Do you visualise how your memory for storing odd scraps of information works? For me, it's like one of the old time cash registers! A crash on the keys and suddenly up comes the right answer.
I have no interest in cars - they have (mostly) four wheels, one in each corner, brakes and either go or don't. But when I was in Thame yesterday and saw this vehicle up popped an answer - a Mini Moke. How did I know that??? I have no idea! Just a bit of useless information gathered from somewhere or other in the past.
The driver was just climbing out as I reached him so asked him if it was a Mini Moke and he said it was a Lookalike... Looks very uncomfortable to me!
PS All Stuart's family and friends have gone to Newquay for the next few days to the Riviera Rally for Minis, they're all Mini potty...
More things are happening in the gardening, mostly flowers, but I noticed these at the top of the Christmas tree, which I grew from a seed many years ago. Are these going to be cones this year, for the first time? I've never seen them before on this tree or noticed them elsewhere, either.
I bought this lilac at a car boot about 15 years ago when it was about 18" tall, I think. Now look at it! This autumn I'm getting the 'tree man' back to prune some of my shrubs, they're just getting too exuberant and I can't reach up in this one to cut off all the dead heads. 
Each flowering point has two flowers and the scent as you walk past is like a cloud of talc.
I've always known these as Welsh poppies and they're usually yellow but somehow over the years a lot of them have become orange - or they've been transferred from someone elses garden. This one grabbed my attention because the ?calyx is still on the flower.
These pesky bluebells are growing from a fuchsia magellanica so they're a permanent fixture! They are pretty, though. The tulips are Jan Roos, a favourite of mine, and Gillian's, too. The half pot is covering a clematis and this is where, a couple of years ago, a badger dug out what I now know must have been a honeybees nest. I was watching the Nature programme on BBC2 last night and Chris thingy mentioned that bees do nest in the ground. 
The first allium is just beginning to open and there are lots more to come. I can't remember which kind this is. I've found that as Gillian now plants everything I lose track of what is where. This year we've resolved to pick up what we've been slack about the last couple of years and that's making a note of what goes where. I shall make labels from old margarine tubs which can be stuck in the ground... 
These Camassia were bought years ago at Toad Hall in Henley and have increased enough to have been able to split so I have three groups now. They come from North America, Oregon. The plant behind them is a Nandina, a present about 5 years ago. It has sprays of dainty white flowers and is evergreen, too.
Somehow, this year, I have lots of different tulips so I must have bought packets of mixed bulbs and left them to Gillian to plant or else they are bulbs from a few years ago which were turned out of their original pots and put in to 'see what will happen' to them. Whatever, they look bright and cheerful; the orangey flowers look like a Parrot or Fringed variety. Something - pigeons after fallen sunflower seeds or the badger trekking across the garden - have trampled the daffodil leaves in the background. 
More tulips with some of the last daffodils still remaining while in the foreground those little knobbly buds are alliums. I bought several varieties from a grower a few years ago and they obviously like my sandy soil as they've self-seeded into the path as well.
Forgetmenots are everywhere at the moment despite 'all' the plants being pulled up each year just as they begin seeding. Too late, obviously. But they make a nice blue carpet covering a multitude of things Gillian and I haven't been able to do yet. The tulips are in a blue pot for their second year, just ignored all winter; the pale ones are Holland Chic and the darker, central ones are called Burgundy. 
The primroses are still very much in evidence, tucked in with the forgetmenots.
Don't look at the weed in there! These dainty little flowers are epimediums, or Bishops Hat, or even Bishop's Mitre, from the shape of the pointed leaves. They're unobtrusive plants but in the autumn the leaves turn a reddish brown so they have quite a long season of interest.
Here's the detail of how the chest area is tightly packed with parts of shoes and the body is whole shoes. Some people are so clever! I wonder how many shoes went into making this - and the time and patience. 
and few years ago there was a sculpture of kites circling, also on this sort of scale.
