Into every life a little rain must fall.

Today’s picture shows Maisie enjoying some sunshine and a popsicle.  I have often wondered what a popsicle was and now I know.

There were certainly no popsicle eating opportunities to be had in Langholm today as it was miserable from dawn to dusk with ample supplies of both wind and rain.  To top off a generally rather sombre morning, the fruity teacakes which I had cooked for morning coffee were an abject failure though Arthur and Dropscone loyally ate one each.

We did not cycle because of the wind and rain and I don’t whether it was the fault of that or of the failed teacakes or the miserable weather but we had a vigorous political discussion over our coffee.  Since Dropscone has the viewpoint of a retired shop owner and baker and therefore has a gloomy view of human nature while I take the view of a retired teacher and am an optimist, our views more often collide than coincide so we can guarantee an endless set of subjects to debate.   It’s fun.

Photographing the birds was not fun as it was so dark all day that it wouldn’t have been possible to get good shots.  The weather had certainly got to the birds too and there were the fewest in the garden today that I have ever seen.  I took a grand total of three pictures.

A chaffinch on the elder

And a chaffinch on the plum tree.

The other one wasn’t worth showing.

After coffee, I put on a full set of waterproofs and went up to the town to bank the cheque from my bike sale and do a little shopping. I met Billy who sings in our choir and he told me that the bank was demanding a full constitution and signed minutes among other things before we could open a bank account.  You would think that a bank would want us to give them money but they make it very hard.  I went home and wrote a constitution  for the group modelled on the one we have for the Archive Group.  I have sent it round for comments but I am secretly hoping that the only one I get is, ‘That’s fine.’

It was very dark by three o’clock so I popped out for moment with sandycam in hand to see what the rivers were making of all the rain.

They were rising.

I had expected them to be higher than they were on Monday because it seemed to have rained more but they were much the same.

My friend Sue Thomson who plays in the recorder group and lives twenty five miles to the  south of us, was not so lucky and she rang to say that there was a serious risk of flood waters  round her house and as a result we arranged to cancel our recorder playing as travelling in these circumstances is not very sensible.

This left a bit of a gap in my day.  I filled a little of it with a visit to Arthur to give him some help with his computer but there was still time to spare so I started to make another set of tea cakes.  I had received some professional advice from Dropscone in the morning and in the end these turned out quite a bit better.  It was my  birthday so I enjoyed a birthday teacake (failed) in an atmosphere of unbridled jubilation.

And then I made a shepherd’s pie for my tea and after I had eaten it, I went out to look at the river again.  It was quite dark by this time but sandycam did well.

I’m pretty sure that if I lived in one of the houses in the picture, I would be checking on the rain with great care.

It has stopped raining now and the forecast is good for tomorrow so I hope to get a birthday pedal in then, even if it is a day late.