Ilkeston - Rainbow
Colours
w/e 04 May 2008
All
this week's pictures were taken with a Kodak DX6490

When I saw the red and yellow tulips in the gardens of the Sudbury
Almshouses at the corner of Park Road and Park Avenue, it brought
to mind the words of the song "I can sing a rainbow".
So I set myself a challenge to find examples of flora within
the town displaying the other colours in the lyrics of the song.
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I looked up the lyrics to make sure I had the colours in the
correct order and found to my surprise that there are two versions
of the song. I decided to follow the one that starts "Red
and yellow and pink and green" and I knew there were numerous
examples of pink blossom to be seen all over the town. The area
that immediately sprang to mind was between Oakwell Crescent
and St Andrews Drive but as I had photographed that before I
chose this fine example on Nottingham Road instead.
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"Green" was easy but have you noticed how many different
shades there are of green? I think this view of Chaucer Old Park
shows a fair few of them.
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The next line
of the song is "Purple and orange and blue" and purple
proved a more difficult colour to capture. I remember a few weeks
ago seeing some purple flowering nettles on the Manners Link
but they have probably gone by now. I did find some pretty purple
flowers (left) growing wild at the side of a footpath leading
to the Erewash Canal. I also remembered the purple aubrietia
that always puts on a glorious display at a property adjacent
to the Stanton Road Cemetery but again, I had photographed that
before. In the end I decided to resort to taking this shot of
two different varieties of aubrietia growing in our own garden.
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The Borough Council gardeners have used a number of orange coloured
flowers on the traffic islands and other flower beds around the
town and marigolds would have been an obvious choice for this
colour. I hope though that there is enough orange in these tulips
at the Cenotaph in front of the Library to pass muster here.
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 At this time of
year, the obvious choice for "Blue" is a bluebell filled
wood and indeed, a visit to Shipley Wood (above and left) produced
a number of images. I could of course have resorted once again
to our own garden and used an image of forget-me-nots (right).
As my wife pointed out I could probably have captured all the
colours there too without traipsing all over town - but where's
the fun in that!
"Red and yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and
blue.
I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow too."
by Arthur Hamilton from the film Pete Kelly's Blues.
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