Pulling, pushing, perambulating and playing

Today’s guest picture comes from my brother Andrew. He found this fine mediaeval bridge for me on a visit to Fountains Abbey.

We had our first genuinely chilly morning since the late spring today. Our local weather station recorded a low of 3°C (38°F) in the early hours. It was a generally sunny day though, so it was a bit warmer by the time that we got out and about and the garden had survived well.

I looked to see if the bird feeder needed filling, and was very surprised to see a young starling trying the seed . . .

. . . but I wasn’t as surprised as one of our local goldfinches was.

I filled the feeder and then went up to do some more rhododendron clearing in the felled wood on the edge of town with the Tarras Valley volunteers. It is rough going underfoot . . .

. . . but I managed to stay upright, and the small team of volunteers got a good many rhododendron shoots uprooted and piled up for disposal. As most of the shoots were coming from branches that had previously been cut and then left lying on the ground by former clearers, the disposal of the piles will be important if our work is to have any useful outcome.

It was nearly lunchtime when I got home but there was time for a walk round the garden with Mrs Tootlepedal. She had been going through great piles of documents to see which could be thrown away and she needed a breath of fresh air by this time.

We found a small tortoiseshell butterfly resting in the sunshine.

Mrs Tootlepedal is very pleased with the rampaging growth of her green manure in the potato bed, and I like the ever increasing size of the Charles Ross apples . . .

. . . and I found a few flowers on a spirea and a lonely poppy hiding in the vegetable garden.

After lunch, I looked at the feeder. The seed had gone down a lot since the morning, and there was keen competition for a place at the table . . .

. . .which led to some most regrettable chaffinch stamping.

Mrs Tootlepedal went off to do some embroidery with her stitching group and I set about being useful in the garden.

I started by cutting up a barrowful of green garden waste, the result of Mrs Tootlepedal’s tidying yesterday, and adding it to Compost Bin A. Then I sieved a barrowful of rotted compost from Bin D to add to the compost bucket. Next, the hover mower came out and I mowed the greenhouse grass, the drying green, and the vegetable garden paths.

Then I took a look for butterflies but found hardly any around. There were a lot of other insects though.

Two red dahlias caught my eye.

Then I needed a little sit down. Luckily there was a good spot for a sit down nearby.

Mrs Tootlepedal returned from her stitching and after a cup of tea, she started cooking our evening meal while I went for a short three bridges walk.

My first pictures were black and white, or rather, white and black.

Then I spent some time trying to catch some of the many wagtails by the waterside standing still for long enough for me to get a good picture . . . and failing.

The wind is from the north at the moment and it wasn’t very warm, but as long as the sun was out, it was a pleasant enough day for a walk . . .

. . . and once I had passed the little church at the Lodge gates . . .

. . . I pottered along past the cricket club . . .

. . . and up the Lodge Walks . . .

. . . enjoying the sunshine . . .

. . . and the trees.

I was hoping that the walk across the Duchess Bridge might be open, but although some big machinery had pulled fallen trees out of the river above the bridge . .

. . . the path on the other side of the bridge still has not been cleared yet and the bridge remains shut.

I got home in good time for a Zoom with my brother and sisters, and then after our evening meal, our friends Mike and Alison came round for their regular Friday evening visit.

Although we were both a little lacking in recent practice (busy people), Alison and I enjoyed playing a set of duets for keyboard and recorder and quite often played the right notes in the right order at the right time. Meanwhile, Mike and Mrs Tootlepedal exchanged views on the news.

The flying bird of the day is an angry goldfinch, caught up in the heated moments at the seed ran low. Chaffinches had a hard time today.