Heavy drinking

Today’s guest picture comes from my sister Mary. She had a very sunny day today for a trip down the river passing under Vauxhall Bridge.

By contrast, we had a very grey day here, but as it was quite warm at 8 degrees and we spent a lot of the day in the car driving 94 miles, it didn’t matter very much. Our day started with a visit to the hospital in Dumfries where I was having a precautionary check.. This involved me drinking 2 pints of water after breakfast, and I was very relieved that I managed to survive until midday without having to pay a visit. The check went well and didn’t reveal any nasty surprises.

A side benefit from visiting the hospital in Dumfries is that they have free electric car chargers in the car park. They don’t charge very quickly though, and my treatment today was so prompt and so well organized that we had only got 14 free miles into the battery by the time we had finished.

We celebrated by going to a nearby garden centre and having an enormous scone and coffee each before Mrs Tootlepedal bought a fine hellebore to cheer up the garden.

We made diversions on the journey home to drop off a cot no longer needed by our visiting grandchildren at a re-use centre in Annan, to pick up a pair of boots for each of us which had been mended in Carlisle, and finally, to buy the seed potatoes for the year at another nearby garden centre. It was a bit disappointing to find by looking at the plants and products on sale that the garden Centres in Dumfries and Carlisle are obviously now being run by the same firm. I see by looking on the internet that this actually happened quite a long time ago.

After all that, we got home with just enough time for me to squeeze in a three bridges walk before it got dark. Not that it was particularly light.

It was light enough though for me to see that the oyster catcher was still beside the river, looking on this occasion as though it had an eye in the back of its head.

It turned out to be in the right place.

While I was looking at the oyster catcher, a strange stain in the river caught my eye. It looked as though paint had been spilled . . .

. . . but when I looked up, I saw that it was a reflection of the protective covering on the roof of a disused church on the other bank of the river.

I crossed the bridge and walked along the Kilngreen, nodding to an old friend . . .

. . . before I crossed the Sawmill brig and walked up the Lodge Walks in the hope of meeting new friends. I was lucky. There was a blue tit on the feeder on the gate . . .

. . . and a flicker of movement on a tree trunk caught my eye

It was too dark by now to get a good picture with my little pocket camera, but there is no doubt that it was a tree creeper pecking away at the moss, always a delight to see.

It remained gloomy with all the neighbouring hills having their heads in the cloud . . .

. . . so I didn’t dawdle. I found a beech nut case on the Castleholm . . .

. . . and a promising display of not quite out yet snowdrops beside the Duchess Bridge . . .

. . . but mostly my mind was set on a cup of tea and a slice of bread and butter as I hadn’t had any breakfast and only one scone during the rest of the day.

There was work on the computer to be done on family arrangements in the evening and a busy day had left me with no time at all to find a flying bird to photograph,. Instead, some dull lichen, matching a dull day of weather, finishes off today’s post.