Playing and walking

Today’s guest picture was sent to me by Irving Bell. He got this fine view of Talla reservoir while on a motor tour. He advises me that I if I want to get the view too while pedalling, an electric bike would be a good idea as it involves a steep hill.

We had a day of fine weather and mainly blue skies here, though planes flying in every direction did tend to spoil the effect a bit.

On the ground, we had a varied day. Matilda and Mrs Tootlepedal went round the garden in the morning, picking flowers for Matilda to make a flower arrangement. It turned out well I thought.

Matilda took her father and mother to the new play area in the Buccleuch Park. Matilda gave the new facilities a definite thumbs up, and her parents were pleased to see lots of other children there too.

While they were gone, I wandered around taking pictures in the garden. There are still some roses.

It was quite warm in the sun and dahlias looked good while blackbirds looked hot.

Moss roses looked a bit overheated too, but the water lily stayed cool.

I was hoping to see many butterflies in the warmth, but I only saw one.

There still aren’t a great many bees about, though there is one hidden in the poppy below.

There are quite a lot of birds at the feeder, and the seed is going down at a great rate. I noticed a mad greenfinch attacking a sparrow even though there were three empty perches on the feeder.

It had several goes at dislodging the sparrow . . .

. . . before flying off in a temper . . .

. . . and reappearing on a spare perch looking rather embarrassed.

Pigeons were to be seen down below and up on high.

When Matilda came back from the play park, she and I had another go at recorder playing. She has taken to it very well and can now play simple tunes involving three notes. Not bad after two lessons.

After lunch, we went for a walk up to the Stubholm, along the Murtholm, over Skippers Bridge and back by the riverside path.

We stopped at the jewelweed . . .

. . . and had fun squeezing the seed heads and watching the seeds fly out like little bullets.

Along the Murtholm we saw a lot of hazelnuts and these growths on an oak tree . . .

. . . which are probably the work of gall wasps.

It was quite hot, and we went at a very steady pace down to Skippers Bridge . . .

. . . and then, while Matilda and her father sped homewards, Mrs Tootlepedal, Clare and myself maintained a sensible pace, stopping to admire lichen on a fence . . .

. . . the honeysuckle on the water treatment works hedge . . .

. . . and the Himalayan balsam almost everywhere.

These seeds heads were not quite ready to pop.

We all got home in the end and enjoyed a cup of tea and various sustaining snacks.

Afterwards, Matilda and I practised a little more recorder playing, and then we went out into the garden where Matilda took pictures for her flower panel of the day.

These were her favourites. She and I did a little editing on them today as the light wasn’t as good as we would have liked.

We had to break off in the middle of our flower hunt to dig up a potato plant for our evening meal. It produced a very good crop.

The evening meal included roast potatoes which were delicious, so our labour was not in vain.

While I was out in the garden, starlings auditioned for flying bird of the day . . .

. . . but I ignored them when I spotted today’s flying bird. It is quite unusual as it was a little bird flying off the power line, and not a starling or pigeon this time.

Footnote: I tried my new camera underwater for the first time today. It was just a brief immersion in the dam behind the house when we went out for our walk, but it really did work . . .

. . . and even more importantly, the camera survived to take pictures on the walk.