Goodbye, hello

Today’s guest picture comes from my brother Andrew. He was on a father’s day walk with his boys today when he met these two interesting customers.

We had a fine summer day here, with plenty of sun, warm temperatures and not too much wind. It is a pity that almost perfect cycling days often seem to coincide with choir days, but that is life. You can’t have everything.

After breakfast, I filled the feeder and watched the birds for a moment. Goldfinches caught my eye.

We cycled to church to find that the repaired organ has still not been replaced in the church. The service was unusual in that it included the Sunday Club prize giving and an adult baptism but the hymns were unremarkable.

We had coffee when we got home, and then we went out into the garden. It is getting richer out there every day.

There were some bees and flies to be seen . . .

. . . but not many.

A Burnet rose and the first Wren have joined the Goldfinch and Frau Dagmar Hastrup. . .

. . . but the current star of the rose show is the rosa complicata at the back of the garden. It is a riot.

New arrivals include a fine clematis . . .

. . . and two yellow irises. The one on the left is ‘Butter and Cream’ and the one on the right is a Japanese variety. Mrs Tootlepedal is pleased with it, because it hadn’t ever flowered until she moved it this year.

After lunch, I went for a quick three bridges walk before the afternoon trip to Carlisle. I saw some interesting birds on the Wauchope as I walked down, but as I had inadvertently still got my camera on sunny plant close up settings from the morning, I didn’t manage to get any good pictures of them. This was a pity, because you don’t often get the chance to take pictures of swallows gathering mud at the waterside.

Parent and child pictures of oystercatchers beside the Esk were more successful.

I was expecting to see a packed car park at the Kilngreen on such a fine Sunday, but maybe the price of fuel was to blame for a rather subdued turnout. Things were peaceful . . .

. . . though there were a few birds about.

I bought an ice cream from the van, and then took the new path round the Castleholm, looking around as I went along.

I know what this plant is but I can’t remember its name.

The noble fir had a cone in hand.

I wondered what this plant was . . .

. . .and I know that this one is hedge woundwort.

Trees were worth a look too, I thought.

Having sorted my camera settings out, I went back to the Wauchope on my way home to see if the swallows were still collecting mud. They had gone, and were flying high above the roof tops.

Having said a fond farewell to our conductor Ellen last week at the Carlisle Community Choir, it came as a bit of a surprise when she turned up to take today’s session. We were very pleased to see her, and she was in good form. She will take the final session for this term next week, and then we will say goodbye again.

We did consider a cycle ride in the evening when we got home, but it has been a busy week so we let the opportunity slip quietly by, and sat down to our evening meal instead.

The flying bird of the day is a chaffinch.