around here nearly every oak tree is affected. Although long term it does not seem to harm the tree at all, it will severely affect the acorn harvest, so squirrels and other small rodents may have to hunt extra hard for their food this winter.

For obvious reasons I am unlikely to post next week. I am sure we will be very busy and will not have internet immediately, but I will publish this tomorrow and link with Annie's Friday Smiles. And I will be back as soon as I can.