Today’s guest picture comes from our neighbour Liz. She found an inviting gate at the end of a tunnel this afternoon.

Our spell of excellent weather continued today, and I spent a lot of time outside. After breakfast, I opened the greenhouse and did some watering in the vegetable garden. The downside of the good weather is that the soil in the garden is getting rather dry.
Lots of starlings are feeding their young in the garden, and it is a very noisy place at the moment, loud with the impatient demands for food. The walnut tree was a popular spot this morning.


After I had done the watering and some poppy dead heading, I sieved some compost and then I had a walk around to enjoy the colour.





Our neighbour Margaret came round for coffee and then we went back out into the garden where I mowed the front and middle lawns. I used to spend a lot of time and quite a lot of money trying to get perfect lawns in a climate that favours moss over grass, but I have changed my tune now. Considering that they have not been watered fertilized, hand mowed or weedkilled for some time now, I am very relaxed about how they look.


You can probably see the early attempts at some wild flower beds in the front lawn on the left. If things go well, I hope that they will take up more space in the lawn in years to come.
There was time for some more colour enjoyment before lunch.




After lunch, I spent some time watching the early riders in the final time trial of the Giro, but it was quite boring so I went out to have a look at what was going on the garden. It was starlings again. This time they were hopping about on the holly.

I looked at the gooseberries, which are promising (and marvelled once again at the camera’s ability to completely ignore the cage netting between it and the fruit) . . .

. . . had a look across the middle of the garden . . .

. . . and then did some path clearing myself. It is amazing how much grows on top of what are brick and paving paths if you let it. I felt a bit like an archaeologist.
As a supporter of Geraint Thomas, I had a bad feeling about the outcome of the decisive time trial at the Giro, so rather than watch it and have my withers wrung, I went for a cycle ride myself, relying on Mrs Tootlepedal to tell me the result when I got home.
It was warm enough to wear a single top layer and a pair of natty shorts for my excursion round Canonbie, even though the sun was not out.
I looked across the Solway to the Lake District hills . . .

. . . and imagined that on a bank holiday weekend, visitors would be pushing each other aside to take Instagram selfies on the summit while I cycled along deserted roads in perfect peace.
There was plenty to look at as I pedalled along.







Because my road bike has been in the bike shop for weeks, I have been doing all my cycling on my e-bike this month. This was very handy when I was recovering from being ill, as it gave me the opportunity to do some good miles without the risk of overtiring myself. However, I was getting a bit worried that I might be getting lazy, so I pedalled as much as I could with no electrical assistance today. The e-bike is heavy and quite testing to pedal without help so I was very pleasantly surprised to find that my legs were well up to the task. In fact, I enjoyed it, and found that it was more relaxing than vigorously spinning the pedals to keep my speed up with the electric motor working. I didn’t have to try a lot harder, I just went slower.
It goes to prove once again, that cycling on an e-bike with gusto keeps me just as fit as pedalling on a normal road bike.
I didn’t stop a lot on my way back through Canonbie, but two well stocked verges caught my eye.




When I got home, Mrs Tootlepedal told me the sad news that Geraint had not managed to hold onto his small lead. I was very sad for him, as it would have been a great triumph for him to win at his relatively advanced age.
We rounded off the day with an excellent meal of mince and tatties. As my twenty mile cycle ride had taken me over 400 miles for the month, the first time that I have managed this since August last year, I felt it had been a very good day in spite of the Giro disappointment. With the good weather set to continue, there may be even more miles to add to the total before the month is over.
The flying bird of the day, needless to say, is two starlings.
