A-Z Challenge 2013 - 'M'

My A-Z posts this year are based on my garden – flowers, animals, the birds and the bees, butterflies - with a bit of poetry thrown in. For some letters I am expecting to cheat somewhat – a sort of wish they were here.

M – Mahonia, Michaelmas Daisy, Magpie, Mallard, Moorhen

The mahonia bush we inherited in the front garden when we moved into our house over 20 years ago stands about three feet tall. At this time of year it shows a flower head like this:

Mahonia

Those buds develop into berries later in the year. Which bird takes a liking to them we do not know; something must because a second shrub has appeared in the garden at the back of the house.

Later in the year some daisies grow,

Michaelmas Daisies

Lilac and blue, the daisies nurse now
Quiet suns in a centre of petals.

You always know when there is mischief afoot when you hear these birds; their raucous noise sounds just like the House of Commons at PM’s Question Time – no wonder the collective name for a group of them is a parliament. We see a pair regularly now but it has not reached the stage when they are mobbed by other birds frightened for their young.

Magpie

One for sorrow,

Two for mirth,

Three for a wedding,

And four for death

This rhyme, first recorded around 1780, has its origins in superstitions connected with magpies. The magpie was considered a bird of ill omen in some cultures, and in Britain, at least as far back as the early sixteenth century

A bird that overflies us often is the  mallard. We even see them in the corner of a waterlogged field

Mallard Ducks

It does not cluck.
A cluck it lacks.
It quacks.
It is specially fond
Of a puddle or pond.
When it dines it sups,
It bottoms ups.

Mallards occur on my golf course at Billingham. There is a pond on the 11^th hole to which this verse could well apply:

In Spring in pond in grove by the old streamlet amongst the reeds the moorhen built her nest

A bulky mass just above the water level of flags and long dried grass the material she liked best

Moorhen

 But when it comes to dogs some take exception to being given a bath after rolling in deer droppings. Just to show who is in charge she dries off in the dirtiest spot she can find.

Maxie sulking

Poems:

• The Moorhen Pond – Francis Dugan
• Michaelmas Daisies – Ronald ‘Chalky’ White
• Mallard Duck – Albert Aunchman

900th Anniversary - Sunday Stamps

For the commemorative theme this week I went looking for oldest anniversary issue I could find. I came up with two 900th anniversary stamps

Westminster Abbey

This was issued on 28 February 1966, one of two commemorative stamps. The other which I have never seen other than as a facsimile was for 2 shillings and six pence.

My second stamp was one of a set of eight issued on 14 October 1966; again I only have the one.

Battle of Hastings 1066

Six of the set had 4d denominations and there was one at 6d and one at 1s 3d.

As regular visitors to my Sunday Stamps will know I have a pet market stall holder. This week I thought I had struck gold when I found a set of postcards.

Four postcards were attached to this commemorating events  by boat, plane, tram and train in 1938.

The Mallard - New World Record 126mph

 

The reverse carried a date stamp of 6 July 1938 at a place called Essendine - a station on the Mallard's route and a place near to my boyhood home.

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It wasn't until I had carried my 'treasure' home that I realised this stamp and those on the other cards were not real. They were all prints of Great Britain Europa stamps issued in 1988!

Nevertheless I did not feel I'd been robbed as the whole lot cost me 50p.

For other real commemoratives I suggest you visit other posts at Viridian's Sunday-stamps-98