Wild clover

I went into town today to deliver my weekly egg order and pick up some new wool from the market. Unusually for me I decided to walk home. Now I know that sounds like I'm really being good, but actually its only about 15 minutes and brings me onto my point for today.

Walking under the underpass I noticed some purple flowers growing in the bank and looking at them closer realised they were clover flowers.

So I looked further as I was walking and found lots of wild geraniums, although I should have picked a better specimen 

And of course forget me knots, amongst lots other flowers not picked

Now there's nothing at all special about this except I that haven't noticed these flowers for years, probably not really since I was a little girl making daisy chains - do children even do that any more?

So I've been having a think as to why that is and I think the main reasons are:

We go everywhere in cars and so how could we notice wild flowers from the car window as we whizz past.

There's no time to wonder at what is around us, everybody is too busy to take time out to stop and look - time to just see.

We want neatly kept lawns and verges (obviously not me, you've seen my garden), which leave no room for the wild flowers to grow and in turn attract the insects that keep everything going. I spent three years eradicating forget-me-knots from my garden, treating them like a weed and regretting it this year, hoping they would come back. Some have and I'll not be digging them out again. At the time I just had this thing about only wanting pink, white and purple in the garden, now I just want colour and flowers of all sorts of descriptions. Maybe I'm changing, maybe not being part of the rat race for a little while has changed my perception slightly, or maybe I just have that little bit of extra time to notice.

So now I hope I will stop and look around me, go for more walks and see what there is to find.