A higher purpose

Today’s guest picture comes from a walk my sister Mary took through the rose garden in Regents Park last week.

Our unsettled weather continued here today with the morning peppered with short showers, some of them quite sharp with a little hail thrown in.

This curtailed our street coffee meeting and kept gardening to a minimum, though I did find time to mow the middle lawn and take a walk round to look at the flowers.

There were a lot to look at. Especially lupins….

…and ranunculus.

Although we might find the rain inconvenient, there is no doubt that it came in the nick of time for the garden, and the flowers are grateful. Whether they will be so pleased with the heavy winds overnight tonight is different matter.

In the meantime, the showers added sparkle to the flowers.

The silver lined iris was top of the (eye)pops for me today.

When I went inside, Mrs Tootlepedal was busy on the telephone so I went upstairs and opened a window to look down on the birds for a change. This literally gave me a different angle which I enjoyed.

Goldfinches were to the fore…

…though greenfinches and sparrows were to be seen as well.

After lunch, I went for a walk. With the ever present threat of showers about, Mrs Tootlepedal decided not to come with me today so I decided to see if there was a good route to get on a new track on the side of Castle Hill that we had seen from our walk a couple of days ago.

I took a brolly with me instead of walking poles in effort to persuade the weather gods to let me have a dry walk. It looked to be working at the start as I walked along the Castleholm…

…but this didn’t last long and I soon had to put my brolly up as another sharp shower came along. When I got to the North Lodge, it was rather annoying to be standing in the rain and looking at a sunny hill not more than a mile away.

However, the weather gods, having had their laugh, relented and the sun shone for the rest of my walk.

It picked out wild flowers…

…and lit up this patch of a tiny white flower on the hillside as I walked up the hill beside a wood.

My aim was to find a way to get from a track that Mrs Tootlepedal and I had walked along recently up to a track higher up the hill. This proved to be an easy task and I came to a gate in the fence and I was soon walking along the new track.

It was one of those days when the camera fails to do justice to the pleasure of a walk. This track looks mundane but on a sunny afternoon in early June, walking through plantations of conifers, natural woodland…

…with cleared patches giving fine views up the valley…

…I was really unhappy to come the literal end of the road…

…though I am always happy to meet a metaphor in real life.

Rather than venture on to the open hill, I turned back and went back to find whither the other end of the track led.

This way round, the view was of a sea of trees…

The track was equally delightful in the opposite direction and I followed it until it looked as though it might be going to drop off the edge of the world.

It did go downhill but I didn’t follow it for long but turned off to keep going along another new track for me….

…which contoured along the side of the hill and brought me out onto the main track up Castle Hill where I could pause to look down over the town…

…before vaulting over the stile at the bottom of the track…

…walking down an alley of Pyrenean Valerian…

…picking the right route from the many choices offered by the Langholm Walks direction pole…

…and finally arriving at the Kilngreen where I passed three military men…

…who had set up a mobile Covid testing station. Demand was not high.

I got home in good time for a cup of afternoon tea and half an old chocolate biscuit (Mrs Tootleepdal had the other half).

After a quick change of clothes (I had got rather warm on my walk, being dressed for wind and rain and getting sun instead), I had a moment to sit on the old bench and contemplate the middle lawn.

The lawn can be regarded as being in good condition unlike the front lawn which is distinctly sad, but at this time of year and at this time of day, it should be covered with the shadows of the leaves freshly out on the walnut tree.

But as you can see, there are no leaves, just bare branches to cast shadows thanks to that pernicious late frost. This is a sad state of affairs.

After the traditional sibling Zoom, last night’s remaining chicken casserole sauce added to a tin of chick peas and some tinned tomatoes made a nourishing evening meal, especially as it was accompanied by more fresh spinach from the garden.

I made semolina pudding for a late supper, so in spite of the showery weather, it must be considered a day on the credit side of the great ledger of life.

The flying birds of the day are goldfinches seen from an upper window.