Lots

Today’s picture comes from the “It’s a small world” category and was sent to me by my son Tony, who is on holiday in Menorca.  It shows a bus shelter poster there featuring the name of his sister’s partner among the writing team.  Not what he had expected.

It was a day of lots of things.  It started off with lots of wind as Dropscone and I battled round the morning run.  It took us a lot of time too.  The weather was good most of the way but it started to rain as we entered the last three miles.  Fortunately, this was both downhill and downwind.  The wind was blowing at at least 20 mph and we were doing the same speed and I swear that the same raindrop followed along beside me all the way down the road.

It was raining so hard after we had had our coffee, that I took Dropscone home in the car and he came and fetched his bike later.

After a slow start, there were lots of visitors to the nyger seed feeder too.

A blue tit leads the way at lunchtime.

A greenfinch joins a goldfinch

Helped by my brother's researches, I am now pretty sure that this is a male goldfinch

The secret is that the red patch goes back past the whole eye.

A sparrow joins in. The goldfinch on the right is a female. The red patch doesn't cover the whole eye.

Two chaffinches get stuck in

There was even a shy siskin

There was lots of activity round the back of the house where a neighbour is clearing the overgrown shrubs round a garage.  This should make the dam look better.

Mrs Tootlepedal is pleased by this as she likes the dam to look well cared for.

I purchased a test bird cake to put on a table in the garden and was interested to see who would come.  Lots of birds arrived.

Did you ever see a bird looking more like an infant teacher than this blackbird?

A female looks in

In the afternoon, Mrs Tootlepedal yet again went to work and left us to have fun.  We had lots of fun.  Granny and I went to the bank to get money, the Co-op to get feta cheese, Latimers to get ceramic hob cleaner and finally to the paper shop to get postcards of Langholm.  This is only the second time that Granny has been shopping since her accident and she enjoyed herself a lot.

I went out into the garden when we got back to make a record of all the clematis that are still flowering in the garden at this stage in October.  Usually we would have had a frost by now and it is a bit out of the ordinary to see so many on the go. We are threatened with cold weather shortly and this might be the last chance to get them all at once.  They are not in great condition because of the recent rain and wind.

The first four are all in the hedge between the middle lawn and the vegetable garden.

The next three are in the borders between the middle and front lawns.

The last one is between the front lawn and the drive.  It has survived an attack of clematis wilt.

There are at least three more clematis in the garden but not in flower.  That’s a lot of clematis.

I used the feta cheese that Granny and I had bought to make a potato, feta, tomato and red pepper bake for tea and then Granny and Mrs Tootlepedal went to the Buccleuch Centre to see the ballet, Coppelia and I went off to Carlisle to play recorders, chauffeured by Dropscone’s daughter, Susan.

The ladies had a most enjoyable evening marvelling at the skill and grace of the ballet dancers and I had very enjoyable evening playing recorder music with the quintet.  Once again we mixed consort music with some baroque quartets accompanied by Heather on her electric harpsichord.

During the day, in the excitement of watching goldfinches through the sitting room window, I rather neglected the sparrows through the kitchen window but I did notice this demonstration of three ways to attack a fat ball.

The activity at the nyjer seed feeder was echoed on the ground below.

That seems to me to be a male looking left and a female looking right.  You can see a difference in the extent of the red patch.

After the female and the sparrows had cleared off, the blackbird came back to the table to have another go at the new treat.

A full day with lots happening.