A much better use of some sunshine

Today’s guest picture comes from our son Alistair who has visited his local park. It shows that Mr Grumpy’s relatives are branching out in Edinburgh.

After some heavy overnight rain, it was a relief to wake up to a dull but dry morning today, with the temperature well above freezing.

In these dark days at the turn of the year, we are in no hurry to get up and rush about, so we had a quiet time er the newspapers after breakfast until coffee. I did fill the feeder and the birds were far from having a quiet time themselves. As is so often the case, where there are siskins about, there is rude behaviour.

I only watched the birds for a minute or two, but there was enough action to keep my shutter finger busy.

In the more peaceful world underneath the feeder, I saw two sorts of pigeon.

I was just thinking of what I might do with my day when I looked out of the window and saw that the sun was shining. A check on the forecast showed that this might continue to be the case for at least a couple of hours, so I forwent my lunch, ate a banana and a slice of bread and marmalade, put on my cycling clothes, and went off for the first pedal of 2023.

Because there was a noticeable wind coming from the south I went down to Canonbie by the direct and sheltered route and not by my more usual route across the open hill. As I went across the river, I could see that the overnight rain had raised the river level considerably.

Nevertheless, because it was the middle of the day, there was even a little heat from the sun as I pedalled along, and I was happy to stop and take pictures to show what a nice day it was as I went through the Hollows.

Hollows Tower

The Esk seen from Hollows Bridge

The little wood beside the bridge

The old main road

The wind wasn’t as fierce as the forecast had suggested it might be, but I was still pleased when I got to the bottom of the Canonbie bypass and turned onto the road to Glenzier with the wind now helping me.

Once again I was happy to pause on my way to take pictures, this time of some of the many trees beside the road.

I liked the effect created by the muck spreading on the field.

I was glad to see that the rain had washed any thorns from the hedge clipping off the road

A conifer for variety

The clouds behind this tree made me decide not to take too many more pictures but to concentrate on pedalling for a while.

The rain had deposited quite a lot of water in the seasonal ponds further along my route. In fact, the one at the bottom of the Tarcoon hill was spreading over the road.

There were no ducks swimming about on it, but it still made for a very pleasant pastoral scene.

If the main road to Dumfries had been relatively quiet on our trip yesterday, the back roads that I was on today . . .

. . . were even quieter and the views were pretty good too.

I don’t think that I met more than half a dozen cars on the last 11 miles of my journey today.

The second seasonal pond was duck free too today.

Sadly those background clouds crept over my head and the sun disappeared just before my final photographic pause to admire some unexpectedly bright bushes beside the busy burn at the Kerr.

I bustled on home after that, but not quite fast enough to get my average speed over 12 mph. Still, it was a very enjoyable outing. I included a short diversion down to the river in the town when I got back to the town to try to take another picture of the high waters, but rather surprisingly, the level had dropped quite a bit while I had been cycling so I kept my camera in my pocket.

Mike Tinker dropped by as I got into the house, and we had a cup of tea and an exchange of news with Mrs Tootlepedal. When Mike left, I spent some useful time finishing off putting a week of the newspaper index into the Langholm Archive Group’s database, and practising some singing in preparation for returning to our choirs tomorrow.

A quiet evening in followed.

The flying bird of the day is a goldfinch.