Today’s picture shows my sister Susan on Mt Taranaki in New Zealand where she is visiting friends and linking up with my brother and his wife who are also there. He sent me this picture.
We were just as sunny as that today but we were a lot colder and I had to break the ice on the pond again. I was pleased to see that at least one frog has survived the cold snap.
A frog among the ice floes
Yet again, the very cold weather and chilly wind kept me off the bicycle. Sandy came for coffee and after he left, I found that the sun had softened the front lawn enough to spike about a quarter of it. I was pleased to get it started but it showed me that I was wise to avoid cycling as the effort laid my breathing low and I had to take my relieving inhaler and have a good sit down to recover. It is very frustrating as February was such a good month for cycling that I have been feeling quite fit but it doesn’t take long for the fitness to slip away again.
While I was waiting for Sandy to come round, I was able to watch a robin taking steps to get to the seed feeder.
All the shots are of the same bird at the same time.
Mrs Tootlepedal was working again and I shook myself out of my chair just before she came home for lunch and captured this pair of siskins in the plum tree…
…and this richly coloured crocus.
After lunch, Mrs Tootlepedal went off to a meeting on the future of the town and just after she had gone, Sandy reappeared and we decided to go on a little tour in the sunshine. I had hoped to go down to Gretna and take some pictures of the Lake District hills across the Solway but time was against me as I had a meeting later in the afternoon.
We decided on a more local visit and our route took us over the White Yett and onto the moor. We stopped to admire some of the wild goats who were feeding close to the road.
You don’t often get the chance to see them so close to the road. They got fed up with us snapping away and stomped off in high dudgeon.
One with horns up and one with horns down.
We drove on down to the Tarras and turned up the river and drove on until we came literally to the end of the road at Lodgegill.
There was a still a little snow on a north facing ridge.
But looking in the other direction gave us a snow free view.
This is open country with not much to interrupt a view.
There are a few farm buildings. These are sheep sheds.
There are a lot of sheep.
But there are a lot of hills too.
Sandy was busy with his camera and I have no doubt that a visit to his blog sometime soon will show you what he saw on our walk. (He was going to the evening version of the meeting that Mrs Tootlepedal went to in the afternoon so it may be a day or two until the pictures appear.)
On our way back home over the moor, we got a tantalising glimpse of the Lake District hills in the distance.
I was really sorry that I hadn’t had time to get a better picture of them but I had enjoyed our stroll at Lodgegill very much and I was very pleased to have seen the goats so I shan’t complain.
In spite of some serious potholes, we got home safely and while Sandy went home, I went off to my meeting (Mrs Tootlepedal was cleaning out the greenhouse). The meeting had been called so that three of us from the choir could go down to Kirkandrews church to check that it would be suitable for a choir concert which we are hoping to hold in June. We were accompanied by a church representative.
This was the same church which Sandy and I had visited ten days or so ago.
Gillian, the church representative, pointed out some triangular stones from the original church which are now on the wall round the present building.
As the ‘new’ church was built in 1775, these must be quite old stones.
Gillian took us inside and although I have been in the building before, I was bowled over by what a fine interior the church has.
It has a very pretty ceiling.
Gillian has said that I may go down again and try to take some better pictures when I have more time and a tripod. (For those of a grammatical bent, that last phrase is a fine example of a semantic syllepsis and I was pleased to get an opportunity to use one.)
We decided that it would be a very good venue for our concert and returned home in a cheerful state of mind.
In the evening we met again at the usual choir meeting. This was slightly less than satisfactory because thanks to the demands of the operatic society’s forthcoming production next week, only one soprano turned up and she was naturally a bit reluctant to sing by herself. Somehow we managed to find enough music to sing to have a quiet but enjoyable evening. Nevertheless, we did decide to abandon next week’s meeting which will be in the middle of the performance week of the show.
The flying bird of the day is entirely traditional.
