Jane and the Cactus Flower

Stapelia lepida

Jane gave me an amazing cactus flower - the carrion flower, or Stapelia lepida.   Captain Butterfly has photographed it, as if I tried to describe it, you wouldn't believe me.  We had done nearly two hours on the doors - not walking all the time - we did some of my magazine route calls - and Jane kindly did the driving!   And she made us a coffee afterwards in her lovely garden - a courtyard oasis.

I come in two lovely colourways:
1. Corpse just fished from the river White
or
2. Boiled lobster Red.

and as it was a hot hot morning, I favoured the Boiled lobster.   Everyone else is going a lovely shade of brown in the sunshine.   But we had some much needed rain in the night.  The Green looks slightly less brown.


As we remember the dead of 1914, "the war to end wars", and as war rages in the Crimea, and the horrors in the Middle East continue, I read of yet another murder the streets of the UK.

Mark Roberts was walking home when he was set upon by  a 17 year old who knocked him down and kicked and stamped him to death.  The girl with him filmed her friend doing this on her iphone - rather than calling for help or an ambulance.

The murderer was "high on drink and drugs" at the time.   He has been sentenced to serve at least 12 years and 3 months.

So our lives are held very cheap by the law.  And the young lad should be in fit stomping form when he comes out to terrorise us all again.

What did those who died in 1914 die fighting for?    It is a good thing that the dead are "conscious of nothing at all" or they might well be wondering right now.
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