Pot Luck

"I think it's some sort of Hemp" said our friend...

Just for a change, I'm sitting at the computer listening to torrential rain ricocheting off the lean-to greenhouse, and I've just had to put a light on in order to see where to get the memory card out of my camera, despite it being midday and August. 

It's great to be home!

We've been away from home for a week, visiting Jon's new baby grandson (plus proud parents and almost equally proud uncle), my folks in Southampton and a few other friends we haven't seen for years. 

For their own protection, a couple of these friends need to remain anonymous.  We spent a very enjoyable day in their company catching up on news, sharing photographs and eating probably the best cheese scones in the world, before taking a quick stroll around the garden between heavy showers.  We don't have a monopoly on them up here, evidently.

An unusual, elegant and architectural plant gracing the border close to their bird table caught my eye.  It was easily my height and had a leaf similar to an acer but clearly from its shape and growth habit it wasn't a tree.  "I think it's some sort of Hemp" said our friend.

Not an Urban Myth - something narcotic in the bird seed?

 It didn't look like anything routinely found on sale at the Garden Centre, that was for sure! 

It had apparently "just appeared" there, Officer. 

"Yeah, right!  Tell that to the Judge!" you might be thinking, but many years ago as a kid I can remember being told by my mother to sweep up all the wild bird seed that fell on the ground under the bird table because some of it was supposedly cannabis and she didn't want us to be arrested if it started growing. 

I always assumed this was an Urban Myth; certainly nothing that's ever fallen from my bird table has ever grown into anything that wasn't just wheat or oats.  Maybe I buy cheap and nasty bird seed compared to our (nameless) friends, or possibly the cool, wet Staffordshire climate doesn't favour germination in the same way as that of balmy Hampshire.

But I can't help wondering if we now know why those cheese scones taste so damned good!