The rush every morning to get the hubs to work and son to college is crazy. Today the boy was late again. Hubs had a luncheon meeting so he didn't fancy traveling 25 km to the office and back to the city for lunch. So he decided to drop the boy off at college and asked me to jump in for a drive. When he has that glint in his eye I know something special is happening.
I hopped in the car and we drove as fast as we could. Traffic is picking up here as offices are saying goodbye to working from home with the covid situation improving.
After we dropped our son off at the gate of the university we drove through a different route and I know better than to ask my husband where we are going. He'd always come up with some crazy answers. We stopped at a restaurant for breakfast, I protested that breakfast was ready at home, he said we'll have that for lunch with a wicked grin on his face. We hopped back into the car and drove homewards. The hubs was talking way too much, I didn't mind it at all. These are rare days and I let him ramble on. The car suddenly stopped.
He said, "look out of the window." There was this short rather deformed looking tree full of flowers. There were a few others like us who stopped to admire this tree. I ran my hand over the bark and ouch, my finger was bleeding so heavily. This strange tree has a rough spikey trunk. Not a nice way way to learn these facts.
What was special about the tree? Did you ask that? I am glad you did. It was so beautiful. I mean really beautiful. It is known as the Erythrina crysta-galli or the Coral cockspur tree. It flowers from April to September. So, what we thought as spectacular blooms were the dying embers of this magnificent flowering season.
I was sad that I missed seeing the tree in full bloom. I got myself a few seeds pods from the tree which were still hanging there, most had split open and were curled strands of hair. I hope these will germinate and I'll get myself a bonsai of the cockspur tree. I tried sourcing this tree a few months back online, but I couldn't find one the size I wanted. It was also heftily priced.
We walked around a few blocks in the neighborhood to see if they had this tree. Apparently none of them were to be found. So we went to a nearby plant nursery to look for these trees but we were told that these were rarely in stock.
All I could do was take some pictures before hopping on to the car and driving back home.
This is the hubs. The love of my life!!
He may not like me adding his picture here, but I just felt like it. He is always smiling, but the sun is making him screw up his face LOL He is always taking me some place to see some tree or flower because he knows I love these things. This was a planned trip for him, but a surprise for me.
This made my Wednesday picture perfect!!
Thank you 
All images used in this post are mine.
Thank you for reading and supporting my posts everyone.
