Helped by poor weather

Today’s guest picture from our son Tony answers the question, “Is the sun still shining in East Wemyss?”

Luckily the sun wasn’t shining here today. I say luckily because after a couple of active days, my knees were all in favour of something a bit calmer today. A morning of coffee with Sandy and a quiet read of the newspapers followed by an afternoon of steady rain was just what the doctor ordered.

It let me have time for a good look at the many birds at the feeder.

Chaffinches were busy.

Redpolls were busier.

There were synchronised acrobatics . . .

. . . bossy behaviour by a greenfinch treading on a goldfinch’s toes . . .

. . . a display of harmony from our four most regular visitors, chaffinch, goldfinch, siskin and redpoll . . .

. . . and a final pose by a magisterial greenfinch.

It wasn’t a day for hanging around in the garden, so I took a picture of flowers in a vase in the kitchen.

Mrs Tootlepedal was braver than I and spent the morning helping the Tarras Valley volunteers plant more trees on the moor. Lots of dog roses have been donated to the project, and as they are in danger of drying out before they can all be planted, she brought a couple of bags of the shoots home, watered them well, and heeled them into a bed in the vegetable garden.

They should be happy there for the time being.

After lunch, I put a week of the newspaper index into the Archive Group database, and just as I finished, our friend Mike Tinker dropped in to have a cup of tea and a biscuit with us.

When he left, I decided that as the rain had stopped and I had had a good day of rest so far, a little walk would not be a bad idea. I set off for a short tour of three bridges.

The works on the new play park are going on apace.

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When I got to the Esk, I was very happy to see a pair of goosanders preening beside the river, but less happy to see a discarded plastic bottle lying next to them.

They were too busy looking after themselves to worry about me, and I stopped to take a few more pictures (editing the bottle out of one of them).

The daffodils along the bank of the Ewes Water at the Kilngreen caught my eye . . .

. . . and when I got to the Castleholm, I found that they had finished putting up the racecourse rails ready for the race meeting on Sunday.

I hope to be able to attend the meeting, and take pictures of horses pounding round the course.
Looking across the course, I worried a bit about the stability of the pine trees next to the castle.

There were several signs of the slowly developing spring as I went round the new path on the Castleholm, across the Jubilee Bridge and back home by way of the Scholars’ Field.

On a cold, grey late afternoon, it didn’t feel much like spring.

I made macaroni cheese for our evening meal, and then we had a quiet evening watching undemanding telly programmes.

There have been so many flying birds already in today’s post that I don’t think that there is a need for another one. I will finish the post with a picture of a gap in our garden fence. It was damaged by one of the recent storms, and our neighbour Irving has taken the broken panel away and is kindly going to provide a replacement soon.