Going to town

Today’s picture shows Mrs Tootlepedal sizing up our Christmas tree

Finally the temperature has risen enough to thaw quite a lot of the snow. It is even going to stay above freezing overnight. However, it hasn’t gone as far as to let us open our back door, which is annoying and as the forecast is for the freezing nights to return from tomorrow, it may well be that we won’t be able to use for the foreseeable future.

The goldfinches were absent for the first part of the morning which let the siskins and blue tits have a free hand at the feeder.

In the late morning the goldfinches returned and took up their usual places

Mrs Tootlepedal had been at work from early on and when she returned, we set out in the car to go to Carlisle. Our chief target was to buy some smokeless fuel for the fire but Homebase was out of stock, not surprisingly considering the cold weather. We went on into the town and Mrs Tootlepedal went off to order some fabric for a front door curtain while I went to get some envelopes from Staples.

I then went into the centre of town to visit a camera shop to buy myself my Christmas present. If you don’t hold Santa’s hand, I have found, he often goes astray.

It was a bit early to get the best of the Christmas lights but they looked as though they would be a treat in the dark.

I found a very competitively priced camera in The Lanes. The man said that they keep a close eye on internet prices and I must say that I couldn’t find a significantly better bargain online. I hope that the new camera will let me improve the quality of my photographs.