The rain it raineth every day

Today’s picture is a sweet William, the only ray of sunshine in a gloomy world.

The natural moist gloominess of the day was made more gloomy still be the departure of Mrs Tootlepedal for a few days to see her brother in the deep south.  He has just had a hip operation and needs all the moral support that he can get.  I took Mrs Tootlepedal to the train in Carlisle and to add insult to injury, the weather was much better down there.  By the time I got home, it was raining steadily and it continued to do so for most of the day.

There was a lull at lunchtime and I ventured out into the general sogginess.

The first moss rose came out a few days ago but the other buds have been reluctant to open.  This is the second one to show.  When you see how wet it is, you can’t really blame them for wanting to stay tucked up.  I was reading in the paper that the prolonged wet weather is beginning to give both arable and livestock farmers real problems so I suppose that a late developing rose is not too serious in the great scheme of things.

I was surprised to hear loud buzzing again round the weigela and in spite of the rain, there were many bees visiting the flowers.  I would have thought that it was too wet for pollen collecting but I expect the bees know better than I do.

The bees were smaller than the ones in the garden earlier on.

I went to our corner shop to get some vegetables for a stew and while I was in there, I met a man who is a lot older than me and with two artificial knees but who enjoys his cycling.  “Not cycling much in this weather, I suppose,” I said.  “Howts man, ” he replied, “if you can’t cycle in a little wet, you’ll never get out round here.”

Fair enough.

I was shamed by his enthusiasm into getting the slow bike out after lunch and going for a pedal in the drizzle myself.  It was warm and there was only a light wind so it wasn’t too bad, even though the rain got steadily heavier as I went along.  My friend Nancy had told me that there was a great show of foxgloves along Gaskell’s Walk where the trees have been recently felled so I stopped at the Auld Stane Brig to take a look.

This just a taste.

I am hoping for a sunny interval before they are over so that I can do justice to them.

I cycled on to Wauchope School where I stopped to look at the confluence of two small burns.

They were quite full.

I went on past the Bloch to see whether the woodsmen had left anything of the Kerr Wood behind. Not so much of it has been felled as I thought but there were a lot of logs lying about.

We bicycle up this road on the morning run and the woods used to provide welcome shelter from the prevailing westerly winds.  No more.

The trees used to come right to the roadside.

Although my little camera doesn’t show it, it was raining pretty hard by now and I was pleased to turn and cycle back down the hill towards home.  I made one more stop to take a picture of one of my favourite spots on the Wauchope.  This is how it looked in May…

You would hardly recognise it as the same place today…

I got home not too wet, thanks to my excellent jacket and finding a break in the rain, I mowed the drying green before a change of clothes and a reviving cup of tea and slice of toast.

I was pleased to catch a rare moment when the siskins were not in the ascendency at the feeder and there was a collection of four different birds in the picture.

I could get addicted to the elliptical selection tool.

There was a lot of action in the fat ball cage.

Cage fighting among the young sparrows

The sparrow on its side managed to kick the other sparrow out of the cage backwards.

I heard a lot of squeaking outside and when I looked through the window, I saw these two baby starlings looking soulful.  (If you don’t like pictures of starlings, look away now, there are quite a few coming up.)

Waiting…

…but not patiently.

The child waits, the parent does a bit of head scratching, a familiar scenario.

Parents will recognise this scene.

A moment of repose

An insistent demand.

The correct response

What about me?

And then they flew off and the show was over.

I had to resort to watching Wimbledon on the telly for entertainment.  In a dry moment outside, I popped out and trimmed another of the box balls and to my disgust, when I came back in, the match that I was watching had been rained off.  I consoled myself by making a tasty beef casserole which will do for my tea for four days at least.

While I was cooking, a blue tit turned up with its head screwed on the right way.

.

There is a hint of better weather in the forecast tomorrow.  I hope it comes at a time when I have a chance to photograph the foxgloves.

Today’s chaffinch is a chaffinch in the morning rain.