Definitely a touch of summer

Today’s picture is another from my son’s recent visit to America.  They had a plan to visit famous landmarks but they think that they might have been able to get a little closer to this one if they had gone round the other side.

We had a warm and pleasant summer’s day today and after last year, it was more than welcome.  Even if it rains for the rest of the summer, we have done better already this year than in the whole of the last summer.  The garden is looking colourful, the grass is growing, the bees are buzzing, the fruit is appearing on trees and bushes.  Dropscone is up and about.  Everything is good.

After breakfast, I went up to check on the photo exhibition and found fellow archivist Nancy giving the pictures the once over.

Although we have a couple of gaps on the wall where we are waiting for a late exhibitor to arrive, the walls are well covered and there are about 75 pictures to view which should be enough for anyone.  There is a good variety of subjects and styles too.  The room acts as a tourist incarnation point which explains the table covered in brochures.

I returned home in time to make coffee for Dropscone who arrived on his bike complete with a set of treacle scones.  He has got some stiffness in his shoulder and a sore hip but is very cheerful under the circumstances.  He is wondering whether he might even try to play golf tomorrow.

After we left, Mrs Tootlepedal and I put a netting cage round the strawberries.  This was none too soon as there is a tinge of redness to be seen on some of the fruit.  They are looking really healthy and I just hope that we get to eat them before the slugs destroy them.

I took a moment to mow the front lawn, which is now looking reasonable and Mrs Tootlepedal tells me that she has put some blood, fish and bone on the new bit of the middle lawn which was looking a bit peaky.

I also took a few pictures.

I have been waiting for this plant to burst into flower….

It’s a Rodgersia

…but Mrs Tootlepedal tells me that this is it in flower so I took its picture.  Not one of the blooms that is going to live in my memory.  Just behind it is a guelder rose.

The yellow azalea is reaching the end of is glory but still has picture or two left in it.

As a jackdaw flew overhead, I thought that I would try to see how quick my new lens could focus….

Not bad for an early attempt.  The bird wasn’t gliding but flying quite fast so the outlook is promising.

Mrs Tootlepedal was struck by the number of young frogs in the pond as she passed by.

As I may have remarked before, I don’t think that we have ever had so many at this time of year.

There was just time to catch a siskin being shouted at…

…before it was time for lunch and my weekly turn in the tourist information point at the Kilngreen.  The better weather is bringing a few tourists out and I have already met more than in the whole of last summer, though it was disappointing that my first two customers were only wanting to know which was the best road out of town.

I had taken my camera and the teleconverter with me to give them a try and in a quiet moment, I took two pictures to show what a fine summer’s day it was.

Sheep resting in the shade on the Castleholm across the Ewes Water

Hawthorn (may) blossom on the flanks of Castle Hill.

When I finished, I cycled up to see of the nuthatches were still at their nest but as I expected, they seemed to have gone.  I cycled home and sieved a little compost to cheer myself up.

A young teacher, who is a member of both the community choir and the Langholm Church choir came for tea.  She is nearing the end of her year in the primary school in Langholm and has been amazed at how much there is to do in the town.  She has thrown herself enthusiastically into  the life of the town and will be missed when she goes.  She wonders if her new job London will offer her so many opportunities for entertainment.

In a sign of how good the weather has been, Mrs Tootlepedal set up the sprinkler in the vegetable garden.  I took a look at the blackbirds’ second attempt to raise a family.

Going well so far.

There are plenty of young sparrows about too.

This one is old enough to feed itself.

In the evening, two of the recorder players came to our house in Langholm and we were joined by Susan and we had an enjoyable evening of quartets ancient and modern.  It was nice not to have to go to Carlisle to play for once.  One of them was my friend Sue who gave me the sour dough starter and under her supervision, I purchased a banneton online.  It is a basket used for shaping the bread dough while it rises.  I am now hoping for artistic as well as tasty loaves.  She also gave us some home made dried tomatoes in oil which she is experimenting with.  They have been dried in the oven rather than sun dried as even in a good year, you could wait a long time for the sun to dry your tomatoes round here.

The prize for the showiest flower of the day goes to this flag iris which is now fully out.  They don’t last long but they are splendid while they do last.

A genuine flying bird was on hand as well.  It was a goldfinch taken at 200mm with the new lens.  I’ll have to work on the settings so that I can get the whole bird in focus but it does show that the lens will do what I need, which is lucky.

 

 

 

 

Elapsed time

Today’s picture features two highly decorative London ducks spotted by my daughter Annie some time ago but only forwarded to me recently.

This morning did not quite go to plan.  Dropscone and I set out to go round the morning run in pleasantly dry, warm but cloudy weather.  I had my new GPS counter with me and was anxious to set a base time for the circuit which I could use as a comparison in later rides.  It allows me to stop at road junctions (of which there are many on the route) without adding to the time taken by pedalling and in the end offers me my ride time and my elapsed time which counts all the stops.

Dropscone was in his smoothest pedalling mood and this allowed me to control my breathing well and I was really enjoying myself and we were posting an excellent average until not only did some time elapse but Dropscone elapsed too. The cause of his downfall was the misfortune of meeting a white van coming round a blind corner on a very narrow road when he was riding just behind me.  I managed to squeeze past on the verge but was too busy trying not to fall off to shout a warning and by the time he looked up, the van was upon him with no way round.    When I looked round, Dropscone was on the tarmac and the van was bearing down on him.  Luckily the driver was not on his mobile phone and managed to come to halt actually touching Dropscone but not running him over.

I feared the worst but miraculously not only was Dropscone’s new bike unharmed but Dropscone himself was able to get up with no more damage than a bruised hip and shoulder.  Even more amazingly, he got back on the bike and pedalled back to Langholm with me.  He is truly one of Britain’s hardy sons.  This all only happened because I had asked if we could set off half an hour earlier than usual so I felt rather guilty.

A quick visit to the doctor confirmed that there was nothing broken and I last saw him clutching a pack of frozen sausages to his bruised shoulder on medical advice.

The details of the ride with the elapsed time may be seen on the Garmin page:  morning run

After all this excitement, I collected myself together and went up to the town to check on the opening of the photo exhibition.  It opened at ten 0′clock and this was the reason for the early start for our cycle ride.  I went to check whether the person who was doing the tourist information duty which is based in the gallery  had any questions.  They had none but this was because they weren’t there so I had to sit in their place for an unexpected three hours minding the exhibition and doling out information to a couple of tourists.  I went out and bought another newspaper with a good crossword and a delicious packet of biscuits and managed to pass the time quite happily.

All this meant that I wasn’t able to take a photo until the afternoon.  I took one which I combined with another taken later on to show how well some large flowers have survived the wind and the rain.

…but I didn’t have the opportunity to take any more because a message on the answer-phone had told me that all was in place to collect my new lens from the shop in Carlisle.  Mrs Tootlepedal is always up for a trip to Carlisle so after lunch we set off.  While Mrs Tootlepedal went off to buy some clothes, I went to the shop.  The salesman surprisingly increased his original offer for the lens involved in the trade in when he saw that it had been well looked after.  Clutching my new lens in my hot little hand, we went home and I fitted it to the camera.  It worked.  Here is the first photo that I took with it.

It is not a great picture but by this time the day had got very overcast and the light was poor.  I took one or two more.

A young sparrow tries a fat ball

An old sparrow looks on

A duunock looks at the poor quality of the middle lawn in despair.

A blue tit looks around

A siskin shows me that the feeder needs repairing.

I even took a flower photo with it.

A flag iris nearly fully  out.

All in all, I was very pleased with my purchase.  It is much heavier than my old lens so I will have to use it sparingly or make more use of my tripod.  For the technically minded it is a AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm 1:2.8GII ED and I bought it with a AF-S Teleconverter TC-20EIII 2x which means that it can act as a 400mm lens if I need it to.  I know that you will be interested to learn that the teleconverter is aspherical.  All this means that my children should now have greatly reduced expectations of being left anything in my will as they were not cheap.

I put it away because of the poor light and took my little lens out to look at flowers.  The garden has got something new as often as not when I look.

Mrs Tootlepedal’s mini meadow of hawkweed and pheasant tail grass is coming on well.

The lupin has found some friends

A very dark iris has appeared

Mrs Tootlepedal tells me this is a Scotch Burnet rose

Someone had switched the lights on in the nectaroscordum

The alliums are going over but are still spectacular

The garden is full of bees which is encouraging.  We just need a few butterflies.

My flute pupil Luke was at a school concert so didn’t come for a lesson tonight.  While I was putting things away, there was a commotion outside.  An unknown dog had invaded the garden and refused to come to hand.  A phone called established the identity of the owner and he came to collect it.  A fiercer and more fearsome beast to have your garden would be hard to imagine.

Bracken

After tea, I went out to play with Mike and Isabel and we very much enjoyed playing a trio for oboe, cello and piano by J J Quantz.  I played the oboe part on a tenor recorder and it went very well.  We played played a selection of other pieces and had a good evening.  In a moment of madness, Isabel has promised to try to teach me to sing and I have been given a book of early Italian operatic arias to practise.  This will lead to tears (mine and Isabel’s) but I am going to give it a real go.

In the dim light, my new lens had a go at a flying bird of the day.  It will get better with practice too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hanging around

Today’s picture comes from my son Anthony who is on holiday at Mojacar in the south of Spain.

The day here started rather gloomily and Mrs Tootlepedal felt she needed her new waterproof coat as she pedalled off to sing in the church choir…

…but it didn’t take long for things to brighten up and by lunchtime, the sun was out and it was a glorious summer day.  Meantime, I had a busy morning seeing our B&B guests off, doing a bit of tidying up, starting a sourdough loaf and wandering round the garden.

The comfrey was playing host to some of the many bees who could be heard buzzing round the garden.

A new clematis has arrived on the scene with quite an impact.

When Mrs Tootlepedal returned, I left to go to the town hall to check that all was ready in the gallery for our photo exhibition.  There was quite a bit of organising to be done after the Neil Armstrong exhibition had been moved out but it was soon looking ready for our pictures.

I returned home for lunch and heard the lawns crying out to be mowed so after I had attended to that, it was more than time for a sit down and rest.

I had intended to go for a pedal after lunch but didn’t quite get round to it and took some flower pictures instead.

A geranium selection

Another geranium

 

mimulus or musk

The only rose in the garden at the moment

There is a colourful show of bedding plants to replace the tulips and daffodils along the drive.

The bright sun had brought the frogs out to sun themselves on the lily pads.

At one point I was going past the bird feeders and as usual the birds flew off with the exception of a redpoll which gave flight a moment’s thought and then realised that eating was more important.

There are only one or two left visiting the feeders now.

I baked the sourdough loaf and then at four o’clock went up to open the gallery so that the exhibitors could hang their pictures.   Not everyone arrived but we still have plenty of pictures for the show and the general opinion is that we have got better since last year’s effort.  Let’s hope any visitors think so too.

Sandy hanging a picture with a critical audience.

On my return, I couldn’t resist another flower shot.

Mrs Tootlepedal has been very pleased by the recovery of a very blue flower which looked as though it was on its way out but has fought back well.

Lithospermum

The siskins were so busy arguing that they let me get quite close to them.

WordPress dropped me a note today to say that it was exactly three years since I started this blog.  Since then I have cycled just under 15,000 miles and posted 1089 (almost) daily diaries which have become significantly more polluted with photos as my interest in photography has developed.  I now have 15,261 images in my media library.

My readership has grown from two (my sister to Susan and my daughter Annie) to a fairly regular 60 to 70.  Many of these are one off visitors, people following searches for odd words and phrases, some of whom must be amazed to find out what they have clicked on, but quite a few are regular readers.  I would like to thank those of you who take the time and trouble to read the blog and especially those who comment either to me in person or on the blog as it encourages me to try to improve my photo skills (and to try to find something interesting to say even on a dull day.).

One of the best things about writing the blog is that it has been the means of coming across other blogs and  bloggers and I have had a great deal of fun and pleasure (and education)  in reading about cycling, gardening and photographic adventures in blogs from all over the world as well as corresponding with their writers.   Not to mention an excellent holiday.

I found a flying bird today.

 

 

 

 

Driven not to despair but to Warrington

Today’s picture, taken by my sister Mary yesterday on a sunny walk in London, shows the rich and mighty competing to see who can build the silliest looking building.   The building on the extreme left is hors de compétition.

I’ve not much to say about today as it was mostly spent in driving Granny to Warrington and exchanging her for a nice packet of shortbread from Tresco where my brother-in-law and his family have been having seaside fun while Granny was with us….and then driving home without her.

I snatched a shot of a developing lupin before I left.

The journey itself was uneventful in the extreme.  We had been promised never-ending heavy showers but by good fortune, all but one of them passed either in front or behind us on the way down and the one we hit only lasted a few minutes.  For the rest of the time Granny was able to admire the beautiful hills that we passed through.  The traffic was so light that even with reducing my speed for the last 50 miles, we still arrived at our rendezvous half an hour early.

After coffee, Mike and Frankie arrived and we enjoyed a light lunch with them.  I had given Granny a bag of sunflower hearts to take home as she had been impressed by our finches and by coincidence, Mike presented me with a large bucket of fat balls.  The sparrows will be pleased as I had just run out of these.  We then set off on our respective return journeys.  There was even less traffic on my way home and the sun shone continuously until I reached the border, eight miles from home, when it started to rain.  I can’t remember a less stressful motorway journey of just under 300 miles.

The rain out paid to my plan to go to check on the nuthatches to see if the young ones have left the nest and instead I stood at the back door and enjoyed a lively few minutes of action from the siskins.

My new lens has arrived at the shop in Carlisle but the repair to my old lens, essential for agreeing a trade-in price, has not yet been completed so I am waiting impatiently for a call from the camera shop.

Meanwhile I looked at a few flowers when the rain relented.  The garden got a bit of a battering from wind and rain today and Mrs Tootlepedal said sadly that everything had been flattened.  She was a bit pessimistic because some things had survived.

The orange hawkweed is progressing nicely.

A new poppy was sensibly keeping its petals shut until a better day.

The old one made a contrast with a bright new daisy.

A reader had said that I shouldn’t badmouth the nectaroscordum without looking up at its flowers.  I can’t bend down that far but I held the camera underneath and clicked hopefully.

It turns out to be the street light of the vegetable world.

I prefer the aquilegias which look good from above and below..

And that was that.

The flying bird of the day was caught with a cheerful floral background.

 

 

 

 

Fly me to the moon

Today’s picture shows some Edinburgh gulls having a family outing at breakfast time  on the roof opposite my son Alistair’s flat.

It was a windy, showery day today but if you picked your moment, there were opportunities to work and play.  I picked a dry spell to have another tentative pedal of thirteen miles just to keep my legs turning over.  Once again, my snazzy new GPS device told me that cycling downhill with the wind behind was the right way to go.  The wind was quite brisk so I was pleased to have had modest ambitions.

I got home in time to avoid a shower of rain which was very satisfactory.  I felt less tired and that was satisfactory too.

After lunch, the weather faired up a bit and I went round the garden.  There were good things to be seen….

Looking down on a peony bowed down by the rain and wind. You get a lot of petals with a peony for your money.  You can buy them I believe to throw at people.

…and very bad things
.

The evil sawfly caterpillars infesting my gooseberry.

Then it started to rain again so I went indoors.

Ten minutes later, it had stopped.  We have had a regular pair of dunnocks picking over the lawn but in the absence of my long lens, I haven’t been trying to shoot them.  Just for the record I took a shot today and it shows the brisk wind ruffling a few feathers.

I went out to inspect my tomato plant in the greenhouse and was excited to see a lone flower.

My record for successfully growing tomatoes is extremely patchy but maybe this will be the year.  I am going to concentrate.

I retired indoors for a rest and admired the great number of sparrows that manage to feed on the fat balls simultaneously.

Possibly a new family group

I found a moment when the weather looked set fair (for a while at least) and got the hedge trimmer out and gave the hedge along the road a short back and sides.

Mrs Tootlepedal wielded the brush after I had finished trimming and and barrowed off the clippings and she made a really good job of the leaving things neat and tidy.  I am trying to summon up the patience to put the trimmings through our shredder as I tend to find large clumps of un-rotted hedge leaves in the middle of an otherwise good compost heap if they are not handled carefully.

While I was outside, I took the camera round the back of the house to record an aquilegia which has self seeded in the middle of the potentillas along the dam.

It must have jumped clean over the roof of the house.

The early blooming  potentillas are going at full steam ahead.

In the garden, I spotted some hostas.

Plain and fancy

For the first time this year, there were quite a lot of bees buzzing around and the pond has a good stock of frogs.

The frog population may be thanks to the complete lack of ducks on the dam this year, coupled with no visits from any herons.

I enjoyed a bit of nature’s geometry…

…and went out to visit the honeysuckle which grows through the hedge and offers a pleasant perfume to the passing pedestrian.

Exhausted by alliteration, I headed in. On my way back in, I took a picture to show that there are plenty of greens to set off the flowers in the garden.

We had two returning B & B guests today, one of whom is a keen bird watcher on her way to study gannets on the east coast.  Before arriving, they had stopped off in a layby on the Langholm Moor in the wild hope of seeing one of our hen harriers and after quite a long wait wondering if they were in the right place and looking in the right direction, they were delighted to have seen a pair of them.  We were very pleased for them.

I went in to watch a bit of the tennis and then after tea went out again to try to catch a flying bird of the day.  I shot a sitting bird.

Resting rather than racing.

This racing pigeon has been resting in our garden for some time.  We have contacted a pigeon fancier who might try to catch it and send it back to its owner.

Later in the evening, Mrs Tootlepedal and I went off to sing four songs with our choir at an event to honour Neil Armstrong.   Our accompanist wasn’t available so a passing young organist from Amsterdam (formerly of Langholm) kindly stood in at the last moment and, all things considered, it went quite well.

I am taking Granny south tomorrow and the forecast is looking iffy so it will be early to bed for me tonight.

This, believe it or not, is a flying bird (going away).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mixed weather, mixed day

Today’s picture, direct from sunny California, shows the fruit growing in Fraser and Lesley’s garden.  I would be very pleased to be able to pick an apricot or two as I strolled through the garden as they can.

After rain in the night, the morning was grey but warm and dry and with not much of a wind.  I was still feeling tired and wondered whether a gentle pedal would blow the cobwebs away.  This also gave me the opportunity to test my capability to get  my new GPS computer to record laps as I intended to pedal up and down the three miles to Wauchope Schoolhouse two or three times so as not leave myself with a long way to get home.

On my way up the second lap, I encountered a supersonic blur which turned out to be Dropscone finishing a turn round the morning run.  I was passed on my way down the second lap by a pair of serious pedallers, too busy to exchange a word with me as they flew by.  They had their noses so close to their front wheels, that sparks were flying.

I found that twice up and down was more than enough for me and returned to check the thirteen miles on my computer.  I learned that it was quicker to cycle downhill with the wind behind me than it was to cycle up hill with the wind against me.  Technology is wonderful.

The meconopsis had survived the night of rain….

There were wet flowers on every side.

Some new flowers have appeared beside the pond.

Mrs Tootlepedal thinks that they should be poached egg flowers (limnanthes douglasii) but they seem to be not quite right as they are missing the white fringe.

The birds at the sunflower heart feeder were almost entirely siskins today.

The sparrows prefer the fat balls (when they are not eating the veg garden up).  We still have an occasional redpoll, greenfinch and chaffinch but the birds in general seem to have better things to do than to entertain me.

Granny and Mrs Tootlepedal went off to buy a little local produce for Granny to take home as a gift to the returning holidaymakers and I went round distributing posters for the photo exhibition.  The effort of a thirteen mile bike ride, a wander round the garden and a visit to the High Street was quite enough and after lunch, while Mrs Tootlepedal went off to help with the driving for the disabled, I collapsed onto a chair and had a companionable snooze with Granny in front of the tennis on the telly.

I thought that I ought to do something so after a while I got up got up, got out the little mower and mowed the grass round the greenhouse.  Then it was back to snoozing.  It was a pity to waste a lovely afternoon but there are times when there is no alternative to having a little rest and this was one of them.

The view from the upstairs window shows what a nice day I was wasting.

The rather odd light rectangular patches on the box hedge at the front are not some camera failure but the reflections of sun on our two windows.

I had one last walk round the garden before tea.

These mimulus (musk) flowers have appeared by the pond.  They look interesting and I will try to take a better picture of them soon if the weather allows.

Mrs Tootlepedal enjoys surveying this colourful corner which is at is peak just now.

The clematis round the back door is in full swing and is doing its best to disguise the many drainpipes there.

A new pink geranium has arrived to join the blue and white ones which are already out.

And finally, I was pleased to see a bee.  They are still pretty scarce.

It looks for a moment as though it has been impaled by an aquilegia.

After tea, I went with Sandy to the Archive Centre.  Jean was absent on family business but luckily the internet connection was working well today so I was able to put another week of the newspaper index into the database.  I was amused to find a reference to a letter profusely apologising for the ‘obnoxious remarks’ that the correspondent had used in our paper regarding the editor of a neighbouring newspaper.  If tabloid journalists or internet users had to apologise for the obnoxious remarks that they routinely make these days, there would be little space for anything else in their papers or on the web.

We enjoyed a pint in the Douglas before returning home.

A flying bird of a sort was found.

The return of the rain

Today’s picture from son Alistair and wife Clare’s recent trip to the US shows the One World Trade centre catching the sun.

There was no sun to catch here this morning as the recent spell of good weather ground to a halt.  We woke to a warm but rainy day and I was grateful for an excuse not to go pedalling as I think a combination of asthma and having done too much cycling lately have left me feeling a bit below par.

This did give me the opportunity to entertain Dropscone, Arthur and Sandy to coffee.  Dropscone brought some drop scones and we enjoyed a wide ranging conversation on the causes of our country’s present financial and social problems.  We do not agree with each other.  It was fun.  During one thread of the discussion, it turned out that Arthur tends to agree with Eric Schmidt of Google that it is not his fault if his company dodges taxes.  The law should be tightened.  I think the law on burglary is quite tight and yet people still go out burgling.  People should stop burgling and companies should pay fair taxes and neither should blame the law or anyone else.

Dropscone holds the view that our local council is responsible for most of the world’s ills, a position with which it is often hard to disagree.  (Though of course I do on a matter of principle, otherwise there would be no enjoyable arguments.)

As a result of this vigorous debate, I didn’t get a camera out until after noon.

The siskins continued the discussion outside. The chaffinch is shocked.

A chaffinch posed for my sister Susan’s enjoyment.

A sparrow feeds on a fat ball.

Mrs Tootlepedal tends to blame me for encouraging the sparrows into the garden but my view is that if they are eating my fat balls, they are not eating her vegetables.

After lunch, Granny walked down to get her hair cut and I perked up enough to scarify the middle lawn and mow both it and the front lawn.   The front lawn is recovering well after my attack on its moss.

A blackbird on the grass, baffled by the disappearance of the moss.

The middle lawn, on the other hand, is looking pretty tatty and is suffering from an invasion of pearlwort.  The lawn carer’s work is never done.

I looked at a few flowers while I was outside.

A damp azalea looking as though it is producing pearls.

The leader of the alliums

A constellation of daisies

I was thinking of an outing with Sandy or a short pedal as the day cleared up well after lunch but mowing the lawns was more than enough exercise for the day and I retired indoors to sit in front of my computer and put two weeks of the newspaper index into the database instead.

Mrs Tootlepedal and granny arrived back safely from the hairdresser and granny was looking very smart as a result of her visit.  She is going to stay an extra day with us as her son and his family are marooned on the Scilly Isles by mist and rain.  It was very sunny here by the time that the ladies returned.

A rowan tree with a promise of berries for the birds in autumn.

A new geranium has come into flower…

Geranium renardii

…and another one is going really well.

Geranium macrorrhizum

Needless to say it is Mrs Tootlepedal who tells me the proper names for these flowers.  It is hard when flowers with the same family name look so different.

A new entrant in the most boring flower of the word competition has arrived.

Nectaroscordum – elegant but dull.

There couldn’t be a bigger contrast than with the pale pink rhododendron nearby.

This has lasted very well.

Mrs Tootlepedal is very pleased to see a meconopsis in bloom outside the kitchen window.  I am too as it is a lovely colour.  I took its picture twice, once in the rainy morning and once in the sunny afternoon.  It is definitely blue.

It is an Himalayan plant in origin.

After an excellent evening meal of a casserole of chick peas and bacon in a creamy sauce, Mrs Tootlepedal and I set off to a choir practice.  Our publicity hound was needing pictures of the choir for a newspaper article about our forthcoming concert so I did my best.  Portraits and groups are not something that I have practised and the stark environment and uncompromising light in a school gym didn’t help but everyone looked as though they were enjoying themselves.

The choir and friends

We have got some young singers to help us out with the concert after the illness of our guest singer made him unavailable.

Our soloists will be a mixture of seasoned veterans, young choir members and our young guests, seen on the right with our conductor and accompanist.  Something for everyone.

We are singing a few numbers on Friday at a gathering to honour the memory of astronaut Neil Armstrong who is a freeman of Langholm.  In a moment of triumph we actually persuaded our conductor to tell us what songs we are going to be singing.

I am still doing my best to provide a flying bird of the day.

A colourful siskin in the sun.