A plum and apple day

Today’s guest picture comes from Camera Club member Simon who was at work in Winson in Germany when he found himself being observed.

After a rather wild and wet night while Storm Dorian had its last faint fling over Scotland, we had a generally dry and occasionally sunny day today so we got off pretty lightly.

It was still breezy but that didn’t discourage the birds and the garden was fully occupied by feathered friends all day.

When I went out to have a look around in the morning, I spotted this little dunnock looking askance at a blackbird which was stretching its wings in a flowerbed.

As well as birds, there was a considerable number of red admiral butterflies about too, and I found one on Michaelmas daisy.  I got too close to it though and it flew off, leaving a bee to enjoy some peace and quiet.

I stood for some time watching stream of blackbirds and some starlings feeding on the rowan berries.

Unlike Mrs Tootlepedal who has picked all the low hanging fruit from the plum tree…

…the birds have eaten all the topmost berries from the rowan and are now having to look at lower fruit, often on the end of branches.

I was surprised to see how often the birds dropped a berry before being able to swallow it, but all the same, a lot of berries went down a lot of throats today.

A starling posed for me…

…and any number of blackbirds were too busy eating to mind me pointing a cameras at them.

Sometimes when they had pecked a berry off the very end of the branch, gravity was too much for them and they had to fly off with the berry or risk being pushed off by the  next customer.

Underneath the rowan tree, a snowberry was a haven of peace for a visiting insect.

In the garden, many flowers had survived the night of wind and rain.  Mrs Tootlepedal wishes to point out that all the sunflowers in the shot below came from the same packet of seeds, advertised as short sunflowers.  Quality control at the seed merchants looks a bit lax.

The Japanese anemones are not discouraged by anything.

In the middle of the day, I made some plum jam with some of the plums that we have picked.  A number of things conspired to make the result unsatisfactory.  The plums were too ripe, it has been raining a lot recently, I didn’t have proper jam sugar, and I was probably too impatient.  As a result, the jam didn’t set properly and I had to give it a squoosh of lemon juice and a second boil later in the day.  Mrs Tootlepedal stewed a lot of the rest of the plums.  They will be frozen.   There may well be more chutney in the offing too.

In the afternoon, I got my bike out, and after having another look at blackbirds in the rowan tree…

… I went for a short ride.  There was evidence of the recent rain.

We had a very good dry spell earlier in the year but the persistent rain has finally got things soggy again and the water is running off the hills and onto the roads in several places.

A cow kept an eye on me as I photographed the puddles.

The forecast was for a gusty wind.  Usually round here it is hard to tell if the wind is gusty because it just blows all the time, but today it really was gusty.  One minute I would be pedalling along merrily, whistling a happy tune, and the next minute I would have my head down, battling to make any progress at all.

Still, I got to the top of Callister and back and stopped as I pedalled through the town to salute our lonely gull on its regular rock.

Although it was not in flood, there was enough water coming down the Esk to create a fine back ripple.

As I crossed the Langholm Bridge, I could see that the cormorant was back at the Meeting of the Waters, so I parked my bike at the Kilngreen and walked along to get a closer look.  It was drying its wings.

I looked up from watching the cormorant and enjoyed the view of the hills.  The mixture of blue skies and heavy clouds summed up the day.

I only got rained on for a very short time during the ride and got home after 15 miles in good order.  I had enough energy left to mow the middle lawn.  For the first time for a few months, I thought that the rate of growth in the grass had slowed down.  It has stayed quite warm recently, around 15°C most days, but the shorter days are getting noticeable now.  We are only ten days away from the autumn equinox and facts are facts.

As the flowers and leaves are showing.

The starlings were lined up on the electricity wire as I went in to have my evening meal.

As well as plums, we are beginning to get quite a lot of apples from our espalier trees.  I have been picking up the windfalls and we decided to take a step into the unknown and convert some of them into a Tarte Tatin.  We were handicapped by not having a suitable pan for the job but we battled on and the result was good enough to eat even if it definitely would not have won even second prize in a beauty pageant.  I am going to try again soon.

As the blackbirds had taken my advice to try to pick berries from above their heads rather than below their feet, there was no shortage of flying birds today so here is the genuine flying bird of the day.

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Beside the sea

Today’s guest picture comes from our friend Gavin who was in California recently seeing his son and grandchildren when he visited the Capitola Pier.

We had another grey morning here with the occasional threat of drizzle which didn’t come to much.  It was enough though to persuade me that coffee and a tricky  crossword and some light shopping at our corner shop could fill up the time satisfactorily.   The wind was light and I ought to have been out making the most of a reasonable cycling day but I didn’t feel guilty enough to do more than walk round the garden.

I was hoping to see blackbirds in the rowan tree again but they were too quick for me today and flew off as soon as they saw me coming.

I looked at a shy dahlia instead.

The last of the poppies are far from shy.

And once again, the red admirals were about.  This one was resting on a sedum…

…and this one on a buddleia was showing off its goggle eyes and its antennae.  The antennae look as though they have LEDs on them.

At noon, Mrs Tootlepedal went off to help out at the Buccleuch Centre coffee shop and I finally got organised and took my bike out for a pedal.

We are being threatened with the arrival of the last gasp of Storm Dorian but the rain isn’t due until the evening and although the wind was expected to speed up during the afternoon, it was still going to be pretty reasonable.  I planned a route which would take advantage of the strengthening wind to blow me back home.

These things don’t often work out well but today everything went to plan.  I cycled westwards into a gentle breeze as the sun came out.  On one of my refreshment pauses, I looked up to see a hefty crop of beech nuts on the branches above me.

My turning point came after 20 miles when I arrived at Browhouses on the Solway coast.  I took a few minutes to eat half a banana and enjoy the views.

The tide was well out and although there were some sea birds about, they were well out of range of my cycling camera.

A group of swans and some of a large group of gulls with some oyster catchers behind them.

Looking westward, I could see the English shore across the shining levels of the Solway…

 

…and looking eastwards, I could see the estuary of the River Esk rather than any sea.

In the distance, I could see the wind turbines at Gretna…

..and at Longtown and unlike my last ride, this time the direction of the blades showed me that I would get my wish of windy support on my ride home.

I noticed that one of the few wild flowers to be seen was attracting attention…

…and then set off to do the twenty odd miles home.

I went back by a different route to my outward journey, missing out Gretna Green which I had passed through on my way out, but going through all the other places on this neatly painted signpost which is in England in the  county of Cumbria.

It still carries the name of a county council which was abolished in 1974, the year in which we came to live in Langholm….

…and it is good to see that no-one thought it necessary to go to the expense of making new signposts when the old ones were in such good shape.

In the hedge beside the post were some bright rose hips.

At Englishtown, the farmer had been busy cutting grass and there were bales on every side as far as the eye could see.

Thanks to the favouring breeze, which had strengthened noticeably after I had turned for home, I did the first 20 miles down to the seaside (net elevation loss 250ft) in 1 hr 33 mins and the slightly longer return 22 mile journey to Langholm (net elevation gain 250ft) in 1 hr 27 minutes.  This is the way that well planned bike rides for the elderly should always work out.  To complete the picture, I should add that I took 23 minutes of rest and refreshment stops along the way.
 A map and details of the ride can be found here by anyone interested.

Mrs Tootlepedal had had a very busy day and was working hard at some business arrangements when I got home.  I left her to it and walked round the garden after I had had a cup of tea.

The ornamental strawberries are having a late burst and look very good at the moment.

Crown Princess Margareta is trying her best but will need a couple of kind days if she is to come to anything.

And the blue clematis at the front door continues to produce small but quite elegant flowers.

I picked some more plums and stewed some of them and ate them as a dessert with some ice cream after our evening meal.  Garmin (which records my ride on a nifty bike computer) claims that I used 2289 calories on my ride so that should have put most of them back.

No flying bird of the day today but another of the many young blackbirds in the garden stands in for it.

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Having a berry good time

Today’s guest picture comes from our friend and horticultural adviser Liz.  She went for a paddle on the Union Canal, and knowing that I like bridges, she sent me this.

After two sunny day, we reverted to a grey and drizzly day again today.  It was an ideal morning for staying indoors so I did just that…

…though I did poke my nose outside in a less drizzly moment to see what was going on.

A bee was trying on a dashing pink hat…

…and in spite of the gloomy weather, there were quite a few red admiral butterflies around.  I caught one on the buddleia and another one flat out on the sedum, having a snooze.

I checked to see if there were any blackbirds in the rowan tree.  You might think that it would be easier to stand on a twig and peck upwards, but the general trend seems to be to balance carefully and peck downwards.

I did actually see a blackbird fall off its twig trying this method.   It steadied itself though  and chose a safer spot.

After lunch, the drizzle cleared up and the forecast offered some hours of dryish weather in spite of still having quite a lot of rain on its weather map.  I got my bike out and set off to see how far I could get before it started to  rain again.

Farmers have been making good use of the recent sunny days and the number of bales of silage in this field shows just how well the grass has been growing this summer.

I looked down at the wall which you can see at the bottom of the picture above and saw a veritable feast of lichens.

All these were within a few feet of each other.

I took a little diversion up to Cleuchfoot, and stopped to admire the autumn fruits, sloes and brambles, beside the road.  It looks like being a fruitful season.

I got to the top of Callister and as it began to rain lightly, I turned for home.  There was almost no wind today, a very rare thing these days, and it was warm so in spite of the light rain, it was enjoyable to be out and about.

By the time that I had got back to Langholm after 14 miles, the rain had stopped so I didn’t.  I went through the town and out of the other side.  I had to wait at the junction at the bridge to let a small convoy of MGBs through.  They were obviously on a tour and perhaps a reader, looking at the number plate, can tell me where they come from.

When I had crossed the bridge, I had to stop again on the Kilngreen, because not only could I see Mr Grumpy crouching beside the river…

…but there was a cormorant perched on a rock at the Meeting of the Waters.

Local fishermen will not be happy.

I pedalled on up the main road for three miles, stopped to admire the view…

…and pedalled back home again, pleased to have got 21 miles in on a day that had started so miserably.

After a cup of tea (and a biscuit) with Mrs Tootlepedal and our friend Mike who had dropped in, I was sufficiently revived to go out into the garden and mow the front lawn. The grass is growing well in our garden too and the lawns are needing to be mowed every two or three days.

While I was out, I had a look round and was delighted to see a robin.  I hadn’t seen one for some time.

While I was tracking the robin, I nearly trod on this blackbird.  It was very reluctant to move from a spot where it had obviously found something interesting to eat.

When I looked up at the rowan tree, more blackbirds were finding things to eat.

After a good look round, this one….

…took the plunge, grabbed a berry and swallowed it whole.

Berries were going down well…

…though some were harder to grasp than others.

The berries will not last long if the blackbirds keep going at this rate.

I left the blackbirds to it, and walked around looking for flowers.  The honeysuckle on the fence is flowering well and still has plenty to come…

…and Crown Princess Margareta is making a plucky effort to have a late show.

Then my flute pupil Luke came and showed evidence of practice.  This can only be a good thing.  Both he and I are working on improving our breathing skills and are trying hard to avoid heaving up our shoulders when breathing in, a very bad habit.  Getting rid of bad habits is a lot harder than acquiring good habits so we have some way to go.

I made some cauliflower cheese for our evening meal and then Mrs Tootlepedal and I settled down to the double delight of watching the highlights of both the Vuelta and the Tour of Britain.

I didn’t quite catch a flying bird of the day, but this blackbird had to use its wings a lot to steady itself so it gets the title today, whether it was actually flying or not.

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Clouded vision

Today’s guest picture comes from my Somerset correspondent Venetia.  She visited the Haynes International Motor Museum with my sister Mary and saw many wonderful motor cars, including this 1900 Clement Voiturette.

When you look back at them, there are some days which seem to rather slip through your grasp and you never really get a grip on them.  This was one such day.  Although we did quite a lot, nothing much seemed to happen.  As a result, if this post is somewhat disjointed, it will match the day very well.

We had a slow start after breakfast but then we drove down to the bike shop in Longtown to recover my set of car and house keys, which were still in my bike pannier along with my rain jacket.  My bike won’t be ready until Friday at best so we drove quietly back home, giving a lift to a local man who had just left his bike for repair at the bike shop and was intending to catch the bus back.  As he would have had to wait half an hour before the bus came, he was quite grateful.

It was a rather grey and gloomy day but still reasonably warm so we had a walk round the garden when we got back.  A blackbird on the fence caught my eye.  It had picked up a fallen rowan berry from the ground.

It was just as well that it hadn’t been tempted by these St John’s Wort berries near by and they are poisonous to livestock and probably not very good for birds.

Most of the Sweet Williams are past but this one, lurking in a vegetable bed, still looks rather attractive with its dainty blue boots.

The honey suckle on the vegetable garden fence is doing well.

I went in and put a grey day to some use by entering two weeks of the newspaper index into the Archive Group database, making a small dent in my backlog.

Mrs Tootlepedal occupied herself in making some plum chutney.  She tells me that we won’t be able to sample it for six months.

In the afternoon, I considered the weather and the forecast and the threats of heavy rain, and then went out for a short ride on my borrowed bike.

It was a day for cloudscapes…

…and no matter where you looked, there were plenty of clouds to see.

I had gone about four miles, when the view behind, with a hint of sunshine, looked a lot better than the view in front, and as it started to rain, I decided to race the rain back home.

Although it continued to drizzle on me, the wind was coming from behind, so I didn’t get very wet at all. It was dry when i gt home.

I put the bike under cover and walked round the garden with Mrs Tootlepedal.  She has recently put down some grass seed to grow as green manure on the now empty potato bed, and this is of great interest to the sparrows who lurk in every convenient tree and hedge…

…and eat the seed whenever our backs our turned.

When  we came out, they flew up in a great cloud and some of them settled for a while on our neighbour Betty’s garage roof.  This is just a portion of the flock who were pecking at the grass seeds.

I had a look at some flowers.  The lobelias round the chimney pot are in fine fettle…

…and the late Lilian Austin rose, featured yesterday, has been joined by two more blooms.

I tend to look at the phlox as a cloud of colour but this single flower was worth looking at by itself, I thought.

After a while, the clouds seemed to have passed over, so after a last look at these zinnias, one with a miniature garden at its heart….

…I set off to complete my intended mileage for the day.  It started to rain almost as soon as I had left the house but I had my rain jacket with me, so I put it on and pressed ahead.

This was a good plan because the rain soon stopped and in spite of some impressive clouds over Callister…

…it turned into a sunny day as I came home from the top of the hill.

Although there was a break in the middle, I aggregated the two rides into one and recorded 20 miles for the day in my mileage chart.

When I got home, I walked round the garden for a final time….

…and then went in to print out some pictures for our camera club’s forthcoming exhibition.

Mrs Tootlepedal cooked an excellent evening meal and we rounded off the day by watching an exciting stage of the Vuelta.

The flying bird of the day was standing very close to me on the lawn before it flew off.

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Plum crazy

Today’s guest picture comes from my brother Andrew who visited a Book Cafe but found that reading one of their books might be tricky.  He tells me that he didn’t bolt his coffee and cake though.

This morning couldn’t have offered a greater contrast to yesterday’s summer weather.  The clouds were clamped down on the hills, the town was engulfed by gloom and there was a persistent drizzle.  The drizzle did fizzle out though and I was able to walk up to the town after breakfast to do some archive group  and camera club business.

I had hoped to have a cup of coffee with Dropscone when I got back, but he had a golfing engagement so I went out to check the garden.

It was warm enough, but the results of the drizzle could be seen hanging about on dahlias….

…and in a hundred neat pockets along the front hedge.

I had several goes at capturing the beauty of the water filled webs…

…and this was my favourite as I thought that it caught their jewelled nature best.

Since it wasn’t a gardening moment, I went in and made half a dozen pots of plum jam, using early plums which we had picked that were not suitable to eat yet.  Our jam thermometer is a bit like the jam maker himself, old and unreliable, and I may have overcooked the jam a bit, but I had a test helping on some new bread in the evening and it wasn’t too bad.  We are researching digital jam thermometers and if any reader has had a good experience with one, we would be pleased to learn about it.

After the jam making was finished, I went out into the garden and was happy to find that the clouds had lifted and the rain had cleared away altogether.

I had a walk round to admire the late colour.

…and noted that sometimes, one plant gets overtaken by another as these two clematis flowers, peeking out through alien foliage, show.

Elsewhere, clematis has a clear run.

I made some soup for lunch and then Mrs Tootlepedal headed off to collect embroidery exhibits, the work of her local group, which have been on display in Hawick.  I went back out into the garden where the sun was now shining and found myself ducking to avoid being mowed down by hordes of butterflies and sparrows which were circling the garden.

Although it was pleasantly warm in the sun, it was not as hot as yesterday and the butterflies all had their wings wide open.

Once again, there were far more peacocks about than any other sort…

…though the whites came a close second.

The large family of blackbirds are still around at various stages of development…

…and they and the resident starlings and sparrows were joined by a tuneful thrush today.

There were so many butterflies about that I had to persuade them to shift over to give me a bit of room on the bench to sit….

…and enjoy a small plum snack.

It had dried up enough to let me mow the middle lawn and then I got my bike out and pedalled round my 20 mile Canonbie circuit.  It was a good day for a cycle ride…

…with the country looking at its most benign.

Farmers had been busy cutting grass in every corner of their fields.

All new deciduous trees seem to be planted in plastic tubes these days and this view as I climbed the hill over the Kerr seems to show that it is a good idea, with a flourishing little forest well under way.

As I came back home along the Esk valley, there was more evidence of grass cutting to be seen.

I would have liked to have had time to have gone a bit further but there was the front lawn to cut and my flute pupil Luke to welcome.

I did find time when i got home to watch a blackbird in the rowan tree.  It was eyeing up the berries and bending to check on them, but the big question was, would it pose for the ‘money shot’?

It did.

Mrs Tootlepedal arrived safely back from Hawick, and while my flute pupil Luke and I practised, she made a delicious cauliflower cheese, garnished with beans and courgettes from the garden for tea.  We ate it with a side dish of beetroot which our friend Nancy had given us and i had cooked earlier.  She has grown so much beetroot on her allotment this year that she can hardly face eating any more.

We rounded off the day by watching the highlights of the Vuelta, the cycling tour of Spain.  It took our minds off the political situation.

The flying bird of the day is a bee visiting one of the last big poppies.

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A smart woman

Today’s guest picture comes from Mrs Tootlepedal and features one of our plums.

The picture itself might not seem to be earth shattering but the fact that Mrs Tootlepedal took on her new smart phone and emailed it to me, is a giant leap for her into a whole new world of tech.

The acquisition of the new phone was the main business of the morning and involved a trip to Carlisle.  I had tried to get the phone sorted on-line yesterday but it proved an intractable business so we made an appointment to speak to real people in the EE shop in Carlisle.  This proved to be a really good idea, as an admirably competent young lady was able to add the new phone to my account, get Mrs Tootlepedal an excellent bargain for the monthly charge and give me an extra gigabyte of data thrown in.

She told us that the staff in the shop are no longer paid commission for hard selling, and indeed get no bonus for completing a sale at all.  They get their reward if customers speak highly of them when asked their opinion a week after the deal is done.  This is a good idea!

She sold us what we wanted, didn’t try to sell us anything we didn’t want, gave us a tremendous amount of technical help and sent us on our way in a very cheerful state of mind indeed.  We will speak highly of her when we are asked.

While we were in Carlisle, we bought some cheese, visited a bookshop where we had a cup of coffee, and wandered through a market in the middle of the town.  All in all, it was a very satisfactory morning.

When we got home, we had lunch and then we went out into the garden.  It was one of those days when the weather in Carlisle was bright and sunny but the weather in Langholm was grey and gloomy with the clouds down over the hills.

This is a bit hard to bear but I took a picture of Mrs Tootlepedal’s new phlox just for the cheery colour.

In spite of the cloudy day, it was warm enough and at worst there was only a faint drizzle so we got a lot done.  I mowed the lawns and together we removed and binned what seemed like a hundred or more green plums from the poor old plum tree which is still overloaded with clusters of plums hanging on it like bunches of grapes.  The plums are beginning to ripen and plum jam is in the offing.

After the de-plumming, we sat for a while on the bench while we rested and looked around. Some nicotianas looked back at us from behind the yew.

On the fence behind the bench, the runner bean flowers made a good show.

More actual beans would not go amiss but we had a few with our evening meal.

Across the lawn, a bee visited the lamium…

…while on the lawn, a harassed mother blackbird fed an ungrateful youngster.

We went in for a cup of tea and a biscuit and then I decided to go for a walk.   I  had only gone a few steps when my feet decided that a ‘bicycle walk’ would be better idea, so I got the slow bike out and cycled round an extended three bridges walk at a very leisurely pace.

You don’t see as much when you are on a  bicycle, no matter how slowly you go but I couldn’t miss the gull on its favourite rock…

…or Mr Grumpy lurking more inconspicuously a few yards away down the river.

I cycled up the Lodge Walks and took a photograph.  It was a bit dull so I took the liberty of asking my photo editor to put an arty filter on it.  I quite liked the result.

At the side of the road, this massive fungus was easily visible at any speed.

The sun came out as I pedalled along, and it turned into a very pleasant evening.

In the low sun, the trees looked delightful both in general…

…and in particular.

I would have liked to have been on foot, but I bumped along the track on my bike happily enough.

I passed the Duchess Bridge but did not cross it…

…and went on to the Jubilee Bridge and the Scholars’ Field to make my way home.

In the evening, Mike and Alison came round for their usual Friday evening visit, and Alison and I played some very satisfactory duets, including a Telemann Sonata which we haven’t played for some time and which went very well all things considered.

The hard working mother blackbird is standing in for the flying bird of the day.

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From beggar to prince

Today’s guest picture comes from our son Tony who was in a good position to admire the big festival wheel in Edinburgh.

My feet and joints generally sent me a message this morning to say that they had had enough of cycling and walking for the moment.  As it was a miserable grey day, I was only too happy to take the message on board and have a really dull morning indoors doing faintly useful things.

I did poke my nose out once or twice but the sight of the creeper putting on its autumn colours was not essentially cheering…

…though an orange crocosmia…

…a rudbeckia trying its best in poor conditions…

…and another sunflower..

…did their best to counteract the gloomy weather.

After lunch, we went off to Lockerbie as usual on a Thursday to catch the train to Edinburgh to visit Matilda and her parents.  As usual the train was late, but as it was not very late and there were plenty of free seats, we were grateful for what we got.

We had a good time with Matilda and when we played Beggar My Neighbour, for the first time in recorded history, I wasn’t beggared first.  I was very proud, although Clare did kindly point out that there is no skill involved in the game.

After the usual excellent meal cooked by Alistair, we caught the train home and unusually this was late too, but once again not very late so all was well.

The sitting blackbird of the day is reminding us that the fence needs painting.  I don’t think that it is going to happen though.

I’ll try to be more interesting tomorrow.

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