Today’s guest picture comes from my Sheffield correspondent, Edward. He and his wife went to Singapore for the FI Grand Prix and stopped off at Phuket in Thailand where he was very impressed by the wiring.
I footered away a fine morning, firstly through a failure of communication with Dropscone about the availability of scones and secondly through indolence when the scones turned out to be a mirage.
I didn’t really do anything…
….though I must have gone out into the garden fro at least a moment or two as I did some shredding of fallen sunflowers and noticed a butterfly on the bench…
…and a bee on a lamium.
They were obviously tucked up snugly during yesterday’s gales.
After lunch, Mrs Tootlepedal went off to visit Matilda in Edinburgh, catching the first train to run from Manchester to Edinburgh after the line had been cleared of fallen trees.
I watched the birds.
A blackbird boogied on the lawn….
…a chaffinch put a hex on a goldfinch…
…a male chaffinch told a female where the really good berries are….
…while a determined goldfinch practised its breaststroke…
…and a sparrow kept an eye out for new arrivals.
From time to time a jackdaw dropped in to supervise.
I had an appointment with the dentist as I had carelessly bashed one of my teeth and I needed to know if I had broken it. He took an x-ray and reassured me that it was sound. However, if it is still sore after a few days, it might have to come out so I am hoping for the best and eating very soft food.
On my way to the dentist, I saw many bunches of bright red berries….
…and on my way back, I looked at the foliage that I had seen stuck under the town bridge yesterday. It turned out to be quite a substantial tree, with its head on one side of the bridge….
…and its foot caught on the cutwater on the other side.
On the bank of the river beside the bridge, I was amused by this little family group of fungi with mother sheltering her two affectionate children.
I looked at the forecast when I got home and as it said, ‘rain later’, I decided to go cycling ‘now’.
It started to rain just as I got onto my bike.
However, the rain was very light so I decided to chance it and go anyway. The rain stayed light as I cycled to the top of Callister and back (13 miles) and faded away as I got back to the town so I pedalled on over the river and went a few miles up the main road. This let me get to the magic twenty miles which is the minimum trip I like to do when I have gone to the trouble of getting the bike out.
After several very windy bike rides this month, it was a treat to find that the wind had dropped entirely and in spite of the light rain, cycling was a real pleasure.
The country is getting browner every day…
…so I looked for a bit of colour in the garden when I got back. A lot of flowers got blown over yesterday but the verbascum just bent with the breeze rather than breaking…
…but the tall cosmos, which should be standing up and looking over the front lawn, is now leaning perilously low over the pond.
The Japanese anemone is small and tough enough to have survived quite well.
After a nourishing meal of fish cakes, I was picked up by Susan, who was driving her very smart new red car, and driven to Carlisle where we played with our recorder group for the first time for a couple of months. Roy, our librarian, had picked out a fine selection of music for our delight so we had a very good evening.
It was pouring with rain as we drove home.
I was pleased to find that Mrs Tootlepedal had got home safely in spite of her train being delayed a bit on both the up and down trips. She had had a good time in Edinburgh.
The flying bird of the day is a chaffinch yet again.
Tootlepedal's Blog 
The Japanese anemone is a beautiful flower. I’ve only seen white ones.
That’s a great shot of the mushrooms. Time on the knees is sometimes well spent.
Being blown over doesn’t seem to have hurt the flowering ability of that cosmos.
The cosmos only survived to be chopped down by Attila the gardener this morning. It had snapped off at the root and was only being held up by netting.
Too bad!
That happens to cosmos all too often!
The mushroom trio makes a very nice portrait. I agree time spent peering at life down at ground level is time well spent.
I thoroughly enjoyed your bird photo commentary. 🙂 Glad to see that bee, butterfly and flowers survived the storm.
I wasn’t expecting to see a butterfly I must say.
Glad the day went well despite the lack of scones. Liked your pictures of that tree.
Beautiful pictures
Hope your tooth last out. I would be quite scared of that jackdaw’s beady eye if I was a bird.
I wouldn’t like to be an electrician in Phuket! Love the bird photos with all their flying antics.
No, it would be hard to know which wire to cut or mend in an emergency.
I also enjoyed your descriptions of the birds at the feeder, your wit is reason enough to follow your blog! It’s a shame that the winds from the last storm knocked down so many flowers when the end of their season is so near. I hope that at least a few recover enough so that you can continue to photograph them.
One or two did survive though Mrs T was in full Attila mode today.
I’d be afraid to plug anything in in Phuket. Good luck with the tooth – problems from the cradle to the grave, aren’t they?
They are but I treasure the few that I have left!
so pleased your garden hasn’t been ravaged by the storms
We saw a lot of fallen trees as we drove to Dumfries today.
Good luck with your tooth. The picture of the three mushrooms is sweet.
I though that it was touching. The teeth seem to be settling down.
I would have thought getting the bike out wouldn’t be such a struggle, but then what do I know? 😉 The mushrooms were very sweet.
It is getting harder to get going as the mornings get colder. 🙂
Darling mushroom photo. I hope your tooth recovers completely.