Holding the baby

No guest picture today but pride of place to the new arrival who is seen in the arms of her grandmother.  Mrs Tootlepedal seems surprised to find that she is quite used to this sort of thing.

As you can see, we went to Edinburgh to visit Alistair and Clare and their daughter.  It made for quite a long day so this will be a commensurately brief post.

We had some time to kill at home before setting out as visiting hours are strictly limited so we went for a quick pedal up to Westwater and back after breakfast in lovely sunshine and a brisk wind. The briskness of the wind was demonstrated by the fact that it took us longer to get home downhill than it did to get out uphill.

I looked round the garden for a change in the weather was forecast for the end of the day and the sunshine was too good to waste.

A delicately coloured new set of tulips looking good.

The new anemone looking brighter than ever.

A wallflower looking very energetic

The recent spell of dry sunny weather has certainly given the garden flowers a chance to shine.  The garden was full of birds too.

A blackbird was in full voice in the walnut tree.

A chaffinch nibbled a twig on the plum tree.

And a goldfinch enjoyed the sun as much as we did.

A chaffinch applies the brakes as it approaches the feeder.

And a jackdaw surveys the scene.

When the time came, we drove to Edinburgh leaving the garden, the birds and the sunshine behind.  By the time we got to Edinburgh, it was cold, misty and starting to rain.

We were able to ignore the weather in the pleasure of seeing our grandchild.  She was snoozing peacefully in her mother’s arms.  The birth has been very hard work for Clare but we were pleased to find her out of bed and sitting up and as as cheerful as someone who has had an exhausting experience and no sleep all night could possibly be.  Both Mrs Tootlepedal and I were allowed to hold the baby and we were reminded of what a miracle of nature a tiny baby is.  We didn’t want to exhaust Clare completely so after the baby was laid in its cot….

….we left Clare to rest and took Alistair off for a late lunch in the hospital cafe.

Alistair and Clare are still mulling over the perfect name for their daughter.

Although it rained all the way home, we had a very traffic free drive back to Langholm and the day was rounded off for me by being taken to Carlisle by Susan to play with our recorder group.

Rather than write the same ‘thank you’ many times, I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who took the time and trouble to make such generous comments on yesterday’s post.   It is very heart warming to have such kindness.

I did catch a flying bird before we left for the big city.