I’m bouncing back with a typically mixed bag of pictures (including one approaching a red herring) for the last gasp of Becky’s red-themed July Squares.
You’d be excused for thinking this was a corner of Texas, from the lone star flag and the car tag on the door, but no.
Suzie’s birdhouses have had at least one lick of paint and perhaps two since my original post.
I’ve not been taking as many pictures of late, so to encourage myself to do better, I’m only sharing ones taken in the last few months.
As you see, I’ve been away, but got back to the UK in plenty of time to enjoy the drama of watching our Lionesses bring home the European cup (a football reference, for those who are not fans). I wish the rest of the news was half as uplifting.
I hope everyone reading is OK – sending my very best wishes and thanks for sticking with me through my lengthy blogging droughts.
If you have a moment to spare, check out some of the other SimplyRed submissions. Thanks for hosting, Becky!
Susan Rushton 
Great selection
It was fun to choose them. Reds are rarer, in my photo library at least.
Mine too
Welcome back and nice reds!
Thanks – it’s good to be back.
Love the Playhouse and sardinhas.
Absence makes the heart grow fonder? I wish I could stop six wording xx
Do you do the six word stories? Those are my favourites.
I used. Not so much lately xx
oh wow what a delight of red, and than manhole cover is incredible – wish I could paint as I’d love to brighten up my road with art like this
I wish I could paint too. I wonder what styles we’d have.
Nice to see you back on here Susan. I have missed your flowers! But you have given us all a lovely selection of reds. I too love the sardines, now I wonder who I can get to paint my manhole covers? 🤔
Not Banksy, or they’d all be stolen.
A great selection of reds, I love the rd amaryllis and the painted colonnade.
The colonnade was at the Museum of Contemporary Native Arts. We didn’t have chance to go inside, but the outside was like a gallery.
I great flurry of red is a fitting tan-ta-ra for your return! So nice to find you here! Uplifting news? Can’t be had. So it’s good to see red-checked curtains and billows of red roses. And good to be reminded of victories celebrated. Thanks!
I have a rule always to stop for a climbing rose in full bloom, if I possibly can. Otherwise the regrets are surefire. I’m still sorry about driving past so many hollyhocks on that journey. I’d thought of them as quintessentially English flowers, but I evidently got that all wrong.
Oh, hollyhocks! I think they are quintessentially everyone’s flower. They are so summer! Even if you didn’t get photos of them, you got to see them. Your rule to stop for a climbing rose is perfectly logical.
They are much more unusual to see at their peak than the rose sellers might have us believe. I regret the ones I see where the blooms have all gone over just as much, although that’s wishing I’d happened upon them earlier. I once saw a huge Rosa mutabilis covered in spent blooms that was trained flat as a climber against a wall. That’s no mean feat with that particular rose, especially in England.
Timing is everything, I guess. There would be something majestic, in a melancholy way, I’d think, with the spent blooms. What a way to say “I gave it all I had!”
Hello stranger! Lovely to have you back. And with such a Red post too. I love your American examples too. All so cheery!
It’s nice to catch up with everyone. Thanks for your kind words!
Great photos. I am guessing someone is missing Texas.
I think so too. A Texas from an earlier era.
A fine set; the sardines are fun
Thanks, Derrick. The sardines have been the most popular.
Lots of lovely reds. I love the sardine tin manhole cover. That rose is amazing.
The sardines were in the Hattiesburg Pocket Museum alley. They have lots of whimsical exhibits, including miniatures dotted around. My favourites were the weeds labelled as tiny gardens.