Today’s guest picture comes from our son Alistair. He too found some ducks in a pond, but it was a rather classier pond than the little affair in our garden
The day started rather sadly when we waved goodbye to Tony, Marianne and the dogs as they set off to drive back to East Wemyss. It had only been a fleeting visit, but we had been lucky with the weather and yesterday’s walk and the evening meal had been excellent, so it had been a thoroughly good fleeting visit.
They had a day of good weather for their drive home, and after letting the temperature rise from a rather chilly 5°C at breakfast time to a mellow 13° after coffee, I took advantage of some very light winds to go for a longer cycle ride than usual. Arming myself with two bananas, two honey rolls and some dates, I set off over Callister with a view to going through Eaglesfield and down to Gretna, and then visiting the quiet, well surfaced back roads of north Cumbria.
It was a good plan in theory, and a splendid plan in practice. I had a thoroughly enjoyable pedal.
I gave myself plenty of stops to note the sights along the way (and to stretch my legs and back, and fuel up). Here is a selection of what I saw.
Later on, I stopped for a snack and looked over the hedge and saw a ruined little building in a field. I have cycled by this spot many times but I have never noticed this building before. I was baffled as to what it was . . .
. . . but fortunately, it had a helpful notice.
I called in at the bike shop as I came through Longtown to seek news of my electric bike. There was no news yet, and the bike shop mechanic was a bit gloomy both literally and figuratively, because they had been suffering from a power cut all day. I gave them my sympathy and pedalled on home through Canonbie under my own steam, stopping for a final picture on the old main road just before I got to Langholm. The weather had stayed fine for the whole trip.
I had set out with no very specific distance in mind, but as the ride had progressed, it seemed like a good day to try to complete 100 km of pedalling. My route choice, with some calculated wiggling around, was very sound, and I arrived home having covered 62.5 miles, which as I am sure you will have instantly calculated, is 100.6 km, so there was no wasted effort today. It was also the furthest that I have cycled this year by quite a long way, so I was doubly satisfied.
I had enough energy left for a quick walk round the garden with Mrs Tootlepedal before I went in for a cup of tea. Spring is creeping on very slowly still and there was not much fresh to see, but a new euphorbia is always a treat and the spirea and magnolia are looking well.
I had a look at the lupins and was impressed to see that some of them had managed to retain a pearl like raindrop at their centre, even after two sunny days. Once again, I was struck by how whiskery the leaves are when you look closely.
Mrs Tootlepedal had bought a chicken to feed our visitors yesterday and it had not been used because they kindly brought down and cooked a lamb joint. As a result, we had roast chicken with roast potatoes and gravy cooked in the airfryer for our meal tonight. We have eaten like kings and queens over the last two days.
In all the excitement, I didn’t have time to bird watch at the feeder today, so I took the camera out into the garden to see if there were any birds overflying us. A couple of starlings shot off the top of an electricity pole . . .
. . . and I just managed to catch one of them to act as flying bird of the day.
Footnote: For those interested in these things, here is a map of today’s ride. You can see that after a slightly hilly start, it was a very flat affair. Click on the map for further details if you wish.
Tootlepedal's Blog 
Congratulations on your longest ride of the year, and having good weather for it. The small abandoned building with the “Telephone Exchange” sign on it caught my eye, so I looked up “Scottish telephone exchanges” and found this article.
https://www.scotsman.com/heritage-and-retro/heritage/forgotten-story-scotlands-first-ever-female-telephone-exchange-operator-1407395
A good story. I can remember being able to talk to an operator at the exchange.
An extremely impressive ride, and an extremely elegant fbotd – well done!
I liked the starling and I was lucky to go out at just the right time to catch it.
Excellent ride on a beauty of a day.
All the better for good days having been so rare recently.
What a wonderful use of a beautiful day.
It would have been a shame not to use it . 🙂
That was quite a bike ride Tommy, and you had excelent weather conditions. Thanks for the photos you made.
Have a nice Easter today.
Thank you Rudi. The best of the weather is past now but it wasn’t too bad today.
Glad you had such an enjoyable pedal in the sunshine.
Two bananas when you normally eat half of one gave me the idea that it would be a long pedal. well done. The starling pictures are excellent
I ate the bananas half at a time at 10, 20, 40 and 50 miles (approx). 🙂 Steady fuelling is the key to steady cycling at my age.
A. gorgeous day for a ride!
It will be hard to get better one in April. We certainly won’t next week by the look of it.
I agree with everyone else, that was an impressive ride with lots of beautiful things to see.
The blackthorn and marsh marigolds were nice to see. I never see either one here.
I hope you both have a have a happy Easter.
It has been a very good holiday weekend with our visitors, a decent pedal and some good weather.
Wow that was an impressive ride. I doubt I would manage that even in my ebike! Lovely photos as always.
It was a pretty flat route and a very light wind and I don’t rush about these days so it was just a matter of sitting comfortably and enjoying the views.
A splendid cycle ride on a beautiful spring day. Love all the celandines ( a bumper year for them!) daffodils and marsh marigolds they really brightening the verges with their colour. You deserved your delicious dinner after burning all those calories on your ride. One of the best maps- I do enjoy seeing all the calculations and the route zooming by! Well done!
I am glad that you enjoy the route map as i always like to look at them when I have done a different route from my usual short scoots.
What a ride, you have certainly earned you evening meal with the family, always a lovely thing to do.
Thanks for the map, that was most interesting.
I like maps.
The starlings in flight are very good.
They look good in the air. I am sorry that our local starling murmurations are a pale shadow of what they used to be.
I cannot remember the last time I saw a starling in our garden or anywhere near here. This is really worrying.
The drop in all our garden bird numbers is very marked (with the possible exception of sparrows).
What a shame. We could do with a few sparrows; send them down here!
Mrs t would happily send them all as they eat her sprouting veg with gusto,