Don't get around much any more.

Today’s picture shows what is meant when the forecaster says that it will be a day of sunshine and showers.  It was taken out of my back door.

I had rung Dropscone last night and cried off from the morning run because of the forecast for strong winds and heavy rain. In the end, the heavy rain came during the night and stopped by morning and the wind was reasonable in the morning and  only got up during the afternoon so the morning wouldn’t have been too bad for a pedal.  Notwithstanding these reasonable conditions, I was still quite pleased to have called off because I was rather tired and my legs ached.

The resultant idleness led to quite a lot of window snapping so those who don’t care for bird pictures should look away now.

I used my new lens to take this picture of a chaffinch in the plum tree.

In general though, the old lens was best for capturing the unceasing action.

A goldfinch fights its corner

As usual the chaffinches hung around a lot

Both male and female

Those two pictures are crops from photos that would have originally looked something like this…

As you can see, we had some very pleasant sunny weather.  Sadly, the strong wind made it feel rather cold outside.

There were plenty of siskins about again today.  I don’t know where they go when they don’t come to us.

Here a chaffinch looks on amazed as they squabble among themselves.

The action was just as exciting outside the other window.

A siskin makes a stir

Goldfinches disagree.

I roused myself to walk round the garden.  There are no new flowers at the moment but the tulips were radiant in the bright sunshine.

Mrs Tootlepedal bought a cardamine recently and it has settled in well.

She had been away on Bonnie Langholm business in the morning but she got stuck into her characteristic gardening pose in the afternoon.

I deadheaded a few daffodils, sieved a little compost and since this was the last in that bin, I started to turn the compost into the now empty space from a neighbouring bin.  This is a task that will take me a few days.  It is a bit tedious but worth it as regular turning speeds up the composting process.

I had a camera handy and took a couple of shots of the feeder from the garden side for a change.

There was no let up in the competition between siskins and goldfinches for seed.

Except when a sparrow butted in for a moment.

I liked the yellow/green combination of these two siskins, the variegated elder and the hydrangea petiolaris behind.

After the heavy work involved in supervising Mrs Tootlepedal in the garden, I was tempted by a short walk but I was even more tempted by the thought of a lounge in a hot bath so I opted for that and read a good book and relaxed.

I rose from the bath in a manner not unlike the famous painting of Aphrodite coming out of the sea but unlike her, I made myself some corn beef hash for tea.  Then I went to pick up Susan, whose birthday it was today, and we went to Carlisle to play recorders.

This was hard work because we are practising hard for our forthcoming concert appearance and as our group is a co-operative, we not only have to practise but we also have to spend a fair bit of time agreeing on what we have to practise and how we aregoing to play it.  Then we have to remember what we have agreed and try to do the same next week.  That is the really hard bit.  Luckily Heather had supplied an extensive range of biscuits to go with our after playing mugs of tea so we were able to recover from the stress of it all before going home.  It was, I may say, a very enjoyable evening’s playing as it is always good to get better at something.

I am hoping for a bit more get and go tomorrow.  Here is today’s chaffinch. I was spoiled for choice today.