Doing a ton

Today’s flower is a lamium

A very straightforward day today. I set out at 9am, cycled 101 miles and got back at just after 5pm. I did not mow any lawns and I did not do any archive work.

Gretna out

I went down the A7 and turned off to Kirkpatrick Fleming where I turned down the old A74 to Gretna. I had a very welcoming day as I was welcome to nearly every place I went through. This was an international trip and I found myself welcome to England though what I would do with it, I just don’t know. I went from Gretna to Carlisle down the new service road they built when they upgraded the Cumberland Gap to motorway. I was delighted to see a flock of lapwings or peewits on the Solway shore as they have been very rare round here lately. There was a lot of lorry traffic on the service road which was explained when I saw that the vehicle check area on the Motorway was in use.

River Eden

At Harker, I left the new road and headed across to the A7 and then down past the Houghton Garden Centre to Linstock. At the Linstock roundabout there were a number of police cars for no reason that I could see.

As those who went through Carlisle in the old days know, there is only one bridge across the Eden, but I used this footbridge in Rickerby Park and then I slipped through the centre of Carlisle and out the other side with very little bother. I climbed out of Carlisle and took the road that runs parallel and close to the M6 on the West side.

Southwaite

Shortly afterwards I passed the back entrance to my brother Andrew’s second home, the Southwaite Services. As you can see, if times get hard he can stop staying at the Travel Lodge and start working there instead. There are always vacancies.

Calthwaite

After 40 miles, I stopped at this handy pub in Calthwaite. Unlike the phantom PH in Dalton yesterday, this one was open, did serve beer (Speckled Hen, half pint for medicinal purposes only) and also a nice cup of coffee and a plate of home-made blackberry and apple crumble with custard. Not the most common order at 12 noon by the expression of the man behind the bar.

Hutton in the Forest

I headed onwards to the motorway roundabout at Junction 41 where, in order to make the full 50 miles out, I swung round and headed up towards Sedbergham.

Sign to Hutton End

This was God’s own country or at least my own country as every second place was called Hutton this or Hutton that. There was Hutton Roof and  Hutton in the Forest but when I got to a sign saying Hutton End, I thought it was time to turn back and head for home.

The Pot Place

Heading for home was made more pleasant by the fact that the wind, though very light, was now behind me. I whistled along the first few miles but, needing some fuel for the journey home, I was pleased and excited to see a set of buildings with the bold sign “The Pot Place” but discovered that it in fact sold pots and nothing much more stimulating.

The Tea Room

However it does have a very pleasant tea room and there I had a plate of “Highland Soup” (from the Albanian Highlands I think, since it was like no soup I had ever eaten in the Highlands of Scotland, though it was very tasty) and of course a reasonably nice cup of tea (usual complaints apply).

An unwelcome visitor

I retraced my route and when I got to Linstock, I saw what had caused the police presence on the way out. It was quite a sight. I didn’t like to hang around and rubber neck too much so I can’t tell how much damage the lorry had done.

River Sark

After this excitement, it was back to Gretna where I took the opportunity to marvel at the grandeur of the River Sark which provides the boundary between England and Scotland.

Thanks to the wind, I wasn’t too tired at this stage but somehow the last 17 miles home still proved quite an effort. When I arrived, my bike computer told me that I had done the journey home 2 minutes faster than I had done the journey out. This so-called negative split is always pleasant to achieve, however small, because it shows that there is still a bit of life in the legs at the end of the day. The whole journey took 6hrs 38mins of cycling time at an average of 15.3 miles and hour. I thought that was quite satisfactory as I have only gone faster over 100 miles when I was on prescription steroids for polymyalgia and on steroids you simply never get tired at all.

As a footnote I should say that I was told I was welcome to Scotland when I went through Gretna on the way home, so now I have two countries.

Welcome to Scotland

H

An arty cup of tea

No flower picture today because I haven’t worked out how to put another picture on a page when I have a gallery.

Another beautiful day dawned and our Italian visitors decided to go for a walk to the monument and beyond. I lent them our 1:25000 walking map which is centred on Langholm and off they went. They told us that they had found our B&B from the Langholm Walks website which, in turn, they had found from a Lonely Planet guide to walking in Southern Scotland. Very satisfactory.

At about 10am Mrs Tootlepedal declared that it was a day for a cycle ride  and so we bustled about, chose a route, printed out the map, got our cycling gear on, put the bikes in the back of the Kangoo and so on and so on and finally managed to actually leave the house about 12 noon. We had chosen to go to Lockerbie and tour round Dalton and Hoddam, returning by way of  Kettleholm. This was a good choice as the route was interesting and gently undulating with only two shortish stiff climbs. An added bonus was that the wind blew gently behind us on the way back to Lockerbie. I had spotted the magic letters PH on the map in Dalton so I was hoping for a stop with refreshments there. When we came to it, it turned out to be basically a Thai restaurant and locked. A Thai appeared and was very uninterested in opening up to serve us coffee so we decided to make a short diversion to the Art Cafe which is half a mile from the village centre. This was a good idea because I was able to have a toasted tea cake which always improves any day.

The short diversion to the cafe added a mile to our journey and when we returned to Lockerbie, we had covered 17 miles. This was new country for some of the route and I think we will probably tour the area again. There is a gallery of pictures at the foot of this blog from our tour.

When we got home, I mowed both lawns and had a cup of tea with Mike Tinker who called in while I was mowing.  In the evening Mrs Tootlepedal went with Mike to a Bonnie Langholm committee meeting while I put a week of the newspaper into the Archive database.

Up country

Today’s flower is a ligularia

It was a really lovely day today and the forecast was for light winds so I deserted Dropscone (who went to the gym instead) and set off for a circular 50 miles by Eskdalemuir and Lockerbie. I pottered gently up the hill to Eskdalemuir in rather chilly but brilliantly sunny weather, taking care not to fall of when coming down the Crurie Brae. At Eskdalemuir,  I turned left to cross the hills to Lockerbie. This is one of my favourite pieces of road, not least because it has an excellent surface as it has been looked after to cater for the forestry traffic.  It is an undulating ride as it crosses the grain of the rivers and streams but you can get full value out of the downhills because the bends are gentle and there are no potholes. This makes the uphills far less of a grind.

I stopped in Lockerbie for some chips which I ate on a bench on the station platform. The chips were excellent but the result was not so good as it was hard to get going after eating them as all my energy seemed to be set on digestion rather than pedalling. I went down the old A74 to Kirkpatrick Fleming, turned left and headed for the A7 which took me back home. The whole ride was completed at a rather gentle 14+ miles an hour but I hadn’t hurried and the chips had slowed me down. On checking the distance on Autoroute, I found that I had done 53 miles.

When I got home, I found Mrs Tootlepedal in the garden, digging compost into the veg beds for next year. We had a nice cup of tea and a dainty cake under the walnut tree and then I went for  a relaxing bath. While I was there, our visitors for the next two days arrived. Unusually for us, they are a young Italian couple who are holidaying in Scotland. They couldn’t have picked a better week because the weather looks set fair.

While Mrs Tootlepedal went to the shops to purchase the necessaries for the visitors’ breakfast, I spent some time admiring my first two ripened peppers from the greenhouse. We have been keeping the greenhouse doors more shut this year than before and let the roof ventilators do their job unaided. This has kept the temperature up  and this is the first year that I have got the peppers to go a true red. I was  also  able to eat a late strawberry which ripened in a hanging basket in the greenhouse. Unfortunately I had eaten it before I was able to photograph it.

All about the wind

Today’s flower is an astilbe

Our visitors had a bad start to the day when Oliver found that he had broken a spoke and that he had not got the tools to do the necessary repair. It was Sunday and the local bike shop is closed. Even Dr Tinker, our local bike wizard, hadn’t got the tools and so Oliver was left with a quandary. Should he try to cycle 50 miles to Innerleithen into a whistling gale on a broken bike? There is little or no mobile phone connection on the Eskdalemuir road and he was carrying some rather sore leg injuries as well. In the end, after consultation with Emily, the pair agreed to accept a lift from Mrs Tootlepedal for them and the bikes to the Innerleithen bike shop which had agreed to do the repairs. When Mrs Tootlepedal returned, she said that the road was littered with debris from trees in the heavy wind and she wondered whether they would actually find it possible to complete their journey to Dunfermline. Time will tell (and a postcard).

While she was being the good samaritan, I did what I could to get the B&B ready for tonight’s guest. After that, I sat and watched the Grand Prix on the telly. Because it was still too windy for a pleasant ride, I took the electric hedge trimmer out and trimmed the roadside hedge. It is always a satisfying job. Finally, when the wind had abated a bit, I went out on the bike to put in a few evening miles. The day was absolutely gorgeous apart from the stiff breeze. The evening light is indescribable but I doubt if there is better light anywhere in Britain. I took my camera and went to visit some donkeys that Dropscone and I pass on our morning run

Craig Hill Windfarm

….and in addition, because it was such a windy day, I took photos of both our local windmills just to show that the high winds make someone happy.

Minsca Wind Farm

You can see what I mean about the light.

It was an ill wind

Today’s flower is yet another of the many clematis with which Mrs Tootlepedal adorns the garden

The day started with a nice lie in as we had no B&Bs and continued in a leisurely fashion for me, although Mrs Tootlepedal was very busy preparing for tonight’s visitors. After a while I got organised and went out for a short ride because it was very windy and showers appeared. I rode 5 miles up the Wauchope Road into the teeth of the wind and then turned and whizzed back at an average of 23 miles and hour. I stopped in for a cup of tea and then did the same thing again. As I went up the hill, my legs felt rather tired and I thought it was the penalty to be paid for the earlier whizzing along. When I turned to come home, I realised that the wind had got even stronger and this time I came home at an average of 24 miles and hour. Then I had a little lie down. Then I got up and mowed a lawn.

We had tickets to go to a performance of The Boy Friend by our local youth group (very good). However in the course of the afternoon, our visitors, who are end to end cyclists, rang up to say that because of the head wind they would be late arriving. This meant that Mrs Tootlepedal and a neighbour went to the show and I waited for the cyclists to arrive. It was nearly nine o’clock when they arrived and they admitted that they had come close to catching a train home at one point.  They are going to Dunfermline tomorrow, into a head wind again, and it will be a hard day. Fortunately it looks as though it will stay dry unlike today. I hope to catch a picture of them as they depart tomorrow morning.

I am enjoying a small plate of raspberries and cream for my supper every night. Long may this continue.

Relative pleasure

Today’s flower is a garden version of the wild knapweed that appeared on the blog earlier this month.

Another lovely day and another pleasant morning ride with Dropscone. The traffic was unusually busy and we had to adopt the tactics of the slow bicycle race as we ground up the High Street. Once out in the country, the traffic remained unusual and we had to make allowances for as many as six vehicles during our ride. (This usually means stopping to let them past in the narrow lanes.) We managed and in spite of all the delays came back in a slightly quicker time than yesterday.

In the afternoon I did my stint in the tourist information point at the Kilngreen and this week I actually gave out some tourist information. As I was also visited by two friends for a chat, the time passed most pleasantly. When I returned, I had time to mow a couple of lawns and book an airport hotel on the internet for my golfing partner Arthur’s wife who is going to Oberammergau. Arthur was very pleased because not only had he won his class in the Langholm Seniors on Tuesday but he had also been part of a Langholm Rotary golf team which had tied at a charity tournament yesterday. He intends to play the Langholm Open on Sunday to see if this winning streak continues.

Mrs Tootlepedal had been cooking the mince during this time to welcome my brother and oldest sister who called in as part of their tour of Scotland and Northern England. They had spent the morning at the Falkirk Wheel.

They arrived as expected and we enjoyed an excellent evening of good conversation, mince and cheese. I was able to scan and edit some interesting additions to my sister’s collection of family history photos and documents which she had collected as part of the tour. They left to spend the night at the M6 service station lodge at Southwaite which is my brother’s second home. (Handy for the Lake district, he says, and very reasonably priced.)

Great view

Today’s flower is Euphorbia

The day started as all days should. Dropscone and I pedalled round the morning run is very good conditions. Owing to getting my asthma puffer to work properly, I felt very good and we did a more than respectable time for the trip. In the afternoon, Mrs Tootlepedal and I put our bikes in the back of the Kangoo and went down to Longtown. We parked in the town and did a fifteen mile circle. We started by going past Arthuret Church and then, crossing both the Carlisle road and the Brampton road, we headed up into the gentle hills behind Longtown. On reaching Easton after a climb of about 100m, we were rewarded by a beautiful panoramic view. It took in, from left to right,  the Pennines, the North Lakes hills,  the Solway Firth itself and the whole of the Solway plain, Criffel beyond Dumfries and Burnswark up towards Lockerbie. It was magnificent. An added bonus was that we then basically coasted back down to Longtown. The roads were well surfaced and very quiet. At one stage, we cycled over six miles without meeting a car in either direction. The only disappointment was that both the Longtown cafes were shut when we returned. I mowed a lawn when we got home to make up for this.

In the post of 16 July, I reported that Mrs Tootlepedal was worried by the damage that the strong winds were doing to her runner beans. However, as you can see from the picture, the crop was not harmed in the long term. In fact it has been so abundant that we are eating runner beans every day, freezing them and bombarding neighbours and friends with them whether they want them or not.

On the ciabatta front I have had to rest from developing my new found skills because we have had visitors in for the last three days and visitors require traditional toast and not fancy foreign stuff. Traditional toast requires traditional bread and thankfully the bread machine is most reliable and turns good looking loaves day after day. However, we have family coming tomorrow so I hope to have ciabatta for them (whether they like it or not).

In the evening I went to the Archive Centre as usual on a Thursday and got some useful work done in between entertaining a number of visitors to the Centre. The day was rounded off by a visit to the beer research centre. The beer was good.

The return of the bike

Today’s flower is a nasturtium

At last the call had come. My bike was ready. I got into the car and went off to Palace Cycles to collect it. When I got there, Joe, the mechanic, assured me that at last it was running well. In recognition of the wait I had had and the number of different things they had tried, he very kindly did not charge me for his labour. This was lucky as the new parts were dear enough. However, it did give me the opportunity to purchase a modest voucher for Dropscone as a thank you for the extended loan of his bike.

While I was in Carlisle, I took the opportunity to do some shopping. I was able to acquire two bags of coffee beans, four sorts of cheese, three bottles of French wine, two bottles of olive oil, some bread flour and a tub of double cream. I think you could safely say that nothing more could possibly be added to the list to make it better. Oh, I forgot. I got some mince as well. Retail heaven.

On my return, I immediately took the bike out for a test round the morning run and Joe had spoken the truth, it was running like a Rolls Royce in silent splendour. I did a very good time because the wind was friendly too.

In the afternoon I had a couple of meetings which went well and also took into the greenhouse for drying the last of the onions. These were a particularly good lot which Mrs Tootlepedal had left out to dry over night.

I noticed that the clematis, which used to adorn the garage but which was completely clobbered by the frost in the winter, has made a good recovery and by next spring, weather permitting, it should be back to its former glory.

There was no recorder group in the evening because of too many of the players having other avocations.

…and there was wailing and gnashing of teeth

Just a short blog here because I didn’t get one written yesterday, to say that the Langholm Open Seniors Golf Competition took place without yours truly even threatening to be among the prizewinners. I was present on the course but my swing was sadly somewhere else entirely. There were some consolations as both Dropscone and my regular golfing partner, Arthur were among the prizes. Arthur, in addition, had the distinction of being the oldest golfer on the course and winning his class.

On returning to the house, I cut both lawns to cheer myself up.

Not much going on

Today’s flower is a rubeckia

It’s been a very grey day in Langholm today. Dropscone and I got round the morning run with only a few miles of rain but the roads are wet which means a constant spray as you go along. I had a not very good asthma day so I won’t count today’s run among one of my favourites. The weather was so dank all day that even the therapeutic joys of mowing the lawn were denied to me.

It was such a grey day that we actually did our tax and sent it off.

A lot of the day was spent doing Archive Group work. A  friend has been recording people in the town with something to say of times past and he brought his most recent recording round. It was from a lady who was a darner in two of the mills in the town. I put it on the computer and did some editing work on it and found it very interesting to listen to. I also sent a couple of printouts from the microfiches of the paper to someone who had e-mailed to ask for entries referring to his ancestors. It really cheers you up when the evidence is that the work of the indexers in transcribing the entries and the hour and a half I spent typing the entries into the index today is likely to interest someone somewhere.

I wasn’t able to take an interesting photo today but I notice that, owing to my well lubricated state yesterday, I failed to put in a couple of pictures I had taken which I had meant to include in yesterday’s blog so I might as well put them in today.

The picture on the left shows the glorious day it was that tempted Mrs Tootlepedal out on the bike.

The picture on the right shows the lady herself on her return from her 15 mile jaunt.

The picture below shows a promising plum but it is my belief that the dratted sparrows will have eaten it before it gets to be fully ripe.  Time will tell. Tomorrow is the day of the Langholm Open Seniors Golf Tournament. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth, I expect.