A rain check

Today’s guest picture comes from my brother Andrew. He was swanning around yesterday.

In the face of some drizzly and windy weather, I did a lot of idling in the morning today, a walk to the shop under an umbrella being the only action of note. Mrs Tootlepedal ventured out to buy a mirror for our guest room.

We were a bit more active in the afternoon, egged on by a forecast that the rain would stop after lunch. I had a look round the garden and found a very confused rhododendron flower among some soggy favourites.

And I used the macro function on my new waterproof camera to photograph some water droplets on a web.

I had promised to see if our rabbit proofing efforts at the tree nursery yesterday had had any effect, so with the hope of the rain clearing, Mrs Tootlepedal and I set off to cycle back up to Cronksbank to check.

The rain did not clear away . . .

. . . and a lot of it was rushing down the Tarras Water . . .

. . . and we got wetter when we were stopped near the bird hide by the two young film makers whom we met yesterday. We obligingly posed for still portraits as the rain teemed down.

But we were not deterred and made it up to the tree nursery. Very annoyingly, we found one or two rabbit droppings in the enclosure, so we had not been completely successful. While we were sheltering in the open barn as a heavier shower passed overhead, Mrs Tootlepedal spotted an owl pellet.

When we could see the rain disappearing up the valley . . .

. . . we set off home in sombre conditions . . .

. . . stopping off for relief from another shower when we got to the bird hide. There were no birds to be seen but I did spot a wild carrot.

It was dry but still gloomy when we got back to the town.

I had a look round before we went in for a cup of tea and found the lamium still looking very good, having been flowering since April this year.

And there was another surprisingly late poppy.

Then the sun came out. It was a bit late but still welcome. It lit up a pink strawberry flower . . .

. . . and stayed out long enough to pick out an inquisitive chaffinch when I looked out after my cup of tea.

A dunnock lurked in the shadows of the willows . . .

. . . and two sparrows arrived to do some artistic posing for the camera.

I went out into the garden again to see if I could catch any interesting passing birds, but the skies were very quiet and only a reflective crow was to be seen.

I turned the bird camera onto the wet web . . .

. . . some fungus beside the drive . . .

. . . and a blaze of colour from the climbing hydrangea, as the sun reappeared for a moment.

I did some pruning and shredding of the buddleia, while Mrs Tootlepedal did some gardening and picked more runner beans. After a late start, the runner beans have been steadily productive.

Then we whiled away some time watching a charming programme on the iPlayer about a young couple who bought a near derelict house in Dunoon by mistake at an auction. They made the best of the situation by renovating the house themselves with the help of volunteers obtained through publicity on the internet.

I stewed some of our apples (in a very old fashioned way on our hob) after our evening meal, and we ate them with custard to round our day off.

Flying birds at the feeder were not to be seen today, so the best that I can do is a jackdaw doing a handbrake turn over a neighbour’s garden some way away in the early evening gloom. I’ll have to to pay more attention to thee feeder tomorrow.