I was eager to get out after torrential rain prohibited an overnighter and I was up with the proverbial larks this morning.

I packed up the day sack and on the spur of the moment, reached for the pocket cooker to cook breakfast on. I also took the small frying pan from the civilian trangia unit to make things easier.

The woods were very damp and the

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Went for a wander today around Hinton Ampner and spotted some nice trees to add to my personal photo journal of trees. I thought I would share three of the less usual types

 Heres the first - An Indian Bean Tree

 Sat on one of the leaves was a very attractive green spider -  Araniella Curcurbitina

Odd - looks like

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Went to Hinton Ampner today and had a great wander round the gardens. Saw some stunning trees but also these Damsel Fly pair mating and laying eggs

 Red

Hi there folks,

(For those who don't know me a little about me first), I'm wOOdsmoke. I'm a 38 year old guy (or as my good wife calls me...a big old grumpy xxxxr  from XXXX!) :-) This me below... (follow the link if it works!)

I live in a crazy wild concrete city and have done for the last two years. this is the first time I've lived in such a place since I was a a student. It is destroying me. I have worked in forestry, self employed fencer, dyker, sprayer

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Apparently it's not a very big place - I missed the exact dimensions - but plants abound here. While there are apparently around 1,400 native 'higher' plants in the UK, Popoluca has 2,700 and is a tropical montane cloud forest (are there lovelier words in the English language?) and a semi-dry oak forest. Sadly this doesn't really mean anything to me as I don't have enough knowledge to discriminate among the different types of forest but it all sounds lovely.

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"Every old person that dies is like a library burned down"

I've got mixed feelings about blogs - there's a nice Private Eye cartoon of someone "updating his blog" and can be seen at his screen typing "me, me, me, me, me" but even though it's a bit of a vanity project I thought I'd weigh in with 'what I did recently'.

As some people may know, I have a passing interest in the use of plants in medicines - more of a dilettante

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The woods were very quiet over the weekend. The Rook chics had fledged (Ah.. the peace) and the undergrowth had grown to such an extent it was difficult to see any wildlife. This forced me to wander around the meadows and fields area where I came across some Bee orchids, Iris, Common blue damselfly and the bright blue male broad-bodied chaser.

 On the way back

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Nothing to say really but what a lovely tree.....

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Went for a walk with Bushbaby round the local ruins today. A lovely day and a nice place that's well worth a visit - interesting trees, plants and birds as well as the ruins

Bishop Walthams Palace

Heres a few of the more interesting plants

Blown Reed Mace

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