Today’s guest picture comes from my Somerset correspondent Venetia. She is visiting the Netherlands for singing purposes, and saw this fine selection of bridges crossing the river Waal at Nijmegen through the tinted windows of her coach. The Waal is a distributary* of the Rhine.
We had a fine day here today. Indeed, we are promised a week of fine weather. This will be very welcome after our recent very changeable conditions. The temperature is due to rise steadily until Sunday when it will start to rain again.
A bit of warmth will be very welcome as it was definitely felt autumnal as I cycled about the town on various errands after breakfast. I almost felt as though I should have been wearing gloves. However, it soon warmed up and Mrs Tootlepedal was recovered enough from her cold to have a wander round the garden and do some light work.
I did some dead heading and clearing up of fallen plums and, of course, looked around as I did so.
After a very slow start, the fuchsias in the garden are beginning to make a better effort…
…and together with the second flowering of the red astrantia….
…they are bringing some late colour to the garden.
An Icelandic poppy and a cosmos were doing a grand job of providing for insects.
The most striking thing about the garden though was not the flowers, but the butterflies on them. There were red admirals…
on buddleia and sedum…
…and peacocks on both blue…
…and red buddleia.
They were joined by the usual collection of white butterflies too.
Mrs Tootlepedal spotted a very curious white butterfly with odd yellow wings fluttering about. It was so unusual that we tracked it carefully as it flitted from plant to plant. Finally, it rested long enough to be caught on camera and it turned out to be not one butterfly but two butterflies engaged in the business of producing more butterflies.
We politely left them to it and went off to a admire a lone small tortoiseshell completing our butterfly collection for the day.
I went back indoors and spent some time getting things ready for the first camera club meeting of the season, testing the projector and making sure that the laptop that we use wasn’t suddenly going to demand an update at an inconvenient time.
After lunch, I was finally ready to go for a cycle ride. The wind was supposed to be quite light but turned out to be quite brisk and gusty at times so I had a battle over the first eleven miles to get to the top of a hill on this little used road at Kennedy’s Corner.
From then on though, it was almost all downhill with good views over the Solway to the Lake District Hills 25 miles to the south
…and looking back I could see Burnswark Hill just behind me where forts have guarded the route north from iron age and then Roman times.
To the west, I could just make out Criffel on the far bank of the Nith Estuary, 20 miles away.
It is an airy spot and I enjoyed the swoop down the hill to Chapelknowe, with the now helpful wind giving me an extra push.
Some time ago, I had been sent a guest picture of some Korean pine cones at Half Morton church and I remembered to have a look for them as I passed the churchyard today. There are none so blind as those who will not see and I was quite impressed that I had managed to cycle within a few yards of these wonderful trees…
… many, many times without ever noticing them especially or the astonishing crop of cones right under my nose.
The fact that the church lies at the top of a small hill and I am always slightly puffed when I get there might explain it.
While I was there today, I also noted the the stone steps laid into the wall which enabled people to approach the church without opening the gate and letting the minister’s sheep, which grazed the grave yard, out onto the road.
I stopped for a drink of water just before the final little hill on my route and can tell you that there is a stone wall under this jungle of ferns.
I got home after 27 miles in time to have a cup of tea and a slice of bead with plum jam followed by a shower, before my flute pupil Luke arrived. Our hard work on improving our breathing is beginning to pay off and we are progressing steadily.
When Luke left, I enjoyed an excellent evening meal cooked by Mrs Tootlepedal and then went off to set up for the camera club meeting.
We had rather a thin attendance and I would have been disappointed except for the fact that the members who came produced such an interesting selection of images that the meeting was thoroughly enjoyable and worthwhile.
The meeting was short though and we didn’t need a half time break for tea and biscuits. This left me with an unopened packet of bourbon biscuits and a temptation….into which I have happily fallen while writing this post. I don’t know how many calories my cycle ride used up but I am perfectly sure that they have all been replaced now.
The flying bird(s) of the day are a small bunch of swallows. They were sitting on a wire as I passed on my bicycle and I stopped, meaning to take picture showing swallows getting ready to depart when they suddenly departed.
* A distributary is a river which, instead of joining like a tributary, has split from the main river as it enters the delta at an estuary.
Tootlepedal's Blog 
Glad your legs let you go cycling and thanks for the fuchsia.
Those Korean pine cones are quite unusual and don’t look quite ‘real’.
The Korean pine cones are beautiful and so were all the butterflies.
The wall with all those ferns is amazing. I’ve never seen anything like it here.
Glad the legs and Mrs. T. are feeling a little better.
These are all beautiful photos from the day. Your mysterious butterflies that were mating I am interested in, if anyone can identify it. It looks like one here where its larvae are known as cutworms. Oregon State University’s bulletin indicated cutworms were on the rise here this fall.
As Zyriacus says, it is a cabbage white.
White-rumped swifts have arrived in our town but we are still waiting for the swallows – it won’t be summer without them!
You need more than one though. 🙂
Enjoyed the fine views along your ride
Love your butterfly collection. I’ve been trying to work out how to email you a photo but can’t find your address. What I wanted to show you was this view we had at Belhaven beach in Dunbar this summer. Never seen swans on the sea! https://www.animalcouriers.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/IMG_0803.jpg — it’s dreadful quality but shows a successful family group.
What a charming picture. Thank you very much. That was a good way to send it.
You better watch out for your cabbages next year. Pieris brassicae has its name for a reason. Their caterpillars are a pest for all sorts of cabbage plants. The imagos are mostly white, but some will also show a yellowish tinge.
As allways a very interesting post. Good to read Mrs T. being on the mend.
We don’t grow cabbages so the caterpillars will have to feast on something else.
Glad Mrs. Tootlepedal is feeling better. Wonderful to see the butterflies, especially the peacocks. Hope camera club attendence picks up.
As long as we keep getting interesting pictures to look at, it is not too bad. I do hope more come next month though.
Fantastic scenery on your ride, thanks for sharing them with us, cheers.
A great pleasure.
Lovely views on your cycle ride. Bit concerned at the size of that Korean Pine tree as we have one planted in front garden! Thank you for the ‘distributary’ explanation- something new to try to remember! Good to read that Mrs T is recovering from her cold.
The distributary was new to me too. I thought that Venetia had made the word up but it is a real thing. You may be going to get more than you bargained for with your Korean pine but there are different varieties.
Oh Heck!
I enjoyed the wonderful views from your cycle ride and also all the butterflies. Very impressive pine cones indeed!
The cones are amazing.
Those cones! A tree down the street from me has some huge cones. I should photograph the, from over the fence. I don’t think they have intricate patterns like that.
Reading backward, am sorry Mrs T was feeling poorly and missed some gardening weather.