All change again

Today’s picture shows a slightly uninviting opportunity to sit outside a pub on the river in Barnes.  My daughter Annie sent it and tells me that she didn’t sit out today.  Wimp.

We had another day of mixed weather, starting with this…

…but changing into this as the day went on.

I went across the river twice, once on the morning and once on the afternoon and took a picture each time.

Chalk and cheese as they say.

Even as I took the first of the pictures, the snow was melting on the other side of the river.

No snow on the roofs this side of the river.

If you could get out of the biting wind and dodge the frequent flurries of snow, the sun was quite warm and it was a reasonable day.  If you couldn’t get out of the wind and the sun was behind the snow clouds, it was miserable with the temperature never rising much above zero except for a short while in the afternoon.

My first trip across the water was to visit the Archive Centre…

…to consult with a couple of our experts who were working there this morning.  In spite of its grand name and impressive sign, the centre is nothing but a small ground floor room in an old shop equipped with microfiche readers and a computer which our group uses as a workspace.  These ladies are working on our newspaper database.  The one on the left (Nancy) is mining information from the microfiche of an edition of 1885 and the one on the right (Sandra) is entering data from other miners into the on-line database.  The pictures on the wall are from our extensive photo collection which is Sandy’s province.

My consultation successfully over, I returned home to see what was happening at the bird feeder.

Not for the faint hearted.

Bramblings and chaffinches scrabble in the snow

I was still feeling rather tired so I resisted any slight temptation to do something energetic and sat and did the crossword and listened to the radio until Mrs Tootlepedal returned from work at lunchtime.

After lunch I did some more work with my music programs and started to feel that I knew what I was doing.  I was able to make some useful preparations for my flute pupil Luke.

Noticing that the sun was shining brightly and checking the temperature had risen a bit. I put on a coat and left Mrs Tootlepedal making costumes for the show that she is in next week while I went for a walk.

A black headed gull on a rock in the Esk

The Kilngreen heron

It flew off in disgust when I didn’t feed it.

Two herring gulls enjoyed the sun

They too flew off as I approached

An oyster catcher who had obviously been digging for worms tried to creep by under my radar.

My objective was to look at the snowdrops at Holmhead but rather annoyingly they were in the middle of just about the only patch of snow that hadn’t melted.

My way home was interrupted by a rabbit which was hoping that I wouldn’t notice it if it stood stock still…

It nearly worked.

…and the sight of the start of the work in providing pheasants for next year’s shoots.

The low sun made the trees look interesting (to me at any rate).

And there was plenty to look at on the trees too.

You can see that I am experimenting with the presentation of composite pictures.  It’s fun exploring what the photo editor has to offer.

In the evening my flute pupil Luke came.  He is going for an grade exam this week and should pass easily if he plays as well as he can.  I have told him not to be nervous because it won’t make him a better or worse player if he passes or fails.  He is making excellent progress and it is a treat for me to be able to play duets with him.

I had intended to go to Newcastleton for a meeting of the Liddesdale camera Club but Sandy rang up to say that it had been cancelled because of the weather.  We were secretly quite relieved as driving in sub zero temperatures along winding roads in the dark after a day of intermittent snowfall is not top of the lists of the things we like to do.

I had a big choice of flying birds today as you can see but I really like the twist in this chaffinch.