A tootle and a pedal, hooray

Today’s guest picture comes from my South African correspondent, Langholm exile Tom.  He was looking for something to send me from his archives and found this lofty view of Worcester in the Western Cape, taken from 6000 ft up.

We had a calm day before the advertised arrival late tomorrow of storm Ciara, which the experts think might be the worst storm to hit the country since 2013.  We are not looking forward to it.

In the meantime, I had an enjoyable day today.  In the morning, Mrs Tootlepedal went off to do useful things around the town and I entertained Dropscone to coffee and ate two of his excellent treacle scones.  A Friday wouldn’t be the same without treacle scones.

When he left, I had a look to see if there were any birds at our feeder and found remarkably few.

A chaffinch was weighing up its options…

…and a sparrow was complaining about Mrs Tootlepedal’s fake tree..,.

…while a rook posed at the very top of the walnut.

Mrs Tootlepedal has put up the robin nest box and we are waiting to see if the robin also knows that it is a nest box.

As there were no birds to watch, and it was still a bit cold for cycling (it had been freezing when we woke up), I went for a walk.

A little bit of  hair ice showed that it had been cold…

…and it certainly looked like winter as I walked along the beechy plains…

…but the sun was out and when I got into the open, it was very pleasant.

The battery had run out on my camera so I used my phone to take a few pictures as I went along.  I was delighted by how well it picked out these catkins.

I took a view of Warbla just so that I would have something bright to remind me of better days when the storm comes.

I crossed Skippers Bridge….

…and walked home along the river.  The daisies on the bank still had something to show…

…but there was not much else to look at today.

After lunch, Mrs Tootlepedal went off to buy seed potatoes and I went for a cycle ride.  All traces of the morning frost had gone and the wind wasn’t too unkind so I added a few more miles to my last outing and pedalled the twenty miles it takes to get round my familiar Canonbie circuit.

Two fine fungi beside the Wauchope road caught my eye…

…and I liked the view of the lake District hills on the far side of the Solway Firth.

There were some clouds about…

…but they conveniently cleared away by the time that I got to Canonbie, where the church was looking at its best.

Beside the church, a row of pylons reminded me of how much work there will be to do before all our pylons are upgraded.  It is a major task as we live on a electricity highway from Carlisle to the north..

Work is going full steam ahead on the new Canonbie sewage system.  There were people hard at work in the village, with another group digging a trench in the old road past the school, and then more workers at this site in the field below the Byreburn Wood.

The incontinent of Canonbie will be well catered for when all this is finished.

The low sun picked out the new balcony round the top of Hollows Tower.  I had a chance to go out on it when we visited the tower last year but it was too alarming for me.

My final picture was a peer through the branches at Irvine House, still standing empty after many years.

I got home in good order, very pleased to find that I can bicycle normally again although I am still taking care and not going down the hills too fast.

Looking around the garden, I saw that we now have four daffodils.  When we get another one out, we will declare that the clump is an official host of golden daffodils and start writing poetry.

There hadn’t been quite enough warmth in the day to persuade the crocuses to open.

Following a report of a male hen harrier sighting on the moor, Mrs Tootlepedal had driven up to have a look after her potato expedition, but she had not seen anything.  She consoled herself with a cup of tea and a bite of my chocolate eclair.

In the evening, Mike and Alison came round, and Alison and I played duets while the other two chatted.   We had a go at a sonata which we haven’t played for several years and came to the conclusion that some practice might be a good thing before we try it again.

If no post arrives tomorrow, you will know we have been blown away but in the meantime, two peacefully swimming ducks are the flying birds of the day.

Read Full Post »

Back to front

Today’s guest picture comes from my brother Andrew.  He recently found himself on top of Bosley Cloud, a 1125ft eminence on the Staffordshire- Cheshire border with, according to to the Visit Cheshire website, stunning views over the surrounding countryside.  It lived up to its name when my brother was there though, and there was a marked absence of views, stunning or otherwise.

We had plenty of clouds here today as well.  In fact it was so gloomy that when I threw open the curtains to welcome the day, the room actually got darker.

Still, we sang some cheerful Christmas carols when we got to church.  Our new minister takes the view that Christmas is too good to be wasted on just one Sunday in the year.   I agree.  We returned home for coffee and a mince pie and as I added a modicum of brandy butter to mine, all was well with the world in spite of the dark clouds.

After lunch, we considered our options.  It was dry and warm (7°C) so I considered a bike ride but checking on the wind, I found that gusts of up to 30 mph were expected. Mrs Tootlepedal fancied some exercise so she and I went off for another walk instead.

After yesterday’s tramp up hill and over rough terrain, Mrs Tootlepedal called for a flatter route on dry roads today so we drove down to the Hollows Bridge and walked the three mile Canonbie circle along to the village by the top road and back by the old main road beside the river.

Mrs Tootlepedal stopped to read an historical information board by the Hollows bridge and I checked to see if there were still stone statues in the wood there.

We crossed the bridge and stopped to talk to the owner of the Archimedes screw who was just setting off for a family walk and then we took the top road to Canonbie.

I was very impressed by the neat appearance of a hedge in a field beside the road.

Purists may think that it is a bit too sparse to be effective as a hedge but as it has a wire fence right behind it, that doesn’t matter too much.

As is often the case, the weather had got much better once we had got south of Langholm and out of the hills.  Looking back as we went up the top road, we could see the impressive gloom over the town behind us.

Even without the dark clouds overhead, it wasn’t sunny and as we walked along a stretch of road between a conifer wood and a tall beech hedge, the camera was unimpressed by the amount of light available.

It was able to pick up a crop of catkins though, a reminder that we are on our way towards spring now.

We passed a lot of good trees along our route but this one was my choice for tree of the day.

The road to the village took us along the top of a steep escarpment above the river and I could look down on Canonbie church, which almost seemed to be catching a hint of sunshine.

Mrs Tootlepedal called my attention to a dunnock.  As a dunnock is also called a hedge sparrow, it was good to see one living up to its name by posing on a hedge for me.

(It turns out that a dunnock is not a sparrow at all but an accentor.)

Although we weren’t in sunshine, there was blue sky above our heads, we were sheltered from any wind and we had left the black Langholm cloud behind us so walking was very comfortable.

We passed a fir tree in a garden before we got to the village.  It was covered in smallish upright cones and looked very like a Korean pine but with brown not blue cones.

As we walked down the path to the village, Mrs Tootlepedal noticed this bracket fungus on the fence rail.  It is unusual to see them on treated wood like this.

Canonbie’s Public Hall has a fine clock which celebrates the centenary of the hall in 2012.

We crossed the river Esk by the newly resurfaced Canonbie bridge and walked along the old main road back to the Hollows Bridge.  There was a moment when the sun actually shone on us and we could see our chadows…

…but it didn’t last and the sun was so low anyway that the trees on the far bank of the river were looking very sombre.

It wasn’t a day for sitting at the fine new bench at the lay-by and having a picnic.

Rather worryingly, the back cloud over Langholm seemed to be slipping south and was getting nearer and nearer to us.

This lent a bit of urgency to the last half mile of our journey but I still had time to admire a monkey puzzle tree in a garden at Byreburnfoot.

I liked the way that its bottom branches pointed down, its top branches pointed up and the ones in the middle were absolutely pointing neither up nor down.

I was considering the habits of walls on our walk last Saturday and this wall at the Byreburnfoot Bridge was another example of the curious behaviour of nature. The wall is more or less totally black until it gets to the bridge itself when it suddenly becomes covered with pale lichen.

It’s another mystery.

It didn’t rain and we got back to the car after three miles of gentle exercise.  The weather looked very black as we drove back to Langholm but even there, it wasn’t raining.  The Met Office says that the humidity today has been around 95% so I have no idea why it hasn’t rained.  I am not complaining though.

It was too dark to get a satisfactory flying bird today so the best that I can do is to show one of our resident garden dunnocks standing in for the absent fliers.

 

Read Full Post »

Out and about again

Today’s guest picture is a follow up to the recent guest picture from Dropscone which showed the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct seen from below.  This is the view from above.  Dropscone walked over the aqueduct.  It would need a team of wild horses to get me across.

We enjoyed a delightfully sunny day today with the only drawback being a frosty morning and a reluctance from the thermometer to rise above 5 degrees.  I would like to have gone for a walk but foot resting is still the order of the day so I spent a quiet morning in waiting for the temperature to rise to safe cycling levels.

I was well entertained by birds while I waited.

Camera shy chaffinches tried to sneak past me undetected….

…while down below, a blackbird eyed up the possibility of fallen seed…

…and a robin took a view from a garden chair.

In the midst of the usual scrum of goldfinches and chaffinches, a splash of yellow caught my eye.  A siskin had arrived, the first for some weeks.

It posed for me with a goldfinch to show just how small a siskin is.

I took a turn round the garden and the sun had encouraged some flowers to do their best, although the first daffodil of the season needed some support to hold its head up.

The garden is amazingly dry considering the amount of rain recorded in  Mary Jo’s scientific rain gauge over the past few days.

I made some vegetable soup for lunch and then set off for a short ride on my slow bike.

I stopped a lot to take pictures.

I like this dangly larch branch…

…and there was no shortage of dangly catkins too.

The bullocks were taking a rest from playing king of the castle when I first passed them…

…but ten minutes later, they were full of fun again.

My trip took me up the valley of the mighty Wauchope Water and to give the reader some context, I include a map of the three mile long river and its tributaries, with some markers to put the pictures in place.

!. This is the spot where the Wauchope Water descends through narrow rocks to make my favourite little cascade.

2. A view of Logan Water….

…just above where it joins the Bigholms Burn…

…to become the Wauchope.

3.  A view of the junction of Collin Burn and Glentenmont Burn which together make up the Bigholms Burn.

When you see these small and gentle streams, it is surprising that they can collect enough water between them to make the Wauchope look like this only five miles away.

The Wauchope last week as it meets the Esk

I was detained by some lichen on a bridge and more on a concrete fence post on my way home.

Altogether I managed to pedal twelve and a half miles between taking the pictures so it was a satisfactory outing.  While I was pedalling, Mrs Tootlepedal was doing good work in the garden and greenhouse so we were both pretty cheerful as we sat down for a refreshing cup of tea as the light began to fade.

A second helping of Mrs Tootlepedal’s excellent fish pie once again rounded off a day on the credit side of the great ledger of life.  I have made an appointment with a physiotherapist for later in the week and as I am expecting a miracle cure, I hope to be back walking very soon.

As the goldfinches were in a co-operative mood, I have gone overboard and used two of them for the flying bird of the day.

Read Full Post »

At last, a tootle and a pedal

Today’s guest picture comes from my sister Mary.  She encountered this impressive prancing beast at Covent Garden.  It is doing some serious strutting but as it seems to be standing in the sledge it is supposed to be pulling, it looks like a bit of a freeloader to me.

It was cold, grey but dry today and I was happy to have a cup of coffee with Sandy while the thermometer crept up a degree or two but after he left, I stiffened my sinews and summoned up my blood and actually got my bike out and went for a pedal.

There were hints of breaks in the clouds as you can see from this picture of this fine tree near Waterbeck…

…but the sun remained stubbornly hidden behind a low bank of cloud to the west and I was glad that I had several layers on as a nipping wind blew across me or into my face for most of the thirty miles that I covered.

I stopped for a banana near Kirkpatrick Fleming and looked wistfully at hints of sunshine behind a phone mast…

…and with wonder at a tree beside the motorway which was positively dripping with catkins.

I made a final stop with three miles to go to have a drink of water and a wall inspection.

It was a good wall with lots of moss…

…and more moss with added lichen…

…and even more moss with added lichen and ferns….

…and there was lots of lichen too….

…of many different varieties.

I like walls.  When I was very young, there was a slogan that stated “Walls have ears” to discourage talk that might be useful to an enemy agent during the war.  After several years of close examination of walls, I can safely say that they may have many interesting things on them but I have never seen any ears.

As Mrs Tootlepedal had been cooking some delicious biscuits while I was out pedalling, no weight loss has been involved in today’s activities.

The light wasn’t too bad when I got home and I half thought of adding a walk to the day’s entertainment but cycling in a chilly wind is tiring so I had a look at the birds….

…where once again goldfinches were ruling the roost…

…and then I had a short walk round the garden where I noticed the last survivor of the sweet rocket still hanging on….

…and then I went back inside and had a warming bath instead of taking any more exercise.

Mrs Tootlepedal has brought a little bit of the garden inside and one of the geraniums that flowered well outside is now on the windowsill….

…alongside an African violet, a present from a friend for our wedding anniversary in January, which has been flowering for several months.

In the evening, Luke came round and we played a Loeillet sonata.  We are going to take this sonata seriously and try to put the correct ornaments and playing style into place.  This will require me to do some learning for myself as I have always been a bit hit and miss when it come to trills, turns and mordents.

I spent some time in the evening watching political events unfold and I am very interested to see if the politicians who voted against Mrs May and lost will now take the advice which they have been freely offering to those on the losing side of the recent referendum and respect the fact that they lost the vote and shut up.   It would be a blessing.

I am not holding my breath.

The flying chaffinch of the day is very angry about the whole thing too.

 

Read Full Post »

Getting ready

Today’s guest picture comes from my sister Susan.  She was told by our brother Andrew that she might find an interesting house in Chiswick.  This was it.

As we are going to have a very long day in a bus going to Manchester to sing in our choir competition tomorrow, I had a very easy day today to try to get myself in good condition.  My face has got a lot better over the week so I won’t look quite such a fright when I am standing on stage.  This is a relief.

I had a lie in after breakfast and finally got round to topping up the bird feeder after coffee.  This stimulated a lot of action.

But the nearest that a robin got to it was peeping out from behind a leaf some distance away.

After a rainy start to the day, the weather cleared and there was even a little sunshine to encourage the birds.

I rather think that the chaffinch approaching the feeder is more concerned about getting his photo taken than shifting the siskin.  He certainly seems to be checking on where the cameraman is.

The bridge repairers turned up early and poured some concrete in the rain.  I don’t know much about concrete  (I don’t know anything about concrete to be more truthful) so I hope that getting wet doesn’t bother it.

You can see the ‘in’ and ‘out’ pipes on the pump in the picture and how close the bridge is to our house.

After lunch, Mrs Tootlepedal went off to a meeting of her Embroiders’ Guild branch and I went for a short walk which included getting some snacks for tomorrow.

There was not much in the way of views as the sun had gone in and it was rather grey so I kept my eyes down today.

There were plenty of opportunities to look at mosses….

…and for once, the light seemed to be just right for looking at catkins and tree buds.

The alder catkins are colouring up well.

I liked this oak branch near the old distillery.  There is some wood under all that lichen.

The retaining wall on the far bank of the river looks as though it might need a little work.

I crossed Skippers Bridge and walked back on the town side of the river.  There is a fence on the way which had some good lichen on it last time that I passed and it was still looking good today.

The yellow lichen is absolutely tiny and needed a really close look look.

I did my shopping and continued home.  When I was walking up Caroline Street, I noticed a quartet of ducks all having a siesta.

And on my side of the river, a little patch of jewelled moss caught my eye.

Just down the road from our bridge, there is a pile of concrete beams and I presume that these are going to make up the new bridge once the concrete has set.

I walked along the dam and crossed it by stepping stone and went through the gate into our garden.  As I went past the drying green a lone crocus stood out among the grass….

…though when I looked at the picture later, I saw that it was actually standing out in the middle of a lot of moss with hardly a blade of grass to be seen.  Did I mention that it has been a very wet year?

Looking up at the walnut tree before I went into the house, I could see a good number of starlings perched on the highest branches….

…and knowing that they like pink pellets, I put some out.  In less than ten minutes, they had scoffed the lot.

Three collared doves also visited us and I was quick enough to catch one today.

Once inside, I settled down to catch up on the Winter Olympics and the rugby and in this way, the rest of the day slipped by.  I did take time out to practise the songs for tomorrow and make some bread for sandwiches to eat during the day.

We have got to get up not long after six in the morning tomorrow so it will be an early night for us tonight.  I am not expecting to have the opportunity to post anything as we won’t get back until late.

Not one but two flying birds today, both of them goldfinches, neither of them very good pictures.  I couldn’t choose between them.

 

 

 

Read Full Post »

Low down behaviour

Today’s guest picture comes from my sister Mary who was on my brother Andrew’s birthday trip at the end of last month.  This is the Severn at Worcester.

We had a beautifully sunny morning here.  There was still a bit of snow around and as I had to go up to the Moorland Feeders to act as a fill-in feeder filler, I was a bit worried about icy roads and parked the car and walked the last section.

I needn’t have worried as the road was pretty clear…

….but with views like this….

…it was a pleasure to be on foot anyway.

The bright sunlight brought warmth to a zero degree morning and shone through the window when I sat in the hide after filling the feeders…

…but it was no help at all for taking photos so I snatched a shot of a blue tit…

…and headed home.

It was easier to watch birds there and I was pleased to see the return of a brambling. It conveniently perched in front of a male chaffinch in the plum tree so that readers can get an idea of the similarity and the difference between the two.

Then it politely moved on for an individual portrait.

I spent some time taking badly lit pictures of flying chaffinches…

…and finally found a chaffinch and (the same?) brambling who were kind enough to find a little sunshine for me.

The dam bridge repairers had got their pump going and had installed a pipe to take water over the works.

They have set up a little coffer dam on the upstream side of the ex-bridge and when there is enough water behind it, the pump leaps into action and sends it over the road and on its way.

After lunch, the sun disobligingly went in but Mrs Tootlepedal and I still went out.

We chose a three and a half mile route through the town, up Hallpath past a very mossy wall indeed…

….(where I could happily  spend time poking about on another walk) and then along the path above Skippers Bridge….

…through the oak woods….

….then down through the birch woods…

…past all sorts of exciting things….

Hair ice and liverwort

…until we got back onto the road beside the Esk.

We passed a gate which has a very ornamental stone surround but no wall at either side of it.   It must have been a meaningful gate at one time as we noticed that it has a benchmark engraved into its surround.

I took  the inevitable picture….

…and then we crossed the bridge and walked home along the Murtholm track, which is well supplied with catkins.

Then we took Easton’s walk, which had a small but elegant icicle patch…

…and finally, we went through the park and got home.

After a cup of tea, we settled down for a quiet time.

When the working party had gone home for the evening, I nipped out to check on the progress on the bridge.

Bridge?  What bridge?

In the evening, Mrs Tootlepedal went off to the Buccleuch Centre for a screening of Tosca and I went to the Day Centre for the first meeting of the year of Langholm Sings, our community choir.

Another tenor has joined the choir so I took the opportunity to sneak off and join the basses.  I had a good time, particularly because I was sitting next to my cello playing friend Mike.  He is an excellent fellow to sit beside as he is very musical and sings well.  I could relax and follow his lead.

On the minor injuries front, I can report good progress.   My face has healed up enough to let me have a shave today.  This was very welcome.

Through the good graces of Photoshop, I managed to find a bit of colour on one of the chaffinches from this morning and he is the flying bird of the day.

As you can see, the lawn is still covered with snow.

 

Read Full Post »

Unexpected

Today’s guest picture is another from the delightfully sunny walk near Little Eaton that my brother took recently.  Here he was looking across the Derwent valley.

By contrast, we were more than a little surprised to find our garden covered in snow when we woke up this morning.

There had been some loose talk of possible light snow during the day but this was a good solid inch or so.

It was delightful snow, firm and crunchy and a pleasure to walk on but I expect that the team working on our dam bridge repair didn’t find it such a treat…

…but they were soon hard at it and didn’t stop all day.

The noise of the machines when they started up kept the birds away for a while but they soon got used to it and the plum tree became very busy.

Maybe it was the snow but the birds didn’t seem entirely sure of the best way to go at  times.

Dropscone walked over to join us for a cup of coffee (and a scone) and managed to find his way to the house without crossing the bridge.  His scones were excellent today.

After he left, Mrs Tootlepedal got ready to go to the Buccleuch Centre to help with the coffee shop lunches and I went to look at the snow.

The snow had stopped and it was very still so walking was a pleasure.

I thought that I would go and see how the tree felling at the Becks wood was coming along.  I passed a gate….

….and found that a lot of trees had gone when I got to the wood.  I walked down to the Wauchope road and then back up the Hallcrofts road to look at the wood from the other side.  I was passed on the narrow road by a fully loaded timber wagon.  Luckily because of the snow, it was going very cautiously and I had plenty of time to squeeze into the hedge and let it past.

They have put a new road into the middle of the wood and I could see a vehicle carrying felled trees across the Becks Burn and up to the the stacking point.

These drivers are skilled operatives!   Higher up the wood the tree eating machine was busy organising more piles of logs to be fetched.

The forwarder arrived at the log pile shortly after me.

As you can see, there was snow everywhere but it wasn’t as thick on the hills as I had thought it would be judging from the amount we had in the garden.

There was a lot to look at….

….and I took a great number of pictures as I walked back down the road and up the hill on the other side of the Wauchope Water.

The sun threatened to come out but it didn’t quite manage it so the views, when I got up the hill, were a bit dull for the camera (but very enjoyable for me).

I looked at the turbines just over the top of the nearest hill and I was surprised to see them positively  whizzing round…

…because there was hardly a breath of wind where I was standing.  I still can’t work out why I was so perfectly sheltered but it made my walk very comfortable and I even got a little too warm as I puffed up the hill.

I came back down through the park and was pleased to find a bit of moss that hadn’t been covered up by the snow.

Mrs Tootlepedal had returned from the Buccleuch Centre just before I got home and we had a light lunch.

I had put the car into the garage for its MOT yesterday but it had needed some new parts and they had told us that it might be some time before we got it back so we were pleased when they rang up to say that it was ready.

Mrs Tootlepedal combined collecting the car with a little shopping and I watched a goldfinch paying close attention to hitting the perch exactly right…

….and enjoyed a greenfinch looking as serious as only a greenfinch can.

I should have gone for my walk in the afternoon as the sun came out then…

…but as it was,  I just looked at the view from an upstairs window and sighed a little.

The workmen on the bridge were very busy and when they left, I went out to see what they had been up to.

There is not much of our bridge left, just a steel joist on one side….

…of a big hole in the road and two pipes on the other side, one of which has our gas supply running through it.

During the day a large pump had been delivered….

….and we think that they are going to use it to pipe the dam over the works as they rebuild the bridge. The water is needed by a sheepskin treatment factory  further downstream.

We shall watch with interest.

Apart from my “beauty face”, I have got off very lightly from my fall but there is no doubt that it shook me up a little so I was happy to have a quiet end to the day.

We did pop out into the street in the early evening to watch the International Space Station flying over the town across a clear sky.  Although we have often seen the ISS, we still retain our sense of wonder at being able to watch an easily visible man made object flying across the sky more than two hundred miles above our heads and going at a speed of 17,000 mph.

I found a moment to watch a flying chaffinch during the day.

Read Full Post »