Slow pedal, good tootle

After yesterday’s exciting picture of the hobby horses in the Banbury Mayor’s procession, here is the mayor himself walking through a crowd of well wishers. I’m glad that my brother lives in Banbury and not I.  The excitement might be too much for me.

Here, on a another warm and sunny day, I avoided too much excitement by going for a very staid pedal by myself as Dropscone was busy.  I left after a late breakfast and apart from meeting Catriona and Sue, who were out for a drive and who kindly slowed down to let me take a picture…

… my 25 mile ride to Paddockhole and back by Waterbeck was uneventful in the extreme.  I did stop to admire some serious lawn mowing…

…and the gulls who had collected to see what they could find in a field across the road where the grass had been swept up.

The grass goes for animal feed for the coming winter.

When I got back, I started a new sourdough loaf and with the cycling this filled up the morning nicely.  Then it was time to head off to the tourist information point at the Kilngreen where I was able to sit almost undisturbed for a couple of hours doing the crossword and reading.  After enjoying an ice cream from the Pelosi’s van, I headed for home.

Mrs Tootlepedal was lying flat out on the sofa having attempted a short cycle ride herself in the hottest part of the day.  It seemed a good moment to relax and watch the Tour de France come into St Malo, particularly as we ourselves had pedalled out of St Malo on a trip to visit Mrs Tootlepedal’s sister near Carcassonne  a few years ago.

After the finish of the stage, I went out into the garden to sieve a little more compost and was soon joined by Mrs Tootlepedal who had a busy day, when not cycling, trimming hedges…

…and box balls.

I didn’t have much time for photography today but I had time for a quick nip round the flower beds.  There is new colour….

A pale blue delphinium has arrived.

…and ever whiter whites.

This white campanula caught the late afternoon sunshine.

This Philadelphus is groaning with blossom.

I passed a siskin posing on the feeder.

It soon had to turn to see off a looming chaffinch.

The chaffinch made an excuse and left.

Then it was time for tea.  I had a suitably summery salad garnished with some new potatoes from my ‘potatoes in a bag’ in the greenhouse.  Here is the crop from three seed potatoes.

It was not a sensational crop but more than sevenfold and very, very clean with not a slug in sight.  They tasted very good too.

The sourdough bread came out well, being the most regularly shaped yet.  I need to get a sharper knife than I have (possibly a craft knife) to cut the surface before baking and then I will have something to be proud of.   The warm weather makes the rising of the dough a much quicker proposition than before.

In the evening, Susan drove me to Carlisle  to our recorder group and we enjoyed playing quartets and quintets as one of our members was absent, sensibly sitting in the sunshine in her garden recovering from a hard day at the office.  We played well and we had an good selection of music to play.

Although you may find it hard to believe, I do try not to take too many pictures of the same thing too often but I couldn’t resist another look at the yellow irises which for the time being are my favourite flowers in the garden (and nice to photograph).

A siskin, sneaking past the feeder support, has to do for the flying bird of the day.