Not at the races

Today’s guest picture is another from my sister Mary’s recent visit to the Lake District. She sat on the shore of Grasmere while my brother headed for the hills.

We were offered all sorts of discouraging weather by the forecasters, including thunder and lightning, but it was calm and dry as we cycled to church after breakfast. There was a very busy scene when we got to the church, as a flock of house martins was swooping low round the building. There must have been many available insects in the air.

I thoroughly enjoyed the church service. I knew all the hymns, and they came with nice straightforward bass parts. I came out in a very good mood to find that the martins were still swooping about.

After watching the martins for a while, we went home for a coffee. I had a look out of our back window to see how the big red poppies were doing . . .

. . . and then we got out into the garden. I did some mowing, while Mrs Tootlepedal got busy with the strimmer. She left the vegetable garden looking very neat.

I had a few wanders round when the mowing was done, and enjoyed the colour.

There was quite a buzz about the garden today.

After a look at some colourful corners . . .

. . . I went back down to the church to see if the house martins were still flitting about. They were still there, but they had turned their attention to a muddy puddle, where they were collecting nesting material. It was a busy scene.

Some of the mud was being taken across the road to Caroline Street.

I dead headed some poppies when I got home. There are quite a lot growing in the garden at the moment and I added 70 stalks to the compost bin without making much of a dent in the number of flowers still standing.

As we were having our lunch, Mrs Tootlepedal spotted a young starling getting quite cross because it wasn’t getting its lunch. Its parent had got fed up with the incessant demands, and had flown off.

After lunch, Mrs Tootlepedal retired to do some more work on Matilda’s dance costume, and I went for a walk. We had had a much better morning than the forecasters had expected, so I hoped that my luck would hold out in the afternoon. My plan was to walk along the river, up through the oak wood and onto the hill, and it started well, though I was surprised to see how much dark water was swirling down the river. It must have rained more up country than it had in the town.

However, just as I was about to leave the woods and take to the open hill, it started to rain with some purpose. I wasn’t dressed for bad weather, with just a light rain jacket on, so I changed my plan and walked through the woods, under the shelter of the trees , and back into the town.

When I got to the High Street, it had stopped raining , so I kept going, and instead of heading home, I walked onto the Castleholm. If all had gone to the original plan for the day, I would have been here earlier on to enjoy the first horse race meeting of the year. Sadly, the meeting had had to be cancelled because of wet conditions making the track dangerous. It looked very peaceful when I got to it . . .

. . . but the back straight was very soggy, and with the forecast for the day being so bad, the organisers had had no choice but to cancel the meeting.

I strolled about, taking in the red horse chestnut, the meadow round the race track, the noble fir, and some ground elder. (Mrs Tootlepedal was very happy that the ground elder was on the Castleholm and not in her garden.)

When I got to the Jubilee Bridge, the day was pleasant enough to encourage to me walk onwards up the side of the river and round the pheasant hatchery before crossing the Duchess Bridge and walking home. There was a new gate and some wild yellow geums to enjoy on the way.

It started to rain quite heavily just as I was at the far end of the pheasant hatchery, but luckily this was only the weather gods’ idea of a joke, and it soon eased off. I was well protected by trees, and got home damp but not wet after six varied and interesting miles.

I was just in time to join Mrs Tootlepedal as we looked at the final stage of the Giro. We shall miss it now it is over. In spite of a certain predictability about the eventual winner, there have been a lot of good stages to watch, and it is never a hardship to be wafted through Italian countryside and towns.

The starlings were back on our feeder as we had our evening meal, busy feeding more of the demanding youngsters.

It led to a bit of competition.

The forecast for tomorrow is a bit gloomy. Let’s hope that they are being too pessimistic again. It was really quite a good day here today on the whole.

The flying bird of the day is one of the nest building house martins.