Today’s guest picture features possibly the world’s coolest person shot by her mother.
When I had gone to the corner shop yesterday complaining that it was too hot to cycle, shop assistant Karen, while selling me some of the necessities of life, pointed out that it had been a cool 15°C when she had got up at 6am. The forecast for today was that it would be even hotter than yesterday so obviously the thing to do was to get up at 6am and get forty miles of bicycling done before it got too warm. Obviously.
And to my amazement, I did it.
This is the garden at 6.31am this morning.
You can see that the there is a hint of mist in the background and my route took me right into it as soon as I left the town.
This was slightly inconvenient as my glasses kept misting up but it wasn’t as gloomy as the photo makes it seem and by the time I was eight miles along the road, the mist was beginning to burn off…
…and soon I was in cycling heaven.
Pleasant sunshine, no wind and the road to myself. Who could ask for anything more?
The roads weren’t all as quiet as this and there were two or three quarry lorries to be negotiated but I chose quiet routes, kept up enough speed to provide myself with a cooling breeze and was home by half past nine while the temperature was still very bearable, having done exactly forty miles.
I am glad that I took Karen’s advice.
The rest of the day, which got very hot, I took at a steadier speed.
I wandered round the garden looking at the new flowers which are coming out every day at the moment.
A new poppy could hardly be missed.
Irises were looking fine as well.
Mrs Tootlepedal has at least four different sorts of potentilla. These are great value and should keep flowering all summer.
More roses are appearing on the bushes every day.
The presenter on Springwatch on the TV said that a very few painted lady buttereflies had been spotted in Britain this spring and mostly in the south of the country so we were obviously very lucky to see one in our garden. It didn’t return today and I had to make do with the elegant female orange tip butterfly visiting a sweet rocket flower.
In the dam at the back of the house, the fishes are flourishing.
I saw a lone greenfinch on the feeder, a contrast to the incessant stream of sparrows.
After lunch, Mrs Tootlepedal should have been going to Edinburgh to hobnob with the world’s coolest small person but the plans were changed and the trip fell through. Instead, she and I went for a walk along the River Esk to Irvine House from the end of the Auchenrivock bypass.
I was hoping to see some interesting birds and we were able to add a sandpiper and a flotilla of ducklings to the more usual dipper and oyster catcher. The dipper flew out of her nest as we passed but the oyster catcher stayed quietly on hers.
They weren’t very co-operative as far as taking pictures went but the male oyster catcher fell over himself to be more helpful.
We were walking up the shady side of the river…
…surrounded by bird song and wild flowers so it was a good way to spend a very warm afternoon.
I had a sheet of card in my bag which let me get a good shot of a bloom flower.
There were some smart garden flowers to admire.
We passed a tree that had branches covered in webs….
…a closer look at the webs showed that they were protecting hundreds of little caterpillars.
There was always something to look at.
Not to mention the views of the river.
Even in the shade we were getting pretty warm though so we made our way back to the car and went home.
After a refreshing cup of tea, Mrs Tootlepedal settled down to some serious planting out of just a few of the many dahlias she has brought on from seed this year and I dropped the car off at the garage (where we hope that our door locking problem will be solved tomorrow) and then sieved a little compost.
Once again as the afternoon went on, clouds gathered and rumbles of thunder were heard but once again, it didn’t affect Langholm.
The forecasters say that the weather is going to start to cool down from tomorrow and I will welcome that more than many others. Once it gets over 20°C, it gets well out of my comfort zone. Readers can take bets about how long it will be before I start complaining about the cold though.
The flying bird of the day is a butterfly.
Sorry about the excessive number of pictures but you only saw a fraction of what I took.
Tootlepedal's Blog 
She’s a real cool young lady. 🙂
No need to apologise – I loved them all. I am glad you enjoyed your early morning cycle in the mist.
I enjoyed it more when I got out of the mist.
Matilda looks like she’s ready for a trip to the beach.
It’s amazing how different the garden looks in the morning. The portraits of the poppy and iris are just about perfect.
I like the tilting oyster catcher. You have to wonder if it flew or fell.
It staggered onto the next rock without coming to harm.
Yes, Matilda is indeed the world’s coolest little person!
The photos are all lovely, and no need to apologize. I get my fix of your Scottish countryside this way.
We have Scot’s Broom, or Scotch Broom as it is often called, here in western Oregon. It is a gorgeous bright yellow, but considered an invasive species here.
http://extension.oregonstate.edu/gardening/node/1049
That’s bad luck as it is a beautiful plant. Rhododendrons in the wild are much the same here and many strenuous efforts are mode to limit their spread.
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/fr/rhododendroncontrol
It is too bad on the Scot’s Broom. They are beautiful.So your invasive rhodies came from the Iberian peninsula? We have native rhododendrons here.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhododendron_macrophyllum
I think that it is more likely that ours were introduced from the Himalayas.
I hadn’t noticed any excess.
You are very polite. 🙂
Glad about the successful bike ride, Lovely irises, can’t have too many pictures of them for me. Matilda looked great.
What a wonderful walk for a hot day. The sandmartins deserved a visit to Mr Google…very interesting. As for the world’s coolest small person…she has my vote!
That’s as it should be….but thank you all the same.
Your pictures are all beautiful, we can never have too many !
Lovely pic of the world’s coolest young lady.
Life is too short to scroll through all the pictures that I would like to post on some good days.
Super cute!
🙂
Beautiful pictures,
Very impressed by your early morning ride.
Lovely misty photos and a great shot of a butterfly in flight! 🙂
That was a happy accident. My finger trembled as I was waiting for it to settle down.
Ha! You couldn’t have got a better shot if you’d tried! 🙂
The hot and the cold is a big dilemma. The comfort zone tends to be fairly narrow 🙂 beautiful captures along your routes as well as in the garden.
I would rather be on the cool than the hot side of the zone.
That is a lot of miles even in the cool of a misty morning. I am duly impressed. There were nowhere near too many photos. It was a particular pleasure to see my favorite celebrity, and I loved the falling oyster catcher of the day.
I think that it was thinking about flying off and then changed its mind at the last moment.
Happens to me all the time.
The photo of the oyster catcher was funny, I loved it, almost as much as the of the world’s coolest person! It’s easy for me to say, but you should get out earlier more often, the garden at first light is amazing, and the misty photos taken a bit later were very dramatic.
I should get up earlier more often, I know that. It’s actually doing it that is quite hard, not least because I tend to go to bed late after spending time reading fascinating blogs from the USA.
Matilda does look cool! There in nothing better in summer than an early morning rise to cycle or walk. I’m yet to do it.
I really must try to do it again.
Enjoy the warm weather while it lasts as soon it will be back to the cold damp stuff again!
It has stayed much warmer so far than the forecasters of doom suggested.
The morning light can be quite pretty. I go out in it once a year or so. 😉