Meeting a new friend

Today’s guest picture comes from our son Tony. It shows his dog Milo resting in our garden today.

As the attentive reader will have gathered from today’s guest picture, we had visitors. Our son Tony and his partner Marianne brought their dog Milo to visit us. As a special treat for us, they also bought their new dog, Penny, to make our acquaintance. We were very pleased to see them all, and fortunately the day was fine enough for us to be able to have coffee in the garden and go for a walk in the woods afterwards.

A tulip summed up the cheerful weather.

The day had started off below freezing at -2°C, but by the time that our visitors had arrived from East Wemyss, we were up to 8°, and with the sun out, the wind being very light and not from the north, sitting outside was a pleasure.

Milo found interesting places to explore while we chatted . . .

. . . and Penny got to know us.

After we had had our coffee, we got into Tony’s car, and he drove us down to Canonbie where we did the walk that Mrs Tootlepedal and I had tried the other day when we had been driven back by rain. Today, the walk was dry and most enjoyable and we got the whole way round.

We started off through the woods beside the sawmill. I promptly managed to trip over my own shoelaces and fell over almost as soon as we had started, but I bounced well, and we continued on.

There is a good path through the woods, and a kindly set of steps to help the older walker up the steepest part of the hill.

We got to the the road and turned to walk back down the track beside the Byre Burn. There was plenty to see along the way. We could smell the wild garlic even though the buds haven’t opened yet.

When we got home, Mrs Tootlepedal cooked a meal of roast chicken and three veg for a late lunch. The air fryer did a really good job on the chicken.

The new tulip bed had survived the early morning frosts and was looking good, both collectively and individually.

I sneaked a look at the birds while the cooking was going on, and found the usual busy feeder with chaffinches mostly approaching from the right, and goldfinches from the left.

After lunch, the others settled down to watch the Scottish Grand National on the telly, and I popped out for a short cycle ride round Canonbie. Since the wind was light, I used my push bike and thoroughly enjoyed the better conditions. I didn’t want to take too long, so I only stopped for one picture, a field of dandelions, about which the farmer may have mixed feelings.

After our substantial lunch, we had a very light evening meal.

It was good to see that Penny felt quite comfortable on her visit, and she looked a little sad when it was time for her to go home.

I took a final tulip picture of the day while our guests were getting ready to leave . . .

. . . and then we waved them goodbye. We really appreciated their kindness in driving well over 200 miles to come and see how we were getting on. All the better for seeing them was the answer.

The flying bird of the day is one of the goldfinches entering from the left.