This lovely hymn always reminds me of my time giving community talks to WI groups, back in rural areas of Northern Ireland. The warm welcome given by these lovely ladies always seemed to be followed by a rendition of the hymn, deemed most suiting to start an evening in the company of the RSPB!
If you are a fan of flowers, butterflies and all things colourful,as I am, get yourself down to Wallasea on a nice sunny day and you'll be delighted with the wild flowers on display, colouring up the vast expanses of saltmarsh. The most obvious and impressive at the moment is the salsify, or tragopogon species, of which there are yellow and purple varieties. These flowers open until mid-day, which leads to their local name of 'jack goes to bed at noon', but what my inner child loves is the huge dandelion-clock-type seedheads scattered all over the seawalls at the moment. They are immmense!
Less conspicuous, but equally pretty are the little pink-striped bindweed and tiny sea thrift flowerheads. Later in the summer the marsh will be ablaze with the colour of sea lavendars, which resembles the everlasting statice blooms, and later still the sea asters, which may look just like Michaelmas daisies, to the gardeners amongst you.
I'm still getting to know my saltmarsh plants, as I discover them on our weekend wanders - so if you find something I haven't mentioned, please get in touch, post a picture or drop in and tell me all about it. Happy Wandering!
I've gone wild on Wallasea!