Knees on display

Today’s guest picture was sent to me by Dropscone and shows the opening day of the golf season at Langholm.  Dropscone, the club captain this year,  is modestly holding the trophy which his team has just won in the opening match.

We had an unquestionably pleasant day of weather here today, with wall to wall sunshine, light winds and no chill in the air at all.  It was lovely.

In younger days, I would have been off on my bike like a shot, but things are slower now and I was happy to have coffee and treacle scones with Dropscone instead of pounding the pedals.  Both before he came and after he left, I wandered round the garden for a while.  There was much to see.

The garden is full of tulips and daffodils at the moment.

The tulips had spread their petals wide to welcome the warmth.

The silver pear is covered with blossom…

…and although I have been dead heading a lot of daffodils, there are still a lot on the go of many varieties.

The plum is getting leaves to go with its blossoms and I only hope that the few bees that have been around have managed to pollinate those flowers which were too far above my head for me to reach with the pollinating brush.

Mrs Tootlepdal’s river of blue with the grape hyacinths doesn’t go all the way round the front lawn this year but it has  produced some good splashes of colour all the same…

…and trout lilies and a new fritillary  are keeping the garden looking cheerful.

I was so encouraged by the warmth and a good forecast, that I got the lawn scarifier out and scarified the middle lawn.  It has a little basket  of its own to collect the debris but it is so small that I find it easier not to use it and then run the mower over the lawn to tidy everything up.  I took this picture while I was having a rest in the middle of mowing.

It is a pain free process if the lawn is firm and dry as it is at the moment.

When I had finished, I admired some more tulips…

…and the magnolia (which is looking well if you don’t look too closely at it).

Mrs Tootlepedal has used the old rotten planks from the veg beds which have been redeveloped to make a little wild life hotel beside the compost bins.  We are hoping for interesting (and useful) guests.

I had a rest on our new bench for awhile and noticed a bee visiting a dicentra beside me…

…and then we went in for lunch.

After lunch, I went back out to look for frogs in the pond as we had heard them muttering away while we were working in the morning, but hadn’t been able to see them.

They were easy to see in the afternoon, surrounded by tadpoles.

We had filled the pond up before lunch because it hasn’t rained for ages and the level had dropped a bit and I thought the pond was looking better as a result.

The date stone is one of several in the garden that are a reminder that a stone mason lived and worked here once.

The better weather had obviously encouraged birds to find food elsewhere today as we had many fewer visitors than recently and the feeder was still half full quite late in the day.

I was visited by a member of our Langholm choir who is coming to sing with the church choir on Sunday and we went through the hymns and then, while Mrs Tootlepedal had a well earned snooze after a hard morning the garden, I went off for a cycle ride.

I am still looking after my foot so I chose an easy route of just under 26 miles and took things steadily.  However, I was quite daring and put on my cycling shorts and exposed my peely-wally knobbly knees to the world as I went along.  The world took this in its stride.

The hawthorns on the hillside up the Wauchope road are in leaf and we should see the blossoms soon.  In the meantime, it was hot enough for sensible sheep to seek some shade under one of the bigger bushes.

Although spring is springing, the rough pasture on the hills is still in full winter mode, and there was no colour to be seen when I stopped for a drink and a stretch and looked down a farm track after my first five miles.

I was getting near to Canonbie when I came across a quite unusual gate…

…with a plump oyster catcher perched on each gate post.  I was very surprised that they sat still and let me take their pictures.

On the other side of Canonbie, I liked this variegated lamb and ewe scene…

…and noted that it has been so long since it rained that the moss on a bridge parapet has begun to dry out.

When I got to Langholm, I cycled through the town and out along the Ewes valley for a couple of miles.  This gave me the opportunity to record a fine deciduous tree near the High Mill Brig…

…a rather hazy view up the valley…

…and a romantic looking conifer near my turning point.

When I got home, I got the washing in and made Mrs Tootlepedal a cup of tea.  Then I watered the middle lawn as I am going to put some treatment on it tomorrow and it says that the soil should be moist..

That concluded the business for the day.

Today’s flying bird of the day came a little late to the table.

Footnote:

WordPress offers blog writers a wealth of statistics about their blogs if they have the energy to look at them and last night, I browsed the word count since I started this blog in mid 2010.  I was staggered to find that I have written 2,150,000 words, an average of about 700 words per post. It seems a tremendous amount of writing to use to record a fairly humdrum existence but to be fair, there has been a lot of repetition so I don’t have to constantly find new words and phrases.  If I look back, I find that life was much the same last year and the year before…and the year before….but that is how I like it.

Full of beans

Today’s guest picture comes from one of my Canadian correspondents, Lucie.  She has been visiting relatives in the UK and when she passed through Edinburgh on her way north, she stopped off to check out the view from the castle.

We had a warm and sunny day today and with lighter winds, it felt like a good day to discard some layers of clothing at last.

The flowers in the garden enjoyed the warmth too and my favourite tulip was looking at its best….

…though the same could not be said for a very ragged anemone which has not enjoyed the cold while waiting to spread its wings.

I had to go to the doctor to discuss the x-ray and the state of my foot.  The gel insoles are continuing to help and the lack of serious pain after my cycle ride yesterday is also encouraging so the policy is ‘steady as you go’ and to fix an appointment with a physio to see how much my back is contributing to the problem.

As I cycled over the suspension bridge on my way to the doctor, I noticed that the poplar trees beside the church are going green.

Back in the garden, I checked out more flowers and found a fancy tulip not looking at its best…

…but the brunnera is doing very well.

I discovered that some of the newest flowers on the magnolia have no brown tips on their petals as they missed the frosty mornings…

…and that the drumstick primulas are doing superbly, regardless of the weather.

Things have been both cold and dry and some of the tulips are beginning to look a little tired…

…even some of the ones that have come out most recently.

I don’t know where the siskins have been for the last few days, but they came back here today and there were a good number of them about.

They are very much the same size and shape as the redpolls though siskins like to perch head down more than the redpolls.

There is so much blossom on the plum tree that it is sometimes hard to see the birds so it was good of this chaffinch to find a space to perch where I could see him clearly.

After lunch, we went off to catch the train to Edinburgh to visit Matilda and her family.  There are great plans afoot to improve Waverley Station but I hope that they are not going to improve out this fine ceiling in the main waiting room.

When we got to Matilda’s new house, we found the last blossom still on the tree which the builders kindly planted in their garden…

…and we found Matilda in the garden too.

Here she is having a rest after playing ball with her grandfather.

We had a good time mowing the new lawn and gathering up the grass and after some indoor games too, we had a delicious mixed bean chilli cooked by Alistair, Matilda’s father which we ate in the company of Matilda’s other grandparents and an aunt so it was a thoroughly convivial occasion.

The journey home was uneventful and we look forward to seeing Matilda, Al and Clare getting settled into their new home over the next few weeks.

I didn’t have time to hang about for a flying bird to day so the best I could do was a rather vague siskin in the background.

 

Test ride

Today’s guest picture is a triumph of patient gardening.  Mike and Alison Tinker have been tending a kowhai plant (a New Zealand native) for twelve years and this year it has finally flowered.  Alison took the picture and Mike sent it to me.

I leapt out of bed, had breakfast, dashed on my cycling gear….and then footered a couple of hours away in drinking coffee, reading the newspapers and doing the crossword.  It was a perfect day for cycling and I can only put my reluctance to get going down to mental feebleness brought on by a combination of various aches and pains and possibly Brexit.  Brexit has been blamed for everything else so it might as well take the blame for my idleness too.

But I did get going in the end and enjoyed myself thoroughly.  The first bit of the ride, with more downhill than up and with the wind mostly behind me, was a treat and I soon found myself in England, in the shelter of the motorway banking, eating a sandwich and a banana after twenty miles and an hour and a half of pedalling.

There are still not many wild flowers about but there were dandelions along the the whole route.  At one point I saw a good crop of Danish Scurvy Grass beside the motorway and near Longtown, I met a nettle just about to flower fully.

In order to keep my foot happy, I stuck to flat roads and tried not to press too heavily on the pedals.  This last was quite easy to achieve with the wind behind me but when I turned east and passed a fine pine tree, it was harder as the wind was not negligible and my speed dropped.

I won’t complain though because it was genuinely warm by then and pottering along was no hardship.  To avoid going as far as the busy main road into Longtown, I turned on to a track which is part of National Cycle Route 7.  These routes often have artistic trail markers.

This particular track follows an old railway line and takes you across the river Lyne by way of a new bridge on old piers.

It is a very peaceful place and the track is well maintained.

Unfortunately, I can’t ride the old railway all the way back into Langholm as the chance to turn it into a cycle way was lost after the line was closed and many bridges and viaducts have been knocked down.

Back on the roads again, I crossed this small bridge…

…near the fine church at Arthuret.

I took the main road out of Longtown as it has recently been resurfaced and it is always fun to ride on a smooth surface for a change.  Sadly, the new surface has been done using a method that ensures that it will become very bumpy again for cyclists in the not too distant future.  Ah well, I will enjoy it while I can.

Somewhere along the road between Longtown and Canonbie, I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of a carpet of bluebells under some trees.

This seems to be early for bluebells and is a week before they have appeared on the blog before and a fortnight before the usual time.  Still, they are very welcome as they are sign that spring is really springing.

On a stretch of the old A7 north of Canonbie, there were several butterflies warming their wings on the road and fluttering away as I got near them.  I stopped and one of them obligingly flew back and perched on a dandelion.  As I was getting back on my bike, I noticed a bonus ladybird crawling up a wall.

My legs were a bit rusty but by stopping regularly for a stretch and a rest, I manged to cajole them into taking me round just under 44 miles.  As this was the furthest I have been since the 22 February, I regard it as very satisfactory distance.  Tomorrow will tell me what my foot thinks about it but I am optimistic.

When I got home, I had a walk round the garden with Mrs Tootlepedal who had had a busy day indoors.

The warmth had brought a new tulip out….

…caused others to open wide….

…and encouraged the trout lilies to lift up their skirts and dance.

A striking dark red pulsatilla had also emerged.  I liked it a lot….

…as did a bumble bee.

We went in for a cup of tea and a biscuit and when Mrs Tootlepdal went back to work, I watched the birds for a while.

Redpolls returned to the feeder…

…and one took a very dim view of the  loutish behaviour of a chaffinch.

Strangely, I felt a bit tired so the rest of the day faded away into quietness, interrupted by giving Mrs Tootlepedal a little help with her project and then eating a tasty meal cooked by Mrs Tootlepedal.

The flying bird of the day is a chaffinch.

Footnote: The curious might want to know what Mrs Tootlepedal was so busy at during the day.

She has finally finished turning this…

…into this.

We are thinking of entering it in the Derby.

At last a tootle

Today’s guest picture comes from my sister Mary who is back from Wales.  She found herself looking across the Thames and reflecting on how enormous the new buildings in London are when compared to the Tower of London which can be seen cowering on the extreme right of her shot.

We had another dry day today and it is now so long since it has rained that Mrs Tootlepedal was heard to say (very quietly), “We need a bit of rain.”  She is right as things are starting to dry out too much.  But at least it was slightly warmer today with less bite in the wind and things are forecast to get warmer still over the next few days.

Mrs Tootlepedal had a very busy morning and afternoon with things to do, including getting her hair cut  and then helping out at the Buccleuch Centre Coffee Shop, followed by doing the front of house duties at a screening of a film about the current big Rembrandt exhibition.

I, in contrast, had a very quiet day involving a crossword, coffee, biscuits and bird watching and two very short spells on the bike to nowhere in the garage.

The birds at first were very excitable…

…but getting out a different lens slowed them down a lot until they….

…almost looked as though they were frozen in time.

We had another siskin at the feeder today.

In an effort to improve my brain power I had a sardine sandwich for lunch on the grounds that P G Wodehouse always claimed that Jeeves, who was a clever fellow, ate a lot of fish.

Then I went for a gentle walk.

I decided that it was time to go up a hill so I walked up the Kirk Wynd from the middle of the town and took note of some colour on the way.

There was a fancy garden escape just at the entrance to the golf course…

And a native berry a bit further up but how such a fancy daffodil found its way all by itself even further up the track and far away from a garden is a mystery.

The noise of creaking and groaning as I got to the top of the golf course alerted me to the fact that elderly golfers were playing nearby.

Jim and George were basking in the glory of having won prizes in the winter competition which has just ended.

I went through the gate at the top of the track and walked on to the open hill.  It was rather misty so there was not much in the way of views but there was sea of gorse…

…and trees…

…. silhouetted against the misty hills.

These three trees are remarkable in that a closer look will show…

…just how slimly attached to reality they are.

I had crossed the Newcastleton road and I made my way back down into the valley by way of these sheep pens.

 

I walked back to the Sawmill Brig where I saw a dipper again.  It flitted away before  could catch it so I walked on round the bottom of the Castleholm on the new path.

There was plenty of variety in the conifers beside the track.

And plenty of signs of life on all sides.

I enjoyed the sight of this tree plainly stretching its back beside the river.

I know just how it feels.

I waited for a while on the Jubilee Bridge to see if a nuthatch might be using the nest site in the big tree there.  In the end, I was disappointed to see a blue tit popping in instead.

I met Mike Tinker and Mrs Tootlepedal when I was nearly home.  They were admiring Mike’s handsome new fence.  I walked home with Mrs Tootlepedal and we enjoyed a refreshing cup of tea and a biscuit or two.

Because I was going out in the evening, I put my pictures onto the computer straight away and then made a shepherd’s pie for tea.

While it was cooking, I walked round the garden and took a final picture.

After tea, I picked up my friend Susan and we went off to play recorders with our group in Carlisle.  I had missed last month’s meeting because of a clash of dates so it seemed a long time since I had last played.  As a result, the music was even more welcome than usual and I had a thoroughly enjoyable time puffing away on the bass recorder while Jenny, Sue and Susan played the more elaborate upper parts.  We had a good selection of music and some excellent biscuits to go with the after-playing cup of tea so the evening could hardly have been better.

The flying bird of the day is a chaffinch in full aerodynamic mode, heading into the wind.

Round the world in an hour and a half

Today’s guest picture comes from my brother Andrew.  On his way back from his Welsh outing, he visited Nantwich and had a cup of coffee in this wonderful building next to the Crown Hotel.  As everyone knows, the present Crown Hotel was built on the site of an earlier inn of the same name, destroyed in the Great Fire of Nantwich of 1583.

We had another dry and sunny day today but it was not of much use as it came with an even meaner wind than recent days and my eyes were running with tears as I cycled up to the town after breakfast to collect the key for the camera club meeting in the evening.

I had a look round the garden when I got back and the tulips had decided to ignore the wind and pay attention to the sunshine…

…and among them, the very last of the daffodils was making an appearance.

There are blossoms on the silver pear tree and it is a pity that it does not produce edible fruits.

Sandy came round for coffee and when he left, I checked the birds and found a single siskin on the feeder.   Why he has stayed while the others have gone is a mystery.

We have a lot of sparrows in the garden but they don’t come to the feeder very much.  Perhaps this hostile stare from a chaffinch gives a clue as to why they stay away.

Mrs Tootlepedal’s fake tree is quite popular with our visitors and thoroughly repays the effort of nailing it together.

The chaffinches and goldfinches were very busy again scrapping for seed.

After a morning  spent hammering bits of tack onto the rocking horse, Mrs Tootlepedal went out into the garden and I went out to see what she was up to.

She was mostly hoeing and didn’t need my help so I took a speculative shot of a trout lily, holding the came in my stretched out hand under the flower and hoping for the best.  It came out well. Who needs a mirror?…

…and then I went off for a walk.  (It was too windy for a comfortable bike ride.)

It was a cap and gloves day but if you could get out of the wind, it was quite pleasant and I even saw a bee visiting some laurel flowers beside the Town Bridge.

When I got to the Kilngreen, I met Grace, one of our camera club members and taking care to sit on her leeward side, I enjoyed a chat with her on this bench beside the river.

She told me that she had seen a dipper and when I left her to walk on, I too saw one as I leaned over the parapet of the Sawmill Brig.

I spent so long watching it dip and dive that Grace caught me up and we watched a pair of goosanders cruise up and down…

…before once again, I left her and walked onward.  There was the merest hint of green among the trees on the Lodge walks….

…but it didn’t come from leaves.

The first race meeting of the season will take place next weekend and the course is looking in good condition.

Wild flowers are spreading on all sides…

…though at the moment, dandelions and celandines are by far the most prominent.

I crossed the Duchess Bridge…

…and walked back to the town, passing this fine crop of lichen on a tree stump beside the path.

I had a last look at a tulip trying its best to come out in the garden…

…before I went in to prepare pictures for the camera club meeting in the evening.

Then Mike Tinker dropped in for a cup of tea and when he left, Mrs Tootlepedal gave me a hair cut.  To round off a full afternoon, the next visitor was my flute pupil Luke, who has been practising again to good effect.

After tea, I went off to the camera club meeting.  Ten members and a guest turned up and we had a very entertaining selection of pictures to look at.  Of course there were some of Langholm, its surroundings and its wild life but they were mixed in with shots of beautiful highland scenery, amazing wild life from South Africa, shimmering deserts in Australia and hot mud springs in New Zealand.  Come to the camera club and see the world.

There was a slight hiatus while I scurried home to fetch the milk for our half time refreshments but otherwise, everything went very smoothly.

The ruffled feathers of the flying chaffinch of the day, gives an idea of the strength of the wind.

Quiet satisfaction

Today’s guest post comes from my brother Andrew’s trip to Anglesey.  He and my sister Mary had a coffee while admiring this view of Puffin Island.  The bell in the lighthouse tolled every 20 seconds while they sipped but Andrew told me not to ask for whom the bell tolled.

It is a short post today because although I did quite a lot, it almost all involved sitting down and singing, with the church choir in the morning and with the Carlisle Community Choir in the afternoon.

When I wasn’t sitting singing, I was mainly just sitting as the wind was even colder and meaner today than it was yesterday and there was no mitigating sunshine to cheer things up.

I might have gone for a walk or even a cycle ride between choirs, but with my foot still giving me trouble as a result of recent cycle rides and the wind seeking out every crevice in my clothing, neither option seemed very attractive so I stayed in, had a coffee, and watched the birds

There were plenty of goldfinches to watch….

…though chaffinches were falling over themselves to get at the seed.  (I love it when a figure of speech comes to life.)

The flock of siskins which has been visiting seems to have moved on and I only saw one or two today.  In their place, a number of redpolls have started coming regularly  I was just about to photograph a full house of redpolls when a chaffinch barged in and took the fourth perch..

…and the dislodged redpoll had to go to the other feeder.  The bright red chest is the  plumage of the male.

I did get out as far as the garden but the cold weather meant that there was not much development to record.  Indeed the cold and the wind had battered one tulip badly before it had even opened its petals properly.

Near the pond, red primroses and blue grape hyacinths jostled each other for position

In the pond itself, marsh marigolds have come out.

The trout lilies are doing well but are hanging their heads in the chill and since I couldn’t be bothered to go in and fetch a mirror, I cheated and held one up to show the pretty flower.

I soon went back in and when I got bored of looking at the birds, I looked at the packed flower beds round the feeder instead.

We fitted a little shopping in when we went to Carlisle to sing after lunch.  Mrs Tootlepedal bought some bark chippings for mulch and I bought a small teapot (and some loose tea) so we were both satisfied.

At church in the morning, we had sung six hymns, a short introit and an anthem, followed by two goes through the Hallelujah Chorus as a practice for the service next week so I was more than pleased to find that I still had a voice to sing in the afternoon.  Our Carlisle conductor is so cheery and encouraging, and the music that she has chosen is so enjoyable to sing that all thoughts of sore toes and cold winds were banished from my mind.

I had made a ragu sauce with mince in the slow cooker before church and it went down well with some linguine when we got back from Carlisle, leaving us enough time to watch the final holes of the Masters Golf.

Altogether it was a day of good quality sitting around.

The flying bird of the day is a goldfinch.  (I have cheated and painted out the feeder that it was just about to land on.)

A mean wind

Today’s guest picture comes from Stephen, my sister Susan’s friend.  He used to live  in New Zealand but has moved to Sydney in Australia where he sees a lot of ibis on his way to the gym.

We had another dry day here but there was a cold wind blowing which made it feel far from springlike if you were out and about.

The tulips took the view that staying tucked up was the best policy.

I had a quiet morning in and even when the sun came out, it was quite cold enough to make me happy to be looking out of the window.

Some goldfinches were concentrating hard on getting lined up correctly for landing…

…while others were trying to get a perch freed up.

I made some soup for lunch and when Mrs Tootlepedal went off for an embroiderers’ Guild meeting, I thought about a short cycle ride but it was grey and the wind was very mean so I settled for a woolly hat and gloves and went for a short walk instead.

My feet were a bit sore and it was so cold that I almost gave up before I had gone half a mile, but a cheerful bank of daffodils in the park kept me going…

..and I soon found myself going along the riverside path among a blanket of wild garlic.  The bench in the picture above will be not for the faint of nose soon.

I could see the garlic buds among the leaves and there were other subdued signs of spring too.

There was a bit of colour here and there but it was cold enough for the script lichen to be obvious.

I plodded on towards Murtholm farm and Skippers Bridge and was rewarded when rather unexpectedly, the sun came out, showing up the yellow algae on a concrete fence post beside the road at Skippers.  It looks as though it should be slimy from a distance but it turns out to be quite fluffy when you look closely.

I saw the algae when I was climbing over the low fence on my way down to the river bank to enjoy one of my favourite views.

The little ripple just above the bridge was looking charming with the water level being as low as it is at the moment.

I crossed the road beside the river and climbed up the steps that lead to the old railway and walked along the track below the embankment…

…until I got to the gate that leads onto the hill. It was a completely different day by now and as I was sheltered from the malignant breeze, I was very happy that I had kept going.

I walked up to the Round House, originally built as a gazebo  by a local landowner so that he could enjoy…

…this view of the town and the surrounding hills.

From the Round House, I took the track back to the town….

…and fell in with three cheery fellows from Hawick who had caught the bus to Langholm and walked nine miles round the back of Whita Hill.  They were pleased to be out of the wind too and looking forward to catching the bus back home.

The Embroiderers’ Guild members  were still meeting as I walked past the Day Centre.  I like their banner which is there to attract any passing needlewomen who might like to drop in.

The lonesome gull, who stands on the rock in the river between the bridges, had found a friend.

My pocket camera has more menu items than I can possible ever use but I noticed one that offered settings for ‘Sparkling Water’.  There was a river with water and some sunshine so I tried it out.

This was the result.

I don’t know how the camera got that effect and I am amazed that some software engineer thought it was worthwhile to write the code to make the camera do it. It looks like an ad for toothpaste.

I put the camera back on more normal settings and took a picture of the daffodils beside the Wauchope Water along Caroline Street.

They are just beginning to go over so I thought I ought to record them before they are gone.

When I got back to the garden, the sun had been warm enough to persuade some of the tulips to unbutton a bit…

…but it was still pretty chilly so I didn’t do any gardening but went into to watch the Melrose Sevens on the telly.

Mrs Tootlepedal returned and joined me in watching the rugby until it was tea time.

As the evening coincided with the third round of the Masters Golf from Augusta, which is worth watching for the fine grass and lovely flowers alone, the day ended very quietly.

The flying bird of the day is a chaffinch, caught in a sunny interval in the morning.

The forecast says that it is going to be frosty both tonight and tomorrow night and then it may get warmer.  The tulips and I both think that that would be a good thing.