Today’s guest picture comes from my Somerset corespondent, Venetia. Her hedge has been clipped and revealed a large flock of sparrows.

This was a day with very little to be said for it so I shall say very little about it.
It was raining overnight, it was raining in the morning, it was raining in the afternoon and it was raining in the evening.
Mrs Tootlepedal has been levelling off a bit of the drive to put in new paving stones. This was it today….

…and that summed up the day.
We did drive down to a garden centre in the afternoon just to get out of the house, but as the roads were very wet and the garden centre was more full of Christmas tat than garden stuff, this excursion didn’t bring us much joy.
I peered out into the gloom to watch the birds for a bit…


The feeder wasn’t very busy and the camera makes the weather look a lot better than it really was. There were moments of action…

…and moments of peaceful seed chomping…

…though you always have to keep an eye out for incoming siskins.

I went shopping and Mrs Tootlepedal made some leek and potato soup, and that was that for a day which will probably not figure largely in our scrapbook of golden memories.
It is supposed to rain all night.
A just flying goldfinch is the flying bird of the day.

If it’s any consolation we had the same weather here,and being 1,110 ft above sea level the rain was accompanied by dense mist/cloud.
Our antiqueated drainage system of old pipes ,wells and streams is struggling to cope with such a prolonged spell of rain,hope it’s better tomorrow.☹️
The rain doesn’t seem to have affected your goldfinches appetite,or do they know something we don’t,and are stocking up.
They have probably heard that the Brexit talks are struggling. 🙂
Well, at least you had some good soup.
True. And I had for lunch again today.
Following your example, I made lentil soup last night. It did not disappoint, and I will be making it again soon.
It is hard to go wrong with lentil soup in my view. 🙂
I love it!
Your paragraph on how it was raining all day reminded me of a song about sugar…
Very good.
That is quite a bit of rain in your forecast, looking like a more normal winter day here. A little bit of smoky air today, and warm sun. It’s quite still out there tonight as the sun heads for the horizon.
It was warm today if the sun was out, and very welcome it was too.
We’d give quite a lot for a day like that here.
It’s too early for stores to have Christmas things out but we see it before Halloween too.
I was astonished to see the Christmas things. I wonder of they will sell well this year.
It rather looks as though Mrs. T. is installing a pool in your drive. Hope things improve soon.
We had a muhc better day today, thank goodness.
Sorry about all that rain, I enjoyed looking the antics of your birds though. Hope for better things tomorrow.
Excellent flying bird at least
A somewhat curmudgeonly day then? Those birds at the bird feeder and leek and potatoe soup sounds OK to me. Sadly, we’ve caught the rain bug down here too, it hasn’t stopped raining for hours. Still as a friend of mine often quotes, ” No rain, No Beer”, but my favourite is “Rain, ain’t pain”, for the rather obvious reason that I penned it years ago in my blog. Lol something for a bicycling type T-shirt I thought. Dedication is blogging through all kinds of weather, so it’s very well done from this faithful tootlepedal reader. Cheers.
I was having a lot of trouble with my photo editor while I was preparing the post and that didn’t help my mood at all.
I am not so casual about getting wet these days as I used to be. I need to look after myself a bit more.
Tell me Tom have you always cycled?
Hot soup was a good idea. We have our turn for a cold wet day here today.
We could use some of your rain for our CA fires!!
Have as much as you like. We have plenty to spare. 🙂
I wish.
I’m experiencing your described day, here where I’m at too. Zaps the energy and activities!
It certainly made me a bit low. Computer problems didn’t help.
The bird photos are certainly the bright spot of my day! Rain and damp and chilly here too …roll on another Indian Summer …please!
That would be good.
Thought you’d like to know that when I press send on a comment the comment box highlights in orange and then fades…very impressive!
That is exciting.
I observed your rainy day with a bit of envy.
I am sorry about that. I hope that you get a good splash soon.