To the hills, to the hills!

Today’s guest picture comes from my sister Mary who has been visiting the Lake District where she enjoyed one of Ruskin’s favourites, the view of Derwentwater from Friar’s Crag.

After our spell of cool changeable weather, we got back to a hot summer day today and I hardly like to say this, but it was too hot!

I started the day by going down to Canonbie with Sandy.  We met fellow camera club member Stan and between the three of us, we collected the photographs that had been on display at the Canonbie Church Cafe for the past months, packed them up and took them home.  The pictures will have a brief rest and then they will be off up to Eskdalemuir, where they will be on show for the month of September.

I had a cup of coffee with Sandy when we got back and when I had taken him home afterwards, I came back and had a look round the garden.

Mrs Tootlepedal had told me that when she went out into the garden before breakfast, there had been a lot of butterflies about.  They were still there after coffee.  I counted seventeen peacock butterflies on one of the buddleias.

There were a few red admirals and small tortoisheshells about…

…and lots of white butterflies….

…but peacocks were everywhere…

…busy  feeding on buddleia flowers.

There were also a lot of painted ladies.  This kept Mrs Tootlepedal happy as they are her favourites.

The buddleias attract bees too and I liked this little orange bundle of fun.

Other insects were available.  Mrs Tootlepedal found a little moth clinging to her jeans…

…and I spotted a tiny hoverfly on a leaf.

I had intended to go for a longish cycle ride but a combination of tiredness and the hot sun kept me sitting indoors staring at a difficult prize crossword long after I should have set off.  In the end, I did stir my stumps and went off up the main road to the north of the town.

I had a friendly wind behind me as I headed up the gentle hill to Mosspaul and I kept up a good speed.  I did stop from time to time to admire the views.  Although it doesn’t look like it from this picture…

…thin clouds covered the sun while I pedalled, and as a result, it wasn’t too hot for comfort.

It is very difficult to take a picture on this stretch of road without some electricity lines in it, as the main power line runs right down the middle of the valley.

When I turned at the top of the hill after ten miles, I was bit worried that the friendly wind that had helped me along so far,  might turn out to be a bit of a handful on the way home.  In the event, it wasn’t as bad as I had feared, and gravity gave me enough assistance to get me home at an average of 14.8 mph for the twenty miles, a very good speed for me these days.

The sun came out just before I got home and let me have this nice view back over my route.  I had pedalled right up to those hills in the distance.

I didn’t rest for long when I got home because Mrs Tootlepedal was keen on a walk.  The cycling had loosened up my joints, so I was happy to toddle along too.

Mrs Tootlepedal is looking for some new walks so we drove a few miles up the road to Bentpath, and then took the narrow single track road to Glendinning, up the Meggat valley.

Leaving the car at the car park provided for visitors to the Thomas Telford Cairn, we left the farm buildings at Glendinning behind us…

…and walked up the track along the west bank of the Meggat Water.  There was a delightful little cascade to set us on our way…

…and the Corlaw burn leapt down the hillside to join the Meggat Water.

You can see the path that  we were following as it follows along the hillside above the Meggat.

It was pretty warm and we were pleased when we got into the shade proved by a stand of trees.

We walked up the track until we could see the large commercial forest that covers the ridge at the head of the valley.

We had hoped to walk up to a bothy which has been refurbished and is a refuge for walkers and cyclists in these hills, but it was half a mile too far for us and we turned and walked back down the track.  On our way we passed a couple who were intending to stay overnight in the bothy.

The sun had dropped behind the hill and we walked in shade until we got near Glendinning again where the sun shone on us for the last part of our journey.

If you can’t get to Shangri-La, the Meggat valley on a beautiful August evening will do very well to be going on with.

We safely negotiated the single track road (with some reversing in the face of oncoming traffic) and arrived home, tired but happy.  Driving slowly on narrow roads has a very pleasing effect on the power consumption of the Zoe so it was an economical outing as well as good fun.

It is going to be even hotter tomorrow according to the forecast.  I shall take things easy.

The flying bird of the day is a zinnia enjoying the sunshine.

A smart woman

Today’s guest picture comes from Mrs Tootlepedal and features one of our plums.

The picture itself might not seem to be earth shattering but the fact that Mrs Tootlepedal took on her new smart phone and emailed it to me, is a giant leap for her into a whole new world of tech.

The acquisition of the new phone was the main business of the morning and involved a trip to Carlisle.  I had tried to get the phone sorted on-line yesterday but it proved an intractable business so we made an appointment to speak to real people in the EE shop in Carlisle.  This proved to be a really good idea, as an admirably competent young lady was able to add the new phone to my account, get Mrs Tootlepedal an excellent bargain for the monthly charge and give me an extra gigabyte of data thrown in.

She told us that the staff in the shop are no longer paid commission for hard selling, and indeed get no bonus for completing a sale at all.  They get their reward if customers speak highly of them when asked their opinion a week after the deal is done.  This is a good idea!

She sold us what we wanted, didn’t try to sell us anything we didn’t want, gave us a tremendous amount of technical help and sent us on our way in a very cheerful state of mind indeed.  We will speak highly of her when we are asked.

While we were in Carlisle, we bought some cheese, visited a bookshop where we had a cup of coffee, and wandered through a market in the middle of the town.  All in all, it was a very satisfactory morning.

When we got home, we had lunch and then we went out into the garden.  It was one of those days when the weather in Carlisle was bright and sunny but the weather in Langholm was grey and gloomy with the clouds down over the hills.

This is a bit hard to bear but I took a picture of Mrs Tootlepedal’s new phlox just for the cheery colour.

In spite of the cloudy day, it was warm enough and at worst there was only a faint drizzle so we got a lot done.  I mowed the lawns and together we removed and binned what seemed like a hundred or more green plums from the poor old plum tree which is still overloaded with clusters of plums hanging on it like bunches of grapes.  The plums are beginning to ripen and plum jam is in the offing.

After the de-plumming, we sat for a while on the bench while we rested and looked around. Some nicotianas looked back at us from behind the yew.

On the fence behind the bench, the runner bean flowers made a good show.

More actual beans would not go amiss but we had a few with our evening meal.

Across the lawn, a bee visited the lamium…

…while on the lawn, a harassed mother blackbird fed an ungrateful youngster.

We went in for a cup of tea and a biscuit and then I decided to go for a walk.   I  had only gone a few steps when my feet decided that a ‘bicycle walk’ would be better idea, so I got the slow bike out and cycled round an extended three bridges walk at a very leisurely pace.

You don’t see as much when you are on a  bicycle, no matter how slowly you go but I couldn’t miss the gull on its favourite rock…

…or Mr Grumpy lurking more inconspicuously a few yards away down the river.

I cycled up the Lodge Walks and took a photograph.  It was a bit dull so I took the liberty of asking my photo editor to put an arty filter on it.  I quite liked the result.

At the side of the road, this massive fungus was easily visible at any speed.

The sun came out as I pedalled along, and it turned into a very pleasant evening.

In the low sun, the trees looked delightful both in general…

…and in particular.

I would have liked to have been on foot, but I bumped along the track on my bike happily enough.

I passed the Duchess Bridge but did not cross it…

…and went on to the Jubilee Bridge and the Scholars’ Field to make my way home.

In the evening, Mike and Alison came round for their usual Friday evening visit, and Alison and I played some very satisfactory duets, including a Telemann Sonata which we haven’t played for some time and which went very well all things considered.

The hard working mother blackbird is standing in for the flying bird of the day.

From beggar to prince

Today’s guest picture comes from our son Tony who was in a good position to admire the big festival wheel in Edinburgh.

My feet and joints generally sent me a message this morning to say that they had had enough of cycling and walking for the moment.  As it was a miserable grey day, I was only too happy to take the message on board and have a really dull morning indoors doing faintly useful things.

I did poke my nose out once or twice but the sight of the creeper putting on its autumn colours was not essentially cheering…

…though an orange crocosmia…

…a rudbeckia trying its best in poor conditions…

…and another sunflower..

…did their best to counteract the gloomy weather.

After lunch, we went off to Lockerbie as usual on a Thursday to catch the train to Edinburgh to visit Matilda and her parents.  As usual the train was late, but as it was not very late and there were plenty of free seats, we were grateful for what we got.

We had a good time with Matilda and when we played Beggar My Neighbour, for the first time in recorded history, I wasn’t beggared first.  I was very proud, although Clare did kindly point out that there is no skill involved in the game.

After the usual excellent meal cooked by Alistair, we caught the train home and unusually this was late too, but once again not very late so all was well.

The sitting blackbird of the day is reminding us that the fence needs painting.  I don’t think that it is going to happen though.

I’ll try to be more interesting tomorrow.

The key to success

Today’s guest picture comes from our son Tony.  He gets up very early to walk his dogs before going to work and thus can take pictures like this with his phone.

We had yet another day of intermittent showers, some very heavy and almost all quite short.  The shortest lasted about a minute but was quite intense while it was in action.

I started the day by filing down a key.  When we moved the Archive Group to its new premises, we got some keys cut to let members in to work.  Some of the keys fitted the lock but others didn’t and I have been meaning to sort the ill fitting ones out for some time.  Like many of my little plans though, nothing actually happened until I got a call today to do something about it.  Galvanised by this, I got busy with a little file and went up to the office where, rather to me surprise, the key now fitted and opened the door.  I delivered the key to the member who had asked for it, and she was probably even more surprised than I was.

Encouraged by this, I resolved to risk getting wet, and went off for a bike ride.  Once again the wind was very unhelpful and made cycling hard work, so I settled for fifteen miles, making sure that I had the wind behind me on the return journey.   The sun came out as I pedalled home and Wauchopedale looked very inviting.

When I got back, I had a cup of coffee and then walked round the garden.

This poppy had given all it had to give to passing bees…

…but the buddleia still has plenty left to attract butterflies….

…and the Michaelmas daisies are not short of pull either.

Sadly, the sweet peas have had their day and I gave Mrs Tootlepedal a hand as she demolished the imposing structure which had given them support.

Nearby, I admired the fine mint plant next to the greenhouse.  It is, as they say, in mint condition.

Round the front lawn, the yellow crocosmias are making a good show.

It was a pleasantly warm day, and after we had finished with the sweet peas, Mrs Tootlepedal and I sat on the new bench and had a rest.  From the bench I could see a good crop of Japanese anemones climbing above a hedge…

…and a good flock of sparrows clustered on the silver pear.

Then it was time for lunch.

After lunch, we went out into the garden again.

When Mrs Tootlepedal had been cutting down the potentillas on the dam side yesterday, I had noticed that the fuchsia further along the house wall was looking good, so I took a picture of it today.

I had also noticed a plant with many tiny white flowers on it and Mrs Tootlepedal tells me that it is lemon balm.

The camera club has had a small exhibition running in the community cafe in Canonbie for some time, but it is coming to an end this week and we are going to take the pictures up to The Hub in Eskdalemuir, where they will be on show during September.  The organiser there had asked me to paint a pen portrait of the camera club and provide a poster for the exhibition, so I went in and did my best to meet her requirements.

Then there was time for another garden check to see if there were any birds wanting to have their picture taken.

A blackbird gave me that fashionable over the shoulder pose…

…and a dunnock tried for the same effect but didn’t quite have the neck and shoulder for it.

I took a final picture…

…and went back in.

Mrs Tootlepedal and I checked over our potato crop fairly carefully to take out any tubers which had been forked or were suffering from slugs.  We put the rest of the crop into storage.  For one reason or another, we had managed to spear quite a lot of potatoes when we were digging them up but the slug damage was very slight so we were pleased to have enough to last for some time.

Although there was a hint of rain in the air when we had finished sorting the potatoes, I went for a short walk.   Along the way, there were unwelcome signs of the turning of the year to be seen.

…and unwelcome, although pretty, invasive plants to be found.

And there was a token of how strong the winds have been in the form of a pile of branches beside the path…

…which turned out to be from a substantial limb which had split from a tree.

I didn’t walk as far as I intended as I fell into conversation with a friend whom I met on the way and we had a lively discussion about life and politics which took some time.  There were a couple of short, sharp showers while we talked but as we were under a well leafed tree, we were unaffected.  In the end, we broke off our debate and walked back together, heeding the call of the evening meal.

No flying bird of the day today, but I felt that the resident dragons in the park were taking a keener interest in me than usual as I walked by them today, so I have put them in to keep them happy.

The name’s the same

Today’s guest picture comes from our daughter Annie.  A friend, a fellow allotmenteer, brought her round some dahlias from Annie’s plot.  They are doing a lot better than ours are.

We had another unsettled and unsettling day.  It is difficult to have a plan of action when the weather (and the forecast) is so changeable. In the forecast yesterday morning, we had been promised a calm and sunny day today so I was looking for a good cycle ride, staring early.

By the time that I got up today, there was no sign of sun and the forecast was now promising showers in the morning and a sunny afternoon.  I settled down to coffee and the crossword, thinking of an early lunch and an afternoon pedal.

There was rain.

Having finished the coffee and the crossword, I ventured out into the garden.

There were no butterflies to be seen but we were not short of other insects.

I saw a hoverfly vising an Icelandic poppy

…and a bee well into a poppy…

,,,while another hoverfly had caused a small pollen storm.

Another bee took a more refined approach to a geranium.

Not every small creature was so welcome though.  Our turnips have taken a bit of a bashing.

Mrs Tootlepedal hasn’t planted as many cosmos as usual because the plants have tended to suffer from disease in recent years, but there she has some and they are just coming out.

Although the bird feeders are not out at present, there are still plenty of birds about, particularly starlings…

…and blackbirds.

I looked at the forecast just before noon.  The sunny afternoon had disappeared and rain showers were back in.  I did put my cycling clothes on but cycling was once again postponed and we were busy out in the garden, looking at some ominous clouds, when a pair of strangers appeared at the front gate.

Were we the owners of Wauchope Cottage, they asked.  We confessed that we were and the man said that he had come especially to see the house as his name was Wauchope too and he had often seen pictures of our garden when he researched Wauchope on Google.

We invited him and his partner Cassandra in to tour the garden in real life. They turned out to come from New Orleans and were in Scotland to find as many Wauchope connections as they could.  They had been to a Wauchope family mausoleum in an Edinburgh churchyard and now they had come to visit the mighty Wauchope Water and Wauchopedale in all its glory.

After their garden tour, they sat our bench for a moment’s rest before continuing their adventure.

When they left, I took a picture of the work that Mrs Tootlepedal, in the guise of Attila the Gardener, had been doing in the garden when the visitors came.  The age of the salvias is ended and they are no more.

However, I shredded them all and they are now serving a useful purpose as either garden mulch or an addition to the compost bin.

As the weather continued to look gloomy, I went back indoors and did some work on the computer until finally a good forecast and some fine weather actually coincided and I went out for a cycle ride.

Nothing is perfect though, and a stiff breeze made cycling into it more of a duty than a pleasure so I cut my intended distance down and settled for a comfortable 20 miles round my customary Canonbie circuit.

In spite of the wind, it was warm enough to make being out and about enjoyable, and as I pedalled along, the clouds were being blown away and the sun shone for the whole of my trip.

The River Esk drains well and there was little sign of the recent rain as  I looked over the bridge at The Hollows.

I stopped when I got to the old A7 just before getting back to Langholm and enjoyed the view across the valley.

Beside the road, an umbellifer was playing host to a crowd of insects.  I can count seven but there may be more.

The amiable sunshine made even a very ordinary dock look rather gorgeous…

…and  I was able to find some refreshment before getting back on my bike again.

The blackberries were delicious.

When I arrived back, I found that Mrs Tootlepedal had been very busy cutting down  potentillas at the back of the house along the dam while i had been away.  After the recent flood had put water through the ventilators under our floor, she thought that clearing away the vegetation in front of the ventilators would allow more flow of air which could only be a good thing.

This provided me with an opportunity to do a lot more shredding and more beds were mulched and the compost bin was once again enhanced.

I just had time to some black and white photography of nicotiana..

…and our strikingly dark pansies…

…before going in to cook baked eggs with spinach and a cheese sauce for our tea.

In the evening, we were visited by Mairi, the camera club member whose pictures I had printed.  She had framed them, and she brought them back so that they could be part of our next camera club exhibition.  She stayed on for a while to chat to Mrs Tootlepedal and we soon had the world put to rights.

The flying bird of the day is a gull which I caught when it was passing over the garden near midday.

Success this time

Today’s guest picture is another from my brother’s recent walk.  When the walkers stopped for lunch, a local resident pestered them for a share of their sandwiches and got very hoity toity when they refused.

We had some welcome sunshine today but I had a busy morning  and the only part of it that was spent  on my bike was when I cycled up to the High Street.  I was there to do some archiving business and take some pictures which I had printed out for a fellow camera club member up to her.  As our new archive base is in the newspaper office and the camera club member works there, I was able to hit two targets with a single arrow.

I got home in time to entertain Sandy to a cup of coffee.  He bought with him some delicious home made muffins which a friend had given to him.  We were able to send him off with some rhubarb and potatoes in return.

When he left, we went out to do some work in the garden.

I mowed the middle and front lawns and then took time out to have a walk round.

The sun  flowers continue to attract customers…

…and the buddleias are equally popular.

Since it was a sunny day, I looked for sunny flowers and found a lot, some of them in the vegetable garden.

The St John;s Wort is a little garden paradise all on its own.

Although I intended just to take yellow flowers today, in the end I couldn’t ignore the reds.

The rambler rose is producing some late flowers.

And some of the poppies are soldiering on.

This is a  sweet pea…

…and this is a sweet bean.

Actually, it is a runner bean but its beans tasted pretty good when we had them for tea.

Having had a rest, I put the push mower away and got out the hover mower to do the greenhouse grass. I had to put it away pretty sharply though because it started to rain heavily.

I had just about got inside when the rain stopped.  I went out and it started again.  This happened a couple of times and then I had an idea.  I said very loudly to Mrs Tootlepedal, “I am giving up the idea of mowing and I am going in!”

Then  as soon as the rain moved off to annoy someone else, I nipped out and got the mowing finished.

I made some soup for lunch using an onion and some potatoes that didn’t look as though they would store well and after we had had lunch, I settled down to work on the computer as the weather continued to be unreliable.

I got the charity return for the Archive Group under way.  This was only nine months late, but that makes it quite prompt for me as I hate filling in forms and always leave it till the last possible moment (and beyond).

I was just copying some music as a relaxation after the form filling, when Mike Tinker popped in for a cup of tea and a ginger biscuit.

Not long after he left, my flute pupil Luke came and then it was time for tea. It had been a busy day.

The weather looked a bit settled by the time that we had finished our meal, so I suggested to Mrs Tootlepedal that we might try the walk that had been rained off yesterday. She thought that this was a good idea so we set off, armed with an umbrella this time just in case.

When you look at the size of the tree that was washed up on to the bank just before the Auld Stane Brig by last weekend’s flood, you can’t but feel that is was lucky that it didn’t go through the bridge and bang into it.

As we walked up the hill towards Hallcrofts, the sun came out and in typical fashion it also started to rain.  Luckily the sun stayed out and the rain soon went away, so that by the time that we had got to the track through the recently felled wood, it was a beautiful evening.

Considering that the wood looked like this in February of last year…

…the amount of new growth is amazing and instead of crossing the stream by a bridge surrounded by gloomy conifers, we walked among young ash trees and luxuriant grasses and plants.

Mrs Tootlepedal hadn’t visited the wood since before it was felled and she was staggered by the changes.

Having crossed the bridge and walked up to the track on the far side of the burn…

…we walked home very pleased with our decision to go on our walk.  We stopped on the way to admire a rainbow…

…and the view of Warbla in the evening sun…

…and to chat to friends whom we met along the way.

While I photographed the bigger picture, I asked Mrs Tootlepedal to keep en eye out for smaller things of interest.  She spotted scabious,  a well nibbled fungus, and a good crop of crab apples.

We got home at eight o’clock, conscious that the long summer nights are coming to an end in a month and shorter days will be back again all too soon.

The flying bird of the day is neither flying nor early but it has certainly got the worm.

 

A bit of bad timing

Today’s guest post comes from my brother’s latest group walk.  They covered eight miles with enough climbing to offer some fine views like this one over the village of Crich.

It was another day of frequent heavy rain showers and brisk winds here, and we chickened out and drove the few hundred yards to the church to sing in the choir to avoid getting soaked before we sang.

After church, we went shopping and bought a Sunday newspaper, and reading this kept us occupied for the rest of the morning.  We have been getting some good sized potatoes from Mrs Tootlepedal’s potato patch, so I had a baked potato for my lunch.  After lunch, I made some ginger biscuits for want of anything better to do.

By mid afternoon we were feeling a touch of cabin fever,  so when we found a moment when the sun was shining and the forecast offered a mere 20% chance of rain over the next two hours, we decided to go for a walk.  As we left the garden, Mrs Tootlepedal sagely pointed out the looming clouds on the horizon but I laughed them off and we continued.

I was laughing on the other side of my face half a mile later when we sheltered under some trees as torrential rain fell from the grey skies above us.

We waited for some time and then got bored and headed home, getting quite wet as we went.

Mary Jo’s scientific rain gauge was showing 5 inches of rain for the week.  This was the second week running with 5 inches of rain in our rain gauge.

Of course the sun came out half an hour later but we were discouraged by then and stayed at home.

I did walk as far as the garden.

I was surprised to see that a red admiral had the flying power to get into the garden in one of the dry spells in the afternoon in spite of the strong wind and heavy showers.

Some flowers seem impervious to bad weather and the Abyssinian gladioli are flowering away very well.

There is still colour about but not a lot…

…although the Michaelmas daisies are getting more plentiful by the day.

Mrs Tootlepedal came out in the late afternoon and we dug up most of the rest of our potato crop.  She was very impressed by this nine inch long specimen which was by no means unique.

I cut up the haulms and added them to the compost in Bin A.  The bin is getting quite hot and the haulms looked quite healthy, and as we won’t add the compost to any potato bed next year, it should be safe enough.

We keep on filling the bin to the top and it keeps going down so it must be decomposing quite well.

Nearby, the apples look to be ripening well.

Since the sun was out after our evening meal and the wind had dropped, I took the opportunity to go out for a quick walk round three bridges.

The fact that the Wauchope Water was flowing a lot more strongly than the Esk during the recent spates has led to the Wauchope dumping a lot of gravel well out into the bed of the Esk.

Even though the Esk had not been very high, it had still washed a small tree under the Langholm Bridge.

As I got to the Kilngreen, the sun came out from behind a cloud and lit up the mallards who were resting on the bank.

The light was mellow all around.

I crossed the sawmill brig and…

…enjoyed the light on the other side too.

The cricket ground was looking very peaceful after what must have been a very poor day for cricketers.

My walk wasn’t all plain sailing as I had to keep an eye out for large puddles…

..but I negotiated them all with care and got home dry shod.

I took a picture of the corydalis growing out of a crack in the wall at the end of the Scholars’ Field and was pleased to get home without encountering another heavy shower.

The flying bird of the day had come to earth.