I have learned my lesson

Mary Jo from Manitoba has answered my request for guest pictures and has sent me one not from Manitoba but from London.  It shows Abney Park in Stoke Newington, one of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ garden cemeteries of London.  It is a woodland memorial park and a local nature reserve.

It was another chilly day here with the wind coming from the north east, but at least it was dry.  Our electric car allows us to plug it into the household supply so that we can get the car nice and warm before we set off on a cold day, so I was quite snug as I drove south to have a final singing lesson from Mary, the former conductor of our Langholm choir.

This was my final lesson because Mary has made great improvements in my singing but even she cannot make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.  As I will never be a solo singer, what I have to do now is try to remember all that she has taught me when I sing innthe choir rather than load my brain up with more instructions that I couldn’t follow anyway.

I am very grateful to her for her patience and skill.

When I got home, Mrs Tootlepdal had just about finished her first section of hall decoration so I made some lentil soup and we had a celebration lunch.

After lunch, I had a look to see if the new feeder was still pulling in customers.

It was attracting goldfinches again…

…but it didn’t please a jackdaw who took a grumpy look and flew off.

The feeder got busier as I watched it…

..but it had quiet moments too and this goldfinch took the opportunity in one of these peaceful intervals to hone its Napoleon impression.

C’est Magnifique.

I did think of cycling as it was six degrees C in the afternoon but the north wind was gusting up to 20 mph and the ‘feels like’ temperature was a measly 2 degrees so I went for a walk instead.

I had my cycling camera with me once again as Pocket Camera has remained stubbornly dead and the replacement hadn’t come yet.

I pointed it at some tiny but bright lichen on a wall at the top of the golf course…

…and a few yards later, when I had got onto the open hill, I spotted a gorse flower.

Gorse seems to be able to bloom in almost every month of the year.

I turned left and strolled along this grassy path among the dead bracken…

 

…passing trees…

…of different types…

 

…on my way to the road to Newcastleton and a grey view up the Ewes Valley.

I crossed the road and follwed a track across the hillside, past this trio of remarkable trees…

…which continue to grow in spite of only just touching the ground and not having a lot of trunk.

As I came back down the hill towards Whitshiels, I could see a river of larch running through the spruces on the far side of the valley.

…and many fungi growing in the grass at my feet.

I followed the track down through the woods and walked over a carpet of larch needles as I got near to the main road.

On the seltered bank of the Ewes Water there are still some autumn leaves.

Instead of heading straight home when I got back to the town, I crossed the Sawmill Brig and walked round the new path on the Castleholm.

There were dozens and dozens of large cones on the noble firs beside the  when I took this picture in August….

…but they must be very tasty because this is all that is left now.

It hasn’t snowed here yet but there was storm of snow berries beside the Esk as I walked along the river on my way home.

When I got home, Mrs Tootlepedal told me that the replacement camera had arrived.  I used it to take a picture of Mrs Tootlepedal contemplating a repair job its predecessor.

….whihc, after contemplation, was left for another day as we couldn’t find a good online guide to the job.

I nipped out in the fading loight to show that while almost every other flower in the garden has given up, Rosy Cheeks is still smiling (after a fashion).

I hope for some good weather to use the new camera tomorrow.

The flying bird of the day is a traditional chaffinch.

The shock of the new

I would welcome some more contributions to the guest picture of the day, but in the meantime, I am very happy to have another fine waterfall from Tony and Marianne’s awesome holiday beside Loch Awe.

I am currently having terrible trouble with my computer.  It has been very moody recently, and frequently refuses to talk to me at all.  As a result I have had to resort to a back up device which doesn’t have my usual photo editor on it, so some pictures in this post are a bit hit and miss for which I apologise.

The main business of the morning, after a rainy night, was to look out of the window and stay inside.  Luckily Sandy came down for a cup of coffee so that cheered the day up a bit.  When he had gone, I had a look to see how the new bird feeder was doing.

A goldfinch was having a look too.

A brave soul paid a visit to the upstairs dining room…

…while a chaffinch tried out the mezzanine.

A greenfinch arrived to give it the seal of approval…

…and before long, the whole thing was in use, upstairs and downstairs.

In fact at times it got extremely busy.

A goldfinch arrives and weighs up the merits of the upstairs and downstairs accommodation.

A greenfinch lets a goldfinch know who is the top banana.

It was a day of constantly changing weather with rain on and off and even the occasioal blink of sunshine.  After lunch, I peered out of the window and thought that it looked as though it might stay dry for a while so I went for a walk.

In sheltered spots, there are still leaves on some of the trees but as everything is rather damp, it feels as though autumn is pretty well over.

I walked along the track to the Becks Burn and saw that there were still some crab apples hanging on.

I was more interested in getting round before it started to rain again than in taking pictures in poor light, but a fence post caught my eye…

…and a few oak trees hanging onto their colour gave a bit of contrast to a dull view.

I liked this gloomy combination of trees at the top of the hill before I got back to the town…

…and I appreciated the efforts of the young larches as I walked down the hill to Pool Corner.

The peltigera lichen on a wall nearby have survived a couple of frosty mornings.

My timing was good because it started to rain just as I got home.  Although it was only half past two, it was so dark that it felt as though it was early evening already.

I spent some wasted time trying to get my computer to run a bit faster, but it wouldn’t co-operate at all, so I gave up and had a cup of tea with Mrs Tootlepedal instead.

In the evening, Luke came round and we made some more progress in our flute playing.  I have had to work hard to improve my own playing in order to keep up with him and we both showed results from practice today.  I will soon have to stop thinking of him as my pupil and start to regard him as someone who is kind enough to come round and play duets with me.

I made a dish of baked eggs in spinach with a cheese sauce for our tea and reflected as we ate it that if the weather doesn’t cheer up soon, I will have to get the bike to nowhere in the garage into action.  My weight gain programme of comfort food eating is going very well.

Because the light has been so poor, getting flying birds is hard and I was thinking of having a robin shot of the day instead….

…but that belligerent grteenfinch saved me.

 

 

Biting the bullet

Today’s guest picture is another from our son Tony’s recent holiday.  As well as waterfalls and wonderful views, he and Marianne also saw this.

We had the coldest night of the year so far and woke to a frosty scene.

It was chilly but the birds were active.  A dunnock looked in soon after breakfast.

The ground was pretty hard but that didn’t discourage a small group of jackdaws from pecking vigorously at the middle lawn.

We left the jackdaws to it and went off to take part in the Remembrance Day service in the church.  It was an unusual day for the choir as the hymns were accompanied by the town band and not our organist but we had some rousing hymns to sing so we didn’t mind.

After the service, we watched for a while as wreaths were laid at the war memorial and then headed home.

After a cup of coffee, I went out for a short walk to see how my feet would behave.  I was a bit shocked by how sore they were yesterday so I hoped to find out that that was just an aberration…and take in some nice weather at the same time.

It really was a lovely day and the calm state of the Wauchope as it passed under the Kirk Brig shows how lucky we have been here when there has been so much rain not very far away.

I passed the war memorial with its wreaths….

…and some tough minded wild flowers and an interesting stick…

…on my way up to the track at the Stubholm.

The sun made the best of what autumn colour is left…

…and picked out some very red berries on a mature holly tree beside the track.

A little further along, a combination of very yellow leaves and the direct sunshine produced a dazzling display which was a delight to me but which completely threw the processor in my camera which couldn’t cope with it at all.

As my current pocket camera had resisted all entreaties to behave and continued to be very stubborn when it came to taking any pictures at all, I was carrying my old Lumix with me.  It is in poor condition and I only use it on cycle trips now. Still, it did its best today even if it couldn’t cope with the leaf/sun combination.

It noted a small crop of fungus on an old log on the ground…

…and a curious flaky growth on a branch above my head.  I don’t know whether this is a fungus or a lichen.

And it enjoyed looking back over the town from a vantage point.

I walked along this very autumnal path…

…which took me down to the river bank and back home.  My feet behaved very well.  This was a relief.

When I got home, I ordered a new camera.  It may be possible to live without champagne and caviar, but it is impossible to live without a good quality pocket camera.   (The camera on my phone is not great at all unless conditions are perfect.)

After this, I had a little time to watch the birds and was pleased to see that the/a blue tit had visited again…

…and that a mixed bag of finches and sparrows was on the feeder (I had replaced the missing perch).

I didn’t have time for a longer walk, a short bike ride or more bird watching as we went off to Carlisle straight after lunch because we wanted to do some shopping before going to our Carlisle choir.

Our choir conductor has just won a prestigious singing prize in a competition in London so she was in a very cheerful mood.  She communicated this cheeriness to us and we had a very enjoyable and progressive practice.

Among the things that I bought on our shopping trip was a swish new feeder for the birds.  I have put it out already so I will be very interested to see what they make of it tomorrow.  The store where I bought it is having a closing down sale so I got it at an advantageous price.

I didn’t have enough standing around time today to catch a flying bird so this one, which was flying half a second before I took the picture, will have to do as the nearly flying bird of the day.

Sand in the works

Today’s guest picture comes from my brother Andrew.  He lives in Derby, one of the places affected by the recent heavy rain and found his route home blocked.  Luckily another route was possible so he got home safely.

After two visits to two cities in two days, I was very happy to have a quiet day at home today.  This decision was helped by a low single figure temperature and a cool wind to go with it.

I  roused myself enough to make some onion and potato soup for lunch and wave Mrs Tootlepedal off as she went to an embroidery meeting.

There was quite a lot of bird traffic in the garden in the morning so when I wasn’t doing anything else, which was most of the time, I watched the birds.

The chaffinches are beginning to return in larger numbers and they were hiding behind the old sunflower stalk…

…trying to stand up straight like their mothers taught them…

…and flying off when they had had enough seed.

One of the perches on the seed feeder has become unscrewed and fallen out, as a goldfinch discovered when it tried to perch on it.

Later on another goldfinch mastered the art of hanging on to the rim of the feeder.

Mrs Tootlepedal has put down some wire netting to stop the birds trampling down the soil near the feeder and the dunnocks are quite happy to tread on it.

Our robin was back again, looking pensive today.

We only see one greenfinch at a time at the moment and it is hard to tell if it is always the same greenfinch coming every time, or a string of different greenfinches coming once each.

There are definitely at least two blue tits about as I have seen them at the same time but whether the seed fancier and the nut fancier are one and the same bird, I leave for others to decide.

After I had eaten my soup, I decided that I ought to stretch my legs a little at least and maybe see if I could find something interesting to photograph, so I went for a walk.

Although I did see a lot of black headed gulls…

…the walk was not a success.  Firstly, my sore feet played up, cutting down the distance I could walk considerably, and secondly my pocket camera gave up the ghost.  I had got sand in the zoom lens mechanism during our holiday in North Berwick in the spring and the camera has been moaning and groaning every time that I have turned it on since.  Finally, it has all got too much for it and it is refusing to focus at all.  It stayed firmly in my pocket and as I had a bird lens on my other camera, taking pictures of anything close was impossible.

I took a long view of some fading larches…

…and admired some late colourful leaves…

…before walking very carefully home.

As it was a very gloomy day and what little light there had been had faded, I didn’t even walk round the garden when I got home, but went straight in and found something reasonably useful to do at the computer.

I made a sausage and onion stew with green peppers and mushrooms for tea and then we sat down to watch Strictly followed by some excellent racing from the Glasgow velodrome World Cup meeting.  Watching other people taking vigorous exercise was the best way to finish off a slightly disappointing day.

I did get several flying bird pictures though and because I didn’t take any interesting pictures on my walk, I have put in joint flying birds of the day today to fill the gap.

A flying mallard passed me while I was gull watching…

…and a traditional flying chaffinch of the day took a dim view of the missing perch.

Going round in circles extremely rapidly

Today’s guest guest picture is another from our son Tony’s trip to Loch Awe with his partner Marianne’s for her birthday celebration.  They certainly had good weather.

After yesterday’s visit to Edinburgh, we varied things by visiting Glasgow today.  This involved a unusually early rise for me but not for Mrs Tootlepedal who always wakes up long before me.

Anyway we were out of the house by seven and on the train from Carlisle by eight and in Glasgow by quarter past nine.  The train was run by a different railway company from our unreliable Lockerbie friends and left and arrived bang on time.  We even got a seat at a table facing the direction of travel.  As we had asked for such a reservation, it was quite a shock to actually get it.  We always ask this company for a seat at a table facing the direction of travel and usually end up with a bench seat facing backwards with no window.

It was a beautifully sunny if chilly morning when we arrived in Glasgow and after a short train trip on a suburban line, launched from a cave under the main station, we walked up a broad avenue and found ourselves outside this building…

…which may not look very impressive but which houses the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome.

We were very punctual and got there just before the doors opened and this meant that when we got into the arena, we were greeted by literally scores of cyclists whizzing round the track on their warm up

They were going too fast for pocket camera to take proper pictures but there were people practising Madison throws, pursuit teams in lines of fours, sprinters belting round the bottom of the track at great speeds and others just floating about in a nonchalant way.

It was a remarkable sight to watch and it was even more remarkable to our untutored eyes that no-one crashed into anyone else as at times the whole track was full of cyclists.

The event we were attending was a UCI World Cup meeting, one of a series of events over the season held in far flung countries.  This wasn’t the most exciting session of the weekend so we were able to get prime seats a few yards from the track and right opposite the finishing line.

I didn’t have the right camera to make a decent record of the morning as I hadn’t wanted to bring my heavy bird camera with me, so I just took a few blurry pictures to give a flavour of what we saw.

We watched the ladies 4km team pursuit qualifying heats…

…and cheered loudly when the GB team came on to the track right in front of us.  (They are wearing their European Champions jerseys not the usual GB tops).

There was an army of organisers making the event run smoothly and we liked the team of bike holder uppers who keep the cyclists steady before the start of the pursuit and sprint events.

Mrs Tootlepedal was much taken with the snazzy snarling design on the Koga bikes.

I was pleased to see a Lithuanian cyclist called Simona Krupeckaitė in the team sprint.  She is a seasoned and very successful track cyclist for whom I have a special fondness because Hugh Porter, a TV commentator in past years, had such fun mispronouncing her name with relish.

It was good to see her in real life and hear her name pronounced correctly.  She has lost little of her old skill and the speed of her lap in the women’s team sprint had the crowd gasping.

We saw the men’s and women’s team sprint and team pursuit events and several wonderfully determined and skilful paralympic athletes whizzing round the track too. It gives some indication of how interesting this all was when I tell you that we sat  for four houses in the velodrome on plastic seats without a coffee or a snack and still enjoyed ourselves greatly.

We caught the little train back to the centre of Glasgow when the session finished and we had time to enjoy a tasty pasta dish and a cup of coffee in a cafe opposite this fine building…

…before catching the train back to Carlisle.

We hadn’t booked seats as we didn’t know when the session would finish but there were plenty of seats available and we had a good trip back.  Railways are back in our good books.

The little Zoe took us back home where we had a meal of scrambled eggs and were able to watch the evening session from the track on TV.

Quite often TV gives the watcher a better view of an event than a spectator at the venue can get, but having tried the real thing for the first time, we now realise that the TV can’t convey the excitement of seeing cyclists whizz past you at 60 kph.

If we get the chance, we will go to another event either in Glasgow or Manchester and try to go to a session where there are mass start races.

No flying bird today as it was dark when we left and dark when we got back.

 

 

Waking up is so very hard to do

Today’s guest picture comes from my sister Mary.  She has combined some good autumn colour with a grebe.

My plan for the day was to leap out of bed early and go for a cycle ride and then go to see the physio for a check up.  I managed half the plan. The physio was very helpful and has discharged me with admonitions to keep doing the exercises but not to do do them too much.  I shall pay attention.

The high spot of the cycle free morning (I did not leap out of bed) was the arrival of a huge parcel which when opened, revealed its very modest contents.

I know this sort of thing makes sense to someone but it doesn’t make sense to me.

As it turned out to be a cold and windy morning with quite a lot of miserable drizzle about, I was quite pleased with the lack of leaping out of bed and enjoyed a gentle stroll round the garden to see what flowers are surviving…

…and to pick up a few more of the excellent walnut crop.

Most of our colour will come from shrubs until the the spring bulbs arrive.

I watched the birds as well and recorded a crow in the plum tree, a rare visitor to our garden, though we do see quite a few rooks.

A chaffinch is a more regular sight.

Under the feeder, a robin…

…and a dunnock kept a wary eye out for cats.

While up above, a blue tit snatched a seed before flying off.

There were plenty of birds about and a goldfinch seeing a fellow being assaulted by a greenfinch headed for safety.

A female chaffinch made a neat landing.

After carefully checking on the trains, we drove across to Lockerbie and caught a reasonably punctual train to Edinburgh

Matilda’s parents went off to a parents meeting at her school and we had a very entertaining time with Matilda.  There was creative dance, shooting Grandpa with a bow and arrow, and games of Carcassone and Pelmanism.

Al and Clare returned with good reports of Matilda and we enjoyed another excellent meal before setting off home.

The train home was late and as we are setting off at the crack of dawn tomorrow to catch another train, this time to Glasgow, our fingers are firmly crossed.

This also explains this brief post.

The flying bird of the day is a goldfinch in a queue

To the woods

Today’s guest picture comes from our son Tony.  He and his partner Marianne celebrated her birthday with a weekend in Argyll on the banks of Loch Awe, where they visited the multi layered Arvich falls.

We had a cold and chilly morning here today.  It was not freezing but it was cold enough to persuade me that a really idle morning would be good thing.  To tell the truth, I didn’t need much persuading.  If I was the sort of person who might complain about minor aches and niggles, I would have had an embarrassment of choices today.  However as regular readers will know I am the strong silent type so I merely did the crossword and drank coffee until getting up could no longer be avoided.

Mrs Tootlepedal was busy decorating so I wouldn’t have had anyone to complain to even if I had wanted to.

I spent some time watching the birds when I was fully dressed.

There were two types of goldfinch available, the old and wrinkly and the young and smooth.

But luckily there were plenty of both about….

..so there was plenty of action too.

Inquisitive chaffinches challenged the sitting tenants…

…and goldfinches faced off against each other with zest.

An old and wrinkled type put the wind up a smooth fellow in a big way…

…while a greenfinch watched from above with a magisterial air.

Putting down my bird camera, I made some lentil soup for lunch and while it was cooking, I made a quick record of some autumn colour in the garden…

…welcomed a robin…

…and then ate the soup.

After lunch, I considered the weather forecast.  The general view was that things could only get worse so now seemed as good a time to go for a walk as any other.

I took my brolly with me for insurance and set out to walk up through a wood before coming back down to the river at Skippers Bridge and following the river bank home.

The wood was varied…

…and the path was reasonably dry…

….and there was lichen to be seen on a wall on the way and a little fungus among the trees.

I had been well sheltered in the wood but when I got to the track at the top, it began to drizzle and I was glad that I had my brolly with me.  It was a very still day so I was able to keep quite dry in spite of the fact that it rained all the way home.

The track down the hill was covered with larch needles and this made me feel a little like a film star walking down the red carpet at a ceremony.

A newly felled area beside the track is regrowing with a mixture of spruce, larch and birch and even on a  gloomy day, it glowed.

When I looked back up the track, I could see the larches which had provided my carpet.

Out of interest, I took the same shot with the camera on my phone…

…and nothing could make clearer the amount of work the processors in your cameras do before they give you a picture to look at (unless you shoot in RAW which I only do occasionally).

I stopped for a chat in the light rain with a local resident who was walking his dog and then made my way down to Skippers Bridge.  I usually take pictures there when the sun is shining but today I took one when the weather was grey and the rain was falling just to show that it is a picturesque spot at any time.

There is a wooden fence a few hundred yards up the river from the bridge where my favourite lichen can be found if the conditions are right. They were right today.  I think that it is a lecanora or rim lichen.  They are very tiny.

The daisies that grow in profusion along the river bank at this point were still showing a bit of life…

…and further up river, I found a dipper perched on a stone, a bit too far out for me to get a good shot.  This was my pocket camera zoom at full stretch and I would have needed somewhere to rest the camera to get a sharp shot.  Juggling with an umbrella while trying to keep the camera dry made things harder.

In spite of the persistent drizzle, the windless conditions meant that I got home both dry and warm so I enjoyed my gloomy walk a lot.

I had a cup of tea with Mrs Tootlepedal when I got home as she had finished her decorating for the day and then I caught up with my correspondence and discarded a lot of very fuzzy pictures from my walk.

In the evening, I went off to sing with the Langholm community choir and as we had both a conductor and an accompanist, we had a productive time.

The flying bird of the day is the greenfinch in dive , dive, dive mode when a perch became vacant at the feeders.