Head in the clouds

Today’s guest picture comes from our friend Bruce. He saw a hawthorn well supplied with haws on a recent walk. This was quite surprising because most of the hawthorns that I pass have few if any haws after being caught by the late frost.

It was quite hard to see anything here today as it was pretty miserable from the start after some heavy rain showers overnight.

A brisk wind didn’t help matters at all and my only morning excursion was a walk to the corner shop holding onto my umbrella firmly.

Evie played indoors.

I didn’t get a camera out until after lunch when I peered through the gloom at some rather gloomy birds…

…and a goldfinch who had bitten off more than he could chew.

There wasn’t a lot of traffic but a couple of siskins had to wait for their turn.

When it was time for Evie to have her nap after lunch, I went for a walk. The forecast had suggested that without the day getting noticeably brighter, at least the rain might ease off. This turned out to be the case, so I set out to walk up onto Meikleholm Hill.

I was looking for any sign of brightness to cheer the day up. The trackside garden at the top of Holmwood is still looking good…

…and some sheep had been painted yellow.

It was not a day for views, as I found when I got to the open hill…

…but because there were no sheep about, it was a day for wild flowers as I walked round the shoulder of the hill.

…and one solitary fungus!

There was scabious everywhere and my path was lined with blue.

I was following an angled path and as it took me gently higher up the hill, I found myself actually in the low cloud which had been hanging over the town all day. This was a soggy experience and it didn’t take me long to decide to leave the misty heights…

…and get back to a slightly drier level.

I followed the track from the water tank down to the Bentpath road, leaving the open hill at this little burn…

…and dodging the low hanging branches beside the track through the trees.

The mist had descended with me and it wasn’t any brighter now than it had been on the hill but there were things to see…

…and although it seemed to get gloomier the lower down the hill that I went..

…there were patches of brightness, including a very unexpected crocosmia in the woods.

When I got to the road, I followed it back to Langholm…

…and although it didn’t get any brighter, I was at least sheltered from the wind, and warm and dry enough to unzip my coat.

There was another starling on the power lines above the garden when I got home, but unlike the one yesterday, it was not taking in any rays and it had to hang on firmly in the breeze.

I didn’t have much enthusiasm for flower pictures, even though it had stopped raining, as everything was dark and damp…

…so I went in and joined the others for a cup of tea.

It seemed like a good day for cooking so I had a go at making a Selkirk Bannock. This is a very fruity leavened bread. It took some time as the dough has to be left to rise, then knocked back and then left to rise again. It was a learning experience because getting a tremendous amount of sultanas kneaded into the mixture was no easy task. However, with the encouragement of Annie, I persevered and the end result was not as bad as I feared that it might be…

…and since it passed the taste test, I will have another go (when I have replenished our stock of sultanas), probably making two smaller bannocks rather than one big one.

While the dough was rising, I found a siskin doing some professional posing. You might think that I have flipped a picture in the editor to make the panel, but it is the same siskin photographed a few seconds apart.

I also saw a coal tit, but I could only just make it out as the day got darker and darker.

We are promised a little sunshine tomorrow morning. I hope we get it and then things can dry up a bit and Evie can have a better outing than her short trip to the garden today.

The flying bird of the day is having an argument.