Shepherd’s warning

Today’s guest picture is another from Venetia’s visits to local attractions in Somerset. This time she visited Ninesprings, at Yeovil Country Park and found another tempting entrance.

There is an old saying, “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight, red sky in the morning shepherd’s warning.” It has some validity based on the prevailing south west winds, but it is often not a reliable indicator of the coming weather.

It was bang on today.

Mrs Tootlepedal woke me up this morning because she thought that the sunrise was too good to miss…

…and she was right.

I was looking at the sunset out of our Velux window which swivels open. The glass was lying flat under my arm as I rested on it to take a picture, and quite accidentally I took this shot…

…which gave me double the sunrise for the same price.

It was lucky that Mrs Tootlepedal woke me because the full impact had faded with a few minutes….

…though I was reminded that Homer always describes this time of day as “rosy fingered dawn” in the Odyssey. It seemed appropriate today.

Paying heed to the shepherd’s advice, I looked at the forecast and resolved to make use of some reasonable weather in the morning as the afternoon looked dire.

The sun didn’t really come up at all after the spectacular start but I took a bird picture…

…and then Sandy came down for coffee. Tucked into the shelter of the garden under the walnut tree, we enjoyed coffee and cake and a catch up.

When he had left, I went for a walk while the going was good.

In fact the going turned out to be not very good at all, and I was pestered by several light rain showers as I walked. They didn’t last though, and I got home fairly dry.

I walked up to the High Mill Bridge by the Baggra, passing the willows at the Langholm Bridge which show which way the wind blows…

…and an excited black headed gull on my way along the Kilngreen.

It was raining when I started out along the Baggra….

…and with no view to look at and only bare trees to be seen against a grey backdrop..

…I kept my head down and looked for lichen. It was not hard to find as trees and walls were covered with it.

My favourites were lurking in a small corner of a wall….

…and in the gloomy light, the tiny red spots were almost invisible to the naked eye.

The rain stopped as I came to the end of the track, circled the field and dropped down to the High Mill Brig

One of the good things about the dark months of the year is that you tend to get better views of bridges, even if they are not as picturesque as they are when surrounded by foliage.

I crossed the bridge and walked back towards the town. I was considering walking up the road to the hill and coming back along the side of Whita to the top of the golf course, but another shower of rain persuaded me to think again.

I took a more sheltered route up the Lodge Walks and over the Duchess Bridge instead. The rain soon stopped of course.

I was cheered up by a robin.

The Lodge Walks are leafless now and the recent rain and wind have washed and blown almost all the fallen leaves off the road.

There are some gaps among the trees which line the road as several have have been felled, and I was worried to see fungus growing out of the trunk of one that is still standing.

It may not mean much but the estate is understandably loath to take risks with trees that might fall on one of the many infants who are pushed along the walks by doting parents. Parents get upset about that sort of thing.

As I crossed the Duchess Bridge…

… hazel catkins reminded me that another spring is on its way.

There were more fungi to be seen along the path home.

When I got home, I took a quick turn round the garden and admired the indomitable spirit of Lillian Austin..

…who just won’t admit defeat at the moment and keeps producing new buds.

The big daisies are almost done…

…but the little roses are still trying.

I went in to a welcome bowl of Mrs Tootlepedal’s ham broth with a slice of home made bread and some very delicious cheeses for lunch.

And that was that. It started to rain at one o’clock, and didn’t stop for the rest of the day. As I write this, the rain is battering on the windows and the winds are moaning and sighing round the house. It would be very hard to mistake Langholm for a tropical paradise.

I put the afternoon to good use by entering another week of the newspaper index into the Archive Group database. Then I considered my Google account. Having seen off the opposition by offering unlimited free storage to users, Google are now intending to start charging for storage. This is the classic tactic of the monopolist. I was surprised to find that I had used nearly half the reasonably generous storage that I was to be offered free of charge and wondered what to do. However, a look into my account revealed that Google behind my back had stored every picture, video and sound file that I had received with my emails. As I have downloaded any that I need to keep, a quick visit to the recycling bin with hundred of unwanted large files soon cleared a vast amount of space.

The day ended with a sibling Zoom, full of discussion of the political events of the day and an excellent meal of mince and tatties, the ideal antidotes to the miserable weather.

I didn’t catch a flying bird as I was busy in the morning and it was too horrible for photographs in the afternoon, so a token flap from a chaffinch will have to do today.

(The blue tit was almost flying.)