Mostly indoors

Today's tall and thin guest picture comes from my sister Mary who passed this tall and thin pub a few days ago. My sister Susan had a meal in it last year and wrote about it in her post, which you can find

We have had generally pretty poor weather since the start of August and that pattern was repeated today with the only alteration being that it was slightly worse than usual with a lot of drizzly rain and a strong wind for most of the day.

Under the circumstances, after a quick visit to the shop on my shopping bike in light rain, I was happy to waste a lot of time doing nothing very much indoors.

As always on a wet day though, there are birds to keep me entertained and when I first looked out, I saw a pigeon....

Pigeons are large and stand still, but because of the wind and rain, I had to keep the window shut today and between that and the poor light, getting crisp shots of smaller moving birds was beyond me. Still, there was a lot to watch.

The feeder was mostly quite busy and chaffinches had to wait their turn in the fake tree.

Sometimes they got a rude welcome when they tried to get a perch but this one managed to peck up a seed and make off with it...

Sometimes greenfinches passed serenely by...

At one time, it all got too much to record individually...

...but at other times, it was more peaceful (though the greenfinch still didn't look happy).

Looking at the river when I got to it..

..you would not have believed what a miserable day it had been only a few minutes earlier.

When I got down to the Kilngreen, the ducks certainly thought that this was good weather for ducks...

.but a sinuous bench looked as though the wet weather has been getting to it a bit.

I didn't have a lot of time to spare for my walk so rather than hang about looking for things to look at, I just toddled along enjoying the sunshine....

.noting easily observable signs of the changing season...

.and some of the fine selection of plants growing out of the Scholar's Field wall.

I passed Liz's garden on my way home and was impressed by her Russian vine.

The sun was still out as I went through our gate and the nasturtiums gave me a cheerful welcome home smile.

I had taken a picture of a dahlia as I set out on my walk and I took another one when I got back. It will take quite a bit more fine weather before they begin to dry out.

The flying bird of the day is one of those hopeful chaffinches.