Month: May 2020

Up early again for the last day in May – 31 May 2020

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That didn’t mean that we were doing much more than getting up, but it was a start.

We finally chose to go for a walk after Scamp had spoken to her wee sister and told her she’s been talking to her big sister yesterday. Also after I’d hung out most of the washing. It was much cooler and much breezier than yesterday with the wind coming from the east. We walked round St Mo’s and then paused for fifteen to twenty minutes watching half a dozen dragonflies, not damselflies, big dragonflies clattering about the wee pond. Some were obviously females, busy egg laying and some were males chasing off the competition, but they all combined to show off their aerial skills as they flew round and between the various obstructions in their path, which included us. Utterly fascinating and perfect for taking you out of yourself and the problems of this new world we are living in.

Back home and time for a Sunday lunch of eggs, black pudding, beef-ham, sausage and tattie scones, all fried. It’s ok to eat healthy six days of the week but on the seventh you can fry your food.

We knew the good weather wasn’t going to last, so Scamp made the most of it. She slapped on the Factor 50 and took herself and her book out into the garden to soak up some rays. I adjourned to the ‘Painting Room’ to sketch today’s drawing which was ‘A Phone’. My choice was an old black bakelite rotary dial phone. They have so much more soul than the black glass slabs we use for everything from sending messages to photographing everything and occasionally even speaking to people. The old black bakelite phones were used for speaking to people and nothing else. I got the basic shape drawn and photographed, then put some black watercolour on it to give some tonal gradation. Happy with the result, I went out for a walk with the ‘big dog’ to see if the dragons had calmed down.

Thankfully they had calmed down and I did get a handful of decent shots, but only after rejecting a bucket load of junk. Today’s PoD was one of the best. It’s a Four Spotted Chaser and it was resting after a strenuous morning.

Got back just in time for dinner to be served. It was Neil-D’s lovely summer style rice and chicken with a variety of veg and condiments. Avocado as starter and Churros as a dessert. A nice bottle of Malbec to wash it down and then a seat outside to watch the sun go down. That’s what the last day of metrological spring is made for.

I watered the back garden afterwards while Scamp fed the front garden plants with some seaweed fertiliser. Coffee to finish off, with a drop of alcohol to take the edge off it.

Not a bad day, all in all. Hopefully we’ll manage one more day of this early heat before the rain comes in the middle of the week. May go and see a man about a bike wheel tomorrow.

The early bird get the photo – 30 May 2020

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Out at around 7.30am because Scamp wanted a photo of her trio of azaleas and I had worked out that 7.30am would be as near as damnit the right time. It was … nearly. Took the photo and went back to bed.

Shock, Horror! No breakfast in bed today. Up before 8.30 and breakfast in the living room. Next, we’ll be having breakfast at the table, or is that a step too far?

After breakfast we went for a walk. What’s become our ‘new normal’ walk. Down around the football stadium and back up the hill. It’s a good mile or so and is not too busy. Apart from joggers, I think we only passed three people today. If we’d crossed the dam we’d have been dodging the socially un-distancing hordes. It was a pleasant day with a slight breeze. Enough to cool you without feeling cold. When we passed the shops the queues were extraordinary. It was a Saturday and it was warm and there were no other kinds of shops open yet, so I suppose it was just the desire to buy something … anything! We didn’t feel the need, so we didn’t join them at this point.

Back home for coffee and a plan for the day. Scamp wanted walk over and visit her sister after lunch. That would give me time to get today’s sketch of a geranium completed with a bit of luck. Luck was on my side for once and, although not as satisfying as yesterday’s painting, todays was ‘adequate’. That’s all, just adequate. I had just finished it and was sitting in the garden with a pair of bluetooth headphones on so I didn’t need to listen to ‘Brain of Britain’ next door proving that empty barrels do indeed make the most noise, when Scamp phoned to ask if she should get a chicken for dinner. Apparently the queues from this morning had decreased significantly. I agreed that it would be good and walked down to the shops to meet her. We just had a basket this time, so bought more or less what we needed and no more.

Still a very pleasant day and much more comfortable than yesterday. I didn’t think the azaleas would cut it as PoD so went out to find some beasties. Scamp went out to sunbathe. She has this enviable ability to tune out distractions when she’s reading because ‘BoB’ was still droning on to anyone who would listen and also to anyone who wouldn’t.

Managed to get a clean shot of a Common Blue damselfly. Isn’t it a terrible shame calling anything ‘Common’. We humans are so superior in their outlook aren’t we. Well humans in general are, but not me. I’m generous to a fault. I wouldn’t call anything or anyone ‘Common’.

Dinner was brilliant. Roast chicken with roast vegetables and potatoes baked in the oven, followed by real fruit cocktail, not your common tinned stuff!

Tomorrow, weather wise, we are expecting more of the same, but after that there may be rain!! Oh No! But the gardens need the rain.

Lockdown release begins – 29 May 2020

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It was true, we were allowed to go out today. Nominally 5 miles, but who was counting.

We were very cool about it to start with, as you sometimes are when you’re desperate to do something, but don’t want to show it. Scamp did some washing and hung it out. I started my Sudoku and made some coffee. We watched a rather boring webinar from our man in Falkirk. We had a spot of lunch too. Moved stuff around the garden and planned some repotting. Eventually we just decided we had to go out. Somewhere … ANYWHERE!

Scamp suggested Fannyside, but we though we’d do a drive past the garden centre anyway. Again, playing it cool and saying that we’d maybe go there during the week. We drove up to B&Q, but the queue there was looooong, so we turned around and drove up the long way to Fannyside, up past Arns forest and round the top of the road. Stopped at the draw in by a stand of Scots Pines and just listened to the silence. Hardly a sound, hardly a breath of wind. We heard a cuckoo. First time I’ve heard one this year. It was miles away, but it was a measure of the lack of noise that its call came over so clearly from its perch about a mile away. Got today’s PoD which just had to be a landscape. I’ve taken so few over the last couple of months that had become a thing to savour. Got a little macro of one of a trio of flies that had socially distanced themselves on a fence post.

Drove back by the moor road and then the unspoken agreement was that we were going to Calders garden centre. Scamp wanted pots and I wanted seeds and then it seemed churlish not to buy a couple trays of cheerful red flowers. Smiles on faces all around. Not all the shelves are full and the variety of plants is still a bit poor, but it was good to be able to browse around outside without a mask. Yes, we used them inside, but for a while, outside we felt like the world was returning to normal, the old normal.

Back home I grabbed two carrots, three tomatoes an onion and half a head of broccoli, arranged them tastefully on my painting table and produced today’s sketch ‘Vegetables’. I was quite pleased with it. Really need to have a look at what paints I need as a lot of them are going down quite quickly. I should be able to get them from some online art shops.

Later it was dinner in the garden and a glass of wine to wash it down. Couple next door were having a noisy dinner with some of their relatives, but although I moaned about the noise, it was just ordinary folk letting off some of the steam they’ve been bottling up for the past couple of months.

We had our first taste of Scamp’s “Westfield Gin Company”distillation. It was very nice. Reminiscent of Elderflower Gin. We only had a small sample, then we had to try it against a commercial variety just for comparison purposes!

All in all, a good day for what might be the beginning of the end of Lockdown and a really hot one. Tomorrow is to be slightly cooler which will be a good thing.

Another hot one – 28 May 2020

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Out for a walk, but only to the shops today.

Walked down to the shops to get tonight’s dinner and ended up with a fair bit more than that. That’s the problem with having to take a trolley (no baskets). There’s a tendency to lift more than you really need, and that’s what we did. Went to get a curry for dinner and came home with three bags full of stuff and a bunch of flowers. Wore our new facemasks in the shop. First thoughts are that the elastic is too tight and my mask is a bit small. Maybe I’ve just got a big head!

Listened with interest to Nick the Chick’s declaration about what phase 1 of the release from lockdown will mean. I like her delivery. It seems sensible, professional and calculated. Still don’t like her, but despite her small stature and big heels, she is head and shoulders above Bumbling Boris. Some nice little snipes from her about Dominic Cummings too. Nothing that could be seen as libel or slander, but quite pointed none the less.

Spent the afternoon trying to copy Lucy’s mask. I think I made a fair go of it, but I’m still not sure how to easily join the outside skin to the inside like she did. It’s definitely not as neat as her professional looking stitchery. May try a slightly different shape tomorrow.

Went for a walk in St Mo’s while Scamp soaked up the sun in the garden. She was well protected with factor 50, I know, I’m the one who has to rub it in to her back and today I dried my hands by rubbing the remainder into my face. Got some photos of a bright green spider. After some research I discovered it was a Cucumber Green Spider and fairly common. I’ve never seen one here before. Only one damselfly and it was far too skittish to get a decent shot of.

Sat in the garden after dinner which was actually quite good. For once I’d say it needed a bit of salt, but Scamp didn’t! Sat with a glass or red and took in some rays. Then went to do today’s sketch which is poor, very poor. The task was to sketch A Water Tap. I chose the plastic tap on the wash hand basin in the downstairs toilet, because I was fed up with drawing metal. The only good thing about drawing in a toilet is there is a place to sit!

Tomorrow! Tomorrow we will be allowed a tiny smidgin of our freedom back. We may go out for a run somewhere!

Yet another beautiful day – 27 May 2020

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Another day when it was criminal to lie in bed.

So out we went again. Just a short walk this time and fairly local. Didn’t drive 30 miles just to check our eyesight as the ridiculous Dominic Cummings claimed he did. Does he really think we believe him? Does he really think our collective heads button up the back? I’m sure he’s right that Boris’s head does. Just a wee walk then. Got my first damselfly shots of this year and just as I was congratulating myself on the capture, I watched a blur of red as a damselfly appeared from stage left, grabbed a moth or maybe a fly that was sunning itself on a horse tail and scoffed it for its lunch. Amazing! It was all over in a couple of seconds.

Back home well in time for our own lunch (not a moth sandwich), then waited around the house for the Asda driver to discharge his load of groceries. With all the stuff safely stashed away, Scamp went out plastered in factor 50 to read in the sun and I took the ‘big dog’ out to see what we could see. And what we saw was one deer that saw me first and wasn’t ready for its close-up, so it made a sharp exit. Saw some tadpoles that have just the hint of frog legs appearing and also spotted Mr Grey studiously stalking something at the edge of the reed beds. Got a couple of grab shots of a pale coloured damselfly among the gorse bushes, but nothing really sharp.

Spent some time when I got back sketching out the shape of the panels of Lucy’s mask. Used Inkscape which is a free, open source vector graphics package that now runs cleanly on a Mac. Much more sophisticated than it used to be in its previous incarnation. Still more clunky than Corel, but it’s free and it works. A useful tool for the arsenal.

Today’s PoD is mating damselflies. Pretty standard, but the colours look more saturated than usual. That’s probably due to the strong sunshine they were taken in. Sketch of the day was ‘Keys’ and was just another attempt at rendering metal in ink and watercolour. Not nearly as good as yesterday’s, but still a worthwhile practise piece.

Tomorrow if the weather is good we may go out walking again. If it’s not I’m going to attempt a Lucy Mask.

Another day, another walk – 26 May 2020

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Today I thought it was Sunday all day long. No reason why, except for Cabin Fever.

Phoned the bike shop in the morning (once I’d established that it was Tuesday and not Sunday) and got a promise the bike wheel would be finished by the end of the week. I sincerely hope that Big Al was not suffering from the same day-dislodgement that had overcome me.

After lunch we went for a walk more or less the same one as yesterday but in a slightly different direction. By the time we got home the sun was warming the place up nicely and we took the chairs out to the garden Scamp with a Pimms and me with a beer. Read for a while then got a surprise.

The girl next door, Lucy gave us a couple of facemasks she had made for us. We both thought that was very kind of her. They were much simpler than my pattern and much more effective I’d think. Curved to fit the face. She said she’d been making them for her gran and grandpa and thought we might appreciate one each too. Like I said we thought that was good of her, but then I thought, does that make us the old people next door? Scamp said “Yes, probably”. Doesn’t matter I liked the thought and because she’s just finished a fashion design course in London, the stitching was so much better than mine!

Dinner was Sea Bass with Potatoes, Broccoli and Cauliflower. Delicious! Scamp was chef tonight.

PoD went to a photo I took earlier in the day of a winged aphid on a rosebud. Scamp appreciated the detail in the picture, but wants rid of the beasties before they damage her roses.

Today’s topic was ‘A Pasta Dish’. I think by this time the setters were becoming tired with the whole EDiM thing and just throwing words and phrases at the list. This is my response to the prompt. There is a dish and there are two pieces of pasta, but really it’s a vehicle to practise drawing cutlery.

Tomorrow we are booked for an ASDA delivery in the afternoon, so any walks will have to be in the morning.

Walking – 25 May 2020

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We woke to sunshine. No point in wasting it. Time to go out and walk.

We walked down through yesterday’s sketched underpass and on through the posh houses then across the dam at Broadwood. Walked round the exercise track without doing any exercises and then home for lunch.

After lunch, Scamp went for a walk around the shops and got the makings of dinner which was Veg Chilli. I started roughing out today’s sketch which was ‘Cutlery’. Officially it was ‘A Towel’, today being Towel Day to celebrate the life and work of Douglas Adams who wrote The Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy. If you don’t understand the towel thing, read the book. I got the basics down on my roughing sketch book then Hazy phoned so I spoke to her for a while. Scamp returned soon after that and also spoke for a while.

With the dinner planned and provisioned for and a rough sketch done, I went out for a walk in St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which is a White Tailed Bumblebee. Also got some clean, clear shots of one of the Canada Geese that have taken up residence in St Mo’s pond.

I quite liked tonight’s chilli, but then I would, I was chef. Scamp thought it needed more salt and also commented that it was a bit dry. I chose to disagree. There will be enough left for lunch tomorrow.

The proper drawing of the cutlery was much more difficult than I anticipated and I had decided I’d do it as an ink line drawing which leaves very little room for mistakes and corrections. In retrospect, it would have been better as a painting. Retrospect: The only 20-20 vision. It’s done and posted on Instagram and Facebook if you’re interested.

Big sensation of the day was Dominic Cummings’ refusal to accept that his actions in driving from London to Durham were a contradiction of the Government rules on Lockdown. Will he stay or will he go? That’s the question on everyone’s lips and the source of a host of memes.

Tomorrow I’m intending phoning Wheelcraft to enquire after my front wheel which they are supposed to be rebuilding. Otherwise no plans.

No rain today – 24 May 2020

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Well, almost no rain, and there was a fair bit of sun.

Watched the Andrew Marr show while we had lunch and we were both shocked with his ferocity and tenacity when interviewing the Transport Secretary, Grant Shapps. I don’t think he asked him one question about Transport or the effects of Lockdown on it. He constantly attacked the poor guy about what he knew about Dominic Cummings and his Lockdown breaking visit to Durham. What is his problem with the man? Obviously something about him bugs poor Andrew.  Or maybe it’s both Shapps and Cummings that get under his skin, it certainly seemed so today.

We went for a walk today over to St Mo’s and from there down to Craiglinn roundabout and from there round Broadwood Stadium, in fact exactly the same path as last week, except in reverse. It certainly wasn’t cold, but it was still a bit cloudy. Still loads of people wandering around ‘getting exercise’ or to put it another way ‘getting out of the house’, something you couldn’t do yesterday or the day before because of the rash of horizontal rain.

Back home for a while, but despite carrying a camera and two lenses for the entire walk, I’d taken no photos. To right this wrong, I went out for another top-up for my step count round St Mo’s pond. No deer today, but I got a few shots of Mummy Coot feeding one of the baby coots. That provided today’s PoD.

I struggled with today’s Sketch of the Day. The topic was “Where Would You Want To Be Now?” My answer to that would be anywhere but in Lockdown. My sketch turned out to be a bit more abstract. The initial sketch, as is usual with initial sketches, was rough, but painterly. The partly finished sketch was too clinical and stale. A few paint splashes fixed that.

Tomorrow? No real plans, but it is technically a Holiday Weekend, so perhaps we’ll go for a walk if the sun shines as it should.

More wind, More wet – 23 May 2020

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Thank you very much for your contribution to the watering of the garden and the ruffling of the leaves, but we have no need of your attention for now thank you. We will be in touch when we require more water from the sky.

Not just dull today. Dull, wet and windy. Nowhere to go. Nothing worth doing. Just fed up. It’s on days like this that Lockdown really bites. If it weren’t for lockdown we’d have gone out for lunch somewhere on a day like today. We wouldn’t have minded waiting to be seated in Milano or Cotton House. We’d have accepted that we hadn’t booked and couldn’t expect to be placed right away. It’s so different when there is no Milano and no Cotton House. There’s not even a Saturday, because nothing is in its familiar place, and some things may never be again.

I prowled around for a while with nothing to do. Kept thinking that the rain was drying up, then five minutes later it was battering against the window again. Eventually, after lunch I sat down in a plane at Piarco airport in Trinidad and flew to Tobago. Sunny skies and palm trees. That brightened an hour or so. Then I went and splattered some paint on a wee canvas, but that didn’t help, so I just rubbed it down and decided I’d paint something better tomorrow. Tomorrow may be a better painting day than today because the topic, which like all topics this May are Lockdown Friendly, is Where You Would Want To Be Now – using Google Street View. That’s a great topic. Pick a place and paint or draw it. Yes, I could go for that. As for today, it was a Water Glass.

Started an email before dinner, which for both of us was a reheat of yesterday’s, but we weren’t complaining. Finished the email after dinner. It was a difficult one to write, but I felt I had to write it to a friend who is facing cancer for the second or third time in their life. He’s a nice guy who doesn’t let it get him down. An example to us all.

Finally settled down to sketch the Water Glass and ended up fairly happy with it. It’s not really great, but I feel it’s ‘painterly’ enough to pass muster.

Today’s PoD is one of my chilli plants, a Cayenne pepper. This little guy has been sitting on the kitchen window sill since he was a seed. Now he’s produced a flower, so maybe he’s actually a she!

It actually looks as if the weather will be better tomorrow. Not so much rain and lessening wind an the chance, just the chance of some sunshine. We’ll see. We have no plans.

Windy and Wet – 22 May 2020

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That about summed it up. Windy and Wet.

Parcelled up some fabric to post to my cousin’s granddaughter to make some masks. Pretty Mickey Mouse fabric. There’s no sense in making boring masks when you can make ones that will make someone else smile. Good idea Gemma.

Had to wait outside the post office in the rain while some ‘zoomer’ had a long conversation with the woman behind the counter I thought the bloke in front of me was going to hook him (in a suitably Socially Distanced way, of course). When the zoomer came out the whole queue gave a great sigh of relief.

That was about the highlight of the day. No gardening was possible due to the wind and rain. We just stayed in. Well, I did sneak out during a dry spell to grab today’s PoD which should have been a blurred shot of the rhododendrons blowing in the gale force wind, but none of the shots were deemed worthwhile, so a static one had to fill the bill.

Dinner for me was a mince pie. Not like a mutton pie or a scotch pie, but a pie made with puff pastry and mince. A real mince pie like my mum made. Scamp talked me through the making of it one more time. I think I’ve got in in the grey cells now.

Tonight’s sketch was to be A Book, a Newspaper or a Magazine. I chose Magazine, because I don’t read fairy stories, so the newspaper was out. A book is basically a rectangular prism, but a magazine can be folded and when it’s opened out it’s got curves and little shadow areas. This is a food magazine, so although, unlike oranges, you can’t eat it, you can eat the things it teaches you to make. That’s good enough for me.

Hopefully the wind will calm down tomorrow and we’ll get out for our daily exercise.