Today’s guest picture comes from Bruce. He sent me this shot of the three bridges over the Forth as seen from the ship that was about to take him to Sweden.
We were due to go to Edinburgh today to visit Matilda but I got up early and cycled twenty miles and got home in time to mow the middle lawn, have a cup of coffee and look at a few flowers, including the first orange hawkweed of the year…
…some Rosa Complicata (a very simple rose as it happens)….
…one of the Rosa Moyesii which are doing the best of our roses at the moment…
…a very bright oriental poppy…
…some delicate ornamental strawberries with don’t seem to mind the rain at all…
…and an astrantia, always one of my favourite flowers.
The cotoneaster still has a good number of bees buzzing about it, so new flowers must be opening every day.
Jackdaws are very busy at the peanuts these days.
And today’s hedge sitter was a young blackbird.
We went off to Edinburgh earlier than usual as we had a shopping visit on the schedule and this meant driving to Tweedbank to use the Border Railway. The train was on time and when we got to Edinburgh, we walked down to John Lewis. As well as doing some successful shopping, we had a cup of coffee in what must be the department store cafe with the best view in Britain. My phone can’t do it justice at all.
After we had done our shopping we went to Matilda’s house. As it was such a sunny day, she was very happy to show us her local park. It is called Lochend Park and this is the end of the loch in the park.
I didn’t have a good camera with me which was a pity as there were two sorts of geese, gulls, moorhens and ducks to look at, not to mention a fine doocot. The moorhens put on a fine show of ducking and diving and swimming underwater. Matilda was impressed.
She was also impressed by the roundabout which turned very smoothly…
…and the intricate web of ropes which gave her an opportunity to show her adventurous nature.
We were impressed by the wild irises growing along the banks of the loch.
We had a very cheerful time sitting on the benches thoughtfully provided by Edinburgh Corporation for the relief of the elderly while Matilda spun and climbed and slid.
The road to the park from Matilda’s house is called Butterfly Way so we were able to remark (many, many times) that we had had a lovely day on Butterfly Way.
Alistair cooked us a tasty meal involving roast aubergines, cherry tomatoes and rigatoni so we were two happy people as we caught the train home.
Going to Tweedbank, rather then Lockerbie means a much longer drive, but there is still so much novelty in driving the electric car that the time passed quickly enough. We had done 97 miles since the last charge by the time that we got home and when I plugged the car in, it said that there was just under half the charge left in the battery. This gives us a very satisfactory range for summer driving although we realise that it will be considerably less in the cold winter months.
The flying birds of the day are a very unsatisfactory phone picture of pigeons returning to the doocot in Lochend Park. I will take a proper camera next time I visit.
Tootlepedal's Blog 
Love Rosa ‘Complicata’ – one of my favorites here!
It is a very cheerful flower when it finds a sunny day.
In a garden filled with both interesting and beautiful flowers, the astrantia still wows me every time I see one fully opened like that!
I’d say that it was a fine day in every way from the looks of the photos that you shared with us.
The astrantia is very good value indeed in my view.
I was just thinking about orange hawkweed today and wondered if yours would beat ours to the bloom. It has.
I like Rosa Complicata. It resembles our wild roses.
I would think as electric cars become more popular they would put in more charging stations, especially near cities.
We learned today that the council are thinking of putting charging stations in Langholm. I hope they do. It won’y benefit us as we charge at home but it should make the town an attractive place top visit for electric car owners.
We only have a single hawkweed flower at present so they are not really ‘out’ yet.
I haven’t seen a one here yet.
You have greater distances to travel then we do which makes a difference to the usefulness of short range cars.
Matilda’s park is a lovely one! I also enjoyed seeing all the flowers that are blooming in your garden, especially both the roses.
We need some warm sunny day to bring everything on.
Lovely park near Matilda. What a view from the store cafe.
Goodness me you are so energetic! Glad the car’s energy supplies lasted so well.
How lucky Matilda is to have such a local park.
I agree.
A very full day well photographed. I can just imagine the pressure to keep repeating the Butterly Way rhyme.
With a skip and a hop.
🙂
Not hard to see why astrantia is one of your favorite flowers. What a beauty! Matilda on the ropes reminded me of a little spider girl. Bravo for the electric car! Impressive range, which I had to share with Clif.
We are relieved that it seems to be able to go a good distance. A lot of early electric car adopters suffered from ‘range anxiety’.
I can certainly understand this. And having places to power up are essential. It’s coming, even in our regressive country.
Glad to see you have sunshine to enjoy too. The garden flowers are scrumptious. I can relate to your frustration about not having a proper camera, but it looks like you have scouted out a great location for the future.
After such a lovely and energetic day you’ll need recharging too! The flowers all seem to be doing their very best to get on with life despite the rain and those poppy petals just uncrinkling are beautiful.
My phone had a good camera when conditions are right but I find it hard to get it to zoom or focus on single objects satisfactorily.
“We had had a lovely day on Butterfly Way” – you most certainly did! My, Matilda is growing up. My grandson #1 just turned 8 couple days ago. Hard to believe already.
The years slip past all too easily.