Among the thousands of wild flower seeds which impregnated the grow mat which I laid at the bottom of the vegetable garden in this spring is this scarlet flax. It is not a flower which I was acquainted with and I have only just identified it today among the nigellas, salpiglossis, cornflowers campanula, echiums and many other insect attracting flowers. The mat has succeeded beyond expectation and has already brought butterflies and bees to help pollinate the beans, courgettes and squashes that grow behind it. The advertisement promised that the flowers would be self-seeding in years to come and on the evidence of this season's promise, I can believe it.
Sitting outside The Compasses I look up to see a plane banking overhead lower than usual on the flight path into Gatwick. For a moment I imagine myself up there looking down on myself looking up.
On the newly painted wall outside the front door is a snail unaware of the glories of the new surface on which it travels. It is one of those brown and black banded snails that looks a bit like those sweets called humbugs. Banded snails are supposed to demonstrate via their variety of colours the mechanism of natural selection in action as they adapt to different habitats.
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