Getting the goods in Carlisle

The weather was very good yesterday so my sister Mary went down the Thames and paid another visit to Greenwich.  Today’s guest picture shows her view of the planetarium there.

It was a miserable wet and colourless day here as our mini spell of good new year weather ran into the buffers.   It was hardly worth looking out of the window as there were no birds about and if there had been, they would have been hard to see.

A typical scene

Luckily we had better things to do than sit at home and feel gloomy so we got into the car and drove to Carlisle.    We were after good things and it wasn’t too long after we arrived there that many good things fell into our shopping bag.  I am talking about dates and prunes, cheese and more cheese, tea leaves and coffee beans.

The rain had stopped by the time we parked below the mediaeval city walls…

We had to stop and watch some blackbirds picking berries off trees in the car park…

…but luckily we didn’t have to stop at the old Sally Port and pay our tithes as the notice on the wall tells us that former visitors had to.

The centre of the town was quiet and the amusements in the Market Place were locked and silent…

…but this did mean that the elegant old town hall was easy to see for once.

As well as edible goodies, we were in the city to pick up our daughter Annie from the London train.

In the car park outside the station, waiting buses reminded us that the line from Carlisle to Settle has still not been fully repaired after a landslide during last winter’s storms.

The winter has been so gentle this year that it is sometimes hard to remember the devastation that was caused in Cumbria a year ago.

The Citadel Station roof has been wrapped up so thoroughly while it is being replaced that it looks like a giant Christmas present.

But our train arrived bang on time…

…and deposited our daughter safely onto the platform…

…where she was warmly greeted by Mrs Tootlepedal.

Although the most valuable package had been picked up, we hadn’t finished our raids on the Carlisle shops yet and with guidance from Annie, we bought a new washing machine and a sound bar for our telly.

Laden with good things we returned home.

While Annie and I had been acquiring the sound bar, Mrs Tootlepedal had been watching long tailed tits in the car park trees.  She had seen a flock of waxwings on a rowan tree in the centre of Edinburgh yesterday so she has seen a lot more interesting birds over the last couple of days than I have.  It’s not fair.

Some shop bought crumpets might have found their way into our bag among the other good things and we enjoyed these with a cup of tea when we got home.  Buying them was certainly a lot easier than making them.

In the evening, Mike and Alison came round and Alison and I had a good music session.  Neither of us has been practising so it was just as well that we were able to stop between movements for a glass of fizzy white wine.

During the evening, the skies above the house were filled with the sounds of geese calling to each other….

It was extremely misty and there were some bright lights on at the sports pitch and we think that the geese had got disorientated and were circling round waiting for the night to end before heading onwards.  It was rather distressing to hear their plaintive calls.

They have been circling and calling for several hours already.

The calling geese are the flying birds of the day.