There were English Worcester apples in Tesco's on Saturday, and very nice they are too, though not as nice as the ones from our own garden, that I have been enjoying all September. I seem to have most of them to myself, the children find the one in twenty chance of finding a something living inside the apple is enough to put them off. Ann put some of them into an Apple Pie, where they proved very tasty.
The first two weeks of September were generally fairly dry, but very windy, and the last two weeks it has also been windy, but wet as well. Anna was on an outward bound type trip with the school on Thursday, and I was thought they must be having a terrible time with all the rain we had on Thursday. but they seemed to miss the worst of it on the welsh coast, and enjoyed the same bright weather we did on Friday. Saturday was even better, T shirt weather all day, and I got to play a little tennis with John in Princes Park.
We visited Calderstones park early on in September, and in the old english garden there is a tree with catkins that fifteen inches long or more. We had gone in search of conkers, but Anna was the first to find one that day, when she John and I went for a run before breakfast she stopped to tie her laces, and one fell on the pavement beside her, and it took a while to convince her that I had not thrown it at her.
The beginning of Septemer saw the red trumpet vine flowers against a green background of leaves, from both their own plant and the Boston Ivy. The trumpet vine leaves are still green, but there is now a mass of brilliant red from the Boston Ivy. Most of the flowers in bloom at the end of August stayed with us throughout September, including the Honeysuckle, Japanese Anenomes and Rudbeckia, but of them all the yellow coryopsis is the most vibrant still. Looking out at the front garden on sunny mornings it was always the dark burgundy flowers of the Weigeila bush that caught my eye.
From the earliest days of September the honeylocust trees on Queens Drive at Stoneycroft started to turn a deep red colour, and several horsechestnut trees started turning a pale yellow colour. I do not know how it is, but just opposite Lark Lane, and at other points on that side of Sefton Park, there are horsechestnut leaves turning red, but on this side, and all my journey to work they are only ever yellow. There are some beautiful trees turning red at various points, some maple trees just off Binns Road, and some others along Rathbone Road.
In Sefton Park the palmhouse is now restocked with plants and open to the public. There are some times it is not open; I have already seen photograghs from a wedding held there, and these private functions help generate the income required for the maintenance, so that public access at other times can be free of charge. There is more to be completed yet, including the facilities at the lower level.
We, and about 19,000 others are being consulted by the city council about traffic around the park, and one of the questions is whether people want the Ironbridge at the end of Queen's Drive opened to the public?
Mike Pendray
3 October 2001
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