Under a cloud

Today’s guest picture comes from my brother Andrew. He found the Derby Museum of Making in a reflective mood this evening.

We found Langholm under a cloud when we walked to church this morning . . .

. . . and it stayed that way all day. It wasn’t windy, so there was a strange sort of calm about the day. I hadn’t had a good night’s sleep, and I was happy to loaf about for the rest of the morning when we got back from church, while Mrs Tootlepedal was busy with errands and gardening.

In spite of a forecast of perpetual light rain, it stayed dry, and Mrs Tootlepedal got quite a lot of gardening done. I did some light dead heading and looking about.

A goldfinch was looking about too . . .

. . . while a sparrow grabbed a seed and took off.

Our neighbour Liz dropped in and exchanged some gardening talk with Mrs Tootlepedal, and while they were chatting, more visitors arrived.

After inspecting the possibilities of the lawn . . .

. . . they headed for the pond, where the duck tucked in vigorously . .

. . . and the drake did some pondside posing.

I took a picture of a Ballerina tulip . . .

. . . and went in to look at the birds and have lunch.

The siskins were as lively as ever . . .

. . . and it was good to see that the redpolls have become settled in our area for a while at least.

It was very difficult to get a reliable rain forecast, as the forecasters disagreed on where and when showers might appear, but it seemed that going north might be a good idea. I got out my push bike and set off up the main road.

It was dry, reasonably mild, and the wind was behind me, so I enjoyed myself for all of three and half miles. When I had got that far, I had not gone up much of a hill, but I had gone up enough to find myself in the clouds and getting wet. This didn’t seem like a recipe for fun, so I turned round and went home where it was dry.

I didn’t stop at home though, and after a quick word with Mrs Tootlepedal, I headed off along the Wauchope road, intending to go as far as I could before it started to rain there too. I made a diversion up and down the side road to Cleughfoot . . .

. . . enjoying the gorse and blackthorn, and narrowly avoiding being run over by a car which I met on a blind corner. I took to the grass verge, and was lucky to find a bit which was firm enough to allow me to pedal past the car and get back onto the road without falling off.

When I got back on to the Wauchope road, I headed on up towards Callister where the prospects looked rather gloomy.

Sure enough, once I had got a little way up the hill, I found myself in the clouds again . . .

. . . and getting wet.

This seemed like a good moment to turn for home, and I whizzed back down to the town with the wind helping me. When I got there, I found that I had covered 20 miles, so I was quite pleased with my outing, even if it didn’t go entirely to plan.

I celebrated by taking a picture of the yellow azalea which is trying its hardest to come out.

After a pause for rest and refreshment, I joined Mrs Tootlepedal in watching the last few kilometres of today’s stage of the Giro d’Italia.

In the early evening, we drove down to Kirkandrews on Esk church to attend the choral evensong service there. Much to our surprise, there was a huge queue of traffic on the road to the church which Mrs Tootlepedal captured on my phone camera . . .

. . . but fortunately most of the queue turned off . . .

. . . and there was plenty of room in the church at the service.

We had a light meal when we got home, and in the evening we watched a very interesting rerun of a Michael Palin programme on an enigmatic Danish artist called Vilhelm Hammershoi. I had never heard of the artist, but he certainly was an excellent painter.

The flying bird of the day is a goldfinch.