After a six month break I have decided to bring back my monthly books & links posts. I borrow most of the books I read because I find that if I buy books, I feel guilty if I don’t enjoy them and end up stalling over a book rather than casting it aside and trying something new. I sometimes buy secondhand books because I feel less guilty about abandoning them if I spend less on them, and I also buy books by authors I know and love when they release a new title.
This little succulent has been threatening death all winter long. It kept dropping leaves – they’d pucker and turn yellow then fall off – whether I left it completely dry or gave it a tiny bit of water. Towards the end of January it started etiolating (stretching out in search of light) and whilst I could empathise, I was also ready to give up on it altogether. Fast forward to the start of April, and I put it out on the balcony under my cold frame, thinking that the cold might kill it, but the extra light might save it. It hasn’t dropped any leaves recently and it has turned a lovely pink with the cold stress of being outside.
On Friday Ed afternoon and I visited Sutton Park for the first time this year. Sutton Park is a little bit too far out of the city to be considered ‘local’ and so we hadn’t been since December when Birmingham was put in Tier 4 and then a national lockdown. I took my long lens with me, hoping I might see the ponies, and when we arrived at Little Bracebridge Pool found two of them bathing in the water. It has been a dream of mine to see the horses bathing in the lake, but I didn’t think it’d be something I witnessed as the times of day I am there are usually quite busy, and to access the lake the ponies need to cross the main footpath from the heathland. I was surprised to see that they still have their winter coats, but then again it’s been quite a cold start to spring this year.
