Today’s guest picture is a lovely view over the lake at Melbourne in Derbyshire taken by my brother Andrew. He tells us that he was visiting the big house there as the owner is currently on holiday in Scotland and has allowed the hoi polloi to have a nose round while he is away.
We had a far less gloomy day today than yesterday, although there was the occasional hint of rain in the morning. I ignored the hint, put on a rain jacket and set off for a cycle ride on my road bike. It rained as I started out.
However, it soon stopped raining, and I was somewhat overdressed for the rest of my outing. There was a very brisk wind in my face as I pedalled along the road up to and over Callister. The wind continued to be unhelpful for the first 10 miles of my journey. The benefit of this was that I was going so slowly that it was no problem to stop and take pictures of wild flowers.
These included the first sedum of the season . . .
. . . a sanguisorba officanalis or great burnet . . .
. . . and an unexpectedly late burst of marsh woundwort looking lovely in a sunny moment.
It was by no means sunny all the way round, and sometimes the weather looked quite threatening.
But it stayed dry and once that I stopped pedalling into the wind, things seemed brighter all round. I took an hour and three minutes to do the first ten miles and and an hour and a half to do the next twenty. Good route planning.
I also stopped to look at the two ancient towers that stand within a few hundred yards of each other beside the old main Glasgow road.
A stop at twenty miles for a banana and a drink coincided with the home of the Korean pines at Half Morton. The pines themselves are lovely layered trees. . .
. . . and the cones, as regular readers will know, are a source of endless fascination for me.
There is a fine beech tree at the gate of the churchyard and I took the final picture of my ride there . . .
. . . before pedalling the final ten miles home as fast as my little legs and the kindly wind would let me.
Mrs Tootlepedal went out to an informal meeting of stitchers just after I got home, so I had a shower and a late lunch of a bacon butty, and then had a wander round the garden.
Lots of flowers caught my eye. I particularly liked the newly flowering hydrangea . . .
. . . a verbena . . .
. . . and the brilliant colour of the clover in the vegetable garden.
The phlox is going over, but there are still patches where it is looking good.
I took too many pictures for them all to have a solo billing, so here are four that I took with one camera . . .
. . . and six that I took with another.
After a while, I got bored with just wandering about, and went off to do some shopping, first in the corner shop where I paid my bill, and then in the Co-op. By good timing, I met Mrs Tootlepedal coming back from her sewing, and we went to the Co-op together.
It was time for a cup of tea (and a recently purchased biscuit) when we got home. After that I spent a few moments looking at what seemed like hundreds of sparrows on the feeder . . .
. . . and then went out to sieve a load of compost. Much to my surprise, I found a peacock butterfly sitting on the compost in Bin D.
There are still hardly any to be seen in the garden.
After I had finished sieving, I went in and took part in the regular Zoom meeting with my siblings. Their weather seems to have settled down after some very heavy showers. We had a couple of short but quite heavy showers here towards the end of the day, and on one occasion, Mrs Tootlepedal suggested that there might be rainbow to be seen if I looked out of our back window. I looked.
In some rather curious light, there was indeed a rainbow to be seen. I was too close for my phone to take it all in . . .
. . . so I tried the panorama function which I had not used on the phone before . . .
. . . and you can see that there was a double rainbow over Henry Street and Whita Hill.
There may be more rain and sunshine tomorrow so perhaps we will see another rainbow then.
The flying bird of the day is a jackdaw ignoring the sparrows.
Footnote: The New Hampshire Gardener in his comment yesterday suggested that if a second helping of the gooseberry fool tasted better today that it did yesterday, it would prove the truth of the saying that there is no fool like an old fool. This wins the comment of the year trophy.
Second footnote: As it happened, the fool tasted just the same, but that was no bad thing.
Tootlepedal's Blog 
Had to look up bacon butty. A new one for me. Always thrilled to see a picture of a peacock butterfly. That cone looks as though it is covered with small birds.
Thank you for the award. The comment didn’t have a lot of thought behind it.
Your flowers photos are so beautiful they make me want to get out there with a camera again. The shot of the sedum was especially good, I thought.
And the Korean pine cones are always fascinating for me, too. I agree with Laurie, it does look like the cone has tiny birds flying along it. I’ll have to ask my son if he saw any when he was there.
Do you know what the ‘birds’ are for? I presume they must have some function.
They are bracts, which are part of the seed bearing scales on a conifer’s cone. The trees you show are females, and we can tell that by the cones. When the cones ripen they will open to release the seeds. Whether or not the bracts will still be there when that happens, I don’t know.
Thank you.
I too see the birds on the pine cones – looking very attractive. I like the rainbow and the panoramic shot makes me realise I ought to explore the options on my phone camera too 🙂
There are a lot of functions on the phone and on my cameras that I never use. I am offered ‘single take’ whatever that means.
Glad you had a helpful wind for your return pedal.
Very successful panoramic view with your new camera.
The double rainbow was quite a sight. Loved all the colour in your garden and those two ancient buildings on your cycle ride.
Great foolish footnotes. Good lighting on the rainbow – I don’t think the panoramic function improves the picture much. A new take on the Korean pines – I half expected one to feature as a flying bird
I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe on another day.
The panorama feature will need a bit of practice.
I saw birds on the cone, too, but my first glimpse was of whale tails. Not sure what that says about me. The red clover is a sight to behold.
The colour on the clover is most unusual. I can see what you mean about whales. I think that it just means that you take a wider view than others.
That’s as interesting perspective of the jackdaw. Its tail feathers have an unusually “fluffy” shape.
I agree with Laurie about the birds on the cone. They’re a simple and elegant shape.
I do like the pine cone birds. They look like some piece of modern art.
Definitely unusual and interesting to me, the Great Burnet, the wild Sedum and of course the Korean pine cones with flying birds on them. Thanks for reminding me the phone has all these features on it I have yet to explore with the panoramic view of the rainbows. It’s all I can do to remember to push start when I attempt a video.
I wouldn’t say that I had mastered the panorama function yet. 🙂
Still lots of lovely color in the garden, Tom. And that close-up of the sedum is gorgeous!
It did catch my eye as I passed it.
The colors in your garden and around the countryside are still putting on a lovely show. The Korean pine is a fascinating and beautiful tree with its layered form and decorative cones. The lighter elements do look birdlike.
The recent rain has freshened things up.