Mostly dodging the showers

Today’s guest picture comes from our son Tony. He spotted this interesting cloud over East Wemyss.

We had very variable weather here today with some heavy showers, some very gusty winds, and a bit of sunshine thrown in from time to time.

One of the heavy showers came in the morning, but as we were having coffee at the time, we remained very calm. After coffee, I had a look for birds and found very few at the feeder. There was a dunnock creeping about underneath and a pigeon preening itself on the top of the walnut tree

When I walked up to the town to order more bird seed, I met two keen walkers crossing the bridge. Considering that they had been caught by that heavy hail shower on an exposed part of the hill on their morning walk, they were remarkably cheerful.

I was walking along the High Street on my way home, when I got offered a lift by John, the ex proprietor of the corner shop. He thought that I might get rained on if I continued to walk home, and he was right. Mrs Tootlepedal was just setting off on her bike when we arrived at the house, and she was soon driven back home again by another very heavy rain shower. I thanked John for the lift. He tells me that he is surviving retirement.

I spent some time clearing the last of the sawn up logs from the walnut tree trimming out of the garage and into a small pile in our log store . . .

. . . and then swept the garage floor and got the shredder working. Mrs Tootlepedal has just started gardening again and there will be shredding to be done. Mrs Tootlepedal had another go at cycling through to the town, and this time she managed to get her errands done and get home dry.

After a bowl of lightly curried parsnip soup for lunch, I had another look at the birds and found a lot more action. I was glad that I had ordered more bird seed.

It was far too windy and wet to think of enjoyable cycling, so I put my heavy coat on and went off for a walk, hoping for the best. Margaret’s snowdrops are looking more promising every day.

I met two friends on the suspension bridge. They were looking up the river with great interest. They pointed out the first oyster catcher of the year, saying that they thought that it had arrived so early by accident and might well go away again. I would not have spotted it if they if they had not pointed it out, because it had its back to the bridge and I needed it to turn its head so I could see its orange beak. I got a better picture of it from the side as I walked up the river, but as it was raining by now, it was not a very good effort

It continued to rain as I walked along the Kilngreen and up the road to the rugby club. To get a bit of shelter, I took the track through the trees up the hill from Whitshiels. Someone has very kindly very kindly put a convenient gate for pedestrians at the top of the track. I went through the gate and looked up the valley. There was not much of a view in the rain, but a minute or two later, I spotted a faint rainbow. It wasn’t long after I had passed the three dancing trees that I got a splendid view.

As I walked round the pine trees and onto the road, the state of the weather depended upon which direction I was looking.

I had hoped to go up to the top of the hill, but the strong, cold wind and the threat of more rain modified my ambition, and instead, I walked along the side of the hill to where the wall is crossed by a stile.

I was very fortunate that two or three rain showers passed me by on the other side of the valley, and by the time that I walked down through the woods beside Jenny Noble’s Gill, the sun was shining.

In fact, it looked set fair for a while, so instead of taking the direct route home, I walked along to Broomholmshiels and came back by the road. This let me enjoy the mossy wall beside the road at Broomholm with its attendant peltigera lichen.

Walking back along the river, I noticed two sets of rather ramshackle railings, put there for the benefit of fishermen, and I stopped yet again at Skippers Bridge to show that in spite of some rather poor recent weather, it hasn’t rained enough to put a lot of water in the river.

I paid a visit to the Langholm Initiative on my way, and got home as the light was fading and a fine drizzle was starting. I had walked just under seven miles in just over two hours of walking time so I had been very lucky with the weather.

Strangely, I was happy to spend the rest of day sitting quietly in conversation with Mrs Tootlepedal and listening to the radio.

The flying bird of the day is a chaffinch.