Sew2Speak

I’ve been walking past these plants every morning and evening for the last couple of weeks from my car to the office. They intrigue me because the leaves are rounded, the flowers are spherical and yet they look like thistles and should be prickly and have pointed sharp leaves. I expected the flower heads to open out more but they just remain little balls with a tuft of petals.

They are growing in a strip about 1m wide along the side of a field of wheat.

The strip is an amazing collection of wild flowers including evening primroses and dock plants. So much variety in such a small space. Along another side of the field, on the road where I park, is a row of abandoned fruit trees – apple and mirabelle. These trees are smothered in brambles and this year have an abundant crop of blackberries that are now turning black and juicy. In the mornings I often see rabbits and pheasants running across the roads and in the field.

And all this is still part of Frankfurt – admittedly the very outskirts of Frankfurt – but there are also a considerable number of large office buildings 500m up the road. Sometimes when I’m walking to the office I ask myself 3 reasons why I am happy today and I count one of the reasons to be that I can see natural things and enjoy them on my way to start my day in front of a computer. This is a trick I learnt on a training about selling. It is a way to get yourself into a positive mood and sometimes I need that boost when I don’t have a particularly pleasant day in front of me. It’s good to remember that we always have some reason to be positive about our lives.

The pictures aren’t brilliant because they were taken with my mobile phone, which is quite old now, so is not a state of the art phone camera.

Update 29.08.10: Yesterday evening I was told that these plants are burdock – of dandelion and burdock soft drink fame – at least in the UK.