Month: April 2019

Embra – 20 April 2019

Posted on by Zogman

We’d said we’d go to Embra and we did.

Set off early and did our usual walk up from Haymarket station to Nero on Lothian Road then from there through the farmers market where I got a piece of Hogget Leg Steak and Scamp got a chunk of Focaccia. I also grabbed a PoD of the folk sitting in the sun.

From there we walked up to the Grassmarket and Scamp bought a wee bottle of Elderberry liqueur, although the rum liqueur they were selling tasted very nice. They didn’t have wee bottles of it, unfortunately, only big bottles. The place was mobbed. In fact Embra in general was mobbed. It was a beautiful day. Warm sunshine and very little wind which is strange for Embra because it quite often is the Windy City. I was beginning to regret wearing my leather jacket AND a jersey. One had to go, in fact, eventually both had to go.

We couldn’t decide where to go for lunch, so we headed for Princes Street Gardens via M&S where I went to get some fresh fruit while Scamp searched for the trousers she’s been looking for for the last week or so. I got the fruit, but Scamp didn’t find the trousers she wanted. However she did find a sun hat that looked good, so after some swithering about a colour, she opted for the plain white one.

We sat in the gardens for a while eating the fruit and people watching, but decided eventually that it was far too busy in Embra and we should just head for home. Went for the 2pm train and were there in plenty of time. Sat waiting for what seemed a long time when a message came over the tannoy that with apologies, the train was cancelled. There was nothing to do but walk back to the concourse and wait for the next train which was in half an hour. Then Scamp noticed that it too was cancelled. Apparently due to a signalling fault. She suggested we get the 2.15 train which wouldn’t stop at Croy, but we could go straight to Glasgow and get another train back. After all the ticket did say “Valid via any permitted route”, so we could have gone via Inverness if we’d fancied, but we didn’t, we just wanted to get home now. Got the 2.15 which did take us all the way to Glasgow and then got the Stirling train back to Croy. A journey that should have taken us 40mins had taken 2 hours. Strangely, the 2.15 train travelled exactly the same route as the one that was cancelled because of a signalling fault. Did they magically repair the fault for the 2.15 train to pass, but knew that it would be broken again when the 2.30 train was due to leave? Maybe they should just be more honest and say “Due to staff not being available because it was such a nice day”. Anyway, we got home.

Sat in the garden and scoffed a bottle of wine that had been in the fridge since Christmas. It would be getting near it’s sell-by date anyway!

Tomorrow we may go dancing in the Record Factory.

Marie Kondo rules OK – 19 April 2019

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Today I ignored the beautiful sunshine for a while and started tidying up the top three drawers in my chest of drawers in the back bedroom. Marie Kondo, you have a lot to answer for.

It’s been coming for a while, but when Scamp was out buying Tesco today, I got started clearing out the top two drawers. Actually I’d already started on the top drawer yesterday, but hadn’t managed to file very much in the big round filing cabinet in the corner. Today was a more concerted effort. Using partly the Marie Kondo mantra of “Does this spark joy?” and partly my own “Keep, File, Chuck” method, I managed to get rid of a few more things, then allocate a particular space to the ones I wanted to keep. What was the top drawer is now the second top, because the boxes I was using for the ‘filing’ wouldn’t fit in the top drawer. The chest of drawers is designed in the architectural style where the highest drawer is the shallowest and the lowest is the deepest. It’s the way Victorian and Edwardian architects designed windows in big houses. Look some time and you’ll see how it works. So, the top drawer now only holds paper and sketch books and the second top drawer holds two main categories of objects:

  • File (pens, knives and stuff) They don’t necessarily Spark Joy, but they are useful or essential tools.
  • Keep (photos, flyers etc). They are not tools, but they remind me of something. They all Spark Joy.

That drawer is much more organised than it was before, but may not stay that way.

The third drawer is still a work in progress. It has much more Spark Joy items than the other two and will need a bit more willpower to encourage me to put things into the ‘Chuck’ pile.

Halfway through Hazy phoned and we had a long discussion about gardens, cats and birthdays. Heavens, we also managed to fit in Christmas plans, which seem to be firming up quite nicely.

After lunch which was delicious Cheese and Beetroot sandwiches, we started on the garden. I wanted to plant the Calabrese which is like broccoli, but Scamp suggested that it might be a good idea to put up the pea frame first, to prevent disruption of the growing plants when it’s actually needed. I agreed and got it built up quite easily. Planted the Calabrese while Scamp did all the rest of the garden work.

Sat out for a while in the sun with a glass of wine each because it was a beautiful warm spring day and Good Friday too. Found today’s PoD crawling round a garden bucket. It’s a Nut Weevil and is probably the reason my chestnuts aren’t growing this year, as the adult insect bores a hole into the nut and lays its eggs inside. The grub hatches, eats its way out and it’s goodbye Chestnut. It made a nice photo though.

Tomorrow we may go to Embra. Hoping for another sunny day. Central heating seems to be fixed by the way. Oh, yes and Hazy, I’ve got the two backups downloaded tonight. One from the old website and one from the new. Belts & Braces, that’s me!

Walking with dinosaurs – 18 April 2019

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Went to Glasgow to see what Leonardo had been up to.

We decided to go on the bus, because I’d been driving quite a lot and also, so we could have a drink before we came home. We had a coffee in the toon and then we got the subway out to Kelvin Hall and walked along to Kelvingrove Art Gallery. Walked around the Dippy the Diplodocus exhibit, and although it was large, I’d imagined it was much bigger. Nicely balanced though, with a long neck and a long tail keeping Dippy in equilibrium.

Found the Leonardo exhibit and we were amazed with the condition of the drawings. True Mrs McQueen has been looking after them and she’s been doing a good job, but the detail in the drawings was so clear and the paper was so clean I was impressed. Beautiful detail in the drawings, especially the studies of grasses and plants. The only thing I was disappointed in was the lack of mention of his tutor, Jim Belkevitz. Any child who was in my drawing class knows that Leonardo was a genius because he could draw a circle freehand, and the man who taught him that was Mr B.

Scamp wanted to listen to the organ recital and I wanted to go and see the Glasgow Boys paintings.  I saw the painting of Anna Pavlova which Fred gave JIC and Sim for a wedding present.  Theirs is a print of course, but the real thing is very impressive.  Also saw the Dali picture that poor Neil went to see, only to find out that it was on load to a New York gallery.

Got the bus back in to town and had lunch in Paesano with a glass of wine each to compensate for travelling by public transport. Then Scamp went to look in M&S and I went to wander through CassArt. Both of us came away empty handed.

Back home, I noticed that the overflow from the central heating boiler was dripping water. Checked the boiler and found that the pressure gauge was well into the high pressure red area. Phoned the gas board and after chatting on-line with someone somewhere in the world, but I guess India, I was told that a technician visit was booked for Saturday. Until then I was told best not to use the boiler. I couldn’t remember how to decrease the pressure in the system, because there isn’t a stopcock like there was in the old boiler, but then I found articles online that said to drain one of the highest radiators with the system switched off. I did that and the pointer came down into the middle green area, so we got some heat tonight after all, but that still doesn’t explain why the pressure was so high when we got home, so it still need expert help.

PoD was a picture of a man with his granddaughter (?) photographing Dippy. I think he was more interested in the dinosaur than she was.

Tomorrow my coffee is being delivered, so one of us will have to stay at home for that.

Dancing without Numpties – 17 April 2019

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Drove in to Glasgow to go dancing. Only real dancers there today.

I think there must have been a sign outside Blackfriars that read “No Numpties”. There were only five of us dancers there and all of us wanted to dance, and learn. Nobody giggled and shouted out “Look at me, I’m stupid”. Nobody stopped in the middle of the floor to have an argument. All of us were dancing, getting things wrong occasionally, but then working to put things right. What a difference it made. It made the lessons a pleasure, not a chore and we got further than we did last week when the Numpties where there. Unfortunately, somebody will take that useful sign down next week and it will be back to normal again.

In the afternoon when we got back, I ordered some coffee from the Bean Shop over the phone so I could get some Cuban Tarquino which you can only order over the phone because the website isn’t allowed to list if for a ridiculous reason that’s something to do with PayPal. After that, I went for a drive, mainly to get petrol to fill the Juke’s thimble sized tank, but also to grab a PoD which turned out to be a landscape shot across St Mo’s pond. It looked lovely and still on a calm day.

Drove through terrible traffic again to get to Salsa and quite enjoyed both classes, but I get the feeling we’re being taken for granted. Maybe I’m wrong, but it feels like we aren’t needed and, lets face it, we don’t learn much on a Wednesday night. I think we should take the occasional night off. We don’t pay for the classes, but we pay for the petrol to drive there and we pay for parking and get no thanks for it from anyone at AdS. It would be good for Jamie G to say thanks, just once in a while.

Tomorrow we may go in to Glasgow on the bus and try to have a look at the Leonardo exhibition.

Not such a bright day – 16 April 2019

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Today was Chris’s dad’s funeral. JIC had flown up specially for it last night.

He might have come up for the funeral, but before that JIC had to take a conference call with California and China. That’s just the kind of circles he moves in these days. Half past eight this morning and he was on Skype, doing work.

The funeral went well, I suppose. Well, as good as these things get. This was the first Humanist funeral I’d been to. I don’t confess to be a Christian. I suppose the closest I can get to religion is Buddhism, but even elements of that don’t work for me. I didn’t like the delivery of the woman who took the ceremony. Maybe she was new to it, but her delivery was too fast, too rushed with pauses that were too long and sometimes in the wrong places. It didn’t have the solemnity of a Church of Scotland funeral, but the delivery there has a style all of its own too and its not a pleasant one either. I’d guess it’s only someone who knew the person who has died who can really speak about them, from the heart, and that’s what the people listening want to hear.

We went to the ‘tea’ afterwards and met a few folk we knew. I liked the way Andy, JIC and Chris shared memories of Chris’s dad. That’s more like what folk do at a traditional ‘tea’ after a funeral. They remember the good bits in a person’s life and forgive the bad bits.

In the afternoon we went for a late lunch with JIC before he got the flight home. Unfortunately time seemed to slip away and the next thing I knew it was 5pm, we should have been on our way by then and we still hadn’t had our pudding. Eventually we got served and left for the drive into Glasgow. CITRAC was displaying its usual useless nonsense. “Nineteen minutes to the airport” it said. Actually it took nearly forty five minutes through what is euphemistically called ‘Rush Hour’, except nobody was rushing. Finally dropped him off at the airport to go through security. We turned round and started to drive home when Scamp suggested we go for a coffee at Braehead. That gave just enough time for the congestion to decrease and allow us to drive at a fairly steady pace back home through the rain. The plants need the rain Scamp said. She’s probably right.

Today’s PoD was made possible by that rain on the back bedroom window. I liked it. I called it “Through the fish-eyed lens of tear stained eyes” lyrics from The Final Cut by Roger Waters. Seemed somehow fitting.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go dancing. Let’s hope it’s a happier day than today.

Just a walk – 15 April 2019

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No photos, just a walk.

Lunch today was yesterday’s Pakora and Onion Bhajis reheated and they tasted better than they did yesterday. Crunchier anyway. Ten minutes @ 180º if you’re asking. After that Scamp went out to get herd Gems and bring them by to use the shepherd’s terms. Just before they arrived a racket started in No 38. It sounded to me like an orbital sander being used on the floor. That was strange, because on Friday night the exact same noise was coming from No36. We are being surrounded by sanders! I’d had enough. After a quick catchup with Margie who had done more painting than me in the last fortnight, I grabbed the Oly bag and drove down to Auchinstarry.

Walked along the canal and though the plantation from there back to Auchinstarry. I took two photos, but only record shots of red flowers on a bush to try to find the name of them. It was simply a walk and nothing else. It’s ages since I’ve walked along the canal and although nothing had changed much, it was very enjoyable. I didn’t need to take any photos, because I’d grabbed a few shots of a young blackbird. I’d had a look at them earlier and they looked fine, so the cameras were with me just in case I saw anything that the ever ready iPhone couldn’t manage.

Back home, dinner tonight was Spaghetti and Tuna in a Tomato sauce. A staple.

Drove in to Glasgow and helped the beginners get their heads round Setenta y Cinco. They picked it up quite quickly. Much quicker than I picked up the advanced class’s new move, called surprisingly, New Move. We also reprised one from last week now called York because it looks like The Grand Old Duke of York. Good fun, but almost undanceable in a rueda.

Just getting ready now to go and pick up JIC who’s flying in for a quick visit.

Tomorrow our day if fairly well marked out. Will explain tomorrow, DV.

Another lazy day – 14 April 2019

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Nobody seemed to want to go out today. I don’t think a single car moved from the car park outside the house.

We decided to follow the crowd for once and refuse to go anywhere. Dinner today was sorted. Fish for Scamp and Lamb Shank for me, so we didn’t have to go and attempt to buy Tesco. Neither of us had any pressing engagements to complete. We’d watched a boring Chinese F1 GP and after lunch Scamp was waiting for the bridal party from our new next door neighbours to parade to the waiting car. It may have been a lazy morning for us, but with hairdressers, beautician, photographer and chauffeur all visiting, it must have been that old ‘80s band Crowded House for them. Once they had left for the ceremony, we settled down to … do nothing.

Eventually I was forced to get up and make some bread. It’s ages since I’ve hand kneaded bread dough. You’d be surprised at how many steps it adds to you Fitbit! Left the bread to do its first prove and put my lamb shank in the slow cooker (we’re really getting our money’s worth from it this weather).

With the bread successfully proved, I gave it another quick kneading for good luck (and more steps) and got ready to go out and get some photos. Took the Nikon with me for a change, because it hasn’t been out in a long while and it gets jealous of the Olys and we can’t have that. Fed the birds on stale bread and leftover flatbread from yesterday’s dinner. They didn’t seem to mind either and both sets of stodge and it was soon gone. Today’s PoD is of a Haw. Fruit of the Hawthorn tree.

Came home, had dinner with more pakora than we could eat as a starter, so the rest is waiting in the fridge for lunch tomorrow. Lamb shank was a bit fatty, but tasted good in its mint marinade from the butcher. Scamp had a slice of lightly smoked salmon and of course we both had potatoes. Sorry JIC.

Spoke to JIC at night and made plans for the next two days.

Tomorrow will be a Gems day so I will go out. Maybe cycling if it’s warm and sunny shiny. Maybe painting if it’s dull and cold like today.

Tesco, Coots and Curry – 13 April 2019

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Some days are filled with surprises and action. Today wasn’t one of those.

Today we went to Tesco to get the makings of tonight’s dinner. I fancied making another slow cooker curry, a vegetarian one for a change. That was one of the highlights of the day.

Later in the afternoon I went for a walk over St Mo’s.  In the sunshine it was lovely and warm, but the wind was decidedly cold, coming from the Baltic the weather fairies say and I believe them. Today’s PoD was another shot of a coot sitting on its nest of twigs on the floating pontoon of horsetails. I walked on down to the BP garage to get some sparkling water to give a lift to the pakora I was planning on making for a starter for the dinner. Found a wee boy, maybe about 12yrs being questioned by a couple of women. He looked completely out of it and to start with I thought he’d been in a fight or had been climbing trees and had fallen, but it turned out he’d had a few sherbets and was just the far side of sober, or so they suspected. He did look a funny colour and they were looking after him and giving him sips of water while his mum was contacted. Me? I’d have been a bit more circumspect about getting involved. These days it’s a minefield being a good Samaritan.

In the evening I sorted out the last of the email realignment and I think I now have a fully functioning website on a new server. This week I intend to back up the files from the old server before I clear out the server, and probably also back up the files from the new one too – Belts & Braces.
I really can’t thank Hazy enough for the research she’s done for me, not only searching out the best hosting company to go with, but also finding answers and help pages to keep me on the right lines, and then checking that her dad had pressed the right buttons in the right order and not broken anything. Couldn’t have done it without you love. You are a real gem.

The curry was a hit and a miss. Scamp didn’t like it, but I did. Such a pity, but the cauliflower pakora was a great hit with Scamp. I wasn’t so keen on it. Like I say, Hit and a Miss.

That was about it for today. Went to bed early because I hadn’t been sleeping well these last few days, so the blog was posted on Sunday!

Up and Running – 12 April 2019

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Well, it wasn’t quite so clever this morning, but by this evening it was indeed Up and Running.

This morning was marred by some swearing because the website still wasn’t behaving properly. Then I got the idea of getting Hazy to check it out from her end. Just before we left to go and see what Leonardo had been up to since he left Mr Belkevitz art class in Cumby High, I got a message from Hazy to say she could access the new website from her end down in Londinium. This was a relief because it meant that I could tick those damned nameservers off as DONE! It was also a pain because it meant the problem was at my end. Never mind, we’d drive in to Kelvingrove, see Dippy the diplodocus and also catch Leonardo’s exhibition of drawings. I didn’t actually expect to see him there, because he’s quite a famous artist now, but it would be good to see what JB had taught him.

When we got there, everyone else in Glasgow and the surroundings was there too. We drove round for a while, but the only place we could find wanted 40p to park for 30 mins. We were so far away it would take us a good 20 mins to reach the Art Galleries. That would leave us in deficit of 10 mins just to get back to the car if we just turned on our heels and walked back. What in the name of the wee man is in the heads of the people who make up these ridiculous parking charges. It’s not as if the parking places were in the middle of shops, just bays at the side of a road through playing fields. “Sorry, it can only be five a side today. That’s five MINUTES a side. Now off you go and play, your time starts now!”

Gave up. Did try to park within the Art Gallery carpark, but judging by the number of people cruising round, there weren’t many places to be had. It looked like musical chairs. When the music stops, try to find an empty chair. Drove home. Stopped at Costa for a coffee and a roll ’n’ sausage or a tuna wrap for Scamp.

When we got home I struggled for another hour or so with words and symbols I’d never seen before while Scamp went to Condorrat, partly to get out of the road, I think. Finally I too had had enough and I walked over to get dinner. Tonight’s dinner would be a large fish supper between us. On the way over I got the picture of the cherry blossom. As I saw it fluttering in the breeze I realised the first time I took a photo of that tree was around the year 2000 when the world was young, Brexit was a word that would be disallowed as not in the dictionary, in Scrabble and a 2 megapixel camera with an f2 lens was the marvel of the age. It was an Olympus DC-2000 Z. A beautiful camera that I sold to a colleague at school and which he still owns I think. Anyway this shot took PoD on a dull day using an Olympus E-PL5 with a 12-32mm lens and a much bigger 16 megapixel sensor. Sorry JIC just a little technospeak.

After the fish ’n’ chips we had a pineapple cake each, which actually had pineapple in it, but I don’t think the ‘cream’ had ever seen a cow. Then we watched another recorded episode of Portrait Artist of the Year, before I opened up my Linx 12 and got the surprise of the day when the website opened up in the new server. I won’t bore you with the details of how and why I knew it was the new server, JIC would just moan about no Technospeak warnings. It was working. Checked on the iMac and, yes, it was actually on the new server settings. In these days of instant results, you have to remember that Virgin Media takes at least 30 hours to realise that some settings have changed and refresh its lists or something. ‘Slow’ and ‘Treacle’ in the same sentence as ‘Virgin Media’ seems to be the name of the game.

Tomorrow, no computers until at least 12 noon. Maybe a trip to the countryside somewhere.

Bike – 11 April 2019

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In the morning we went to buy Waitrose.

We didn’t totally buy Waitrose, but we made a valiant stab at it. We also walked into Stirling and had a coffee. A lazy morning.

In the afternoon, Scamp just failed to get the grass cut before the competition, the next door neighbour, got started on her smaller grass patch. While she was doing that, I took the Dewdrop out for a run. Didn’t go far, didn’t want to push things too early. Just went as far as the old dump and got today’s PoD there. I had to crop the bottom off the landscape to remove the unsightly cables for the ‘leccy trains. Still looks an inviting scene in my eyes. On the way back I sat and watched Grebes fishing in Broadwood Loch. They can stay underwater for 20 seconds! Quite amazing. It was a beautiful afternoon. Warm sunshine, but a cooling breeze.

Made some Beef Clives (Olives to you) tonight and am just about to put them in the freezer. Scamp made Chicken Milanese with new potatoes and spiralled veg. Damn spiralizer didn’t work properly. It would appear that the microswitch in the ’safety’ feature isn’t seated properly because it’s very safe. It doesn’t switch on properly. It cost us eight quid too! It’s going back.

Not the busiest of days, but the bike got an airing and Scamp got the front grass cut. I also reset the name servers for my webspace (whatever that means), but I don’t think the changeover is complete yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Tomorrow we have that wonderful thing – No Plans.