Narrow gaps

This week the Photo Challenge from the Daily Post is Narrow.

Earlier this year I blogged from A to Z in April here and on Sue’s Trifles, where my post for N was N is for Narrow. I posted a photo there.

My photo here is on the same theme. The breakwaters or groynes around the British coast serve to take energy from the waves and lessen the impact on the coast during stormy weather. They help prevent the sand and pebbles being washed away. The groynes themselves take a battering and have to be repaired regularly. The storms last winter were particularly severe and the damage to groynes and at least one footbridge has not yet been repaired.

Could the person squeeze through?

It is National Marine Week from 23 July to 7 August 2016, so my choice of photos fits with this theme.  The second photo is of the Beached Art event organised by the Wildlife Trusts.

Beached Art with groyne

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Z is for Zygocactus

This is my post for the letter Z in the Blogging from A to Z in April Challenge.  My theme is plants.

I mentioned this project to a friend, who said, “Z will be difficult.”  I had already discovered that some of my indoor plants begin with Z.  These are the Christmas cacti.  As I have two different types, I decided to look them up on Wikipedia.  I learned that all the plants formerly known as zygocactus have been swallowed up in the genus Schlumbergera.

Christmas cactus

I am not going to change my mind and look for a zinnia to help me out here.

There are very short posts on Sue’s Trifles for the A to Z in April Challenge.

 

Y is for Yucca

This is my post for the letter Y in the Blogging from A to Z in April Challenge.  My theme is plants.

None of the gardens belonging to places I have lived have boasted a yucca.  A neighbour in the next street had one in her front garden, when I was a child.  Being determined to have a photo of a yucca for my Y post, I was being vigilant as I travelled around, waiting for the flowering season of this unusual plant.

There is one in a garden on the edge of the next town, but no opportunity to snap it.

The plants here in Northern England mostly flower later than farther south as was the case with my L post.

I was about to go to Kent and was hopeful that my quest for a photo would be successful there.

On arrival in Kent Mum and I went to look around the grounds and I found a yucca.  It was in flower, but past its best.  I took a photo while the weather was fine and before all the flowers fell off.

Yucca at Burrswood

Later that week we visited some gardens nearby and there were some wonderful examples of yuccas.

Yucca at Groombridge Place

On my return I told a few people about my quest and the outcome.  Some were unaware that these plants flower.  Others had difficulty with my accent.  I prefer the northern U sound to ŭ.  (My yucca rhymes with a southerner’s “book a”, whereas a southern accent sounds like “buck a”.)

How do you pronounce Yucca?

There are very short posts on Sue’s Trifles for the A to Z in April Challenge.