A VIP visitor

Today’s guest picture is from Paul. He explored the tracks round Entwistle Reservoir earlier this month and found some very tall trees there.

Here, we had a calmer and drier day than yesterday but there were one or two really sharp and gusty showers to stop us getting too excited about the return of summer.

Yesterday’s winds had been vigorous but not damaging and the flowers in the garden had kept their heads very well…

…though it took me quite a long time to get out into the garden to check.

I filled the bird feeder and waited to see of the birds had survived too. There was a brisk demand for seed.

…with greenfinches and siskins once again prominent among the customers.

A blue tit did approach the feeder, but seeing a greenfinch in place, it decided to wait upstairs for a better opportunity.

A blackbird dropped in and looked around.

Mrs Tootlepedal was busy making preparations to receive two visitors but we did find time to go out into the garden, dig up some potatoes, pick sweet peas and have a look round.

Once again we weren’t short of insects on our flowers….

…but once again butterflies, apart from the whites, were not to be seen.

There were plenty of cheerful flowers enjoying the sunny moments.

…and a new one has come out to join them. Mrs Tootlepedal tells me that it is a heuchera.

The furriness of the Lambs Ears is a perpetual fascination for me…

…but my current favourite in the flower beds are definitely the small Japanese anemones.

Over lunch, I kept an eye on the birds and was surprised to see a young sparrow demanding to be fed by a parent who must be fed up to be still feeding young at this time of year.

Another sparrow was wisely keeping himself to himself.

A redpoll arrived and was easily able to see off an attempt to unseat it by a siskin.

All this was merely a preamble to the important business of the day which was a drive to Carlisle to pick up our daughter Annie and our granddaughter Evie from the London train. It is a sign of the times that this simple action seemed like a mighty enterprise. We have spent many months living a very contained life, with a small group of contacts, not going out to eat or be entertained, not travelling, not visiting or being visited and generally keeping away from the outside world. This looked like a big change.

However, after admiring my last flower of the day…

…I did manage to get into the Zoe and drive to the centre of Carlisle where I found a parking spot at the station.

Getting on to the platform to help Annie with the pushchair and a lot of luggage took some negotiation as they were only allowing ticket holders wearing masks through the newly erected barriers. I can understand people’s frustration with life at the moment as outside the station the streets were full of people mostly unmasked walking about freely. All the same, I was happy to find that I was basically standing alone while I waited…

…and pleased to find that Annie and Evie were two of very few passengers on the train.

We got them, the pushchair, and the luggage unloaded and safely packed into the car, and drove home without incident, except for a very savage rainstorm on the way which luckily did not last very long.

Evie and Annie have settled in well. They are going to stay with us for a few weeks while builders are doing some fairly drastic improvements to their own house under the supervision of Evie’s father.

This has been a day which has been so out of the ordinary that we are all exhausted, but I hope that after a good night’s sleep, we will be perked up and ready to enjoy life tomorrow.

I did find a time to capture a flying bird of the day in a sunny moment.