Today’s guest picture, shot by my Newcastle correspondent’s husband Mario, shows a small fortune in guano being sat on by guillemots on the Farne Islands.
It was a very middling sort of day today after a chilly night. It was neither too hot nor too cold, there was neither sun nor rain, it didn’t tempt you out much but it didn’t make you want to stay in.
In the end, I stayed in to entertain Dropscone to coffee in the morning, put on a jumper and did some gardening after that and then went for a short cycle ride in the afternoon. All in all, I put a middling day to middling use.
Dropscone’s pleasure in his golf has been slightly dimmed by an occasional outbreak of shanking, a condition where instead of going down the middle like it should, your ball shoots sharply off to the right and dives into the nearest bush, burn or bunker. I was much afflicted by this myself and it is one of the reasons that I don’t much miss playing golf now that I have stopped. He is soldiering bravely on.
I mixed my gardening with photography.
We have loud show offs….
…and discreet delights.
Some flowers are in a state of development.
Mrs Tootlepedal is in full planting out mode so I sieved a little compost as my contribution and it went to help 50 leeks on their way. I also did some light mowing and helped straighten a wooden plank at the side of a raised bed which, like me, had collapsed a little with old age.
Then it was time for lunch.
It was rather a gloomy day as far as the light went and I didn’t spend much time looking out of the kitchen window. The only bird picture from the morning was a blackbird who was watching me in the garden.
It is not that there is any lack of birds on the feeder…
…because families of sparrows and starlings are eating me out of house and home.
In the afternoon, I had a cautious look at the weather forecast and ventured out for a familiar 22 mile ride to Gair and back. In the event, conditions were very good for cycling with enough wind to make things interesting without being annoying and a perfect cycling temperature.
I took a few pictures with my phone as I went.
On my way back, I passed Mrs Tootlepedal who was on a short pedalling excursion of her own. I had time for a walk round the garden when I got home. There was nothing outstanding but I liked the gentle colour of this comfrey..
…and a poppy which appeared to be being eaten by a savage hairy slug.
The Rosa Moyesii has provided a blossom that can be seen from inside the garden now…
…and I couldn’t resist a second look at this morning’s pink rose.
The evening was devoted to music. First my flute pupil Luke came and we played some enjoyable duets and then after tea, I went off to play trios with Mike and Isabel. As usual, we had a most enjoyable time and if we started off playing a little more accurately than we finished, who can blame us. Playing good music is hard work.
The flying bird of the day is one of those expensive sparrows.
Tootlepedal's Blog 
Beautiful flowers!
🙂
Your flower photos are so good today and I love your descriptions of them especially the over-iced cake poppies.
Thank you Clare. They make me feel quite hungry.
Love the flowers.
Thank you Leanne.
You manage to pack so much into your day Mr T.
Wonderful photographs as always.
I can write a busy day even if it wouldn’t look so busy to an impartial observer.
Sorry to have lost touch a bit – off to Perth for a couple of days now to take a friend to eye appointments. She is flying down from Port Hedland so we are going to stay at a resort and drink wine. I will catch up when I get back as I always find your posts so invigorating!
I hope the wine drinking goes well!
The flowers are beyond beautiful, I would think that several of these would be worth entering into one of the contests at the local photography clubs.
They need to be sharper if I am going to print them out full size.
Agreed about the glories of iris buds.
I have wondered about the identity of that plant called silver weed, good name for it; it pops up around here, too.
It loves the road edges round here.
Your music making sounded most agreeable, I used to love playing duets. The pictures of the poppies were real winners.
Wow, I’m so impressed by these flower shots. I particularly like the first picture with the close-ups of the centres. They are so beautiful!
I have learned to love flowers a lot more since I got my camera and started to look at them closely.
Lucky Mario, naughty golf balls, beautiful flowers.
🙂
Oh my, all the flower photos are a real treat! The macros of the poppies – just WOW! But they all brightened my morning considerably and I’m so happy to see Mrs. T’s roses coming on.
I like the roses too. There should be more soon.
What is the pink flower before the lupine? It’s gorgeous. I’ve never seen that flower before.
It is an astrantia. The flower head is quite small, less than an inch across.
Some really lovely flower pictures. Glad you had an enjoyable ride and plenty of music as well.
As everyone else said, the flowers are beautiful. I think my favorites this time are the lupines.
They may well appear again as I like them a lot.
All beautiful as usual, but the poppy and “slug” combo are my favourite 🙂
A curious sight. I had to look twice to work out what was happening.
It sounds like a day well spent.m