Mrs Tootlepedal plays a blinder

Today’s guest picture comes from my brother Andrew.  He knows that I enjoy his photographs of teapots so he sent me this teapot cascade from Derby. (He was going for a cup of coffee when he passed it.)

It was another very grey and gloomy morning today, with occasional drizzle to make things even gloomier.

I took the weather as an excuse to have a lie in and a very leisurely breakfast.  In fact it was so leisurely that I had to get dressed in a hurry when Sandy checked to see if coffee was available.

After coffee, Sandy went off with a plum or two for company and I retired back indoors to put another week of the newspaper index into the Archive Group database.  Sandy, who had woken early, told me that he had put a week in well before breakfast so between us, we should be catching up on the data miners.

It was too damp and gloomy for a walk, a pedal, photography or any gardening so I did the crossword and then made tomato and courgette soup for lunch, following a recipe that Sandy had suggested.  It was very tasty.

The weather was improving little by little as the day went on and after had I done some business in the town and helped Mrs Tootlepedal with the insertion of some press stud fasteners into fabric, I thought that the day was nice enough to warrant a cycle ride.

It was quite late by now so I settled for a quick dash round my Canonbie circuit and thanks to a helpful wind, it was quite quick and I only  stopped twice for to take a picture.

In previous years, people have suggested that this tree at Hagg-on Esk resembles an excited poodle.

Sometimes I see it and sometimes I don’t.  It may be a jockey on a horse rearing out of the starting gate…or it may just be a tree.

By the time that I got back to Langholm, the shadows were lengthening but it was turning out to be a lovely evening…

…and I was able to take the camera out into the garden when I got home.

It hadn’t taken much sunshine to bring the butterflies out.  For every coloured butterfly this summer, there have been five white ones…

…and there was only one peacock out today.

Mrs Tootlepedal has planted a lot of fancy cosmos this year and they have enjoyed the weather a lot.

On top of the compost bins, the snowberry peeped out at the evening sunshine.

I should have picked the sweet peas and taken them inside to encourage more to grow but I shot them in situ today.

Mrs Tootlepedal has surrounded the plum tree with white hostas.

And her 50p geranium is proving excellent value for money.

The dahlia of the day had a bee visiting of course.

The poppies have not enjoyed the weather at all but a few keep battling on.

And after seeing the dicentra seed pods recently, I was surprised to notice this bunch of  fresh looking flowers and even more surprised to see that one of them had attracted a bee.

Elsewhere, a bee and a dahlia had become almost indistinguishable.

Mrs Tootlepedal has greatly reduced the amount of sedum in the garden from previous years but we still have some and it is just beginning to show some colour.

During the day, Ross, the joiner, had been hard at work putting new doors into our garage.  After forty years of struggling with an intractable folding door system which opened inwards, we decided that it was time for a change and Ross has put in two hinged doors that open outward….

…immediately creating a lot more space inside.   In an exciting development, I hope to have a picture of the doors standing open in tomorrow’s post.  And before anyone asks, we don’t use the garage for our car.  It is the home of bicycles and lawn mowers….and quite a lot of ‘stuff’ besides.

While I was out, Mrs Tootlepedal had completed her press stud work and the resulting black out blind was in place upstairs, press studded onto a Velux window.

She likes to have a project and she always has some spare material about.

Mrs Tootlepedal then made a really tasty one pot sausage and tomato penne dish for our tea so a day which had started out looking most unpromising, turned out very well in the end.

I even found a pigeon in retreat as an elegant  flying bird of the day.