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.

More going round in circles

Today’s guest picture comes from my friend and former colleague, Marjorie.  She came upon these stunning fungi on a walk a few days ago.

It was a dry but grey morning and the forecast was not too bad for the rest of the day so my mind turned to cycling.

Before I set off, I had coffee and a slice of toast to think about and the birds to to watch as well.

They must have been reading the blog because after yesterday’s complaint about not enough birds, they came in better numbers today and the feeder was soon filled with goldfinches…

…with more anxious to join in.

This made for photo opportunities…

…and bad tempered exchanges…

…and curious chaffinches.

The goldfinches in possession of a perch tried to ignore outside distractions and kept their heads well down while they could for the most part.

In the end, I put down the bird watching camera and packed my cycling camera into the pocket of a stout waterproof bright yellow jacket and got out my bicycle, noting two particoloured jackdaws at the apples as I set off.

There was a brisk north easterly wind blowing and it pushed me over Callister and along the newly surfaced road past the quarry to Paddockhole.  I stopped there for half a banana and a look at the bridge.

The bridge has a bright red metal plate screwed to the parapet and when I looked at the parapet, I could see that turning lorries may have been knocking into it a bit, hence the need for the warning and protective plate…

…but the parapet was sound enough to be home to a nice pixie cup lichen among the moss and  a fallen beech nut.

The reason for the lorry traffic over the bridge is a new windfarm in the area so the narrow road after the bridge is being widened and lay-bys are being put in to cope with the construction vehicles.

Luckily there was very little traffic on the road as I battled up the hill alongside the Water of Milk straight into the brisk wind.  I was heading for the watershed between the Water of Milk and the River Esk and it took me some time.

It was lucky that I had my stout rainproof jacket on as it was drizzling at this point.  It was a bit annoying to look to my right and see the Ewe Hill wind farm bathed in sunshine.

I pressed on, crossing little bridges over little streams…

…until I got to the sunlit uplands on the top of the hill.  I love this section of road.

To my right I could see more wind turbines making good use of the enthusiastic breeze…

…and once I had got over the hill, I could see the Esk valley stretching in front of me.  The road follows that line of trees along the right side of the valley.

The rain had blown over by now and I enjoyed a sunny trip back down the river into Langholm.  Larches stood out in the sunshine.

With seven miles to go, I stopped for the other half of my banana and a drink at the Enzieholm bridge.  Naturally, I had a look at the parapet while I was there.

There was some good autumn colour on a hedge at Bentpath village…

…and I stopped to take a close up of a larch beside the road further on just to show that they really are golden at this time of year.

I had a look back at the Douglen Cleuch…

..before climbing the last hill of the day and swooping down into the town.  It was only a 26 miles ride but because of the wind and several hills to climb, it had seemed like more and I was very satisfied as it had felt like a proper outing.

Mrs Tootlepedal had been busy painting the hall while I was away.  It is looking very exciting already.

I had a look round the garden when I got home and was impressed by the staying power of the Rosy Cheeks rose and the very late phlox but the most arresting thing was the sudden appearance of a cowslip among the expected clematis, potentilla and wallflower.

I had a shower and than went for a walk.  I am supposed to keep exercising my feet and there was a little sunshine left so I headed off to see if I could find the fungi that Marjorie had photographed.

My usual friend was standing on the usual rock in the Esk…

…and two goosanders were swimming up the river nearby.

I should have been quicker to go walking as the sun was already sinking behind the hill and this was the last sunny view I got…

…before crossing the Sawmill Brig and walking round the pheasant pens.  I didn’t find Marjorie’s fungi but I saw other varieties…

… before I crossed the Duchess Bridge and made my way home.

As you can see, the bridge is in need of some TLC.

The slow cooked venison stew made a third and final appearance for our evening meal and it was followed by some tarte tatin which I had made when I got back from my walk.  I may need therapeutic help as I think that I have become addicted to tarte tatin.

When I checked, I discovered that the forecast for the next week is for some inclement and wintery weather with a maximum temperature of 7 degrees and plenty of rain so that made today’s ride and stroll even more pleasant in retrospect.

I apologise for an excessive number of pictures but it was an interesting day and here is a FBotD to round it off.