Lichen Love

So after a busy summer here we are having a nice little break in the bonnie highlands of Scotland – and jolly bonny they are too. I include both spellings to clearly demonstrate my willingness to accept variations in spelling and grammar having been accused of previously being a grammar and spelling policeman-woman-person and conveniently switching my attitude when it came to a discussion of lichen today. OH likes to call it like-en, I call it litchen to rhyme with kitchen. Either is perfectly acceptable as I confirmed with a surprisingly high speed link to google from a far away place called Applecross.

The point was and is that the lichen here is truly beautiful. I have lichen envy. And moss envy too. I want to fill my garden in Worcestershire with these mosses and lichens and this will be testing my Gaia Gardening thinking to the max over the next few months because there is no way I’m going to manage it without her. We do have a little lichen on the old apples in the orchard and we do have a little moss here and there because the garden lies at the bottom of our own little valley and is quite damp – but I want MORE! However, you can’t order lichen and moss over the interweb so all I can do is slop some diluted yogurt around and hope my friend Gaia gets the idea.

In the meantime here are some pics of the lichen at The Walled Garden at Applecross which we stumbled across by accident though it appears it is actually quite a well known place with a well known kitchen in the old potting shed. We had a fabulous lunch and a lovely walk around the garden in the rain which we actually enjoyed just as much as our walk around Inverewe garden in the sunshine a few days ago.

This is my first visit to the Highlands and I am quite bowled over by its beauty. We’re staying in the fishing village of Plockton where last night we ate in the pub and listened to traditional music and where we have a sweet little self catering cottage called The Shed, which is really very nice but a little small for us as we are too old and unromantic to be living in such close proximity. Which reminds me of the eternal mystery of the ensuite bathroom….it never ceases to amaze me how many people book our room with the ensuite bathroom rather than the one with the bathroom next door. We really don’t need to be this close to….well whatever it is the other is doing in there….am off to turn the music up…..