Today’s guest picture comes from my eldest sister Susan, an inveterate traveller, who has just come back from Italy. She saw this handsome church door in Ortesi in the Dolomites.
Like King Lear, I was going to do such things today but also like the King, I didn’t know what they were so in the end, I didn’t do them. Instead, I took a leaf out of Brer Terrapin’s book and did a lot of lounging about and suffering.
The lounging was serious but the suffering was very slight and was greatly alleviated by the arrival of Dropscone for coffee bearing the traditional Friday treacle scones.
I had done some watering and weeding before he arrived and I did some more afterwards and as always looked at the flowers as I went along.
The first sweet peas are out…
…and ever more lilies appear each day.
Mrs Tootlepedal planted two new roses this year and I saw that one was looking rather dry and droopy a day or two ago so I have watered it carefully and it was looking much more cheerful today.
The Queen of Denmark has responded to some water too.
And the Common Riding rose is just sensational without any water at all.
The camera simply can’t do its luxuriant growth justice at all.
While I was having coffee with Dropscone, the phone rang and a mystery voice asked if I was Tom. I admitted to this and the voice said my wife was having trouble with her mobile phone and since I was the account holder, he wanted to ask me a few security questions. This was so obviously a scam that I put the phone down without saying any more.
A moment or two later, Mrs Tootlepedal rang up to say it wasn’t a scam and she was having trouble with her phone and I was the account holder for it. I checked for a reputable number for the phone company, rang it, got a really helpful human on the line with minimum delay, talked the problem through and solved it within minutes. The shock of getting a sensible and prompt corporate response was so great that I had to have a sit down to recover.
Then I watched birds for a bit.
A greenfinch arrived to take advantage of the sunflower seeds.
Greenfinches are a lot bigger than siskins but don’t always get their own way.
On the ground below the feeder, a blackbird with an elegant grey feather was finding its own food.
I had lunch and thought of a walk or a bike ride but actually did some more lounging instead and had to suffer by sitting through much of a Tour de France stage and two simultaneously never ending tennis matches from Wimbledon.
Mrs Tootlepedal rang up to say that although her phone was working, now she was having trouble reading her emails on her tablet although she was properly connected to her brother’s internet router. This was a puzzle.
I popped out from time to time to do more watering and weeding and dead heading too.
The melancholy thistle is looking more cheerful every day…
..and looming over it, is the prettiest sunflower that I have ever seen.
In the vegetable garden Mrs Tootlepedal has planted many small sunflowers and they are blooming freely with a great heap of honeysuckle on the fence behind them.
Also in the veg garden, the French marigolds are thriving and time will tell whether they have helped to keep the carrot root flies of the carrots. I thinned out a test carrot the other day and it looked straight, clean and promising…
…but it was rather small still.
A new potentilla has come out.
In the course of time, I dug up another potato, picked lettuce, peas, beans and gooseberries and a large turnip for my evening meal.
The turnip was so large that I cut it in two and gave half to Mike and Alison when they came round in the evening for their customary Friday night visit. Alison and I enjoyed some good playing of sonatas by old English masters while Mike, in the absence of Mrs Tootlepedal to talk to, watched the tennis.
I had further talk with Mrs Tootlepedal on the matter of her internet connection and suggested that although she was connected to the router, maybe the router was not connected to the internet. This turned out to be the case and the problem was solved by the time honoured method of turning the router off and then on again. I wish all problems were as simply solved as Mrs Tootlepedal’s technical glitches were today.
The flying bird of the day is a sparrow.
Tootlepedal's Blog 
That thistle is radiant! If a bit of water is all it takes, I’ll go get another drink of it right now!
Good idea.
I love that door that your sister saw. If I saw it in a store I’d have to have it.
The flowers are all beautiful but especially the thistle and sunflower. I hope to see both myself this weekend.
That’s quite an amazing crop of beans. If all the plants are doing that you’ll be eating them for a while.
They are cropping heavily. Bean soup looms.
Gorgeous sunflower capture!
I would have liked to have been able to get the full face in but I would have needed a step ladder.
I agree with you on the sunflower, it is one of the prettiest that I’ve ever seen also.
It pays to be careful these days when talking to any one on the phone, but I’ll bet that the person who called you was perplexed when the line went dead.
And rightly so. It was just as well that they didn’t take the huff when I rang them back. I did apologise.
The sparrow is a beautiful wee bird. Your “bean feast” plant is what we call a broadbean, and it looks amazingly robust. Do you have a different name for it?
No, they are indeed broad beans. They are looking well. I might have to freeze some if I can’t keep up with them.
AWESOME!
Thank you.
I think that when tech companies make the first call it is they who should have to answer some security questions.
Good point. They were replying to a query in this case though so they might have felt a bit miffed when I hung up on them.
Glad to see that the sweet peas are coming out. Well done with all the watering and for sorting out the technical problems.
You are doing a great job of keeping on top of the garden Tom ☺️
Up to a point. I only show the good bits on the blog. 🙂
Well done for solving problems, watering and generally being on top of things.
Excellent flower pictures. Would you go so far as to say it was a great big Enormous turnip?
Indubitably. 🙂
A quiet day but not without its moments of triumph, especially with technical problems. That sunflower is radiant.
It is radiant indeed. I hope more come out to join it.
Love the sunflowers and pleased that the phone problem was solved so easily.
Would that all problems would disappear so easily.
Great mid-air photo. It looks as though it should fall from the sky during that part of the wing stroke.
I know what you mean.
Your gardens are doing well, and it is always a pleasure to hear that someone went out and picked their evening meal from their own garden.
I am pleased to report our blueberry patch is in full swing. One can never have enough blueberries. 🙂
I haven’t got an opinion on that never having eaten them.
“a sensible and prompt corporate response”
Make a note of it ion your diary – they don’t come along too often.
I have to confess some of our recent BT delay might have been due to a “scam call” I hung up after misidentifying it.
Modern life – humbug!
Quite so.