The magic of frozen peas

Today’s guest picture was sent to me by my son Tony and shows one method that he came across of making sure that your dog doesn’t get  attacked by swans while walking at Lake Windermere.

I was interested to find out how my various joints would feel this morning after my experiment with the instant sit down method yesterday.  Checking from top to bottom, my thumb was bruised and sore but usable,  my hip was painless, my knee was fine and my ankle was quite swollen and rather tricky to walk on,

This was much better than I had feared and some credit must go to a relaxing bath last night and some credit to having fairly healthy muscles in the leg.  The swollen ankle was periodically treated with a judicious mixture of gentle exercise and frozen peas and by the end of the day, it was almost as good as new.  I count myself very lucky, as I could have done a fair bit of damage.

The morning was spent going no further than the garden.  The ladies were in very good form.

Crown Princess Margareta

Lilian Austin

As were the astrantias.

A general view of them today instead of the usual close up.

A yellow iris has come out to join the others.

My sore thumb made holding my heavy camera a bit of a problem but I still managed to catch a blackbird making off with some seed…

…and a goldfinch hiding behind the feeder pole.

Mrs Tootlepedal had been at a coffee morning for her church choir and we had lunch when she came back.  After some discussion it was agreed that both my leg and my sister Susan would benefit from an excursion so Mrs Tootlepedal drove us up to Eskdalemuir.  We stopped at The Hub where I checked the exhibition space and then we went on to visit the Samye Ling Tibetan centre a mile or two further up the road.

I was here recently on a bike trip but today I had time to walk around and really appreciate the place.  It is not in any way short of statutes.

Some are in ponds large and small…

…and some are in various vegetable gardens.

There is a wealth of decoration on everything that has a spare inch.

I enjoyed taking a close look at the figures round the base of the large gateway.

The smaller pond with the figure in it has a dragon to pour the water in at one side and a golden boy to pour it out at the other.

We were interested to see that modern technology is part and parcel of the site.  We liked these electrically powered gently turning prayer wheels a lot.

As well as the buildings, some peaceful landscaping has been done.

The monks are very energetic and it seems as though every time I visit, some new works have been started.  The swallows have also been building and there were several nests to be seen with busy parents flitting to and fro.

Near the car park, there were some striking purple flowers.  The looked like knapweed but not quite like the wild flowers you would expect.  The bees were enjoying the pollen.

We stopped off at The Hub on our way back down and had a light refreshment and then dawdled back down the west bank of the river Esk to Enzieholm and thence home.

The afternoon sunshine made the drive as pleasurable as the visit to the  monastery and it was just the sort of quiet excursion to suit a man with a dodgy ankle and a sister who these days enjoys life in the slow lane.

In the evening my flute pupil Luke came and we had another go at installing a mental metronome in his head.  We made progress from last week but it is not coming easily.  I will have to look closely at my teaching methods.  I can remember my younger son complaining to me some years ago.  He had a class of first year students to take when he was studying for his PhD and he told me that the students just wouldn’t learn properly.  “That’s easy enough, ” I replied.  “You are not teaching them properly then.”  He was much struck by this way of looking at things.

In the evening, my kind sister took us out for a meal.  The food was very good and what made the meal even better was the fact that we didn’t eat too much.

The flying bird of the day is a less stealthy goldfinch.