Yesterday

Yesterday was Monday, the start of a new week.  Hot and sunny, and I had an appointment at the garage where the car was to have its tyres rebalanced after a recent puncture.  It was a waiting appointment, but on arrival I learnt that it would take an hour and a half for the mechanic to do his work.  The dogs and I saw an opportunity for a good walk.

Most of our walks are in the countryside so the dogs always relish a wander along an urban pavement.  Different smells and a change of scenery.  We were in Haddington, our small county town, which has quick access to the countryside.  We walked down a few side streets, past substantial red sandstone houses, across a playing field, and past the primary school.  I cast my mind back about ten years when I would stand in the school playground, waiting to collect my two eldest grandchildren at the end of their day.

Down to the weir on the River Tyne.  I stood and watched a mallard duckling, preening its young feathers, and then a moorhen with her two tiny black chicks, negotiating the strong current of the river.  I gazed up into the flowering branches of the lime trees by the riverbank.  The air was heady with their fragrance, bringing back memories of my childhood and the huge weeping lime tree we had at the top of the garden, which lent its name to our house, The Limes.

We crossed over the white bridge and I stopped to look down into the river.  The watery reflections of the sun, hidden by clouds, looked like an abstract painting.

The path on the other side of the river ran alongside a field of ripening barley.  Meadow Cranesbill, Geranium pratense, grew in soft periwinkle-blue clumps on the edge of the field, and squadrons of young sparrows flew ahead of us, in chattering groups.  Growing on the edge of the path was a tiny wild geranium, Hedgerow Cranesbill.  It is sometimes called Pyrenean Cranesbill because of its Latin name, Geranium pyrenaicum.  Its bright pink flowers mixed in with miniature powder-blue Common Forget-me-not.

On the south side of the field, a tangle of pink convolvulus rambled through the hedgerow.  Congregating on a fence post, I saw a couple of dozen honeybees.  Not nearly enough to call a swarm, so maybe it was the makings of a swarm, or stragglers left after the queen bee's scouts had found her new home.   Either way, we walked past with care!

I walked on to an entrance into the Lennoxlove Estate, home of the Duke of Hamilton.  I knew there were three beehives there, close to the gateway, and if the beekeeper happened to be tending his hives, I could tell him that on the 84th fencepost along, on the edge of the nearby field, he might find some of his bees, if they had swarmed.  If not, however, with about 50,000 bees in any one of his hives, it was unlikely he would miss a few!

We turned and retraced our steps back into Haddington, walking along the cool tree-lined riverside path.  The dogs had a paddle and a drink in the river.  We walked past the sports centre, through the municipal gardens, colourful and carefully maintained, back to the garage.  Hot, thirsty and sticky from the midday sun, it had been waiting time well spent.