progress

Today's guest picture comes from my sister Mary who has been enjoying her walks up to Kenwood recently. She had this fine view of the grounds on Wednesday.

Today's guest picture comes from my sister Mary who has been enjoying her walks up to Kenwood recently. She had this fine view of the grounds on Wednesday.

We had a cool, grey morning here today, definitely feeling like autumn a lot more than like late summer. It stayed dry though, but with the temperature failing to get above 60°C, it never got very welcoming outside.

Unusually, I started to watch the birds soon after breakfast when activity at the feeder caught my eye. The fake tree was in full use as a waiting room and I saw both a great tit...

...and a coal tit there.

I did see a blue tit too but as I didn't get a picture of it, I shan't mention that.

The great tit made it to the feeder.

Most of the action came from sparrows, and I like the way that the two on the right of the feeder are anxious to keep abreast of what is happening round the corner.

Sometimes you get a potential flying bird of the day but feeder furniture intervenes in the picture

We had an excellent garden coffee meeting as Margaret was joined by Sandy and Nancy. Sandy and Nancy had been busy making digital copies of obituaries and death notices from the newspaper for a visitor to our Archive Group website who had asked for them. It is always very satisfying when someone makes use of the newspaper index which Nancy and her fellow data miners have transcribed and Sandy, Sandra and I have entered into the database. Especially when, as happened in this case, the enquirer recognises how much work has gone into producing the website.

New lockdown regulations have been brought in today and we probably couldn't have had the meeting tomorrow, so it was lucky that we got it in when we did, even if we had to wear coats to keep warm while we sat and chatted.

After coffee, I wandered round the garden for ten minutes doing a some sporadic dead heading and photographing.

The pale poppies have certainly made the dead heading worthwhile and continue to delight.

In spite of the chilly feel to the day, it was good to see a hoverfly visiting the Crown Princess..

...and several red admirals on the buddleia.

was busy removing more of the hedge between the house and the front lawn and in the process, dead headed a sunflower.

I dissected the head.

The fuchsia by the dam, which was looking decidedly poorly in the spring, has responded very well to being seriously cut back

....and we are going to try to keep it from getting too large for its own good again.

I took a picture of the Michaelmas daisies which constitute a colourful corner all by themselves..

the very last of the Sweet Williams..

..the dahlia of the day

and two contrasting...

...but both very red things.

And then feeling that that was ten minutes well spent, I went in to have lunch.

After lunch, I spent two hours not going cycling before I finally managed to get myself into my cycling gear. Even then I was distracted by another curious sparrow....

...and the possibility of joining Mrs Tootlepedal in watching today's stage of the Tour.

I did finally get my bike out though, and found that my sore hip was cured and that my legs were ready for action.

I went to check on the progress of the turbines at the new windfarm and my first glimpse showed me that work was going on. I pedalled on round to the other side where I could get a better look but found that the crane had stopped working when I got there.

However, I did realise that this was the fifth turbine and if you look at the header picture for today's post, you will see that four turbines have now been completed. I didn't go round my usual 21 mile route but turned off down the hill at Solwaybank to add a few miles to my journey. At the start of the service road to the windfarm, I met an enormous road roller

The chap putting the roller on the trailer told me that he had been flattening the new road as turbine blades are being delivered every day just now. He said that he would hire the roller to me if I wanted, but sadly I couldn't think of a good use for it.

There was quite a noticeable wind today, but as it was blowing me home by this time, I was quite pleased with it, and it certainly helped me enjoy my 27 miles trip. As a bonus, the 27 miles took me exactly up to 3000 miles for the year so far. As I only managed 3076 miles in the whole of last year, this is progress. Secretly I am hoping to do 4000 miles before the end of the year, but as weather plays a big part in how many miles you can do in winter, I am not telling anyone about that in case snow and ice and gales come and I don't make it.

Mrs was digging up more of her hedge when I got back, so I joined her in the garden and put the fertiliser and moss eating mixture on the front lawn while she toiled.

We put the front gates on their hinges just before Evie came to visit and I noticed that the nasturtiums have been busy in the last two weeks.

We are threatened with some miserable weather tomorrow, so I may be able to spend time putting some more entries into the Archive Group database as the data miners have got back to work after a forced break thanks to the virus.

The (only just) flying bird of the day is that coal tit. Not a good picture but an unusual one for me