Subdued colours

Today’s long and thin guest picture comes from my brother Andrew who is in London at the moment. He passed by the Shard, an extremely tall building, but claimed that he couldn’t see the point of it.

Although the temperature was comfortably above freezing today, it wasn’t a very welcoming day, being grey again and occasionally drizzly. I walked up to the High Street across the suspension bridge in the morning to get milk but I didn’t see any sign of the oyster catcher beside the river. It may have decided to go somewhere else for the time being.

Neither of us had slept very well so it took us quite a bit of time, and two cups of coffee, before before we summoned up the energy to go out into the garden and do some tidying up

I had scattered some fallen seed on the lawn when I got back from the town and it didn’t take long for a couple of chaffinches to become interested.

Mrs Tootlepedal helped me prune the very tall bamboo on the back fence and then she tidied up the front beds while I cut back a buddleia beside the bamboo. We produced quite a lot of work for the shredder between us and compost Bin A is getting full. The bamboo may not look as though we cut it back much but it was very tall and we had enough clippings to provide a panda with a meal, if one had been about.

We were ready for lunch when we had finished our work. After lunch, I had a look at the birds. There was a good turnout.

Although it was drizzling very lightly, I thought that my niggling leg might feel better for some gentle exercise, so I went for an undemanding walk.

As I left, I could see that more chaffinches had discovered the scattered seed.

I went along the track to the Becks Burn, taking my chances under leaning trees . . .

. . . and as there weren’t any sunny views to take, I occupied myself by finding as much winter colour on a grey day as I could. This selection is from the section up to the Becks Burn. There was not a lot of bright stuff about so I had to take any colour as I found it.

The second section was taken once I had crossed the burn.

The third selection came from going along Gaskells.

I could see the Becks Burn plunging into the Wauchope as I went along this bit of my walk and as I was thinking about colour today, it made me wonder why water appears white when it is foaming over a cascade. I found an interesting explanation here.

They weren’t particularly colourful but my eye was drawn to the striking knots in the wood of the handrail beside the new path up the hill at the end of Gaskell’s Walk.

I finished my walk by going along the Stubholm track and then back to the town along the riverside path. Colour was in short supply here . . .

. . . and the light was so poor that I couldn’t be certain what sort of little bird it was, perched on a tree beside the path and singing loudly, until it turned to one side and became recognizably a robin.

I was trying to end my walk with a picture of three mallards swimming up the Wauchope as I stood on the Park Brig when they flew off in the face of a horse and rider crossing the ford there.

When I got home, I couldn’t bring myself to watch Scotland playing England at rugby football as I get very emotionally involved and it makes me extremely depressed when, in the last few minutes, as they often do, Scotland lose games that they should win. On this occasion, almost by accident, I did watch the last five minutes of the game and Scotland didn’t lose. I was amazed.

Mrs Tootlepedal prepared a very nice one pot lemon flavoured roast chicken with potatoes and carrots in the air fryer for our evening meal and that rounded off a day when I felt quite a bit better at the end than I had at the start.

The flying bird of the day is a chaffinch getting hectored by a siskin.