Lavender's blue, dilly dilly.....

Whilst picking a bunch of Lavender in the garden this morning I found 

myself singing Lavender's blue, dilly dilly

Lavender angustifloria
Josie's Garden
August 2013

Lavender's blue, dilly dilly, lavender's green,

When I am king, dilly, dilly, you shall be queen.

Who told you so, dilly, dilly, who told you so?

'Twas my own heart, dilly, dilly, that told me so.

Call up your men, dilly, dilly, set them to work

Some to the plough, dilly, dilly, some to the fork,

Some to make hay, dilly, dilly, some to cut corn,

While you and I, dilly, dilly, keep ourselves warm.

Lavender's green, dilly, dilly, Lavender's blue,

If you love me, dilly, dilly, I will love you.

Let the birds sing, dilly, dilly, And the lambs play;

We shall be safe, dilly, dilly, out of harm's way.

I love to dance, dilly, dilly, I love to sing;

When I am queen, dilly, dilly, You'll be my king.

Who told me so, dilly, dilly, Who told me so?

I told myself, dilly, dilly, I told me so.

Lavender's blue is an English folksong which can be dated back to the seventeenth century

My boys....

  Jaffa

Timmy

On patrol in the garden

they like their vantage points to be on high ground

Medieval beauty...

St Michael's Parish Church

Aughton

Lancashire

The oldest parts of the church are Norman

built in the time of King Stephen 

in the 12th Century

This shows a blocked doorway which dates from Norman times

There is evidence to suggest that Christians have worshipped on this sacred site for 

well over a thousand years,

The church continues to gently slumber in the summer sunshine.

Lurking in the undergrowth...

Today's picksipic

 is

A beautiful Meadow Brown Butterfly drying its wings in the sunshine

Maniola Jurtina

The Meadow Brown is one of our commonest and most widespread butterflies, and a familiar sight throughout the summer months. This species can be found in all parts of the British Isles, with the exception of the most mountainous regions and Shetland.This is a highly variable species with four named subspecies found in the British Isles, although the differences between them are often subtle.

The picture is mine but my thanks to the experts at http://www.ukbutterflies.co.uk/index.php who clarified the breed for me.

From this.... to that ...

It's very easy to do basic photo manipulation using a very simple editing process over on photobucket.com
and whilst it's not got all the gizmos and gadgets that you would associate with a professional finish like on Photoshop, it does prove that you can play around with pictures and change them a bit.....


From this ....

As you can see this picture seemed to be a lovely view across the fields

but came out a bit dark and boring

To that.....

I brightened up the colour - and added a border but couldn't do much with the sky
but it works !


I think it looks a bit more interesting now.....

A different angle...

Sometimes you just have to look from a different angle.

These pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago on a trip to Whalley Abbey.

Which is a beautiful 13th Century Cistercian Abbey, in the village of Whalley in Lancashire.

If only the ancient stones could talk...

...what a story they could tell us .....

Oh noes ...

As much as I don't want to even whisper the word 

....shhhh Autumn....

There are signs in the greenery that the season of mellow fruitfulness is just around the corner.

The Rowan  Tree or Mountain Ash, is commonly known as the Wiggin Tree in my part of the world.

 It even features on our town's coat of arms.

Mountain Ash or Sorbus aucuparia. is well known for keeping witches at bay

The rich , vibrant orange berries are not poisonous and

are eaten in vast quantities by small mammals and birds 

***

Elderberry or Sambucus nigra is another plant that is commonly 

used to ward off witches.

The berries once purple can be picked and cooked and  made into liqueurs or cordials

but be warned the berries are poisonous if eaten raw.

***

Blackberry or Rubus fruticosus is perfect for picking 

and if you are away from the road and car fumes then you should

be able to pick lovely clean berries...but always soak overnight in cold water

to get the little berry bugs to come to the surface.

Blackberry crumble and custard is yummy.

***

Hawthorn or Crataegus spp.

My mother always told me that a good crop of hawthorn berries in the Autumn

meant a hard winter to come.

It's also strongly associated with fairies and marks the entrance to the otherworld.

There are also eleven places in the world called Hawthorn

I never knew that .....

Over the fields and far away...

There are some stunning fields close to home

just perfect for a Sunday morning stroll

and where I found
that

The maize is as high as an elephant's eye

Wheat and corn fields are really quite noisy -when you get up close and personal 

you can hear it popping and creaking as the fronds sway in the breeze

This beautiful corn meadow reminded me of the lovely Eva Cassidy song

walking in Fields of Gold

I wonder where those leading lines are 

leading

Away we go ....

I'm not an expert photographer but when I'm out and about I've started to take my camera just to capture those little snippets of time and place.

And in wondering what to do with the pictures ----Picksipics was born

All the pics are taken with a little Fujifilm camera

Finepix JX370

No fancy lenses, no fiddling with shutter speeds and macro lens, just a little point and shoot

which shows it's not the camera , it's the person taking the picture that matters.

So with no apologies for style, presentation or technical ability 

here are my picksipics

Lower Rivington Reservoir

Lancashire

The engineer for the Rivington reservoirs was Thomas Hawksley and construction took place between 1852 and 1857. The Lower Rivington reservoir has two dams, the 646 metre long, 12.2 metre high Millstone Embankment and Horwich Embankment which is 506 metres long and 18.6m high.

There were some kids about to have a sailing lesson. 

The water was calm

but the safety boat was out and about just in case there were

any kids overboard.