Missing out in Cecilia

After our walk around the block, they left us with some delicious marrow bones - nyummmmm - and Patrick the Painter with some paint and coffee, and went for a walk in Cecilia with Sue and Pauline.

Well. What did I miss? A curly forest fern - Todea barbara maybe?

I missed seeing fairies in these dangly grass flowers.

I missed tea in the shade of a Rooiels (Cunonia capensis).

(The growth tips of the Rooiels look like spoons hence the English common name Butterspoon, and so Alice told us, if you snap the base of the "spoon" open, a buttery yellow liquid oozes out. Amazing!)

I missed seeing the Alph sitting in a grassy patch of Corn Lilies (Ixia polystacha),

ranging in colour from mauve to

white (and many other colours too, including yellow).

I missed hunting for mice in the yellow-flowering grass

and amongst the alien Red Valerian (Centranthus ruber).

I missed walking back to the car park down the cool  river under the trees. (Even though some of them are bad alien trees drinking all the mountain's water like these Eucalyptus trees.)

I missed seeing the friendly car guard who colour co-ordinates with the cars.

But I didn't miss the heat!

And it was fantastic when they came home again! Later on they had some wine - a present from some friends who came to dinner the other night - called Four Paws. And even though the pawprint on the bottle is meant to be a cat called Pablo, we all know that cats retract their claws so it can only have been a dog paw print! Woof to that!