A cream tea

Today’s guest picture comes from our friend Bruce who is on the Isle of Arran.  Unlike me, he saw a squirrel at breakfast time.

Our spell of good weather continued with a pleasantly warm and often sunny day.  At the moment we are getting some sunny days without it getting too hot for comfort and the only thing lacking to make things perfect is a few overnight showers to save the need for watering the vegetables.

I had time before going to sing in church to have a quick walk round the garden.  It was worth it.

Perhaps the biggest and most flamboyant flower in the garden at the moment is in the vegetable patch but the courgette (bottom left in the panel above) looks quite at home.

We have got some very nice white foxgloves on the go among all the colour.

The hostas are covered with flowers,  They are doing well this year.

Our church organist has been elected cornet so he has been very busy attending common ridings in neighbouring towns lately, but he found time to come and play for us today and it was good to have him at the organ.

After church, there was time for another garden wander and some dead heading.  I noticed the last of our lupins…

..and took a general view of the borders on the front lawn.

The front lawn is much better than it was, but it is still a bit patchy.  I did think about photoshopping the brown patches out but restrained myself.

Mrs Tootlepedal enjoys a bright red perlagonium which she rescued from a ‘past its best’ tray at a garden centre last year.  It has repaid her care.  I like it too, but it is so bright that it frightens the camera.

I went inside to have coffee and had a look at the birds.

There is a lot of blackbird activity in the garden and this looks like a growing youngster.

A siskin looked as though it was being distracted by an arriving sparrow from the threat from another siskin behind it.

Later on, two siskins got very up close and personal.

After lunch, we went off for a cycle ride.

During the ‘sit and stitch’ session at the producers’ market yesterday, Mrs Tootlepedal had been reminded by one of her embroidering friends that members of the Waterbeck village hall committee serve cream teas every Sunday afternoon in July.  Waterbeck is ten miles away from Langholm so a ten mile bike ride seemed a good way to work up an appetite and the ten miles back seemed like a good way to work off the calories acquired.

We went at a leisurely pace and kept an eye out for orchids.  Mrs Tootlepedal spotted some on the way out and some more on the way back…

…and in the end, she saw so many that she stopped pointing them out.

As well as wild flowers, we saw animals pondering on life…

…and a busy sand martins’ nesting site…

…though my pocket camera couldn’t capture any of the sand martins which were flitting in and out of the nest holes.

The verges have not been mown recently and are very lush with waving grasses.

We encountered a small stream of old cars on a group outing but I only managed to get my camera out of my pocket by the time that they had almost all passed us.  This was the last in the queue (with a modern car behind it).

We arrived safely at the hall and enjoyed an excellent cup of tea, a cream and strawberry scone and a delightful plate of cakes as well.  I would have shown you the scones but they had all mysteriously disappeared in no time at all.

There was a light breeze in our faces on the way home and the hills are steeper going towards Langholm than on the way out, so we didn’t rush back in spite of being well fuelled with scones and cake.  We had time to stop and look at more flowers.

The vetch and the yellow bedstraw were very striking…

…but the more subdued meadowsweet and two active red soldier beetles also provided photo opportunities.

The most surprising stop of the trip was to photograph a hare on the top of Callister.  It thought that the best way of hiding from me was to stand very still in full view.

More animals should adopt this scheme.

We made a judicious pause half way up the steepest hill to admire the view.

Mrs Tootlepedal did the trip on her shopping bike.  It is the one that has been recently serviced and now has a fully functioning ‘granny gear’ on it.   The hills gave it a good test and it passed well.

An evening meal consisting of a fry-up of liver, bacon, egg and mushroom rounded off a very satisfactory day and we sat down to watch a recording of the team time trial stage of the Tour de France after we had had one last walk round the garden.

The evening light was delightful.

Mrs Tootlepedal pointed out that one of the many Iceland poppies which spring up in the garden had developed some rather fancy petals.

I liked the steely gaze of the delphiniums.

According to the forecast, we have one more good day to go before the weather changes and it starts to rain for several days, so I am pleased to have had the opportunity to cycle a few miles and have had so many pretty flowers to look at during this past week.

The flying bird of the day is a chaffinch heading up to the feeder.

 

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Another day, another plan collapses

Today’s guest picture was taken by my brother Andrew’s wife’s Australian cousin Janet who found Andrew hard at work on his son’s mower making hay  while the sun shone.

After yesterday’s outing to Beamish, I had a plan for today: in the morning I would put the pictures from Beamish on the blog, mow a few lawns, make soup for lunch and then in the afternoon, I would go for a cycle ride.

Everything went entirely to plan until I got up.  Shortly afterwards, I went back to bed again with a very sore back and an outbreak of being strangely tired.  As I didn’t get up until noon, the morning part of the plan was shot.

I took a quick look at the garden flowers when I had risen and found a lot of Sweet William that I thought was worth recording.

The first day lilies have arrived.

And ever more irises are appearing.

I like the last of the lupins to join the garden show.

I found another Philadelphus flower.

And my favourite rose, Lilian Austin was looking at her best.

She has been joined by a burst of moss roses.

Then I went in and watched the birds for a while.

Although the weather was good, it was pretty breezy and birds had to hang on to the feeder.

And when they did get settled, it wasn’t long before someone else came along and booted them off.

I had a cheese and tomato toastie for lunch and fortified by this, I went out and mowed the lawns.  This was a bit of a kill or cure experiment with my back and I am happy to say that the result tended much more to cure than kill and I felt a bit better for the rest of the day.

I noticed a flash of colour and dashed in for my camera and for once a butterfly kindly stayed in place for long enough for me to get a picture.  It was a red admiral, the first that i have seen in the garden this year.

Looking around, now that I had my camera with me, I was impressed by the growth on the delphiniums…

…and by the pertinacity of the aquilegia which are still growing through a box ball.

I spotted the first calendula of the year…

…and enjoyed the dancing feet of the martagon lilies in the sun.

The two clematis on either side of the front door are at very different stages of development.

Mrs Tootlepedal has a bit of a cold and had had a very busy morning, so while I was pootling about in the garden, she wisely had a siesta.  When she came downstairs, we decided to go up to the Langholm Moor and look for interesting bird life.

Our timing was off.  The sun had gone and light rain and low clouds had beaten us to the top of the hill.

The wind was strong too and the bog cotton and grasses were being blown about.

Altogether it wasn’t the best day for watching birds on the hill.   Still, it is always a pleasure to be out and about and the roadsides were full of wild flowers…

…including a large patch of orchids.

However, it was too wet and windy to take satisfactory pictures or see much so we didn’t stay out long and came back to the garden where I spotted a new clematis in the drizzle.

Although we welcomed the rain from a gardening point of view as things were a bit dry, the birds didn’t look very happy, either up above…

…or down below.

Our fake tree of twigs nailed onto a fence post is a popular stopping off point for birds on the way to the feeder.

The rain and the brisk wind put paid to any idea of cycling, though I did put in a few minutes on the bike to nowhere in the garage just to get my legs moving.  Then I buckled down and put 90 odd pictures into a post about the trip to Beamish yesterday.   (Sandy has put some of the ones that he took on his blog too and those interested can see them here.)

All this took some time and although there was a glimpse of sun later in the evening, my day had ground to halt by then and I ate a meal prepared by Mrs Tootlepedal and watched Countryfile on the telly.

I hope that my back and the weather are more co-operative tomorrow.

The flying bird of the day is a siskin in the queue for the feeder.

 

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Collapse of plan (and planner)

Today’s guest picture comes from my Somerset corespondent Venetia.  She went to Castle Ashby in Northamptonshire to play music and had some time to look at a fine spiral staircase at the orangery while she was there.

We had what looks as though it might be the last day of our warm and sunny spell today and I had a plan to make good use of it.

My plan was simple – mow the front lawn, have coffee with Dropscone, mow the greenhouse grass, dead head a bit, sieve some compost, have lunch and go for a cycle ride….and of course take a few pictures too.

The plan developed well.  I mowed the front lawn which was looking better for the recent feed.

When I had finished that, the light was perfect for looking at the rosa complicata.

New flowers had come out to enjoy the sunshine, a Martagon lily…

…and a stunning poppy.

Another of the foxgloves has produced a curious non standard flower at the top of its stem.

The warmth has encouraged things.  The perennial nasturtium is threatening to completely engulf the yew…

…and one of the astrantias is trying to take over the world.

Mrs Tootlepedal planted some biennial salvias last year and has been amazed by how large they are.  They promise to put on a really good show.

Later in the day, I found one that has come out a bit.

There are a lot of Philadelphus about, with different varieties.

I took this one in the morning….

…and this one in the cool of the evening.

This rose was surrounded by promises of more to come.

It was sheer pleasure to be out in the garden.  My plan was going well.

Dropscone arrived on cue, complete with the traditional Friday treacle scones.  He was pleased because yesterday he had played his first 18 hole round of golf since he broke his ribs.  He went off with some rhubarb and my plan continued to develop as I set about mowing the greenhouse grass and the drying green.

I sieved a little compost and did some dead heading and then had lunch with Mrs Tootlepdal who had had a busy morning of social and business meetings.

At this point, my plan, which had been going so well, fell into complete disarray.  Owing to a combination of afternoon heat, a growing sense of fatigue and an increasingly sore foot, cycling became more and more unattractive and in the end I got no further than the garden where I enjoyed a colourful corner…

….saw a young starling hoping for some parental attention…

…and noticed a blackbird ready to give a tasty worm to its second brood which is being raised in the hydrangea on the house wall.

Then things reached such a pass that I retired to my bed for a couple of hours and had a snooze.

I got up in time to enjoy an evening meal provided by Mrs Tootlepedal and was recovered enough to go out afterwards to help with some much needed watering in the vegetable garden.

I had my camera in my pocket so I recorded a moment when the wind had dropped so much that the doddering dillies had actually stopped doddering, a very rare occasion…

…and noted a purple patch under the plum tree which Mrs Tootlepedal likes.

Just behind the purple patch is a small but perfectly formed golden rose which was given to us in a pot in January last year on the occasion of our golden wedding.  Mrs Tootlepedal planted it out and it flowered all last summer.  It has survived the winter and is flowering very prettily once again.  That is a very good value gift.

Because of my plan’s failure, not only are there no pictures from my proposed cycle ride but there is no flying bird of the day and a starling on top of a neighbour’s holly tree is standing in instead.

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More sunshine

Today’s guest picture comes from our son Tony and shows one of his dogs relaxing in his garden.  He tells me that he sun (almost) always shines in East Wemyss.

When I woke up this morning, I was very happy to find that the sun was shining and my feet were not hurting.  Life was good and it got better when I went out into the garden after breakfast and found a painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) sunning itself on a Sweet William.

Things improved even further when Dropscone arrived for coffee, bringing scones of the highest quality with him.  Add to that a passing visit from our friend Gavin who stayed for a cup of coffee and happiness was to be found all around.

In the garden, when the visitors had departed, there was plenty of cheerfulness too. We have three different astrantias and they are all doing well…

…and the painted lady was back showing both sides of its wings.

On the feeder, a siskin stood for a moment before getting a seed.  (This is a rare siskin picture for me as it wasn’t taken through a window.)

Mrs Tootlepedal was doing the garden equivalent of housekeeping after the pole excitements when she found this quite unexpected but very pretty iris in the middle of a bed.  Where it has come from is a mystery, as she didn’t plant it.

Long established irises should not be overlooked though.

Two days of warm sunshine had brought life to the garden and plants asked to be photographed, both in the form of Jacobite roses…

…and the butter and sugar iris.

The painted lady returned to another Sweet William and let me get a close up.

The tropoaeolum has burst into flower as well.

In between running around snapping at flowers, I mowed the front lawn and lent a hand with the garden tidying until it was time for Mrs Tootlepedal to drive off to Newcastleton for an embroiderers’ lunch.

I made a pan of soup for my lunch, did the crossword and then headed out on my bike to see how my legs were feeling after yesterday’s effort.

I chose a route where the wind would be across and hoped that bends in the road would mean that it would frequently change from hostile to helpful as I went along as I didn’t fancy another long spell of battering into the brisk breeze.

I chose a more hilly route but my legs were unfazed and carried me along without complaint.  My windy plan worked well and I didn’t have any long struggles into the teeth of the breeze, but all the same, I adopted a very gentle pace and stopped to take many pictures as I went along.  Here are a sample.

A mown field and a variety of greens made a interesting picture as I cycled down the hill from Peden’s View.

There was a pretty selection of hawkweed and daises at Bentpath village (and another painted lady which didn’t get into the picture).

The Esk looked serene when viewed from the Benty Bridge.

The shadows on the back road past Georgefield look attractive but they are a snare for cyclists as it is hard to spot potholes among them and there are plenty of potholes on this section.

I got through safely though and was able to admire this small prairie of buttercups near Enzieholm Bridge.

When I looked more closely, I found that below the buttercups, the field was also full of yellow rattle.

There was a lot of traffic on the road on my way home…

…but I got back in good spirits after fifteen very pleasant miles.

Mrs Tootlepedal had returned from her lunch and was busy in the garden again so I joined her in a supervisory role and took more flower pictures from time to time.

It was a perfect day and all the better because we have had so few good days lately.

The only fly in the ointment came in the evening with the news that Scotland had failed to hang on to a three goal lead in a crucial game in the Women’s World Cup football tournament.  I wisely hadn’t watched the game because I wasn’t in the mood for needless suffering.

I didn’t find the necessary time to catch a flying bird today as it wasn’t a good day to spend a lot of time indoors, so a sitting blackbird of the day takes the position instead.

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Down in the mouth

Today’s guest picture comes from Mary Jo from Manitoba.  Her Christmas cactus responded to a programme of benign neglect indoors over the winter by bursting into flower when it was put outside for the summer.

Perhaps unsurprisingly my hopes of waking up with no pain after yesterday’s tooth extraction were not realised and far from cycling around in a free and easy way, I spent the day rather quietly at home.  This was disappointing as it is the weekend of the Muckletoon Adventure Festival in Langholm and the town is full of mountain bikers and runners dashing up and down our hill.  I would have liked to have been out and about taking pictures.

As it was, I was confined to the garden but some reasonable weather meant that there were things of interest even there.

The bees buzzed around again and this one was visiting the perennial wallflower.

Roses showed their faces and I liked this combination of rosa complicata and philadelphus in a corner of the garden.

Almost all the azaleas flowers are gone but one or two remain and they have been joined by honeysuckle, pinks and orange hawkweed (with both fox and cubs).

In the vegetable garden there is now a sea of mustard.

It is in a bed which is likely to get a bit of a thumping when the new electricity pole is put in next week so Mrs Tootlepedal has just let it grow, which it has done with great enthusiasm (or keenness).

The warmer weather has made us very excited by the peonies which definitely look as though they are going to flower properly.

I mowed the front lawn and gave it a good feed of buck-u-uppo which it badly needs.  The long spell of cool weather has not encouraged the rather sparse grass to grow much so I am pinning my hopes on a spell of warmer weather which we are promised.

After this brief burst of exercise, I retired indoors and spent most of the rest of the day resting and looking out of the window.

The birds did their best to keep me entertained.

Goldfinches looked sideways…

,..and sparrows look downwards.

A sparrow tried to out stare an incoming siskin…

…while a siskin resorted to shouting when it was threatened.

Goldfinches demonstrated aerial combat skills…

…while a siskin relied on the old fashioned method of putting the boot in when approached by a goldfinch.

A siskin threatened a redpoll as some light rain started later on in the afternoon…

…but the redpoll was more than equal to the challenge and munched away placidly when it had seen the siskin off.

The rain got heavier but did nothing to cool tempers down.

…and a brisk traffic to and from the feeder continued all afternoon.

The rain stopped and a blackbird posed for me on the feeder pole.

I had another walk round the garden and was very pleased to see that the ‘butter and sugar’ iris had come out while I had been sitting inside.

The geums have quite enjoyed the cool weather and although it is a little faded round the edges, the deep colour of this one was outstanding.

I had a close look at the argyranthemums in the chimney pot…

…and went back inside.

All this means that after a very promising start to the cycling month when I did 100 miles in the first week of June, I have only managed 10 miles since.  Some settled weather is required if I am to improve matters but it looks as though that might be in short supply.

If I can’t get out for a walk or a bike ride, I will have to start thinking of going for a drive to get some scenic views to add a bit of variety to the daily posts (and our lives).

The flying bird of the day is a goldfinch cruising through the raindrops.

Note:  I will need to do something about the reflections in the window when I am looking at the re-positioned feeder.  The view of the birds is good but the streaky lines down some of the pictures is not satisfactory.

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Sunshine brings a smile

Today’s guest picture comes from Bruce.  He sent me this shot of the three bridges over the Forth as seen from the ship that was about to take him to Sweden.

We were due to go to Edinburgh today to visit Matilda but I got up early and cycled twenty miles and got home in time to mow the middle lawn, have a cup of coffee and look at a few flowers, including the first orange hawkweed of the year…

…some Rosa Complicata (a very simple rose as it happens)….

…one of the Rosa Moyesii which are doing the best of our roses at the moment…

…a very bright oriental poppy…

…some delicate ornamental strawberries with don’t seem to mind the rain at all…

…and an astrantia, always one of my favourite flowers.

The cotoneaster still has a good number of bees buzzing about it, so new flowers must be opening every day.

Jackdaws are very busy at the peanuts these days.

And today’s hedge sitter was a young blackbird.

We went off to Edinburgh earlier than usual as we had a shopping visit on the schedule and this meant driving to Tweedbank to use the Border Railway.  The train was on time and when we got to Edinburgh, we walked down to John Lewis.  As well as doing some successful shopping, we had a cup of coffee in what must be the department store cafe with the best view in Britain.  My phone can’t do it justice at all.

After we had done our shopping we went to Matilda’s house.  As it was such a sunny day, she was very happy to show us her local park.  It is called Lochend Park and this is the end of the loch in the park.

I didn’t have a good camera with me which was a pity as there were two sorts of geese, gulls, moorhens and ducks to look at, not to mention a fine doocot.  The moorhens put on a fine show of ducking and diving and swimming underwater.  Matilda was impressed.

She was also impressed by the roundabout which turned very smoothly…

…and the intricate web of ropes which gave her an opportunity to show her adventurous nature.

We were impressed by the wild irises growing along the banks of the loch.

We had a very  cheerful time sitting on the benches thoughtfully provided by Edinburgh Corporation for the relief of the elderly while Matilda spun and climbed and slid.

The road to the park from Matilda’s house is called Butterfly Way so we were able to remark (many, many times) that we had had a lovely day on Butterfly Way.

Alistair cooked us a tasty meal involving roast aubergines, cherry tomatoes and rigatoni so we were two happy people as we caught the train home.

Going to Tweedbank, rather then Lockerbie means a much longer drive, but there is still so much novelty in driving the electric car that the time passed quickly enough.  We had done 97 miles since the last charge by the time that we got home and when I plugged the car in, it said that there was just under half the charge left in the battery.  This gives us a very satisfactory range for summer driving although we realise that it will be considerably less in the cold winter months.

The flying birds of the day are a very unsatisfactory phone picture of pigeons returning to the doocot in Lochend Park.  I will take a proper camera next time I visit.

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A scone with a story

Today’s guest picture is another from Bruce’s stay in Northumberland and shows a colourful view from the bridge over the River Breamish which appeared in a previous post.

The strong winds of yesterday continued overnight and were still blowing this morning so I was happy to stay in and welcome Dropscone for a cup of coffee though I had time to go out into the garden and see what hadn’t been blown over first.

Dropscone arrived with a story to tell.  Thanks to an accident when he was piloting a golf buggy while he was refereeing at a big golf event on the east coast last week, he had had to have an involuntary visit to hospital over the weekend.   He was interested to discover that he was not the only person in his ward to have come off worse in a contest with a golf buggy as another patient had also lost an argument with one.  Dangerous things these golf buggies.

Luckily for me, this had in no way diminished his ability to turn out tasty scones and as he had had to drink very indifferent coffee during his stay in hospital, we were both pleased to see each other.  He was in very cheery form but still has to go back for a check up tomorrow to see that he hasn’t suffered any lasting harm.

Just as we finished our coffee, an ace reporter from our local paper appeared to ask us questions about the little white electric thingy as the paper is doing a feature on ‘green’ issues.

When she had left, I walked round the garden again.

The early lupins are nearly at their peak

…while others are just coming out.

In the vegetable garden the chives thrive…

…and the peas progress behind their anti sparrow fortifications.

The wind and the rain have taken a toll on the azaleas and there are many more petals lying in heaps on the ground than on the bushes.

I went in to make soup for lunch and watch the birds.  The soup kept me busy but there was very little bird action.  The artificial tree was home to three hopeful young sparrows…

…who were waiting for father to come back with some food…

…but both adult and children got fed up and flew off and no other birds came to take their place.

After lunch, I decided that my need for a bike ride was greater than my dislike of pedalling in 30 mph winds so I got my bike out and went for ride.  I was helped in this decision by the appearance of some sun, so at least it was reasonably warm even if it was very hard work pedalling into the brisk breeze.

The sun brought out the colours of the red campion and wild geraniums in the verge as I cycled up the hill out of town.

…and everything was cheerfully green under blue skies.

I skulked about in the shelter of the Wauchope valley and only went four miles before turning back to get a whoosh home with the strong wind behind me.   I was so encouraged by the pleasure of downwind cycling that I went back up the road  and gave myself a little diversion to enjoy the views.

The local estate has been busy selling land to forestry companies so that there is a danger that all our hills may be covered by blanket forests like the one in this view but this particular farm has been given a temporary reprieve.

I cycled a little further up the road on my second lap but as I started to climb up the hill at Callister, I found myself being blown dangerously about by the strong wind so I abandoned thoughts of going to the top of the hill and turned for home after five miles.

Once more, I experienced the joy of downhill, downwind cycling.  Pedalling along a flat stretch at 25 miles an hour makes an old man feel young again, at least for a moment or two until he has to clutch nervously at the brakes as a sharp corner comes up.

I did stop to take a picture of one of my favourite views, not least because it is all downhill to home from here and on this occasion, wafted by a favouring gale, the three and a bit miles back to Langholm took me ten minutes…

…not including the brief stop for a final picture of a very green corner.

When I got back to Langholm I was seized with decimal madness and cycled once round the New Town to bring my distance up to a neat 20 miles, a very reasonable distance for such a windy day in my view.

Since the sun was still shining, I took the opportunity to mow the middle lawn and then give it a neat edge with the strimmer.  If it hadn’t been so windy, I might have sat down on the new bench and admired my handiwork but instead I went in and hoped to see some birds.

Once again, there weren’t many to watch.  It is hard to say whether this was because of the strong winds or because the jackdaws have frightened them away.

A lone redpoll did appear and after perching anxiously on the sunflower stalk…

…it spent a little time on the seed feeder..

…but it was the only small bird that I saw.

I just had time for another look at the garden, where I saw these clematis seed heads…

…and a quizzical blackbird…

…before my flute pupil Luke came.

We had another good session and it is good to see steady progress being made.

When he left, I sieved a little compost and mowed the drying green before we had our tea.

In the absence of any opportunity to take a flying bird of the day picture, the quizzical blackbird kindly consented to have its photograph taken to act as standing bird of the day.

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