Clouded vision

Sunrises are a current theme for guest pictures. After our daughter Annie’s Stockwell sunrise yesterday, here is one that our son Tony took a little earlier that day in East Wemyss.

We didn’t see a sunrise here today, in fact we didn’t see any sun at all as it was another exceedingly grey day and I don’t have a lot to say about it.

We cycled to church to sing in the choir with a threat of drizzle about, and we cycled back home with some actual drizzle. The service was rather grey too, with only four in the choir. With no bass on hand, as Mike is still in hospital, it didn’t really matter that we didn’t have much to do.

Our neighbours Liz and Margaret came round for coffee which cheered the day up a bit, but it was raining steadily by the time that they left,

The feeder was very quiet again, but there were some birds in the garden. I peered through the murk to see a collection of collared doves on the walnut tree . . .

. . . and a crow on a topmost branch.

Beside the feeder, a chaffinch posed on the fake tree.

Below the feeder, one of our regular dunnocks was busying about . . .

. . . and a robin looked about . . .

. . . before picking up a seed from the feeder tray.

I did think about going our for another wet walk before going to my Carlisle choir, but in the end, it seemed to me that staying in and not getting wet had slightly superior attractions.

It was ratining heavily when I left Langholm to drive to Carlisle in the afternoon, and as I splashed through deep puddles, I wondered if I would have been wiser to say at home. However, as is often the case in this sort of day, the further south that I got, the better the weather got, and by the time that I got to Longtown, the sun was shining and it was a lovely day.

It was the last practice of 2021 at our choir. We have been very lucky that our conductor Ellen has stuck with us through these rather unrewarding times. She gave us a very good session of singing on this occasion, and in spite of having to be socially distant and singing with masks on, I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I was able to drive home without meeting any more rain.

There was so little colour in my day in general that I resorted to taking two pictures of Mrs Tootlepedal’s birthday flowers to brighten up this post.

They have lasted well. The gift of flowers included a delivery of new flowers every month during the winter, so photographs of them may become a regular feature (if I remember).

I only saw two chaffinches all day. One was perching so this was the only candidate for flying bird of the day.