No time for a walk

Today’s guest picture comes from our daughter Annie. She is currently in Devon and was very struck by just how low the water was when she visited Wimbleball Lake, a reservoir on Exmoor.

We have had a dry summer here but nothing like as dry as that.

It was dry again here today, though there is a little light rain falling in the evening as I write this post.

We had a full day so there was little time for taking any photographs, let alone for going for a walk or a cycle ride. As usual on a Sunday, we started the day by going off to sing in the church choir. We are still short of a permanent minister and there seems to be no sign of any replacement in the offing. In the meantime, the worship team does a valiant job of providing services for us.

I had time for a look at the birds before we left for church. It was a day for sparrows. I hadn’t refilled the feeder yet . . .

. . . so there was pressure on the perches.

A goldfinch checked to see if there was any fallen seed below rather than compete for a place.

When we got home from church, it was time for coffee. Before I went in, I took a very short walk round the garden in the sunshine. A busy bee was at work on an Icelandic poppy . . .

. . . and the Lemon Queen was busy too.

I took a picture of a glowing geranium . . .

. . . without noticing that it had two flies on it. I saw them when I looked at the picture on my computer later on and thought that they deserved a space of their own.

Although we had completed and filled the log store yesterday with the help of Tony and Marianne, there was a lot of tidying up still to do today. We set to work after coffee.

We cut and chopped up so many unwanted old boards for kindling that Mrs Tootlepedal thought that the log store should have a kindling shelf added to it. As we had some chicken wire of just the right size for the job, this thought was swiftly translated into action. The kindling rack and the tidying up took us up to lunchtime.

There was no time after lunch for even a short walk, as our Carlisle choir had called for a longer practice than usual with a view to our upcoming concert in two weeks.

Before we left, I checked on the birds and found a dunnock perched on the fake tree . . .

It sat there long enough for me to take a second photograph.

The two and a half hour long choir practice stretched my voice to its limits,. It was worth it though, as we got through a power of useful work. With another extended practice next week, we should be in reasonable shape for the concert. This will be our first proper concert since the lockdowns so we are all a bit rusty still. Our new conductor has had very little time with us and is dealing with songs that we have practised with our old conductor, so she had a lot of work to do too. She remarked that it might be helpful if at least some of us could look at her while she was conducting us. This was a very novel idea.

The nights are drawing in now, so there was no time for a photographic walk when we got home.

The flying bird of the day is one of the morning sparrows.