Not the foggiest

Today’s guest picture comes from my Somerset correspondent Venetia. She saw this Victorian typewriter in a museum of brands in London and thought that it looked interesting. I agree.

We woke up to a very misty and chilly morning with the temperature just above freezing. Both the mist and the temperature lifted during the day, but only a little and Margaret was rightly complaining about the cold when she came round for coffee.

I had filled the feeder and after coffee, I saw that the birds were grateful for the seed.

There were quite a lot of greenfinches about.

I thought about a cycle ride as the mist had lifted a little, but when I looked at it, the thermometer was showing a meagre three degrees and that was too cold for me. I stayed inside and looked at the birds again instead.

I saw two dunnocks . . .

. . . a blue tit . . .

. . . and a sparrow with its brakes on and its landing gear in place.

Then I had a hunt round the garden for some flowers and found that quite a lot had survived the cold night.

The two little patio roses are still going great guns.

Then, for the first time since our corner shop closed, I walked to a shop to buy milk. In fact it is probably very little further to the Londis store in the High Street than it was to John’s, but as this shop is on the other side of the river, it feels like a major outing rather than a quick pop round the corner. Still, I had gone for milk and they had milk, so everything was very satisfactory.

When I got home, I had an early lunch and then looked at the thermometer again. It had reached a heady 4°C by this time. As there was virtually no wind, I thought that a cycle ride was in order. It was still very gloomy so I put my bike lights on before I left.

Hollows Tower loomed up through the mirk as I passed it . . .

. . . but the mist didn’t threaten to turn to fog which makes cycling dangerous, so I pressed on (gently).

At the bottom of the Canonbie by-pass, I climbed out of the Esk Valley, heading up into an uncertain world . . .

. . . with no surrounding countryside views beyond the hedgerows. . .

. . . and only some very faint trees for company.

I did see some ducks swimming in the pond at Tarcoon . . .

. . . and I could just make out a pair of Belted Galloways blending into the background at Ryehills.

The mist got thicker as I approached the highest point in my ride, and the water tank there took on the form of a submarine rising from a grassy ocean.

At the summit, things got even gloomier . . .

. . . and I was a bit worried that the Wauchope valley might be full of mist. My fears were groundless though, and as I dropped down onto the Wauchope road, the clouds lifted and I could even see the hills. I didn’t stop to record this happy fact, as my gloved hands were quite cold by this time and the lure of a hot cup of tea drove me on.

In spite of the limited views, I enjoyed my ride. The 1 mph wind might have had something to do with that.

After a cup of tea and a shower, I did some work on the delayed Langholm Initiative newsletter. It should come out tomorrow, all being well.

Mrs Tootlepedal cooked some salmon, which came with chips from the airfryer and broccoli from the microwave, for our evening meal. After that, almost by accident, we watched the England v Wales football match. The first half was so dull that I went off to write this post at half time and England promptly scored two goals.

As far as I can see, tomorrow is going to be exactly the same as today, so you may well get some more misty pictures. To compensate for the general drabness of the weather, I took two pictures of Mrs Tootlepedal’s birthday flowers to brighten up this post.

The flying bird of the day is not a great picture but as it is a flying dunnock, a very rare thing for me to capture, I have used it anyway.