Pulling out all the stops

Today’s guest picture comes from Mary Jo in Manitoba. Not only did her table and umbrella get blown over by a strong gust of wind, they subsequently got covered with an unexpectedly late fall of snow. Mary Jo was not amused.

We did not have snow here today, and we didn’t have rain either. This was slightly strange because the radar maps of rainfall on the weather forecasters’ websites showed Langholm covered in rain. We were very happy to find that they were wrong.

However, it was definitely a bit damp when I had a walk round the garden after breakfast.

There were bright spots though. The aquilegias, which come up where and when they please, this year have come out in a most gratifying variety of forms and colours.

New buds have appeared on the magnolia, fresh flowers have arrived on the philadelphus . . .

. . . and the white dicentras continue to act as bee magnets.

After my garden wander, I walked up to the town and visited the Town Hall, where I was able to browse the microfiches in the library which hold copies of all the back numbers of our local newspaper. I was there to take photographs of several articles about the ancestor of a correspondent who had written to the Archive Group. The light in the library makes it very difficult to get pictures good enough to send, so when I got home, I transcribed three of the articles, and I have sent them off to our correspondent to see if this is suitable

One of the articles described the early stages of building our local railway, and I must say it made for very interesting reading.

I combined this with a cup of coffee and a ginger biscuit. The transcriptions took me up to lunch time, and after that, I had a look at the birds. A sparrow had joined our usual siskins, while a pigeon tidied up below the feeder.

Later, a greenfinch and a sparrow had a competition to see who could look most disagreeable.

As any threat of rain seemed purely imaginary, I went for a cycle ride. I had left it a bit late, so I took my electric bike out to give me a chance to do a few extra miles in the time available. As there was a brisk wind at times, and quite a few hills, this turned out to be a good choice. I went up to Bentpath, and then went on to Eskdalemuir up the east side of the river . . .

. . . and came back to Bentpath down the west side.

The sun came out when I was nearly home.

I didn’t spend time looking for interesting things to photograph, but I couldn’t help noticing a wild iris at Bentpath village.

I went round as fast as I could because I wanted to have time to mow the vegetable garden grass when I got back, and I managed that quite comfortably. I even had time to watch two sparrows sparring.

I was reminded in the nick of time to host the regular zoom meeting with my brother and sisters. Andrew and Mary have got home safely from their trip to the north, though Andrew, who visited Leeds, Goole and Lincoln on his way, only got home as the meeting started.

We had to leave them to finish the meeting themselves, as I got a call from Henry, our church organist, to be the page turner for a visiting organist who was playing a recital in the church this evening. I had to go along a bit early to check on my duties. I noticed a bright red poppy beside the dam as I left the house.

It was a privilege to turn pages for Robert Coates, the visiting recitalist.

He taught music in Langholm for a few years in the 1970s before ending up in Norway, where he lives now. He was only a here for a short while, but he made a great impression, and it was good to meet him again with his wife Else Marie.

The recital was excellent from start to finish, with the added bonus of a lovely song from a local girl, Kayla, who has a very good voice.

After the recital, we chatted to Robert and caught up with two of his (and my) ex pupils, Elaine and Susan. We swapped some good memories.

We hope to have another day of good weather tomorrow before the rain returns just in time to welcome our next set of family visitors to Langholm.

The flying bird of the day is a pigeon rising above it all.