Waited all day and then missed it

Today’s guest picture of a nicely posed very fancy daffodil comes from my Highland correspondent, Jenni.

By co-incidence, Mrs Tootlepedal showed me a fancy daffodil in our garden today.   She is not quite sure why she is growing this one as she….

…much prefers plainer sorts.  We do have a variety of ‘plainer sorts’ in the garden too.

We had another generally fine day but still with that chilly wind, so unless the sun was shining, it felt quite cool in the garden.  Luckily the sun shone quite a lot.

I had my usual morning of coffee and crossword but I spent quite a lot of time in the garden with Mrs Tootlepedal.  After some active gardening days, I had run out of things to do, so I mostly stood around gormlessly while Mrs Tootlepedal did arcane things with a trowel and bucket.

This left me with time hanging heavy on my hands so I took far too many picture with various cameras and lenses.

There were insects in daffodils….

…and attractive blue flowers.  I especially like the tiny flowers on the Brunnera with even tinier buds.

I sat in the greenhouse to get out of the wind and admired Mrs Tootlepedal’s peas growing in a gutter.

Then we did a little work on the new path that has appeared since the second kitchen waste bin was moved to its new position.

Why do you need two kitchen waste bins? So that one can rot down peacefully while the other is being filled up again.  This makes emptying the bins a much more simple proposition than if you only have one bin.

The first plum blossom has appeared, which is exciting.

Looking very closely at flowers is generally exciting too.  This doronicum has go a lot going on.

There was nothing very  exciting about this dicentra but I do love the very rich colour it has on close inspection.

My macro lens peered at a tulip, the dark inside of a fritillary and the very curious goings on in a Euphorbia.

Unfortunately I had put the macro lens away before I saw this bee.  The bird lens did its best.

It was happier with a jackdaw though.

After lunch, I took another picture of this tulip…

…and then I had a lie down in bed and read a book for an hour.  Hanging around at home and not doing much turns out to be quite tiring.

Then I pulled myself together and went off for a bike ride in a stiff breeze.

For a warm(ish) and sunny day, the wind made things feel cool and I was glad to still have plenty of layers on.

As I was going round my customary 20 mile Canonbie circuit, there was nothing fresh to look at so I looked at some familiar sights….

..on my way…

…just to prove to myself that I had been out for a ride.

The light was nice though so I stopped on the Hollows bridge and looked….

…over both sides.

I like this little corner near Irvine House.  It comes to life when the sun is in the right place.

We had been promised clear skies in the evening so I was very much looking forward to getting some shots of the full moon tonight as it is one of those big moons when it is near to the earth.  Owing to one thing and another, I forgot to keep a check on the time and by the time that I did look out, it was too late.  The moon was there but so were a lot of passing fragmented clouds which teased me with the possibility of seeing a clear moon but then hid it again.

If I had been half an hour earlier, I would have had a clear view but I had to settle for some unintentionally arty shots instead.

It was an impressive sight, even with the clouds.

The flying bird of the day is another passing rook.

Footnote:  Mrs Tootlepedal told me that the clouds had gone so I went up and had another look when I had finished the post.  The moon was high up by now and a lot smaller to look at but it was in clear sky.  Better late than never (but only just).