Today’s guest picture comes from Dropscone’s archives. For some reason he came upon the picture from 2004 of certain young(ish) golfers enjoying a break in Majorca to get away from Langholm’s winter weather. It snowed and I still have the umbrella that I had to buy while we were there.
I don’t know what the morning was like because I made the mistake of lying down for a moment after breakfast and the next thing that I knew, it was lunch time.
Generally speaking the weather forecast had promised severe gales and rainstorms for Scotland and good weather for the north of England so for once, we were very pleased to considered English and we enjoyed a reasonably dry and warm day, though it was bit windy.
The light was very variable but I could see enough to recognise a great tit on the feeder…
…watch chaffinches fly in all directions…
…enjoy a blue tit visit….
…and check out the differing styles of a greenfinch and a goldfinch.
The goldfinches gradually took over the feeder over lunch and had to compete among themselves for a place at the table.
As time went by there was a tiny glimpse of sunshine…
…and encouraged by this, I went for a walk in the afternoon.
There are still plenty of rosebay willowherb seed heads about…
…and a lightening of the sky to the west behind this tree on the Becks track made me hopeful for a while…
…but things soon reverted to grey.
I had gone along the track in the hope that the forestry works in the Becks wood would have finished and I would be able to use the path down to the bridge across the burn.
When I got to the wood, everything was very neatly tidied up and the machines had disappeared. I was able to walk through the felled wood upstream of the bridge and see the burn as it hasn’t been seen for many years…
…with new trees planted on all sides.
I could look down on the little cascade which I have photographed before…
…and because the trees have gone, there was enough light to let me take a reasonable picture from below the waterfall.
Luckily I had my wellies on so that I could stand on the middle of the burn to get the best angle.
I went back to the path and found that it was easy to cross the bridge, walk up the steps on the other side and look downstream towards the Wauchope valley.
I followed the road downhill, admiring the fine growth of catkins on every side. It has been a good month for catkins.
There is no sign of autumn left now ….
…but with only two weeks to go until the winter solstice, we are nearly on the way up towards the light again.
Another tree beside the road back to the town caught me eye…
…and as always, moss and lichen provided a bit of interest on a dull day.
I didn’t have a great deal of time to sit around and think when I got home because it was soon time for an early tea and my second visit to Lockerbie in two days. On this occasion, I picked up my fellow choir member Mike and we went over to sing in a Langholm Sings concert in the Episcopalian Church there.
It is a snug little church and it was very nearly full for our performance which was very gratifying. The members of the audience were kind enough to say that they enjoyed the evening but no one could say that we were faultless and we are going to have another practice next week before we have a joint concert with the Parish Church choir in Langholm next Friday. Practice makes perfect, we hope.
It was windy as we drove home but the threatened rain held off so the evening went as well as we could have expected.
The flying bird of the day, checking out a freshly filled feeder, is a goldfinch.
Tootlepedal's Blog 
It must be very interesting to walk through the recently felled forest. I’m wondering which wildflowers might appear there.
With so many catkins you should have a good supply of tiny flowers to look for in the spring.
The bare trees are nice to see and so is the clump of moss.
I am not very hopeful of seeing many wild flowers in the spring as the soil will be very acid but I am looking forward to finding out.
Our soil is very acid and there are plenty of acid loving wildflowers, but the question is do they also grow there?
Time will tell.
Very nice photos! 🙂
Congratulations on having, in 2004, a) bought an umbrella stout enough to have withstood the weather all these years, and b) not having lost it in all that time.
Point B is a really good point. 🙂
I do like that waterfall; it is decidedly neat and tidy!
It is one of my favourites. I look forward to seeing it again in the summer.
Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but this post made me a little sad, seeing the trees had been cut down, and right to the edge of the burn. I know that the trees will grow back again, and that the views in many places within the cut area has been improved by cutting down the trees. That’s especially true when it comes to the image of the waterfall, it’s very nice to see it now without any obstructions.
I think it that it will in time be an improvement as the previous wood was a monoculture and not thinned so it was mostly inaccessible and to me at least, rather dull.
Great shot of the stream.
It was nice to see it in the open air rather than buried under a tangle of fallen branches.
It’s funny how time has a way of creeping up on you, especially when you’re asleep.
That is very true.
Walking and singing is an excellent way to spend a day in my book!
Looking forward to seeing what grows in the ‘new’ woodland area and if the new plantings help the wildlife to flourish. Good job you wore your wellies maybe you took your umbrella too!
It will be interesting to see how the site develops. I didn’t need my brolly on this occasion.
Those are beautiful little streams and waterfalls in Beck’s Burn. We had a number of those in the woods in the area where I grew up. The wealthy landowners back then didn’t seem to mind children or horseback riders exploring their woods. It was a different world.
We only have one wealthy landlord here who owns just about everything but Scottish law says that people can walk where they like in open country whoever owns it.
That is a wonderful law.
I’m glad it went well going into the stream in your wellies to get that excellent photo.
glad you are obviously much better
I just need a spell of warm, dry weather to get back on the bike. Roll on May!
I have been out twice this week. very chilly so not too many miles
I went out today but got rather chilled heading into the wind.
Fun to see a picture of you and your friends.
We were young then.
Thought of you yesterday when I came upon some beautiful orange fungi. 🙂
Our fungus season is over now so I am envious.