A slow day

It was so gloomy here today that I was pleased to have found for the guest picture a very sunny scene from Derby taken by my brother Andrew a day or two ago. I needed something to brighten things up.

I poured four inches of rain out of my rain gauge yesterday, a measure of the rainy weather we have been having recently. It wasn’t any better today, with a lot of rain and some very strong winds. The rain didn’t start straight away, although the clouds were thick and the prospects gloomy, and I got round to the corner shop in nothing more than n occasional drizzle.

We had another sociable coffee morning, with cake provided by Mrs Tootlepedal and company provided by Margaret and our friend Gaye. Gaye came over to thank Mrs Tootlepedal for looking after her house plants while she had been away.

When they left, I made a beef stew to be slow cooked by the air fryer. It has a very easy to use slow cooking function. Then I nipped out to photograph as many flowers as I could find in the garden. Quality did not count, just surviving was enough to get a portrait taken.

Two flowers got their own billing, a poppy as wrinkled as the photographer . . .

. . . and a serene salvia.

The nerines are almost over now, but careful work among the dead heads can find a flower or two still looking not too bad. They have been good value this autumn.

The afternoon was very miserable, with rain and wind making staying in very attractive so I was able to do quite a lot of useful work on the Carlisle Choir songs. You have more time to work things out in the quiet of your own home than you do when the conductor is waving furiously at you in a choir practice. Mrs Tootlepedal came and joined in and we worked on some scrunchy chords where I find it hard to hold on to my own notes.

Mike Tinker appeared out of the wild weather so we adjourned for cups of tea and the last of the cake.

By the time that Mike left, the rain had stopped, and as it looked as though it wasn’t going to start again, I went out for a short three bridges walk just to stretch my legs. On my way out of the garden, I came across a stunned goldfinch whihc had probably flown into one of our windows. Mrs Tootlepedal picked it up and cared for it.

It was still very gloomy but there was a hint of some brightness as I walked down our street.

I was very pleased to see the organ repairers’ van outside the church. The work is almost finished so perhaps this will be the final touch.

It was too late in the day for good photographs but I liked the way that the clouds seemed to be reacting to the monument.

The ducks on the Kilngreen were in bunch well away from their usual place. Perhaps someone had been feeding them.

I bowled along round the new path on the Castleholm, stopping only to record this tree. It was stubbornly hanging onto one leafy section while quite leafless elsewhere.

The sky was gently turning pink as I got home . . .

. . . but it didn’t come to anything, and by the time that we were Zooming with my brother and sisters, it was lashing with rain again.

The slow cooked beef stew came out of the air fryer and Mrs Tootlepedal put some plum crumble into it (the machine not the stew). They made for a tasty evening meal, enhanced with some custard on the crumble.

Although it looks as though it is going to rain again tomorrow, the wind has already started to die down. This is a relief.

The flying bird of the day is a sparrow.