Enjoy the flowers of summer - Rebecca Perry says simple blooms can be a delight
	KEEN gardeners tend to prefer seeing flowers in full bloom in the garden but you don't have to demolish plants to provide enough for a display that will brighten up a room in the house.

	Stately routes of commerce - Maureen James looks at our canals and inland waterways – past, present and future
	I GREW up about two miles from the Grand Union Canal and spent quite a bit of my childhood watching the narrowboats navigating their way through the locks.

	Taking a walk on the wildside - Saffron Summerfield gets children listening and looking at the countryside
	EARLY one morning, while listening to the local news droning on in the background, one of the items made me sit up and take notice. It was the dreadful acknowledgement that many UK children do not know that carrots grow in the ground. Worse still, in its raw state many did not recognise it!

They’re ‘bringing in the May’

Hal an tow, jolly rumble oh We were up long before the day oh To welcome in the summer To welcome in the may oh The summer is a-comin' in And winter's gone away oh In the Middle Ages it was the custom, in the south of Britain and in other places in Europe, on May morning for people to gather flowers and foliage to celebrate the coming of summer. This was known as "bringing in the May", and was even mentioned by Chaucer in his "Court of Love" in which he explained how all the Court "fetch the flowers fresh and branch and bloom". Malory's Mort D'Arthur also contains reference to Queen Guinevere going to the May woods dressed in green silk to collect fresh herbs, flowers, and mosses.