Better this time

Today’s guest picture comes from Dropscone’s niece, Hilary, who is currently in Charlottesville, VA. She took a bike ride up to Afton Mountain at the start of the Blue Ridge Parkway, and enjoyed the view.

After the meteorological excitements of yesterday, we welcomed a much calmer day here today. Although it was still not warm for the time of year, whenever the sun shone, which it did from time to time, it was quite pleasant to be out in the garden. We spent quite a bit of the morning there when we weren’t entertaining Sandy to a cup of coffee or two. Sandy was in good form, and went away with some ajugas to provide him with a bit of ground cover for a flower bed in his garden. Judging by how they behave in our garden, they should do a good job.

We did general work in the garden, feeding, weeding, tidying up, and dead heading, and while Mrs Tootlepedal did most of the work, I took a few pictures while the sun was out. There were roses Goldfinch, Queen of Denmark and Lilian Austin all looking splendid . . .

. . . and colourful geraniums, petite Kolkwitzia flowers, and the last of the Iris Siberica.

I filled the feeder, and checked on the birds before Sandy came, and found goldfinches and excitable siskins . . .

. . . and after he had left, I met a blackbird on and off the hedge, and two sparrows working in unison.

You can see that the birds had been busy eating seeds while we were having our coffee.

At one point during the day, I looked out of the window and saw an invading cat sneaking under the willows and trying to kill a siskin which was browsing under the feeder. I banged on the window and the cat left without its prey. We went out and found some holly cuttings that we put down under the willows to try and put a stop to that sort of thing. I don’t know what cat owners think, but if I had a small child that I sent round to their gardens to make a mess and kill birds, I expect that they would be quite annoyed.

After lunch, we went back out into the garden, and Mrs Tootlepedal prepared the ground for planting out the first of her dahlias which she has grown from seed. I fetched a barrow of mixed home made compost and manure, and left her to the task.

My plan was to go out on my push bike again, and complete the route that I had intended to ride yesterday. It was cloudy but calm, and I stopped once again to take a pastoral scene at Between the Waters . . .

. . . before cycling on up to Gair and taking the road towards Solwaybank. There was no need to shelter under these trees today . . .

. . . but once again, I didn’t go on to complete my planned route. This time it was for good reasons. With the light winds, it was such a good day for cycling that I extended my horizons and turned right at Kennedy’s Corner and headed down to Chapelknowe. It was a clear day for once and I could see the northern Lake District hills very well across the Solway..

It is illegal to cycle past the graveyard at Half Morton without checking on the Korean pines, so I stopped for a quick look, a drink of water and a bite of an energy bar. There didn’t seem to be as many cones as I had thought that there would be after my previous visits, but they still made a good show.

I love the flying birds.

As I was enjoying myself so much, I came back to Langholm across the hill by Tarcoon, rather than taking the shortest route home. Some cattle posed for me at Tarcoon, with Whita Hill and the monument in the background . . .

. . . while others walked up to join in, but they were too late to get into the picture.

A mile further on, a belted Galloway wondered what I was up to.

I was going up a short hill a few hundred yards after taking that picture, when I realised that I was going slower and slower. I had a hard time to get to the top at all, and it dawned on me that I had not been paying attention to my nutrition. The ride had been a bit longer than I had planned and I had not eaten enough on the way.

Fortunately I had one of those sachets of energy gel which you see the professional cyclists using, so I took it, and the effect was almost miraculous. My energy returned, my legs started working again, and I had a painless ride back home, stopping only for a little bunch of wild flowers, which were a change after some of the rather dull verges I had cycled past.

There was ajuga, heath bedstraw, yellow rattle, and clover.

I was nearly home when some wild roses in the hedge caught my eye.

For the sake of some decimal neatness, I made a circuit of the New Town before finishing the ride and that brought me up to a very satisfactory thirty miles. Mrs Tootlepedal was doing some dressmaking when I got in, but she had finished planting out the dahlias, and they are joining some sunflowers in the beds outside the kitchen window.

By this time, we were ready for our evening meal, having had a steady but full day each.

The flying bird of the day is a sparrow entering from stage right.