The birds and the bees (but no cigarette tree)

Today’s picture, sent to me by my son Tony, shows the sunrise over Elie in Fife where he was up early to work.

It was the last day of our short period of wonderful weather today and I did my best to make the most of it.  Mrs Tootlepedal had to work almost all day and felt sad to have missed such a rare day of sunshine.

Dropscone arrived for the morning run and for the first time in recorded history, I was actually ready to go as he arrived.  He recovered from the shock and we went round in very pleasant conditions and in an improved time.  Dropscone is getting back to form by the day.  His bike though, has a dodgy gear change at the moment and will perhaps need to visit the bike hospital for care and attention before very long.

After my shower, I took the camera into the garden to try to show the benefits of a sunny day.

The insects certainly enjoyed the sunshine

Every flower had its quota of insect life.  I count nine on the Michaelmas daisies above.

I don't know what these are but there are a lot of them about

There were bumble bees of every shape and size as well and the sparrows were enjoying my grass seed, the ungrateful things.

The last crop of Michaelmas daisies, which Mrs Tootlepedal thought might not flower at all, are doing well in this warmer weather after all.

Mrs Tootlepedal intends to move them at a suitable moment to a place near my two fuchsias.

There were several red admiral butterflies about but the peacock and tortoiseshell butterflies are conspicuous by their absence.

In the afternoon, I went up to the golf course to see if I could remember how to play golf.  I was the youngest of the three ball that played and I was also the worst as the other two played well.  I mixed excellent and atrocious in just about equal measure but it was a treat just to be able to play at all.  The course itself is in a very soggy condition and the few days of good weather this week have not made much of a difference to that though they have allowed the greenkeeping staff to get vital work done.  The green keeper has put some very good recent pictures of the course on his blog. He deserves great credit for the way he and his men have battled through some shocking conditions this year.

The first half of this month was not great for cycling and I found myself with an eleven mile shortfall from my target distance so when I got back from the golf course, I had a gentle spin up to the top of Callister and back.   When I was at the top, I met the clerk of works for the council who used to look after the schools where I worked.  He was having a moment of peace in a lay-by.  He told me of the many problems that he is facing in the current conditions and this made me even more pleased than usual to be retired and not to have to worry any more about reconciling irreconcilable aims.

In spite of the fine weather, the hand of autumn has been firmly laid across the countryside and everything is beginning to look brown.

I took several very fine pictures but sadly, as you can see from the above effort,  my camera lens was fogged up and I wasn’t able to use them.  This is the same stream looking in the other direction.

The sun was still shining when I got back and so I got my unfogged camera out again.

It’s sad to think that we may not see the sun again for several months if the rest of the year is anything to go by.

The sparrows had gone off to eat someone else’s grass seed and a small crowd of blue tits came to take their place.

A coal tit joins in

And a single coal tit

I finish with a green corner of the garden.