Singing and sunshine

Today’s guest picture comes from my brother Andrew. At first glance, you may think that you can see many Santas in this festive shop display, but a closer examination will show multiple self portraits of the clever photographer.

We had a much better day here today as far as the weather went. Although there were a couple of short showers, we were fortunately busy singing inside both times, and the rest of the day was dry and occasionally sunny.

We cycled to church to sing in the church choir and it was lucky that I had put a cloth in my saddlebag as we needed to dry our saddles before we cycled home again. The service was rather long and our organist, out of pity for the long suffering congregation, sensibly cut four verses from the final hymn. For this relief, much thanks.

We had coffee when we got home, and I took took a moment to record some of the lovely floral tributes which Mrs Tootlepedal had received on her birthday.

Then, feeling a bit guilty, I popped out into the garden to see if we still had some flowers of our own to show.

I had a look to the future too.

I had filled the feeder, and unlike yesterday, there was both a good supply of birds and sufficient light for the camera to be able to see them.

We had several siskins, chaffinches, and sparrows to make a change from the usual diet of greenfinches and goldfinches.

Before lunch, I made an effort to make the car look a bit less neglected. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I had cleaned it, as that would entail it being clean when I had finished, but I could say that I had ‘cleanerered’ it as at least it was cleaner when I was done than when I started.

After lunch, there was time for a quick three bridges walk before we went off to Carlisle. I was hoping to see interesting waterside birds but only saw some old friends. This was our resident lesser black backed gull standing up very straight . . .

. . . and this was Mr Grumpy still feeling his age.

There was a small flock of blacked headed gulls beside the water at the Kilngreen . . .

. . . and they obligingly took to the air and flew past me in all directions for a while.

The sun came out as I walked up towards the Sawmill Brig . . .

. . . and stayed out as I walked round the bottom of the Castleholm . . .

. . . and past a tree gripping the top of a banking with a mossy claw.

I stopped at the Jubilee Bridge to look down at a wild flower with an additional insect . . .

. . . and to do a bit of staring up into the sky.

A second look at the rotten centre of the large branch which recently fell right across the path round the Scholars’ Field . . .

. . . did make me wonder how many of the other large branches that I was walking under were in the same condition.

I quickened my pace slightly, and then slowed down again, realising that it is just as useful to be late for a falling branch as to be early.

I rounded my photographic walk off with a picture of moss creeping along the old Primary School playground wall.

Our trip to the Carlisle Community Choir went smoothly and we had a good practice for our concert in two weeks time. Our conductor won my heart when she decided that our programme was probably too long and chose to discard the song that I like the least and sing worst. At the end of our drive home, we got a warm welcome from the Langholm Christmas lights which were switched on yesterday.

It looks as though our spell of rather warm weather for the time of year is going to come to an end next week and we may see some frosty nights. I hope that we don’t get icy roads as I am hoping to get a couple of bike rides in before the end of the month.

The flying bird(s) of the day are a pair of the Kilngreen gulls doing some formation flying.