A sunny day

Today’s guest picture comes from our son Tony. It shows East Wemyss at its best in my view.

We had a lovely summer day here today, in marked contrast to the weather yesterday. Naturally, since it was a fine day for gardening, Mrs Tootlepedal found herself called to go to take minutes at a meeting. This is the sort of joke that fate likes to play.

Dropscone came round for coffee while Mrs Tootlepedal was out, and he patiently put up with my moaning about the political situation.

When he left, I wandered about the garden taking pictures before going off to the corner shop for supplies.

I liked this colourful bed at the front gate.

When I went to cross the little bridge over the pond, I found a rather disgruntled looking blackbird standing on it.

It turned out that I had disturbed its morning bath in the pond. However, after flying off, it soon returned, plunged into the pond, splashed about, and then got out and had a good shake . . .

. . . before flying off with a baleful look in my direction.

I consoled myself by seeing what a healthy state the Special Grandma rose is in. Mrs Tootlepedal moved it for this year, and it is enjoying having a bit more space to develop.

Nearby, a foxglove was trying to attract pollinators.

When I looked a little later on, it had succeeded.

The bee looked as though it was wearing a wig.

It was my day for being surprised by bees, as I saw what I think is a leaf cutter bee on the knapweed. This is not a usual visitor to the garden at all.

I found plenty to enjoy before I did my shopping . . .

. . . including a quick look at the birds, where a greenfinch looked down . . .

. . . and a starling and a dunnock looked up.

I found Mrs Tootlepedal just coming home from her meeting when I got back.

It was such a lovely day that when I mentioned that I was thinking of cycle ride ater lunch, Mrs Tootlepedal said that she would like to come too. We packed our folding electric bikes into the car and drove the ten miles to Waterbeck, where we parked at the village hall and got the bikes out.

We had decided to do part of a ride that I had done not long ago, as some of it would be new to Mrs Tootlepedal. She thoroughly enjoyed the wild flowers . . .

. . . the ride up the hill from Middlebie on the quiet road . . .

. . . with views of cows and a reservoir to one side . . .

. . . and the distinctive shape of Burnswark on the other.

But nothing had prepared her for the expansive views from the top of the hill, and she was delighted by the view to the west . . .

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. . . by the hint of the massive Solway Array of wind turbines seemingly floating in the air further south . . .

. . . and by the wonderful sight that greeted her before the descent to Bankshill.

From there back to Waterbeck, we were on more familiar roads, but it was a pleasure to be out in warm sunshine and the 15 miles circular trip was voted a really good idea.

We had time to do some gardening when we got home. We planted wild flowers in the mini meadow, picked a mass of sweet peas and plenty of raspberries, as well as doing some much needed watering.

I took a photo or two while we were out. The main crops potatoes are flowering and the gooseberries are beginning to ripen . . .

. . .and flies glowed in the sunshine.

I took another picture of the only poppy of its kind to be out yet in the garden. I hope that there will be more soon.

The slow cooked beef stew followed by watching the highlights of a good stage of the Tour de France rounded off the day very well.

The flying birds of the day are some of the noisy crew returning to their roost as I was writing the post . . .

. . . but they were too high to get the best of the sunset into the same shot today.