A day of (enforced) rest

Today’s picture, sent to me by a Langholm exile in New Zealand shows an intelligent child anticipating the ideal Rugby World Cup final.

For information, she is lying on a saltire and clutching a kiwi.

We started the day by waving off our three cycling overnight guests. We don’t usually take three guests as we only have one bedroom but the third cyclist joined the two end-to-enders for a day or two at short notice so we squeezed him onto a sofa bed.

Mike and Alex with Dom in the middle. They were in for a hard day's pedalling.

They had decided to go from North to South because they wanted to visit someone in the south at the finish but September is not the month I would choose to do that, as the prevailing wind is south westerly.  I shall be interested to read their blog in a day or two to see how they are getting on.

The rain started early and came down off and on through most of the day and it was quite windy as well so I certainly didn’t fancy cycling.  In fact, my back was still rather sore and I was a bit tired too so I didn’t fancy doing anything else very much either.  As a result, I spent much of the day sitting in my comfortable chair admiring the fine picture on our new telly.  It was showing a combination of Walker Cup and F1 motor racing. They were both quite exciting as far as any event which involves going round in circles or taking four hours to walk four miles can be.

I roused myself to go out in a dry spell to see if the rivers were running full. In spite of the rain, they were surprisingly low and didn’t offer a photo opportunity.  I noticed that the big horse chestnut tree by the church was going very brown. This seems rather early to me and I wondered if it is affected by the disease which has been striking horse chestnut trees all over the country or whether it is just the year that we have been having.

I took a picture in Henry Street on my way back to the house just to show the general excitement of the day in Langholm.

I was able to pick an a generous bowl of raspberries for my supper. They seem to be unaffected by anything except frost and keep producing a steady stream of fruit in all weathers once they have started. The birds are quite happy to share them with me and are very selective in their choice of fruit so I usually have enough for at least a small bowl every day..

I was glad to see that the blue tit had got its head screwed on right again.

In fact we continue to have a variety of tits visiting daily just now.

Blue tit and coal tit look left

The arrival of the stormy weather has been put back a bit but it should be with us tomorrow and stay for a couple of days.  I have invited Dropscone for coffee tomorrow without the need for a pedal first.  I am feeling a bit housebound and out of sorts today so I hope one of his girdle scones will come with him to cheer me up.