Feeling blue

Today’s guest picture comes from my Somerset correspondent, Venetia. She enjoyed watching this black bird trying to satisfy the large appetites of its youngsters.

We had another in our current run of cool but sunny days here today. It felt a bit cooler than yesterday, because the north easterly wind was a bit stronger, but all the same, no one was complaining. It didn’t rain!

In the morning Mrs Tootlepedal went off to visit her hairdresser, while Dropscone came round to enjoy a cup or two of Brazilian coffee with me. Dropscone was remarkably cheery considering that he is still far from fully active. He has been well enough to walk up to the golf course, but he is not up to swinging a club just yet.

When he left, I had a quick look at the birds and the bee . . .

. . . and when I saw a Spanish bluebell, I was motivated to go and see if our native bluebells, or ‘craties’ as the locals call them, were looking at their best yet. The walk up to the Stubholm was lovely . . .

. . . and the bluebells were looking pretty good. They will be better I think, but I took a lot of pictures anyway.

I came cautiously back by the damaged riverside path . . .

. . . and found wild garlic, wood anemones and bracket fungus along the way, with golden saxifrage and a modest daisy when I got to the park. I counted that as a good value outing.

When I got home, we had some Scotch broth for our lunch, and after that, we went out into the garden.

Mrs Tootlepedal was working on a flower bed and path edge, and I mowed the middle lawn and strimmed the raised vegetable beds.

It seemed like a good afternoon for a cycle ride, but the north easterly wind felt quite strong, so I took my electric bike out to help me get home against the wind. The weather looked a bit threatening as I set off . . .

. . . but it stayed dry and it was often sunny as I went round a 30 mile circle by Gair and Kirkpatrick Fleming. There was a lot to see by the roadside as I went, more wild garlic, a gorse hedge, aubretia in Gair, cowslips on the old A74, and the first red campion of the year.

It was a very clear day and the views across the Solway were good too.

We had seen some impressive roadside dandelions on our drive to the dentist in Annan yesterday, so I chose a route today which crossed the motorway and the old road which now runs beside it, in the hope of seeing some dandelions when I joined the old road.

On the way home from Kirkpatrick Fleming, I couldn’t resists another look at the Korean Pines at Half Morton. There was hardly an inch of pine without a male flower or a cone on it.

I took this picture, which may at first look unremarkable . . .

. . . but the enlargement below shows that the haze on the right is the cloud of pollen that flew off the tree when the branch was disturbed.

With the wind behind me, I had whizzed round the first fifteen miles, looking around and using only a fifth of the battery charge. With the wind against me from Kirpatrick Fleming to home, I kept my head down, got rather cold, and used two fifths of the battery charge to go the same distance. I was really glad that I had not been tempted by the sunshine to discard my warmest cycling clothing. I needed every layer.

It stayed sunny all the way back to Langholm though, and I was welcomed home by Mrs Tootlepedal’s tulips.

After some busy days and an afternoon of cycling and gardening, we were happy to settle for a quiet night in.

The flying bird of the day is that foraging bumble bee visiting the trillium.

Footnote: Sorry about all the pictures. I am addicted.

Potatoes, purchases and peat

Today’s guest picture comes from my sister Mary. She and my brother Andrew visited the Royal Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels on their recent rip to Belgium.

We woke up to another sunny day here, with no sign of early morning frost. We made the best of the morning by setting to and getting the big vegetable bed ready for potato planting. After lying under plastic and cardboards all winter, the bed needed to be weeded and gently dug over, before home made compost and garden centre farm manure were spread where the potatoes will be planted. I sieved the compost and Mrs Tootlepedal made everything very neat when we had finished.

A blackbird kept an eye on us as we toiled, and popped in for snacks whenever we paused for a moment.

Her friend sat on the hedge again.

This took us all morning, with a break for coffee and a quick look at the birds. It was comparatively quiet when I first looked out . . .

. . . but things soon hotted up . . .

. . . and chaffinches flew in from every side, sometimes to a chilly reception.

After the gardening was finished, I had a quick walk round before I went in for lunch.

After lunch, there was just time for me to go for a three bridges walk before we took a visit to Annan to see the dentist and do some shopping.

I had hoped to see waterside birds, but they were very scarce, perhaps because of a dog walker playing with his dog at the water’s edge. I did see a wagtail making off up the river at the Kilngreen . . .

. . . and two mallards exchanging views about intrusive photographers . . .

. . . but otherwise I had to make do with riverside cherry blossom and various spring pictures on a sunny day. It was no hardship.

I always like to check on the noble fir on the Castleholm.

At this point of my walk, I caught up with my friend Margaret Pool, and we chatted for the rest of the way back.

I got home in nice time to get ready to go to Annan. We used to be able to visit our dentist for free in his surgery in Langholm. Now, thanks to progress, we have to drive twenty miles to pay for a visit to see him in his surgery in Annan. The visit went well, though I will need to go again next month for a small filling (and a big bill).

While we were in Annan, we visited a supermarket and bought what felt like enough food to feed a small army for a week.

We got home just in time to cycle round to the Buccleuch Centre to attend an illustrated and very educational talk on peat restoration and carbon capture organised by the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve people The talk was given by a couple of people from the Crichton Carbon Centre in Dumfries. It was a real eye opener. One of the interesting things that the talker told us was that he knows a contractor who is currently damming up drains on a peat moor that were dug by his own father a generation ago when government grants encouraged the destruction of the natural environment.

We were ready for our evening meal when we got home after what had been a busy day. We even washed it down with a small can of Italian beer shared between us. High living.

The flying bird of the day is a female chaffinch.

An up and down day

Today’s guest picture is the last from my brother Andrew’s trip to Spain. He is back in England today. It shows the El Retiro Park in Madrid where the queues for ice creams were very long.

We had a dry and relatively warm day here today (6°C at breakfast and 13° in the middle of the day), but it wasn’t quite warm enough early in the day to tempt me to rush out on my bike straight after breakfast. It took me a couple of hours to get organised and get going. There was a light north wind blowing, and I spent too much time pondering on the best route for a day out on my push bike. Should I get a quick start south and end up pushing into the wind on my way home, should I go west and have a crosswind all day, or should I go north, start slowly and get a bit of a push home?

In the end I opted for the northerly route, and headed up through Bentpath and Eskdalemuir towards the county boundary at 1100ft, with a view of going as far down the hill on the other side as I thought was sensible before coming back by the same route.

And that is what I did. I crossed the river Esk at Bentpath . . .

. . . and then crossed it again at Enzieholm, before taking the back road to Eskdalemuir via Bailliehill and Castle O’er. I saw some unusually pale peltigera lichen beside the Bailliehill road

It is always a pleasure to cycle up to Eskdalemuir and the county boundary, even into the wind.

And the road down to Etterick beside the Tima Water is one of my favourites. It drops 300 feet gently over five miles, which is welcome after the steady climb up from Langholm to the county boundary.

The Esk flows into the Solway Firth and then the Irish Sea, but the Tima joins the Etterick Water which in turn joins the River Tweed and flows into the North Sea on the other side of Scotland. Etterick was as far as I went today. I had a snack, and my bike had a rest there while I enjoyed the view..

Cycling back up the Tima vally was a treat. The gradient is so sympathetic that with the wind behind me, it only took me a minute longer to cycle the five miles and 320 feet of climbing back up to the county boundary than it had taken me to cycle down. All hills should be like this. The bridge in the picture below leads to a nature reserve which I would like to explore one day.

From the top of the hill, I whizzed back down through Eskdalemuir until I got to the Crurie Brae, This was the steepest hill of my trip with 300 ft of climbing in a mile. I slowed down to walking pace and went up it as gently as I could. I was half way up the hill when I was stopped in my tracks by loud roaring. As I stood there, a convoy of about ten sports cars raced by me making very rude noises. Boys will be boys. Recovering my poise, I got going again and started to hear loud buzzing. When I stopped again and looked up, I could see a drone in the sky above me.

As it hovered there, another tranche of the sporty cars zipped past . . .

. . . and the drone went with them.

When I got further up the hill, I passed the two men who were operating the drone, and a little further on, I noticed that the drone seemed to be following me for a while. I wonder if I will appear as an amusing contrast to the speedy cars when the drone footage is edited.

As I was doing some speeding myself down the long hill towards Enzieholm, I was passed by a third clump of cars. I don’t what they were doing.

The last eight miles home were hard work, with several little hills to climb on the way down to Langholm. I noticed some very bright cowslips, and I looked at Westerkirk Church again. . .

. . . and I had a stop at 50 miles to have a drink of water before the final hill, and let Mrs Tootlepedal know that I was nearly home.

Mrs Tootlepedal put the kettle on, and we had a walk round the garden to see what she had been doing while I was out while the tea brewed. A lot.

I couldn’t help but notice that the tulips had enjoyed their sunny day. (One of the tulips may be a bergenia.) It was good to see them all open.

After drinking my tea, I refilled the feeder and a few birds turned up to take some late seeds.

We cooked a smoked sausage risotto for our evening meal, and both felt satisfactorily tired after a busy day when we had eaten it.

The flying bird of the day is a chaffinch.

Coffee, cake and a quick circle

Today’s guest picture is another from my brother’s current visit to Spain. This is a monument in Madrid. The sculptural group in its centre represents Cybele, a Phrygian earth and fertility deity. What she is doing in Madrid is a mystery.

We had much warmer overnight temperatures today, and it was mild enough for me to consider whether I needed my coat when I walked up to have coffee with Sandy in the morning. I took it just in case.

I looked round the garden before I left, and found a familiar figure perched on the hedge. It is his home from home.

Sandy was in good form, just having had a weekend visit from his two grandsons which he had thoroughly enjoyed. He made the pot of strong coffee, and after we had had a good chat, I walked home with a spring in my step.

While I had been busy drinking and talking, the birds had been busy nibbling at the feeder, and they were still going at full speed when I came back.

Some birds waited patiently in the wings.

Among the visitors, I spotted a ringed siskin.

I dead headed some daffodils in the garden, trimmed a hedge, and then went in to make a gingerbread in the air fryer. After lunch, Mrs Tootlepedal went off to meeting about creating an embroidered artwork to celebrate the community buy out of the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve, while I did some mowing while waiting for the gingerbread.

Because I was using the steam bake function, I had miscalculated how long it would take the gingerbread to cook. When it finally came out, I didn’t have as much time as I had hoped for an afternoon cycle ride. Instead of going for a leisurely spin on my push bike, I ended up going for a quick dash round Canonbie on my electric bike.

There had been enough rain for me to take the washing in before I left, but as I had sensibly put on my wet weather cycling gear, the weather gods made sure that it kept dry for my ride. It was still a grey day though . . .

. . . but there were hopeful sights tucked away as I went round.

I saw early signs of greater stitchwort . . .

. . . and Jack by the hedge . . .

. . . which should soon be lining my cycle routes.

I used my electrical assistance freely any time I approached something that even looked like a hill, and at the same time I pedalled as hard as I could, both uphill and down, with the result that I actually got home quite early, and met Mrs Tootlepedal coming into the house at exactly the same time as I did.

After a test slice of the gingerbread and a cup of tea, we had a Zoom meeting with our son Alistair and his daughter Matilda. Matilda turned ten at the weekend, and she herself had decorated her birthday cake, prepared by her father and mother, in very fine fashion.

Photo courtesy of Alistair

After the Zoom, I went for a walk round the garden. There was nothing new out, but still plenty to please the eye.

While I was out in the garden, I saw that the birds were visiting the feeder even though I was quite close by. Usually they make themselves scarce if we are close, but I had just refilled the feeder, and perhaps that was why they ignored me today. Tulips made a colourful background for goldfinches, siskins and chaffinches.

It is not often that I take pictures of the feeder which are not shot through a window.

It was soon time for our next Zoom, this time with my sisters in England and my brother who joined us from Spain. He was recovering both from an enormous amount of walking yesterday, and viewing a vast number of paintings today. He likes to get full value from his visits.

As we had a surplus of eggs needing to be used up, I made omelettes for our evening meal, and that ended what had been quite a busy day for us both.

The flying birds of the day are a goldfinch and a siskin, seen from the garden.

Lots of hugs

Today’s guest picture is another from my brother Andrew. He is currently in Spain, where he saw this wonderful Roman aqueduct in Segovia yesterday.

We had a full day here today, with church in the morning, walking round the garden afterwards, and a visit to the ancient oaks in Longwood in the afternoon. The sun didn’t shine, but because the wind was very light, it made the day feel warm and pleasant. It did rain from time to time. In fact it rained quite a lot of the time, but mostly at a rate of one drop a minute, so we were able to ignore it.

The better weather made me lose my head a bit, and I took a ridiculous amount of photographs. I have thrown most of them away, but I am still left with too many for a proper post, so generally I am sticking them in galleries without much comment. Click on a picture if you want a better look at it.

There were just four of us in the church choir today, but we sang an introit. In the course of the service, I read two lessons and the sermon provided by our part time minister so I was kept busy.

The walk round the garden after coffee was very rewarding, both for the tulips . . .

. . . and the other flowers, including our first trillium of the year. The winter heather continues to star, and apple and gooseberry are showing promise. I found an undamaged magnolia flower too.

After lunch, we went up to Longwood to do some tree hugging. Mrs Tootlepedal is helping to record every old oak in the wood, and this was the first time that she has been able to add to her tally for a year, so it was a notable occasion. I noted it.

The tree hugging involves measuring, accurate GPS location, photography and recording details of the tree. The gallery includes the walk to the wood from the car, things we saw on and around the trees, the trees that Mrs Tootlepedal recorded, and the walk back.

There was a lot of birdsong in the woods, and my Merlin bird app told me that among the singers were some willow warblers. We think that we spotted a willow warbler, actually sitting in a willow, as we went back to the car. I was using my pocket camera so that final picture in the gallery above was my best effort.

It was not a quick business, and we spent two hours recording the three oaks. It was a pleasure to be among these trees though, so we didn’t mind at all.

We had driven up to Broomholmshiels to get to the wood, and we didn’t go straight home when we were finished, but took a little diversion to the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve bird hide nearby. They have put a lot of feeders up there, and volunteers are keeping them filled. I was able to spend a happy half hour lurking in the hide while Mrs Tootlepedal sat in the car with binoculars and scanned the horizon for raptors.

There were many small birds about.

. . . and a pheasant, after giving me the cold shoulder . . .

. . . repented . . .

. . . and came up close to get his picture taken. He was joined by his more subdued lady friend.

They have put a small reflection pool in front of the hide, and I had fun trying to take pictures of chaffinches when they weren’t being photobombed by other chaffinches. The reflections would have worked better if it hadn’t been raining! Another visit to the hide is on the cards.

Amidst all this activity, you will be glad to know that I only had a moment to look at our own birds during the day.

As far as eating went, it was a leeky day. I made potato and leek soup for lunch, and Mrs Tootlepedal made savoury rice and leeks for our evening meal. All in all, definitely one of those days entered with gratitude on the credit side of the great ledger of life.

The flying bird of the day is a photobombing chaffinch at the reflection pool.

Meeting a new friend

Today’s guest picture comes from our son Tony. It shows his dog Milo resting in our garden today.

As the attentive reader will have gathered from today’s guest picture, we had visitors. Our son Tony and his partner Marianne brought their dog Milo to visit us. As a special treat for us, they also bought their new dog, Penny, to make our acquaintance. We were very pleased to see them all, and fortunately the day was fine enough for us to be able to have coffee in the garden and go for a walk in the woods afterwards.

A tulip summed up the cheerful weather.

The day had started off below freezing at -2°C, but by the time that our visitors had arrived from East Wemyss, we were up to 8°, and with the sun out, the wind being very light and not from the north, sitting outside was a pleasure.

Milo found interesting places to explore while we chatted . . .

. . . and Penny got to know us.

After we had had our coffee, we got into Tony’s car, and he drove us down to Canonbie where we did the walk that Mrs Tootlepedal and I had tried the other day when we had been driven back by rain. Today, the walk was dry and most enjoyable and we got the whole way round.

We started off through the woods beside the sawmill. I promptly managed to trip over my own shoelaces and fell over almost as soon as we had started, but I bounced well, and we continued on.

There is a good path through the woods, and a kindly set of steps to help the older walker up the steepest part of the hill.

We got to the the road and turned to walk back down the track beside the Byre Burn. There was plenty to see along the way. We could smell the wild garlic even though the buds haven’t opened yet.

When we got home, Mrs Tootlepedal cooked a meal of roast chicken and three veg for a late lunch. The air fryer did a really good job on the chicken.

The new tulip bed had survived the early morning frosts and was looking good, both collectively and individually.

I sneaked a look at the birds while the cooking was going on, and found the usual busy feeder with chaffinches mostly approaching from the right, and goldfinches from the left.

After lunch, the others settled down to watch the Scottish Grand National on the telly, and I popped out for a short cycle ride round Canonbie. Since the wind was light, I used my push bike and thoroughly enjoyed the better conditions. I didn’t want to take too long, so I only stopped for one picture, a field of dandelions, about which the farmer may have mixed feelings.

After our substantial lunch, we had a very light evening meal.

It was good to see that Penny felt quite comfortable on her visit, and she looked a little sad when it was time for her to go home.

I took a final tulip picture of the day while our guests were getting ready to leave . . .

. . . and then we waved them goodbye. We really appreciated their kindness in driving well over 200 miles to come and see how we were getting on. All the better for seeing them was the answer.

The flying bird of the day is one of the goldfinches entering from the left.

A pedal and a tootle

Today’s guest picture comes from my brother Andrew. He has left the puddles of Bruges behind, and has settled for some sunshine in Spain, with a couple of well known gents to admire in Madrid.

It didn’t freeze overnight, which was very welcome, but the cold northerly wind was still very evident as I walked up to the town to buy milk and honey. I took a slightly roundabout route in the hope of seeing some waterside birds, but there were none about. My consolation was a cheerful view of the poplars on the river bank in the park past the church.

I walked around the garden when I got home in the hope of spotting a bee or two at work. The bees really like our dicentras, and you can see from the damage to the petals, that unlike the one in the picture, they often drill through from the side to get at the pollen.

Mrs Tootlepedal found a broken tulip, and brought it into the kitchen. She thought it would make a good subject for photography.

Later in the morning, I looked at the birds, and among the usual to and fro . . .

. . . I found several redpolls visiting the feeder.

By this time, the day had warmed up a bit, and the sun had encouraged Mrs Tootlepedal’s new tulips to lift their heads.

Her old tulips weren’t doing too badly either.

And we were delighted to see a peacock butterfly warming itself up on the drive.

After lunch, Mrs Tootlepedal went back out into the garden and I went off for a bike ride. It was far from warm in the brisk northerly wind so I felt quite happy to take my electric bike out. To make sure life wasn’t too easy for me, I set off up onto the moor with the wind across or slightly against me. I passed two goats . . .

. . . and crossed the bridge at the heart of the Tarras Valley Nature Reserve . . .

. . . on my way to the country boundary at 1140ft, where I paused to take in the view.

It had been a tough start to the ride, even with electric help, and I used a fifth of my battery charge in my first seven miles. From the top of the hill down into Newcastleton, I was still battling with the breeze, but I had gravity on my side and I could pedal without assistance. Once I got onto the road south down to Canonbie, the brisk wind was a great help, and I used as little electricity as I could. The evidence that I was quite successful was to be found in the fact that I did another 18 miles before the next fifth of the battery charge had been used up. I enjoyed myself.

I didn’t stop much but I liked a blackthorn hedge beside the road . . .

. . . and having seen some yellow archangel in our garden, I have got my archangel eye in, and I was surprised to find that I must have passed a large roadside clump near Canonbie many times without noticing it before.

Every day, more spring is springing. I could see green leaves from the Hollows Bridge without any need for imagination today.

Mrs Tootlepedal was still working in the garden when I got back from my 26 mile ride, but she came in to join me over a cup of tea and a slice of bran loaf. We spotted a bee on a dandelion before we went in.

There was a bit of excitement after tea, when the fire brigade was called out by the care company that keeps an eye on our neighbour Margaret. Some cooking fumes had set off her fire alarm, and she wasn’t able to turn the alarm off before the care company had called the fire brigade. The care company also called Mrs Tootlepedal, and we went round to find that Margaret had turned the alarm off, no fire had been started, and the fire engine was on its way. It filled the road when it came.

The fireman were very cheery, and gave Margaret’s kitchen a thorough check to see that there was nothing secretly burning, and calm returned to Wauchope Street. Margaret was somewhat mortified to have caused all this fuss, but we all thought that it was very good to know that the system designed to look out for her was in fact working well. To be fair, the fire engine had only had to come 200 yards. We live quite near the fire station.

In the evening, our friends Mike and Alison came round, and while Mike and Mrs Tootlepedal caught up on the news, Alison and I played two divisions to a ground and two sonatas for recorder and keyboard. It was an excellent way to end an interesting day.

I was tempted to use two slightly sinister unmarked helicopters which twice flew low over the town . . .

. . . as the flying birds of the day, but a sunny chaffinch was a more suitable candidate for the job.

A tootle but no pedal

Today’s guest picture was sent to me by our daughter Annie. She has been in warm foreign parts lately where she encountered this bird. It is definitely not a chaffinch.

By contrast, it was freezing here when we got up this morning. Although it warmed up a little, it never got very warm, and it started to rain just as Dropscone came round for coffee. It didn’t stop for the rest of the useful day.

Mrs Tootlepedal’s tulips survived the frost, but were not looking particularly happy when I checked on them.

It didn’t rain very hard until the very moment when I thought that I might go for a wet walk. At that moment, it rained just hard enough for just long enough to persuade me to stay indoors. Then it went back to being a miserable drizzle again.

It was suitable weather for watching the birds, which I did on and off through the morning.

It was very good to see Dropscone, who was fit enough not only to walk round for coffee, but to carry four of his excellent treacle scones with him. He is much cheerier than he was when I last saw him in his hospital ward. He has realised that he was probably feeling a bit under the weather for quite a bit before he was officially declared ill, so he is optimistic that he will make good progress now.

When he left, I had another look at the birds, and was pleased to spot a redpoll among the chaffinches.

Then I settled down to put a couple of weeks of the newspaper index into the Archive Group database either side of lunch, having abandoned hopes for my walk.

I organised some music for our recorder group, and cooked a beef stew by traditional methods for our evening meal.

After our evening meal, my recorder playing friend Susan, who is also Dropscone’s daughter, very kindly arrived to drive me to our recorder group meeting, and we had a most enjoyable time playing early music at Sue’s house near Brampton.

Although we are going to have a couple of chilly nights, it looks as though we might be in for a week of better weather from Sunday onwards. Mrs Tootlepedal will hope that this gives the garden a chance to dry out and warm up the soil a bit. It has not been good gardening weather lately, and she is feeling deprived. Some lighter winds would make me very happy too.

The flying bird of the day is a chaffinch.

Feeling powerful

Today’s guest picture comes from our son Tony. All was sunny today in East Wemyss to say the least.

The temperature here had dropped to just about freezing overnight, but it had started to rise before we got up, so we were able to ignore that, and pretend it was another spring day. This became harder when we went outside and felt the embrace of a very chilly north wind. I did catch a picture of the early bird with its worm . . .

. . . but we were in no rush to get out and about.

I found some Archive Group work to do, and took pictures of birds through the window at various times through the morning..

Mrs Tootlepedal had a parcel to post, and we did think of taking a cycle ride down to the post office in Canonbie just for the sake of an outing, but the north wind made it uninviting. In the end, Mrs Tootlepedal pedalled up to the town where our occasional post office was open today, and posted her parcel there. While she was doing that, I wandered round the garden, dead headed a lot of daffodils, and took a few pictures.

It had warmed up a bit by the time that we had had our lunch, so Mrs Tootlepedal went out into the garden, and I went out into the wider world. The north wind was blowing at about 20 mph, so I considered it prudent to take my electric bike as I had quite a hilly ride in mind.

I had some thoughts about the wisdom of the whole enterprise as I went past the Gates of Eden . . .

. . . but I kept going north into the wind and soon got used to it.

The verges are springing to life, and I saw bluebells, cuckoo flowers and celandine as I pedalled up from Bentpath past Georgefield.

When I got to Enzieholm Bridge, I had a choice between going directly to Bailliehill, or adding ten miles to my journey by continuing up to Eskdalemuir before coming back to Bailliehill down the other side of the river. The electric bike made my mind up by saying that it fancied the longer route, so off I went up the Shaw Rigg to Eskdalemuir. The sun came out to cheer me up, and I enjoyed the extra miles a lot.

The upper Esk valley is very beautiful on a sunny day, and I stopped at the Girdle Stanes to look at the stone circle and enjoy the view . .

. . . crossed the river at Eskdalemuir . . .

. . . and paused at the ancient Watcarrick graveyard on my way back down.

I might have stayed there longer, looking for interesting lichen, if there hadn’t been some threatening grey clouds looming up behind me, encouraging me to get a move on.

I reckoned that with the wind behind me and electric power to get me up the little hills on my way, I would be able to outrun any shower that was coming. I pressed on, stopping for just one moment to enjoy the view down the valley . . .

. . . and spurred on by some hailstones as I went past the Crossdykes windfarm, which you can just see in the background of the picture above.

I was expecting a tough time from the wind when I turned for home at Paddockhole, but it was kinder than I expected. I had been along this road a few days ago, and either my eyes were shut or they have planted a lot of new trees on a hillside along the way since then. They were hard to miss today.

Encouraged by the relatively friendly wind, I didn’t go straight home over Callister, but took a route which led me up to Snab Corner and then home by way of Solwaybank, the fifth wind farm that I had passed on my ride.

I passed some decorative hedges . . .

. . . a very green spread of coppiced willow . . .

. . . and a fine cloudscape over the wind farm.

I was a bit worried when a few drops of rain made me think that the rain shower might be catching me up, but my luck held . . .

. . . and I got home tired, but dry and happy. The last three or four miles into the wind were quite taxing, electric help or no electric help.

Mrs Tootlepedal had had a few drops of rain in the garden too, but they hadn’t stopped her doing a lot of useful work on weeding the soft fruit cage.

We walked round the garden in the early evening sunshine after I had had a cup of tea and some cake. Mrs Tootlepedal’s new tulips are looking very promising . . .

. . . and we can only hope that they will be strong enough to survive a couple of cold nights which are on their way.

I append a clickable map of today’s outing to help make sense of my meanderings. You can see from the total ascent why I took my electric bike on a windy day. It was far from warm but I was well wrapped up.

The flying bird of the day is a very welcome bumble bee doing its best to pollinate the newly weeded gooseberry bush.

A spring in our step

Today’s guest picture comes from my sister Mary. She and my brother Andrew visited Ghent today. Mary makes the most of living near the Eurostar terminal in London.

We had a fine day today, and if you could keep out of the north wind, it felt like spring. It was a morning of Margarets, as our day started with a visit from Margaret Pool who wanted to check that her laptop would work with the Initiative projector as she is hosting an illustrated talk later this week. Everything went well, and she went off well prepared for her meeting. She kindly left us some really delicious home made macaroon slices which we ate with our neighbour Margaret when she joined us at coffee time.

Between the Margarets, I slipped out for a three bridges walk. Thanks to the sunny weather, I took far too many pictures today so I am stuffing them in galleries and if a picture catches your eye, you can click on it to see the full size version. There were birds on my walk . . .

. . . and various flowers, cones and leaves . . .

. . . and of course, a bridge.

After our neighbour Margaret left, Mrs Tootlepedal made curried parsnip soup for our lunch and I made a bran loaf.

There was also time for a little Archive Group work while the soup was cooking, and for a look at the tulips in the garden which were liking the sunny day as much as we were.

The birds were their usual selves so I only took a couple of pictures today..

After lunch, I got out the mower and tidied up the bank on our side of the dam behind the house, and then did the same to the vegetable garden paths.

We are trying to strike a balance between letting things grow and keeping things neat.

I spotted a rather shifty looking pigeon under the feeder, when I went back in.

Then I left Mrs Tootlepedal to do some gardening while I went off on my push bike to enjoy the sunshine. There was a north wind blowing, noticeable but not too strong, so I headed north up the main road, hoping to get a good push in the back on my way home.

For some strange reason it is always easier to stop to look at the view when you are going uphill and into the wind, so I enjoyed a few hills and burns on my way to Mosspaul and beyond.

The traffic was light, and two sets of traffic lights on the way meant that what traffic there was came past me in little groups, leaving me peacefully on my own for the rest of the time.

I passed two villages halls, one at Ewes and one at Teviothead . . .

. . . and visited the church at Teviothead with its well kept graveyard too.

My dream of being pushed rapidly home by the wind lasted for the five miles back from Teviothead to Mosspaul. A few drops of rain there indicated that I was catching up with a rain shower . . .

. . . so I very wisely paused for a while and had a snack.

From Mosspaul onwards, the wind came from the side, and I didn’t go as fast as I had expected. This turned out to be a very good thing. I soon found myself pedalling over decidedly wet roads, and it was obvious that I was following a heavy shower down the valley. The cross wind meant that I never quite caught up with it, and the sun was out again by the time that I got back to Langholm.

Mrs Tootlepedal had enjoyed her gardening in the sun, and had missed the shower too, so we were both happy.

It was a treat to walk round the garden with Mrs Tootlepedal in the early evening, and I took the opportunity to record Mrs Tootlepedal’s drain, which is both elegant and working very well.

The fine weather is going to bring us a couple of chilly nights. We are keeping our fingers crossed that it doesn’t get too cold and discourage the tulips.

The flying bird of a very satisfactory day is a sunny chaffinch.