Here comes the sun (at last)

Today’s picture, sent to me by my sister Mary, shows a handsome statue in Waterlow Park, London where she has been walking.  The statue shows Sir Sydney Waterlow, who donated the park to the public.  By coincidence, Sir Sydney was for a short time in 1868/69  MP for Dumfriesshire but was forced to resign owing to having insufficiently distanced himself from  some government contracts with his firm.

Sound the trumpets, bang the drums! It was not a grey, wet day today.  To be fair, it was grey when we woke up.  In fact the town was enveloped in a thick mist as I took the car up to the garage for its annual service and MOT.

Drop was undeterred by the mist though and presented himself for a morning pedal so I put the Christmas lights on and we pedalled off up the Wauchope road into the fog.  We hadn’t gone more than two miles before we had come out of the mist and we pedalled the rest of our twenty one miles in glorious sunshine.  This was just as well because Drop claimed that my fancy flashing back light would have driven him insane if it had been on any longer.  I should say that most of the rest of the trip was in sunshine because Langholm was still under the mist for our last mile.  Drop very kindly waited for me from time to time as I was on the belt bike and am still not back to peak fitness.

Still, it was a lot brighter than when we had left and by the time we had finished our coffee there was a hint of a blue sky above us.

It seemed likely that our surrounding hills would be clear on their tops so after coffee, I packed up my camera and picked up a tripod and set off to the top of Warbla.  If you think that photos of mist might be rather dull, now would be a really good time to look away.

My trip to the summit in pictures:

The mist looked pretty solid at first

As I climbed the track, it looked as though I would get above it.

It soon became apparent that the mist had lifted from the town a bit.

It varied in thickness throughout my walk.

It ran up into each neighbouring valley.

Soon I was looking down on the mist from well above it

When I got to the top of Warbla, I set up the tripod and had a look around.

Whita Hill with a misty skirt

Langholm lay under a cloud

But the town was clearly in view beneath the icing.

The woods below Warbla were wreathed in mist

Looking past Whita, I could see the mist lying in the Tarras valley beyond.

There was no view to the south at all as the mist was piled up in that direction.

This was a test of one of my new filters

I am glad that I took the trouble to walk up the hill, even though by the time that I got to the top, the sun had been covered by inconsiderate clouds.  I would have been sorry to have mist this opportunity.

The walk back down taxed my knees and I had to have a good rest before going up to the town for a health giving visit to the chemist and the Health Centre.

I watched a few birds while I was resting.

A goldfinch peers nervously down while a chaffinch seems above it all

A goldfinch shows off a trick

It was a lot colder than it has been lately but not cold enough to stop Mrs Toot going out into the garden.

The first authentic sighting of the gardener at work in 2013

I went out too and shredded the Christmas tree ready for the compost heap.  I also noticed this striking fungus on a tree stump.

In the evening Mrs Toot and I went to the first meeting of the year for Langholm Sings, our community choir, and we enjoyed a good sing under the watchful eye of our musical director Sean.  One of our members took a photograph of us which I am going to send to the local paper with an article to try and drum up some more members (altos are particularly in demand).

We have more members than were able to turn up today.

I found a flying (and shouting) bird in the midst of all this activity.