Every year I get together in the summer with a friend and we make an indigo vat. Dyeing with indigo is a mixture of chemistry and magic, rather like developing a film. I’m not going into the detail again as I’ve put up a couple of posts before…
Category: chemistry
No, not a rant about politics, but an explanation of the love-it-and-hate-it scent of the common hawthorn, or May Tree, also known as whitethorn and quickthorn (Crataegus monogyna). Just now, the roadside hedges are dotted with the linear wands of flowering hawthorn, and if you are on foot…
As well as being the title of an evocative novel by US author Anita Shreve, sea glass is a favourite amongst the beachcombing fraternity. Don’t think broken bottles lobbed onto the beach by drunks, but instead, imagine small frosted nuggets in many colours, transformed by the tumbling action…
If you live in grass-growing country (as I do here in the southwest of England), one of the most elusive and evocative scents of summer is the smell of the sweet vernal grass – as charming in its name as in its perfume. It flowers from spring onwards,…
After months of cold, wet and gloom, today was the first warm sunny day of the year. Combined with a spring low tide, this was the perfect opportunity for a seaside walk. I’ve visited Seaton many times, but never at such a low tide, which revealed a wave-cut…
They are tedding the hay in the field behind our garden today – we’ve had such a cool wet summer so far this is the first time it’s really felt like summer (i.e. hot and dry). Hay is best made in June, but mid-July it will have to…