Getting her eye in

Today’s guest picture, sent to me by her mother, shows the world’s greatest toddler considering hygienic matters.

Just for the record I note that we had another dry day today with the addition of some welcome sunshine.  It would have been a good day for cycling but there were more important things to think about.

Most of the day was spent taking Mrs Tootlepedal to the hospital in Dumfries where she got a cataract in one of her eyes removed.  Everything went very well and she is wearing a fetching eye patch as I write this and we are looking about for a handy parrot to round off her pirate queen impersonation.

The staff at the hospital could not have been better organised or more helpful and the whole thing was spiritually and physically painless so we were back out in two and half hours and were able to have a late lunch at a garden centre on the way home.

While were at the garden centre, several packets of bulbs and some bird food mysteriously fell into a basket which we were carrying around.  I was quite surprised to see a small tortoiseshell butterfly on one of the plants in their outdoor section.

You don’t expect to see real life among the rather artificial looking serried ranks of plants in a garden centre.

We got home safely and Mrs Tootlepedal went for a rest while I spent most of the rest of the afternoon selecting and printing out pictures for the Westerkirk Flower show tomorrow.  I always find it hard to pick show pictures and often end up choosing unsuitable photos even though I know that they won’t do well.  I have done better this time and at least I am entering eight respectable efforts….but there is still no guarantee that any of them will catch the judge’s eye.

In the morning, before we left for Dumfries, I had been very pleased to see a couple of robins in the garden.

This one was not very well drawn

This one was more the complete picture

In between times, I wandered round the garden…

Today’s poppy parade

…and was very pleased to find a butterfly here too.

It was a peacock butterfly on the Michaelmas daisies

It flew off before I could get a close up but returned a few minutes later and I was able to get penny plain and tuppence coloured members of the butterfly family.

I kept an eye on my new feeder and put some of the new bird food into it.  It is proving a popular eating place among birds of taste and discrimination.

The tit family was well represented by blue tit, great tit and coal tit.

And there was a robin and a siskin too….and another blue tit, the most frequent visitors.

As I was wandering about, I saw another young robin.

On request, it posed properly.

I am not sure if this is the same one that I saw in the morning.  My robin identification skills are not good.

I made some bread and went off to get a pizza for our tea and enjoyed sharing it with Mrs Tootlepedal who seems to be none the worse for her adventure.  We have to go back to the hospital on Monday for a check that all is well.

In the evening, we were joined by Mike and Alison and Alison and I worked hard at our new Telemann Partita and were rewarded by some quite musical sounds.  Now that the nights are drawing in, I am going to try and be a bit more methodical about practising my flute.  I am never going to be a good player but I certainly have a great deal of scope for getting better.

The flying bird of the day is a chaffinch.