Talking of wild flowers, today’s guest picture was taken by my daughter Annie in a man made wild flower area in her local park in the middle of London.
We got the cold and windy weather today, a day late after some overnight rain, but it was not as bad as it might have been and the garden was still looking well. A pulsatilla held evidence of the overnight rain…
…but there was plenty of colour to be seen.
A new, rather sombre rhododendron has come into flower and at the other end of the scale, the first philadelphus flower of the year made its appearance today.
There is potential to be seen as well.
It looks as though we should get a bumper apple crop.
On the bird feeder front, it was nice to see two chaffinches in balletic mood as they have been very quiet lately.
The main business of the day was an afternoon trip to Carlisle to sing in the end of season concert with our Carlisle Community Choir. I am rather ambivalent about singing in concerts as you have all the pleasure during the practices of getting tricky music right and all the danger in concerts of getting it wrong.
However, things went pretty well and thanks to the cunning use of a local primary school choir as guest artists, the church where we sang was full and the audience gave every appearance of enjoying our singing.
The down side is that we have to wait until September before both our choirs get going again. Mrs Tootlepadal will keep her hand in at the Church choir though.
By the time the concert had finished, the sun had come out and it was a beautiful day. Interestingly, to me at least, in spite of the sunshine, the temperature on the car thermometer was exactly ten degrees C less than it was when we drove back from Carlisle on Friday after our cycle ride.
It was nice enough or a walk after tea so I strolled down Caroline Street (though I had to put a jacket on for comfort)….
…and round the Kilngreen and Castleholm.
A flash of red in a tree caught my eye…..
I don’t know what sort of tree this is. The flowers look a bit like a chestnut…
…but the leaves don’t. Any suggestions?
I looked across the cricket pitch towards the clubhouse and the hill behind.
A flock of chattering jackdaws lifted off from a riverside tree as I went past.
I crossed the Jubilee Bridge and noticed a bright white flower among some red campion.
We saw some yesterday too and Mrs Tootlepedal wondered if they were just a white version so of red campion. Once again, I am open to help as I don’t think that they look quite the same.
Coming back to the house, I noticed two flowers which are more easily seen from the road than from in the garden at present.
Our spell of warm weather seems to have come to an end so I shall look back on the past week with pleasure that I made the most of it both from a cycling point of view and in the garden and because it ended literally on a high note (a top G, the last note of our final piece this afternoon).
The flying bird of the day is a sparrow,
Tootlepedal's Blog 
Your pictures are beautiful!
🙂
I think the tree might be a hybrid chestnut. It has leaves similar to a Chinese chestnut and flowers similar to a horse chestnut. It could also be a buckeye hybrid (Aesculus) which has been crossed with the European chestnut.
According to what I’ve read red campion does occasionally have white flowers.
I like that rose!
The rose is a picture as they say. Thank you for your tree suggestions. I knew I could rely on knowledgeable readers for help.
It’s all looking so fresh and wonderful. You certainly made the best of the warm weather, and I’m sure it will return before long for you to make a song and dance about…ending on a high note…smiling here!
I am not sure about the dance. 🙂
We’ve had lots of the White Campion here, and never any Red Campion at all. I would love to see some. So yes, it is a real flower.
Thank you. We have any amount of red campion this year, the verges are full of it.
That jackdaw photo is a wowser.
Your historic scenery is so beautiful. Around here, people proudly put a plaque on a house that was built in, say, 1898 or 1902.
P.S. I thought maybe some sort of buckeye for your mystery tree.
Allen and you agree on that possibility so it has weight.
Many of the fine houses of Scotland were built by people who made money from slaving or sugar plantations or selling drugs to the Chinese so I look at them with mixed emotions. The country round us is more modest.
Oh dear, that is a disturbing history. I appreciate someone who ponders issues like that.
I’m sure that you’ll miss singing in the choir over the summer, but it’s probably difficult to get people to commit to a year round choir when they have so much going on in the summer. The photo of the Kilngreen and Castleholm is a real winner, but they’re all very good.
People will go away on holiday. I don’t know why.
Delighted to hear that the concert went well, after all your hard work.
Lovely London wild flower garden.
Brilliant photograph of the honeysuckle. I do so like your closeups, so much easier to see the detail than with my elderly eyes! Glad the concert went so well.
I’m with you on concerts. I much prefer private music-making among friends.
I like the idea of concerts and sharing your music making with an appreciative audience but it is actuality which is not quite so good.
Yes it is a White Campion (Silene latifolia) – not a sport but a ‘proper’ flower though it sometimes hybridises with the Red Campion. The Rosa myseii and honeysuckle photos are lovely and I liked your flying sparrow!
Thank you.
I’m enjoying all these lovely summer flowers. I especially like the close-up of the pulsatilla with the water drops. I’m so glad the concert went well. I imagine there will still be plenty of singing in the Tootlepedal house even though you won’t be having choir practice for a while. 🙂
Mrs Tootlepedal sings more or less all day long as she goes about her business.
Oh my, that macro shot of the pulsatilla is another award winner! And I loved that shot of the church. It must be something to live in an area with so many historic buildings and bridges.
By British standards, we don’t have many old building round here because it was much fought over and building permanent houses was a waste of time. Most of our ‘old’ buildings in the town are Victorian.
Flower pictures are absolutely amazing. I’m very fond of the dancing chaffinches and the chattering jackdaws as well. Congratulations on your concert and thanks for reminding me of what it’s like to sing in a choir. 🙂
It was fun in spite of the nervousness.
So summery!
At last.
The flowers are white campion, or bladder campion, we have masses of them here and I quite like them. We do have red campion too but less of them. We also have horse chestnuts with red flowers in some places and the leaves are a little different. There are lots of them in Victoria Country Park. I think they may be some kind of hybrid.
I think it is a hybrid chestnut. We have hardly any white campion and a lot of red.