Visitors

Today’s guest picture is another from my Somerset correspondent Venetia. She found a very patient dog on a recent outing.

We didn’t venture far from home today after yesterday’s major excursion. We had good reason to stay in, as we got a visit from my brother Andrew and my sister Mary, who came to look round the garden and take us out to lunch. I had a look round the garden myself before they came, and found it was quite cheerful.

The lupins are coming on . . .

. . . and the first philadelphus flowers have appeared.

Irises are looking healthy, both individually and in groups.

Useful plants are developing in the vegetable garden.

Various Sweet Williams are competing for attention from the camera . . .

. . . and a poppy was receiving some attention from a bee.

More peonies are coming out each time that I look . . .

. . . and the sweet rocket is rocketing upwards.

I had my walk round the garden in the dry, but the weather gods, with their impeccable sense of time and misplaced sense of humour, turned on the rain just as my brother and sister arrived. Fortunately, it was gentle enough to allow us to have a walk round the garden with umbrellas up, and they enjoyed meeting plants and scenes in real life which they had previously seen on these blog posts.

I had made some ginger biscuits after breakfast, so we had these with a cup of coffee when we retreated indoors after the rain got harder and drove us in from the garden.

It was raining even harder still when Andrew drove us to the edge of town to have lunch at the excellent Whitshiels Cafe. We continued our coffee time conversations over some good food before returning home for a cup of tea and another ginger biscuit.

It was a pity that we didn’t have the weather for a little walk, but we had a very pleasant time all the same. Our visitors had had a very energetic day in good weather in the Lake District yesterday, so they weren’t too unhappy about a gentle day indoors today

After they went on their way back to Penrith where they are staying, we spent the rest of the day doing nothing very much, but doing it very well.

The feeder had been very quiet in general, but when I looked in the late afternoon, a siskin had turned up and was giving its impression of being a wide boy hanging around with a cigarette dangling out of the corner of his mouth.

Some sparrows arrived, followed by more siskins and redpolls, and the feeder got quite busy.

It remained pretty quiet on the whole though, and my eye drifted away from the birds to the flowers just a bit further down the drive.

After some weeks of good weather, we look as though we are reverting to rainy days again, with half an inch of rain today, and as much again in the forecast tomorrow, and then more to come.

Still, a bit of rain will do the garden no harm, and as long as the weather gods know when to stop, I won’t grumble (too much).

The flying bird of the day is a rather impressionistic siskin, captured with difficulty by the camera in the gloomy light under the willows round the feeder.