A spruce day

Today’s guest picture comes from ex Archive Group member Ken. He is on holiday in Faro, where he spotted a stork on top of a disused church. Once again, I am happy to have a sunny guest picture on a very dull day here.

My social day started well with coffee and scones with Dropscone. The scones were as excellent as ever. Mrs Tootlepedal was away taking minutes at a Langholm Initiative meeting, so the company was much appreciated.

After Dropscone left, I walked up to the newspaper office in the High Street to take a photograph of an article from an 1899 edition of our local paper for a correspondent. She had found a family mention in the Archive Group’s online index to the paper. It is wonderfully easy to take a photo of an original article and email it to an enquirer.

I had volunteered to help the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve volunteering officer, Kat, in removing some of the unwanted self seeded spruce trees that have sprung up on the moor since the sheep were taken off. Last time I was at an organised activity on the moor, the guided walk led by Mike Tinker, the weather had been wet and windy. I was hoping for a change in the weather today and I got my wish.

Unfortunately, the change was for the worse, and it was even windier and much wetter. We lasted an hour. We had managed to cut and shift a good number of the trees before Kat called it a day and photographed the small band of happy volunteers. She kindly sent me the result.

In spite of the wild weather, we had enjoyed ourselves as you can see.

All the same, I was quite pleased to empty the rain out of my pockets when I got home. Mrs Tootlepedal had bought a treat for me on her way home from taking the minutes. It was a small two cup teapot. The key thing about is that it is that it is made of metal. She doesn’t think that even I can break that.

I had some puff pastry left over from making the tarte tatin, and as by coincidence there were six vegetarian sausages in our freezer, I thought that I would put them together and make half a dozen vegetarian sausage rolls, a new project for me. The results wouldn’t win top prizes for beauty . . .

. . . but they were good eating, with the pastry being crisp and the veggie sausages being very acceptable.

As I always have some puff pastry over when I make tarte tatin, I will try to ensure that there are always some veggie sausages about in the freezer to make use of it.

I settled down to put the monthly Langholm Initiative newsletter together after that.

I took a break from this task to have a short walk in a gap in the rain. It was dry but very gloomy. At least I could see the top of a hill . . .

. . . which had been covered with thick rain clouds when I was up there earlier.

I took a picture of the church. The scaffolding has been removed, the bell is working, and for the first time for ages, we will be able to go in by the front door this Sunday.

The Ewes Water was running faster than the Esk when I got to the Meeting of the Waters . . .

. . . and the mallards were prudently keeping out of the flow.

When I looked at the picture on my computer, it was hard to puzzle out. There seems to be half a duck missing.

There were quite few black headed gulls in their winter plumage on the grassy bank of the river.

I walked up to the sawmill Brig, and was impressed by the fiery colour of a tree beyond it.

Apart from that tree, most of the colours on my walk were very subdued, and more and more leaves are on the ground and not on the branches.

I looked at the Ewes Water as I crossed the bridge, and I was not surprised to finding it running full after the rain overnight and in the morning.

I walked along the new path round the bottom of the Castleholm, and found that the cones on the Noble Fir at the far corner were looking very skeletal.

They had looked like this in September.

It got even gloomier as I walked towards the Jubilee Bridge . . .

. . . and only some fading larch needles tempted my camera out of my pocket again . . .

. . . before the rain came on as I neared hom. I scurried in, stopping to record the winter jasmine at the back door as I went.

I went back to working on the newsletter until it was time to give Mrs Tootlepedal a lift down to the Initiative. She was looking very spruce as she had a smart dress on. The community buy out team has been nominated for an award at the D&G Life magazine’s annual do in Dumfries, and she is part of the party going to the ceremony.

They are streaming the awards live so I may be able to see if they win later in the evening.

The strong winds and the rain kept the birds away from the feeder today, and an old friend is standing in for the flying bird of the day.