A rude awakening

Today’s guest picture comes from my brother Andrew. He was driving up to spend a few days in Cumbria with my sister Mary when he stopped on his way to enjoy a walk along the canal viaduct over the River Lune in Lancaster.

We had a warm and sunny day here from start to finish, though a few clouds and a rumble of thunder did appear in the late afternoon. Change is on the way, but in the meantime, we are enjoying the best weather we have had for several months.

Chaffinches are scarce in the garden at the moment, so it was good to see one before we went to church this morning.

For one reason or another, we got three sermons in our church service today. It is possible to have too much of a good thing. As a result we had our coffee rather later than usual. but we shared it with Margaret who came round to join us.

After Margaret left, we went out into the garden. I did some mowing, and Mrs Tootlepedal did maintenance to flower and vegetable beds.

When I had finished the mowing, I had a wander about. The sunny days have done wonders for garden growth.

The were some busy bees about. One liked the alliums, while another was fascinated by the newly flowering irises.

Along the dam at the back of the house, the first fuchsia flower is out, and the first of the big red poppies has opened too.

The walnut tree is always the last to come into leaf, but it is now looking very cheerful.

Among all the excitement and the colour, my favourite of the day was this blue aquilegia.

If there is another flower giving a more convincing appearance of four angry blue pigeons in an argument, I don’t know it.

We spent a restful afternoon watching the superhuman cyclists tackle enormous climbs in the Giro stage, and I looked out of the window at the birds when the stage finished. Among the willows in the backlit sunshine, it is sometimes hard to pick out the siskins which are most regular visitors just now.

And a greenfinch wasn’t much easier to spot.

After the professional cyclists had completed their day, Mrs Tootlepedal and I set out for a grand tour of our own, covering fourteen miles round the ‘Barnglieshead triangle’. There was a large sign at the Kerr road end saying that the road to Barnglieshead was closed. We went along it anyway, and luckily found that it was closed beyond the point where we turned off it.

As we went up the hill to the Kerr, I said to Mrs Tootlepedal that I would stop to take a picture of my favourite oak. Which I did.

At which point, Mrs Tootlepedal said, “That’s not an oak,” and pedalled on.

Pictures of this tree have appeared in many posts over the years, and I have always said that it was an oak, so it was a bit of a surprise to hear that it wasn’t an oak. We continued on our ride, hopeful that some looming clouds were going away rather than coming towards us . . .

. . . and found that they were.

We came back past the ‘oak’ tree when we had been round the triangle, and this time we went for a closer inspection.

It turned out that it is definitely not an oak, but most likely a sycamore from the leaves . . .

. . . and what is more, it doesn’t look anything like so good when seen from the other side.

Am I going to back over ten years of posts and change the description as an oak every time it appears? No. Looking through my records, I see that the first time that it appeared in a post in 2012, I cautiously described it as a ‘tree’. I should have stuck to that, as my ignorance of trees is deep and profound. Perhaps the solution would be to go for bicycle rides with Mrs Tootlepedal more often. Then I would learn things properly.

Her sharp eyes came to the fore again as we headed back down the Wauchope road and she spotted a flock of geese among the sheep in a field. They were a bit too far away for my camera so I can’t tell what sort of geese they are.

Maybe things will improve for me if and when I get my cataracts done. I am going for an assessment in a month or two.

The black clouds that appeared again as we inspected the tree . . .

. . . threatened a change in the weather, as did a couple of rumbles of thunder just as we got home, but it has stayed dry.

The flying bird of the day is that greenfinch arriving at the feeder.

Footnote: we recently purchased a new kitchen clock as our old one had died. It was a see through affair whihc proved hard to read against our white wall. The ingenious Mrs Tootlepedal solved the problem with some painted card.