Water, water everywhere

Today’s picture was sent by daughter Annie.  She was at the Kennington Oval tonight to watch Surrey play Hampshire.  After the game she was of the opinion that Surrey were complete bobbins.  I don’t think that this is a compliment.

Our spell of hit, sunny weather continued and Dropscone appeared on cue for a morning pedal.  We opted for a different route today and headed north to Enzieholm Bridge and Bailliehill.  Once we had got to the top of the hill, we had a choice of going on to complete a 26 mile circle or going back to do a 21 mile out and back.  We decided to go on and were pleased with the choice as the last ten miles home from Paddockhole were into a light but refreshing breeze which kept us comparatively cool.

As it was Friday, Dropscone had made treacle scones and they tasted very good.

When he left, I walked round the garden.

Contrasting flowers at the back fence.

Contrasting flowers beside the middle lawn

A bee likes an eryngium by the front lawn.

I soon went back in to escape from the heat and do a little bird watching.

A pair of chaffinches in the plum tree

A very slender siskin

The usual siskin behaviour was in evidence from an upstairs window.

The rest of the day was too hot to do anything more energetic than mow the middle lawn and water the front lawn.  When Mrs Tootlepedal came back from work at lunchtime, she was struck by how limp the flowers in the front border were looking in the heat so after she returned to work, I watered them and then I did some more watering round the garden.  This is not something that we have to do very often in one of our usual summers.

I made frequent visits to the cool of the sitting room and managed to follow the second test, the Open golf and the Tour de France simultaneously but intermittently.

When Mrs Tootlepedal returned from work, she did some more watering and then we went up to the Langholm Moor to see if the hen harriers were in entertaining mood.  We were able to watch two youngsters for quite a time.  Here they, one each side of a track across the hill.

Sadly at the distance they were, my camera has difficulty in picking them out from the background so although I took a lot of shots, none were any better than the one above.  Occasionally they lifted themselves up above the skyline which made photography a bit easier…

…but I have no idea what is going on in this shot…

….so I just hope that Cat, our resident expert reads this post and can tell us.

They are very graceful birds when they are in the air and a pleasure to watch even if out of effective camera range.

We got home in time to cook some potatoes and beans from the garden for tea to go with a sardine or two to improve our mental capabilities. We were early enough so that Mrs Tootlepedal could watch the Tour highlights programme which she enjoys a lot.  While things were cooking, I took the camera into the garden for a look at some flowers in the evening sunshine…

…and a new purple poppy which has turned up.

Later in the evening, we were joined by Mike and Alison and Alison and I played some flute and recorder sonatas well up to our usual standard…but enjoyed them all the same.

The flying bird of the day is a sparrow.

Note:  I meant to put a link to our Melrose cycle tour on yesterday’s post but I was so jiggered with the heat that I forgot.  Here it is for anyone interested.