Day 72: Wet wheels

Today was the first test of my dedication to Bike To Work Week: it was raining. The rain was light, and even though the roads were wet and there were some big puddles along University Boulevard, I enjoyed my ride to and from work. Hooray for quick-dry clothing.

I had put mud-guards on my bike the other night in anticipation of rain yesterday, but they weren't put to the test until today. And I must say it made a nice change to not have a muddy, wet streak up my back. I haven't owned a bike with mud-guards for nearly thirty years (wow - that's a long time when you write it out!). I remember the constant battles to keep a rear mud-guard attached on a bike I had at junior school, and the noisy rattling when it worked its way loose.

Back to flower photos - it's been a while. A couple of days ago I'd taken a short walk around the area to look for anything new to photograph and spotted lupines beginning to bloom on a slope near the hummingbird's favourite perch. Having not been inspired to take the camera out in the wet I went for the easy option and just went straight to those lupines today. I'm used to seeing much smaller plants: it's a bit of a shock to see them growing two-to-three feet high at this early stage of their growth. The emerging tower of blooms is really quite striking and I particularly like the change in colour from pale green at the tip through pinky-blue to deep violet. I'm looking forward to watching them grow - expect to see more of them. :-)

Lupine tower of flowers