Going Spanish – 26 February 2024

Today we took the bus in to Glasgow. We were going for a late lunch.

“Late” because it should have been last week we went for lunch in Café Andaluz in the West End, but I really wasn’t at my best last week and thankfully Scamp got the date changed to today. The lunch was a Christmas gift from Scamp. Christmas seems such a long time ago now. We had a lovely lunch of five plates of tapas. Spanish black pudding, Chicken pieces on skewers, Patatas Bravas, Lamb tagine and Prawns in garlic oil, with sides of olives and bread and a glass of Sangria. Dessert was Churros for two! Just brilliant on such a lovely almost warm and very spring like day.

We had taken the X3 in to Glasgow and then while I went to get my hair cut, Scamp went browsing for sandals without success. Then we got he subway out to Kelvinbridge and I grabbed a few photos of the River Kelvin rushing over the rapids. From there we walked through the park and up the steps that led to Great Western Road. We walked past all the posh and weird shops that it’s been famous for, since I can remember. When we got to Byres Road we went looking for the restaurant which is well hidden in plain sight along a narrow lane.

We were far too early, so we went for a walk in the Botanic Gardens. We didn’t go to the Kibble Palace circular greenhouse today. Instead we walked up to the garden area which was covered with black polythene sheeting to heat up the soil ready for planting. It was when we were walking back I saw PoD which is a line of magenta coloured crocuses. They were shining so brightly in the sunlight, they just had to be the PoD.

We just had time for a gentle walk back to Café Andaluz and lunch.

When we were finished there, we walked down Byres Road checking out the shops that had changed and the ones that have been in the same place for years. I saw a couple of books I fancied, but I’d left my book token at home, so I hope I remember their names. I’m sure I will.

We had an afternoon drink in Oran Mor G&T for Scamp and an Innis & Gunn IPA for me. Quite fruity and almost floral. Worth paying extra for.

And that was us almost done. Subway back to Glasgow and a crowded X3 home. A lovely day.

I’d a bit of catching up to do. Two sketches to do. One for yesterday and one for today. Thankfully the blog for yesterday was done and posted on time

Yesterday’s first:

Yesterday’s prompt was Salmon.
This one took me a bit of time. First I had to get myself a new rod and reel and also some fly fishing line. Then I had to catch the fish. It wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be, mainly because I went fishing at night. Not so many nosy folk out on the river asking if you have a license and things.
After an hour I had half a dozen decent sized salmon. I chose one the right size and got the sketch done and then splashed on the paint. Job done. Anyone want a salmon? Just don’t ask where it came from.

And today’s prompt was Rust.
I chose a rusty nail. Not the most exciting sketch ever, but it fulfilled the prompt. That’s the one on the right, by the way.
The other one is also a Rusty Nail. For those who have never heard of it, it’s a mixture of Whisky and Drambuie. Very nice!
The difference between the two is subtle. The first one is hit with a hammer. The second one, if you make it in a big enough glass, make you feel like you’ve been hit with a hammer!

Tomorrow we’re hoping to see the only man brave enough to wear a loud shirt in a built up area. Andrew.

Another lovely, but busy day – 25 February 2024

It was Sunday and a sunny day. Usually a day of relaxation, with little work being done.

We both did a bit of work. Scamp wanted to rehouse an old photograph of Hazel, Jamie, Neil and Simonne from ‘quite a few years ago’ in a new frame. She had already earmarked a suitable frame from my odds and ends collection. Unfortunately, the picture didn’t fit the mat properly, so I was tasked with making a new mat from a suitable piece of mat card from my collection. It wasn’t a hard job, in fact it was quite enjoyable. Making the aperture fit the picture is all to do with subtraction and long division which I can just about manage without a calculator. The hard bit is remembering how to cut the angled mat to fit the picture. If you do this day in, day out, it’s not a problem, but when you do picture framing once in a blue moon the old maxim “Measure twice, cut once” is a useful guideline. I had a lunch break before I started the cutting.

There was some mince left over from hmm, must have been Thursday. Scamp suggested Mince with a Poached Egg. Definitely a Scottish meal, especially if served on a slice of buttered bread. If you haven’t tried it, don’t scoff. You are missing one of life’s delights, unless you’re Hazy or Scamp. It was delightful. Slightly overdone egg, but that was my fault, otherwise it was delicious.

Back in the workshop, the glass was cleaned the mat was cut and the photo was an exact fit. It’s now assembled and hanging in pride of place in the living room. Both families together in a photo that’s probably eight years old at least. Baldock is what we think. I’ll try to get a photo of the photo tomorrow.

With that done, there was some easy gardening to be done. Scamp was taking cuttings of some of her geraniums and I was pruning the Budleia bush in the back garden and also cutting down the seed head of the sunflowers from back in the summer. I think I’d like to plant some more this coming year. I like those big yellow heads.

Around 3pm the light was getting interesting. A bit warmer colour than earlier in the day, but bright enough that it wasn’t going to cause gritty digital noise. I got a few, but the best one, and PoD was one of the first I took today. It’s a view of the pine trees in St Mo’s reflecting in one of the new ponds. There were a few other contenders, but this one stood out for me.

Dinner was SeaBass with crushed potatoes and spring onions served with marrowfat peas. Quite, quite delicious.

Spoke to Jamie in the evening and it seems he is quite happy with the way the reconstruction of the roof and the dormers, more importantly, so is the structural engineer. Those are both good signs. Not so much flooding this week, but a fair bit of mud on the road that needs to we washed away before it becomes a problem. Poor Vixen can’t get out for a walk until her paw if healed. I hope it doesn’t take too long. Simonne seems to be having a good start to her holiday with her sister and their dad. Nice photos.

Watched another school play masquerading as a detective mystery in Death In Paradise. I think the cast need a re-shuffle.

Didn’t quite get around to sketching today’s prompt which was Salmon. Maybe fish tomorrow, but not fish today.

Read Monday’s for Sunday’s story and sketch!

Tomorrow we are hoping to have a lunch in a Spanish restaurant in Glasgow, rescheduled from last week.

Ah! That’s more like it – 24 February 2024

Feeling almost normal again. I’m keeping it at that. I’m not ready yet to say I feel human again!

A lazy morning today sitting in the sunshine in the living room. It had been freezing during the night and was still quite cool outside. We talked about what we wanted to do and where to go. Scamp suggested that Glasgow wasn’t really a good idea at weekends and I agreed. Her second suggestion was Chatelherault for a ‘gentle’ walk. That fitted the bill for me, so we gathered together all the things we needed for a walk and drove over to a rather busy carpark near the “Big House”. The house was the hunting lodge of the Duke of Hamilton, but is now a busy and expensive (so I’m told) wedding venue. Since a ‘gentle’ walk was to be the order of the day I suggested walking down past the steel cut out figures of William Wallace, Robert Owen and David Livingstone. Usually a good photo opportunity, if the sun is playing nice, but it wasn’t today.

The path splits after them. One route takes you to the Old Avon Bridge and is quite scenic, but you have a long slog back up the hill again. The other route takes you through the woods, high above the Avon Water and back to the car park again with the option of stopping at the cafe. We chose the second option.

There were a family in front of us who were with a man in a motorised wheelchair. He seemed to be making heavy weather of the first climb up through a muddy path. By the time we caught up with them he was stuck fast between two exposed tree roots. Couldn’t go forward and couldn’t go back. We offered to help them, but the woman who I reckon was the his daughter said thanks but they’d manage. They seemed to thing that if they got past the tree roots everything would be fine from there. The wheelchair looked really new, but if he kept trying forward and reverse he was going to flatten his battery. Eventually the woman said “NO! WE’RE GOING BACK!” I thought at that point the boss had spoken. In retrospect, it was the correct decision.

We said Good Luck and walked on. It was heavy going for a while climbing up through puddles, burns and mud, then the path firmed up and dried up too. We carried on and a couple coming from the opposite direction told us it was pretty muddy the way we were going. We thanked them, and noticed that they were wearing ordinary town shoes. Just near the end of the path we discovered what they were talking about. The path dropped away in a steep slope that was almost pure mud. The centre 400mm or so was fairly dry and navigable. How the bloke would have kept control of the wheelchair in that I hate to think. Anyway, the worst was behind us.

We got to the cafe and Scamp grabbed a table while I stood in a queue for 20 mins or more but got two scones with jam and clotted cream and two coffees. The last two scones at that. Paid for them and for a pot of marmalade I’d picked up we enjoyed our lunch.
Note to self: The coffee in the Cafe is excellent. This is not Costa coffee!! It’s safe to drink.

Drove home and parked, then walked down to the shops to get a couple of small pizzas for dinner.

PoD was a view looking up the hill at The Big House as Alex calls it with a heavy sky behind it. Partly processed in Lightroom, partly in ON1. I’ve decided it has its uses.

Today’s prompt was Ruby.
I thought a Ruby ring was the easiest and simplest thing to draw. Simplest, yes. Easiest? Nothing to do with reflections and refractions is ever going to be easy, but this is my answer anyway.

Felt so much better after that walk in the woods. They say that walking in pine woods is good for the respiration. Perhaps it is. Perhaps I was just happy to be outside in the air again.

No plans for tomorrow, but maybe Sea Bass for dinner!

Another improving day – 22 February 2024

Me, that is, as well as the weather

A fairly late rise, but I didn’t, in my heart of hearts think I was fit enough to go dancing today. Not for myself, but I didn’t want to spread it to all the other dancers at the tea dance. So it was decided the we wouldn’t grace the dance floor today. I think we were both in agreement about that.

We had a morning call from Hazy and talked about Jamie’s house improvements as well as Neil’s antibiotics and of course the Ninja Tilly who ambushes ‘monsters’ in the bedroom. Good job Hazy hadn’t realised that Scamp and I were still in bed, tucked up and warm without an attack cat anywhere nearby.

I spent most of the morning writing up yesterday’s blog post which I chose to forego yesterday to get a good night’s sleep instead. I’d left myself a list of bullet points that would help me to flesh out yesterday’s wee stories.

I took a walk round St Mo’s in the afternoon and spooked a deer again. I’ve a feeling they are going to start banning me from walking through the woods. Or accuse me of being a stalker – a deer stalker, or is that something different? I also stalked a couple of innocent swans in the pond and one of the shots got PoD.

It was cold again outside with temperatures dropping down to single figures. I was really glad to get back to the house for a heat.

Dinner tonight was my all time favourite – Mince ’n’ Tatties. Scamp made it and there’s some left for, probably Saturday, when I’m hoping to make it into Spaghetti Bolognese (without the tatties, obviously.)

I made a decision on ON1 Photo RAW 2024 tonight. It has to go. There are only minor improvements compared with last year’s 2023 version. The examples and tutorials use carefully selected photos that work well with ON1. Real world examples fail miserably. I’ve issued my request to be refunded the cost of the software well within the required 30 days. I almost feel like Alex with his changing camera collection. Sorry Alex!

Today’s prompt was Chestnut and I used an old (2018) photo of mine with a couple of chestnuts in it. Not just one chestnut either. Instead I give you two. One still hiding in its shell and one that has extricated itself from the spiny green cover. I used to love chestnuts or ‘Chessies’ when I was wee. Baking them in the oven after soaking them overnight in vinegar which allegedly made them invincible. Don’t try it, it doesn’t work. Carefully drilling a hole through the middle and passing a string through, knotting it at both ends to keep it secure. Then the excitement of smashing the opposition’s ‘chessie’ with yours. However, it was usually my specially hardened chessie that cracked first. Great fun when you’re six or seven.
Now I keep them over winter in our cold greenhouse and plant them in the parks in the spring to grow into chestnut trees.

Watched The Apprentice later. Is that program meant to be real or a comedy? Where one contestant couldn’t work out how to use a measuring tape.

Best Wishes to Simonne who is travelling to Trinidad tomorrow to visit her dad. Say Hello to Jaime for me please, Simonne. Hope your sister untangles the red tape.

We might do lunch tomorrow with June and Ian.

Feeling better – 21 February 2024

A hot shower this morning definitely helped dispel the blues this cold was bringing down on me.

The shower combined with a dose of cough medicine and a couple of paracetamol brought me back to life again, almost ready to face the day ahead, despite the rain outside. I think it had been raining all night and it wasn’t due to disappear until at least midday. For once they got it almost perfectly right. As the morning wore on, the rain became lighter and then traces of blue sky could be seen. The day was improving.

In the afternoon, after lunch, Scamp was on the phone to her sister in Skye hearing that the weather was just February dull there. That gave me the chance for a walk in St Mo’s with the possibility of some photos in the sunshine. I did get a few, but I think the land is waiting for a week on Friday when Spring will arrive. Meteorological Spring at least, but we’ll take that as SPRING!!
Probably the best picture I took was one looking along the boardwalk into the sun with a big threatening bank of dark cloud looming overhead. It became PoD.

It may have been bright today, but it was certainly cold and the breeze from the west was cooling things down a fair bit. I didn’t notice until I came back home and felt my cheeks chilling in the warm air of the hall.

Scamp suggested Fish Risotto for dinner and I agreed to make it. The simplest risotto ever because the oven does most of the hard work and a couple of spoonfuls of crème fraîche adds the creaminess that would otherwise be lost.

We watched Landscape Artist of the Year semi-final tonight but were both disappointed with the overall quality of the work and certainly with work of the chosen three who will go on to the final. It left us wondering what they would produce in the final!

Today’s prompt was Chocolate.
However it would appear that the pristine bar of Choco chocolate has been investigated and partly digested by a Turquoise Tortoise. I didn’t know tortoises ate chocolate! To understand the story you had to have seen yesterday’s prompt.
Not a drawing or a painting I was particularly proud of, but it fitted the prompt and it didn’t take too long to do.

I was struggling to get the photos and the sketch finished tonight. Too much time reading tutorials on ON1 2024, that might go back within the 30 day cut off time. Not sure it really works for me. Anyway, that’s why this is a catch-up.

Tomorrow we may be going dancing at the Glenburn Tea Dance.

The morning that disappeared – 20 February 2024

Woke this morning after a restless night with a sore throat and a head full of cotton wool. No, I hadn’t been on a bender. I had a stinker of a cold.

We were booked for lunch in Glasgow this afternoon, but that wasn’t going to happen. Scamp took one look at me and asked if she should try to reschedule the lunch appointment. At first I said no, but then thought it was the best way to deal with the situation. Luckily Scamp got the reservation changed to next week and all was well again. I went back to bed and slept for another two or three hours, I can’t remember which. I finally got up about 1pm and had tea and toast for my lunch along with a couple of vitamin c tablets and two paracetamol.

Once that lot were in my system I felt a bit better. The weather was drying up and I suggested Scamp and I should go for a walk to St Mo’s to see the Fairy Trail, because she hadn’t seen it yet and we reckoned it would be magicked away some time soon. So that’s what we did. I got a few more photos of the fairy houses with the washing lines, but PoD was a shot of St Mo’s pond across the reed beds shining in the sun. Once round the pond was enough for me today and we walked home to coffee (for me) and Ovaltine (for Scamp).

I struggled in the rest of the afternoon with the awkward way ON1 2024 has for making and saving presets. Nowhere near as simple as Lightroom. I’m still undecided whether to keep it or get a refund. I’ve got a week to decide.

Dinner was Mac ’n’ Cheese with bacon strips for extra flavour. Made by Scamp of course.

Today’s prompt was Turquoise.
Yet another boring rather than challenging subject. I could have drawn and painted a necklace or a charm, but instead I drew a tortoise and painted it turquoise. Turquoise is a really awkward colour to mix using water colours, easier, I believe in oils. The way I mixed it was with a sap green and sky blue with the magic ingredient, White Gouache which gave the opaque white I needed to take away the greyness the other two colours made by themselves. I think Tommy the Turquoise liked his pink toenails!

This was always going to be a fairly short blog post, because I’m off to make myself a hot toddy and go to bed.

No plans for tomorrow, but I’m definitely feeling better tonight.

No fillings yet … – 19 February 2024

Just before 9am Scamp booked an emergency appointment for this afternoon to let the dentist assess the problem with her old broken molar.

Ten minutes later she got a phone call to ask if she could come in at 11am instead. Even better. That was us up and getting the day started. I drove her up to Condorrat and then went for a walk in St Mo’s. I’d hardly walked down to the pond when the heavens opened and I went back to the car. I waited out the rain and then risked another walk, but Scamp beat me to it and told me she was ready to come home.

The dentist didn’t want to extract the tooth, but suggested a silver cap instead. She had the option to pay more and get a white cap, but since the tooth is right at the back of her mouth, nobody is ever going to see it anyway. She hasn’t made a firm commitment to the silver cap yet, but the dentist had put a synthetic cover over the tooth and Scamp is happy with it.

Instead of driving straight home, we went to B&Q to get some paint testers to see what would be best for the bedroom and the downstairs hall. We decided last week that we’d repaint both areas. We came home with a cream, a pink and a yellow and neither of us like any of them. Not quite back to stage one, we did find a big tub of what is probably Magnolia. The ultimate no-nonsense, slap it on anywhere, inoffensive paint everyone uses at one time or another. It has been ear marked for the bedroom.

Back home via Tesco for bread and blueberries and stuff for lunch. Then I went out for a walk in the wintry wind. It wasn’t really all that cold as long as you kept walking, but stand too long in that cold south westerly wind and you felt it. No frogs today, or if they were there, they were hiding. However there were bird feeders in the fairy dell now. Home made ones created from pine cones stuffed with lard and coated in bird seed. It looks like this is an ongoing project.

I spooked two deer in the woods, but they had seen me long before I saw them and all I was was their white tails bouncing away into the bushes. PoD turned out to be an old worn fencepost with barbed wire wrapped round it. Just enough interest to find a place in Flickr.

Today’s prompt was Straw. I edited it to Straw Man.
I saw a few straw figures in farmers fields across the country. Some were rude, some were political, but all were funny and they were all made from straw and silage that was rolled up in black plastic. When I saw today’s prompt I wondered what it would look like if the wrapping was removed and the Straw Men could stand there naked as nature intended. They would certainly be impressive and slightly scary figures. I think there would be more than a touch of The Wicker Man about them.

That’s about it. I’m heading for bed early tonight with a couple of paracetamol to give me a night’s sleep. I do believe I have the cold. Scamp should sleep better tonight after a stressful day.

Dancin’ – 17 February 2024

Back in the old routine.

Drove over to Brookfield in that Saturday morning lull in the traffic. Thankfully not too many folk in today’s class, just the usual suspects and Margaret Maciver to throw the even numbers out.

First thing was the LA Swing which we didn’t really know. By “didn’t really know” I mean Scamp had seen it and had it stored in her memory, but it was a mystery to me. Add those two pieces of individual knowledge and divide by two and you get “didn’t really know”. Maybe that’s too mathematical and obscure for this time in the morning. The LA Swing turned out to be a Charleston type of 1920s thing with kicks, turns and lifts. The lifts were optional, thankfully. Simple but fast paced. That took me by surprise. I’m more used to a gentle start to the dancing day.

Just to make it worse, the next set was Quickstep. The teachers’ demo was like a blank page to me. Then, when we started, Scamp reassured me it was just the same quickstep we’d been dancing on and off for weeks, and that’s when the penny dropped and I relaxed a bit. It wasn’t so bad but the language is sometimes so obscure it hides a simple routine. How would you like to be told that the next figure is a Zig-Zag Back Lock Running Finish with optional Fishtails? Confused? I was, especially when they said that the zig-zag wasn’t really a zig-zag. Clarity, that’s what we need, Clarity. I won’t say we covered the quickstep really well, but we made a decent fist of it most of the time. Also, my breath was coming back when we eventually finished after two fast routines.

One short respite of sorts with the Ria Bachata which at normal bachata speed was fine, but was chaos for most when the tempo was increased. For once we were leading this silly wee dance.

The last routine just had to be the Samba. Not so much a dance as a shambles set to music. There is no way I’m ever going to learn this piece of nonsense. It’s a bit like Soca with fancy names for the different routines. The less said about it, the better. Let’s hope Jane had now got it out of her system. If they stick to the same timing next week, I’ll leave early for a walk around the bowling green while Scamp and the rest can dance the Samba.

Driving home was through more congestion, as I suspected it would be. Saturday’s are always a problem on the M8. However, once we were on the M74 it was just a case of following the flow. It’s a slightly longer drive, but at least we were moving at the legal limit.

We had a posh dinner at home to celebrate our 51st wedding anniversary. A big slice of trout for Scamp and a thick rump steak for me. It’s ages since I’ve had rump steak, but this one was exceptionally nice. Lidl at its best. A few glasses of wine, possibly a few too many on my part and I decided to leave the blog until Sunday. Don’t drink and blog. That’s my rule.

PoD was a photo taken from the front window of a poor Alec’s Red rose bud whose stem was broken in the winds. It had rained since we got home from Brookfield and there was no way I was risking getting the camera wet when I could take the shot perfectly well from inside.

Today’s prompt was Coral.
These are two small pieces of coral we found on a beach in Tobago many years ago. Broken but well rounded by the action of the waves and sand, they are more complex in shape than the coral that is to be found on the Coral Beach in Skye. We’d dearly love to go back to Tobago, but being realistic, it’s more likely we’d go back to the Coral Beach in Skye!

No plans for tomorrow.

Cormorant – 15 February 2024

It was a wet day today. Nothing really to recommend it, except that there was no mist today, unlike yesterday.

After a lazy start and a light lunch, we drove up to Tesco in the town centre to get some messages. As I’ve said before, there is more of a choice there and why stint yourself when you can add five minutes to your drive and get a far better choice. We bumped into Shona there and remarked on her new hair colour. Then we drove home. Some days are full of exciting surprises and some are days like today.

I went for a walk round St Mo’s because the rain had stopped for a while and I wanted to get out. Scamp was busy booking a hair appointment for tomorrow. Not hair colouring, just hair cutting. Occasionally a Cormorant visits the pond in St Mo’s and it was standing there today holding its wings out to dry. It would take quite a while for them to dry today because although it was mild, the wind had disappeared with the rain. As I said, it was drying its wings, but it kept turning round to see what I was up to behind it and one of those times I managed to get a full face to face shot. Quite pleased with it. PoD done and dusted.

Dinner tonight was roast chicken and it was done perfectly. I also roasted some beetroot we’d bought at the weekend and it will probably go into a salad or on a piece of bread tomorrow. I cut the tops off carefully, Hazy, and they are now sitting in their water bath on the kitchen window sill. The garlic and spring onion were getting leggy so they are now planted in soil in the greenhouse.

I found today’s prompt, Chartreuse, one of the most restrictive this year in EDiF.
Chartreuse is an alcohol based herbal liqueur made by monks in southern France to a secret recipe. It sounded to me like an upmarket Buckfast, also made by monks to a secret recipe. The two main differences are the cost and the colour. Chartreuse is green or yellow and Buckfast is brown with red tinges (or so I’m told). I liked the idea of green wine, but not the cost.

The clock is in the picture because the first time I heard the word Chartreuse was in the track “Clockwork Chartreuse” on the Loudon Wainwright III album “Attempted Mustache” back in the early ’70s. The lyrics are fairly violent and probably wouldn’t be allowed in these PC days.

Scamp is booked to get her hair cut tomorrow morning and I might cut mine in the afternoon. Twins!

Out to lunch – 14 February 2024

But a case of the Curate’s Egg

Today Scamp mentioned that she would like to visit a new garden centre called Homegrown. We’d nothing better to do, so we drove over to Gartcosh to see what it was like.

We found it easily enough, just a few minutes off the M73. It was a new-build rectangular block. We went straight upstairs to the restaurant and were one of the last to get a table. All the other tables were already reserved, but didn’t have any notice on them to say they were not free. We both settled on the soup, Leek & Potato, and chose to have coffee afterwards. The soup was fine, lots of flavour, but apart from the obvious L&P I couldn’t quite put my finger on the other ingredients. When we finished and the waitress was taking away the plate I asked what was in the soup and that’s when things started to go wrong. The waitress just couldn’t answer my question and mumbled “Well, leeks and potatoes … “ Scamp leapt to her aid by suggesting “Celery?” She agreed that “there was celery in it and onions…”

In the end I gave up and we both ordered coffee and a scone. When mine arrived it was absolutely roasting. Just one notch down from glowing red hot. Worse, it was brick hard (probably a fire brick.) The final flaw was that it was baked onto the black serviette it was sitting on, I had to tear the thing off. Scamp said her’s was fine, but a bit hard. When a second waitress came to take away our plates, Scamp mentioned the problem with the scones. The waitress made a few noises, but seemed unable to string the noises into a coherent sentence. We paid and left to see what treats the shop and plants had in store for us.

The answer was “Not Much”. It seemed a bit of a shambles. Shopping trolleys filled with cushions were being wheeled about in quite a tight space and shelves were being re-stacked in the shop area. Some lovely pieces were on display for ‘lovely’ prices. The outside plants area was the same. Lots of workers with wheelbarrows bring in raw materials and the sound of a Stihl saw cutting through sheet steel. Almost everything was overpriced compared to the garden centres we’re used to visiting.  The overall impression was of a work in progress.

Would I visit again? Well, today could just have been a bad day, but there was definitely a feeling of style over substance here. Also, people were being turned away from the restaurant because tables had been pre-booked. That is fine if there is a card on the table to say ‘Reserved’, but there wasn’t. They company might also think of investing in buzzers to hand to potential customers if they want to keep them onside. I’m usually happy to give a company a second chance, but I’m not sure I would for this one.

We drove home. I’d managed to get a couple of grey photos of a grey landscape on a grey day. I turned one of them into a sepia toned monochrome image that would become PoD.

Next task was to get sketches and paintings done for today and yesterday in EDiF.
Yesterday’s prompt was Lime, so being cantankerous, I made it Limes. After a couple of aborted attempts at using salt to give me the texture I was looking for in the lime’s skin, I eventually searched on YouTube and found the answer. I learned that the best way is not to remove the paint using salt, but to add the texture with a fine brush and a stippling action. Lo and behold, the additive method works. I’m done now with limes. I’ll keep them and the salt for Margaritas!

Today’s prompt was for “Rose”. This might have had something to do with today’s date, 14th February is traditionally Valentine’s Day. To me it was just a chance to sketch and paint a rose, more or less freehand with very little pencil sketching. I did it in what an art teacher once called my ‘splashy style’ totally the opposite of yesterday’s ‘Lime’ which was quite tight and calculated. Strangely I enjoyed both techniques.

Tomorrow looks a bit like today as far as the weather is concerned. I’m not sure where we will be going yet, if anywhere.