At last, a treacle scone

Today’s guest picture shows the Belper River Gardens which my brother Andrew enjoyed on a visit to the town.  The land was donated by the adjacent Strutt’s Mill owner, who wanted to thank his workforce.

A rather brief blog today for three reasons, I didn’t do anything interesting during the day, a concert in the evening went on longer than I expected and we have to get up very early tomorrow to go to Newcastle.

The most interesting event of the morning was the arrival of Dropscone bearing traditional Friday treacle scones. He is 75 tomorrow and I thought that he was looking pretty perky under the circumstances.

I had thought of a little bike ride but a combination of very brisk winds and some rain put me off and by the time that things had brightened up, I was engaged in watching the Scottish Cup Final.  I don’t usually watch a lot of football these days but I have been a Hibs supporter since 1962 and although they haven’t won the cup for over 100 years, you always live in hope.

Hope was realised at the very last minute today.

I had a quick walk round the garden but the wind made taking flower pictures rather tricky.  However, I have never worried about taking less than perfect pictures so here are some close-ups to go with yesterday’s wider views.

I noticed a tulip which had been lurking behind other plants

And the clump of yellow tulips are developing a dainty red fringe to their petals

The leaves have come out on the magnolia and I like the effect this creates

The Jacob’s ladder is climbing ever higher

And the geums are growing well too.

In the back border there are Sweet Woodruff….

…which Mrs Tootlepedal is pleased about and persistent Spanish Bluebells….

…with which she is not so happy.  She has dug up a great number this year but they keep on coming.

Also in the back border are some old friends….

…and a new arrival, Camassia…

…which looks very exciting.

In the vegetable garden there is the almost equally exciting sight of the first potatoes getting above ground…

Also in a vegetable bed is a promising peony….

…which is going to earn its keep as a cut flower rather than show off in a border.

I did one other thing as well as drinking coffee and watching football, the only useful thing that I did all day.  I made some tea cakes.  As neither Mrs Tootlepedal nor I are keen on eating too much at the moment, I made the tea cakes using half portions of the recipe which was a bit of a nervous business (one and a half eggs are tricky to find) but they turned out well….

There were nine on the tray a few minutes ago

…and they had to be locked up for their own protection.

Mrs Tootlepedal had a fun trip to the municipal dump with some of the tree roots which she has dug up and combined  this with some shopping and a visit to a garden centre to get yet more plants for the garden.

In the evening, we went off to the Buccleuch Centre to hear a concert by Eddi Reader, a Scottish chanteuse of great distinction.  She has a wonderful voice and gave us a varied programme of new and traditional songs, including some from her early incarnation as a pop star with Fairground Attraction.  My only beef, which is a common complaint for me, was that the sound was turned up far too much and her sound engineer had put on so much reverb that some of the pure quality of her voice was lost.  There were only five musicians on stage but they made more noise than a 170 strong choir and orchestra ensemble had made last week in Glasgow.  Still, she is a great singer and I enjoyed the concert.

Still no flying birds and no substitutes today.