October 2015 – My Photo Blog

Halloween – 31 October 2015

Posted on October 31, 2015October 31, 2015 by Zogman

After a brilliant concert by Randy Newman last night and the inevitable late night, today started with a late lie in. The concert, as I said was brilliant. Newman’s voice in the first half was not at its best, but then he never was a great singer. Maybe it’s just his age showing, but he seemed to be having trouble reaching some of the high notes. In the second half he seemed more at home with the content and sang all the old faithfuls. The night was complete for me when he sang Rednecks, premising it with a warning that it contained lyrics that might be deemed politically incorrect. It was brilliant!

The day had started off with heavy cloud and drizzle. It lifted a bit by midday and we set off for lunch at Vecchia Bologna in Bridge of Allan. After that we went in to Stirling. I wanted ink for my fountain pen and searched all the way round WH Smith’s without success. However, as Scamp said, they had their Christmas stuff out. Well, that makes up for everything, doesn’t it. The stationers doesn’t have ink, but it does have the Christmas junk. They sell Lamy pens, but they don’t sell the refills. I think they should take a long look at themselves and decide what they are.

Had a look at some lovely paintings in one of the galleries in Stirling. Unfortunately they also had a selection of Ron Lawson thatched cottage crap too.

Beautiful light on the old sandstone buildings and the trees when we were walking to the car. This light morphed into a great sunset as we drove home. By the time we got home, the light had gone and it was growing dark.

We had three sets of guisers (isn’t that a better word than trick or treaters – no competition!) at the door this year. That’s much more than we’ve had before.

Pakora for a wee bite to eat watching ‘Strictly’. Superb!

A dull day, but a lot done – 30 October 2015

Posted on October 30, 2015 by Zogman

For the second day, I only have one photo to show for the past nine hours. Up at about 7.00 hungry for food after yesterday’s stomach upset emptied me out. Porridge and tea helped to fill the gap. Then it was off to the doc’s to get my flu jag. I’d been planning to make apricot croissants for Scamp because they are her favourite in Cafe Nero. Simplicity itself to make. Just ready made croissants (although I could have used puff pastry), a tin of apricots and a packet of ready-made custard. They worked perfectly first time. That must be a first for me.

I finally managed to work out how to connect the DVD recorder to the Virgin Tivo box so that I can download a set of programs to disk. Quality isn’t great and they will have to be recorded in real-time which is a bit of a pain, but it can be done on what would be down-time for the Tivo.

Went to Cotton House for lunch and then when we came back, I grabbed a half hour in St Mo’s to get today’s only decent shot.

Almost ready to go out to see Randy Newman at the Concert Hall tonight. Looking forward to it.

A Bum-py Day (Toilet Humour) – 29 October 2015

Posted on October 29, 2015 by Zogman

After yesterday, I had a bit of an upset stomach. I’m not saying it was the chicken bhuna, but it was the only thing I had, but Scamp didn’t. Ghandi’s Revenge? Could have been. Despite this, I still managed a coffee with Fred P. I nearly laughed out loud when the barista told me to to tell him to stop ordering Cortados because she’s fed up making them.

I was driving out to the Tesco carpark when a woman reversed into my car, despite me virtually standing on the horn. Luckily, because of plastic bumpers on cars these days and the fact she was travelling very slowly, there was only the tiniest of scratches on the door, so I let her go without even a sweary word. I must be losing my touch.

That was almost it for the day. Went out later to Tesco (without an accident this time) and grabbed a few shots of the sun going down over the ‘pond’. Officially Broadwood Loch.

Looking forward to my Flu Jag tomorrow morning.

Hole in my Shoe – 28 October 2015

Posted on October 28, 2015 by Zogman

Today we went to Glasgow on the bus, in the rain. Scamp had booked lunch at the Ashoka in Ashton Lane. We were going to go by train, in the rain, but then I’d have to drive to the station and back again and that meant I couldn’t even have a beer with my lunch. Thank you Scottish Government. The nanny state on steroids.

Lunch was really, really excellent. First time we’d been there. I had chicken pakora and chicken bhuna. Scamp had veg pakora and saag paneer. Both were very good, but the star attraction was the naan bread. Usually these days the nan comes as chopped up pieces of a naan in a basket. I may be paranoid, but I think that leaves the door open to all sorts of possible mischief by unscrupulous restaurants. Using leftovers from a previous client springs to mind! None of that nonsense here. One big fat well fired naan, hanging on a stand dripping with ghee. Superb!! We’ll be back, all being well.

By the time we got back to Glasgow it was raining even harder. Bus back home. Thank goodness by accident they’ve changed the times of the busses in Glasgow so not all the Cumbernauld buses come at the same time. Now if you miss one, you only have to wait 15 minutes not the half an hour it used to be.

When we were walking home from the bus the rain seemed to get heavier. It was then I noticed the squeak from my left shoe an not long after that, I also noticed the wet soaking through. Good summer shoes, but not fit for walking in the rain. Such a shame.

Did I mention it rained today?

Apple Trees – 27 October 2015

Posted on October 27, 2015 by Zogman

First the Apple part. The hard drive on the Mac is getting really clogged up with excess files. Zip files I’ve already unpacked, installed and possibly rejected. Disk images that have been installed and, again, possibly rejected. Hundreds of them. Gigabytes of them. All needlessly taking up space on the poor wee 2.5″ drive. I made the decision to dump them on the NAS and then delete them from the Mac, freeing up much needed space. I didn’t do it myself, no I got Hazel to do it, and while it was there, it organised the files into folders by date. Hazel is possible the most useful bit of software on the Mac. Just in case you were getting confused there JIC. Next for relocation is the backup iTunes library. There’s 30GB in that which could easily reside on the NAS.

So what about the Trees? After lunch, in fact quite a bit after lunch I decided to go for a walk along the railway to try for a photo of the autumn colours in the trees. One specific tree was in my mind to photograph, but when I got there I found out I was about a week too late. All the leaves were gone, but the skeletal branches made a good silhouette against a darkening sky. I keep forgetting just how short the days are now. I’ll have to rethink my timing for walks because the light is beginning to fail about 3.30. I did however get a couple of good shots of fading light on the Campsie Fells away over at the Dumbarton end where the hills slope rapidly towards the River Clyde. It needed a bit of post processing in Lightroom and also in Intensify Pro. I hope I’ve not overdone it. It’s so easy to do in Intensify.

I finally booked a slot in a sewing class in January for men. It may be the kickstart to my career move to dressmaking.

Progress and Gadgets – 26 October 2015

Posted on October 26, 2015October 26, 2015 by Zogman

Sooo. Last night the circuit breaker on the electricity consumer unit tripped, nearly causing a major catastrophe. We nearly didn’t find out who was dropped out of Strictly! Luckily, we managed to throw the switch and get the Tivo™ box up and running again before the big reveal. However, this is the third or fourth time the electricity has tripped recently and we’ve pinned it down to something in the kitchen that’s doing the dirty. Best guess is the kettle, which poses another problem. You see, I fitted the socket the kettle is connected to! So it’s either the kettle or my handiwork. I think it’s the kettle itself, but I’m willing to believe it could be the socket. Simplest thing to do is replace the kettle and that was my plan today. As usual, I got sidetracked when looking for something as simple as a kettle. We mostly use the kettle for making tea (for me) hot water (for Scamp) and coffee (for both of us. All cup or mug sized quantities. When I was looking, a hot water dispenser caught my eye. It has a reservoir that holds about 2.5 litres of water and dispenses it as max 250ml of freshly boiled water. It seemed to fit the specification, and even better, it’s a Gadget. I just love gadgets. That’s why I drove to Argos at Robroyston to collect one. Scamp was unimpressed. Well, what would you expect, she’s a pragmatist. Why buy a water boiler when we needed a kettle? I take her point, but if we all thought that way, we’d still be driving around in black cars with solid wheels. We must embrace progress. That’s my motto. Progress and Gadgets. I didn’t tell Scamp that I also saw a WiFi controlled kettle. That would definitely have been a step too far. I also got a socket tester while I was out and checked the kettle socket. It passed with flying colours. So it was the kettle after all.

Since it was Monday and that’s Gems day at our house, I made myself scarce and went to do the Gym / Swim. That’s where I took today’s epic photo from. That was sarcasm. It’s not the best photo in the world, not by a long way, but it gave me a chance for a small rant against wind farms. These blights on the landscape are great propaganda weapons.
They are usually painted white (white means clean, pure, untouched).
Sometimes the columns are painted green at the bottom (green means natural, balance, harmony).
Really, they do very little. You’d need thousands of them to generate the same amount of energy as a decent sized coal-fired power station. Also, it’s called “free” energy. It’s many things, but free isn’t one of them. There’s the initial cost for one thing. The cost of maintenance. The lack of efficiency. The cost of replacement, and finally and the cost to the tourism marked for the loss of revenue from these eyesores. The only good result I’ve seen from them is the annoyance they’ve been to Donald Trump. That was an off-shore wind farm, so there is not the same scenic impact, but still the same maintenance and replacement cost. If we want “free” energy, why don’t we use wave power? Simple. It’s not seen. Wave power generators are sub-sea. You don’t know they are there. You see the wind turbines turning, so you are fooled into thinking they are efficient, clean, free and an efficient way of making energy. There are other, as yet untapped methods of generating energy, as described here.There, that’s the rant finished for now.

Salsa at night, but we only stayed for our own class. We’d both had enough by then.

So, how would a WiFi kettle work? I must look into that.

A walk in the park – 25 October 2015

Posted on October 25, 2015October 25, 2015 by Zogman

Thank goodness we had an extra hour’s sleep last night, we both needed it. Two late nights in a row does take it out of you. Scamp wanted to go for a walk and we both agreed on Glasgow Green. It’s ages since we’d been there. It hadn’t changed much, although there was a gigantic big ‘circus’ tent in the middle of the green. It turned out it was really a gigantic big ‘beer tent’, part of Oktoberfest Glasgow 2015.

We walked around the ‘Barras’ too, and that had changed quite a bit. Bill’s Tool Store was still there with everything from a needle to an anchor and everything else in between. However, only a very small percentage of the original outside stalls were still there. Yes, the “tabacca” (sic) sellers were still there and yes, the DVD sellers were there too, but where were the hawkers who sold the curtains, the carpets and the car cleaner? We went inside and it too was only half full. Some of the stallholders I remembered from the days Val and I cruised around the stalls looking for Public Domain copies of Atari and Amiga software, but very few. Loads of old faces, people who had worked the Barras every weekend. It wasn’t the same, not nearly the same. Quite a sad place now dying, but fighting all the way. There are still bargains to be had. I got the ‘gilet’ I’d been looking for with lots of pockets – you must have lots of pockets when you’ve got lots of phones. I got it for a very good price too and it was new and possibly not ‘knocked off’.

We went back over to ‘The Green’ and watched the students rowing on the Clyde. The river was full today. Single sculls, pairs, fours and eights. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many on the river.

Lunch for me was a roll ‘n’ sausage (medium rare) and for Scamp was a round of toast in The People’s Palace. Then I went for a wander round the flowers and plants in the Wintergarden. There are always photos to be had in this place, and I wasn’t disappointed today.

Used my new phone card at Tesco to put a tenner on my phone and Tesco kindly boosted that with another £20. Impressed with Tesco so far.

Click on the mosaic as usual to be transported by the magic of the internet to my Flickr page.

Just call me Mr Phones – 24 October 2015

Posted on October 24, 2015October 24, 2015 by Zogman

IMG_2797- blog--297-1 Late getting to bed last night and up fairly early this morning. Fred P was picking me up to go to a colour mixing class at Cass Art in Glasgow. It didn’t turn out to be the most interesting class ever, probably the least inspiring I’ve been to in fact. However, it did make me smile when one woman managed to get the sleeve of her pink sweater in the deep blue ultramarine oil paint and then spread it across the front of the sweater too. It’s the sort of thing I would do, but I was circumspect this morning and dressed in my oldest rugby shirt – and I didn’t get a mark on it! All we did really was make a colour wheel, something I’ve been teaching weans to do for donkey’s ages. The example above is about the best photo I’ve taken today!

Poor Fred is stuck in the Talk Talk debacle and needed to get home pronto to go to the bank, so we didn’t have the usual casual wander around town, setting the world to rights. Shame.

When I came home it turned out Scamp had been in to town and back again today too, so there wasn’t any point in going there for lunch. We finally went to Milano’s, after finding out that we couldn’t get a table at Cotton House.

Last night I’d received an email from the Vodies saying that my old iPhone had been unlocked and to complete the procedure I had to fit a new sim to it and connect it to iTunes. This seemed a strange procedure, but I was willing to give it a go, so we headed off to Tesco to get a 99p sim. Came home and after two resets and a carrier settings upgrade, it sprung into life and announced that it was connected to Tesco with three bars of signal strength. At last, the Vodies do something right.

That was about it for the day. Scamp is singing with Gems at Abronhill tonight and I am alone writing stuff and sketching. I’ll go to Tesco and put a tenner on the phone tomorrow and I’ll be in business as Mr Phone with two iPhones and a Samsung.

Don’t call me – I’d just get confused which one was ringing – I’ll phone you!

Google is your friend, Artists – 23 October 2015

Posted on October 23, 2015October 23, 2015 by Zogman

I need some exercise. All this sitting around isn’t good for anyone. So, you guessed it, it’s gym and swim today. I managed all the myriad of torture machines without any mishap and then just as I was getting in to the pool, the waterbabies or whatever these swimming tots are called were all leaving with their swimming proficiency badges. The mummies and daddies and the occasional gran and grandpa were all smiling and holding their badges high. The tots weren’t bothered in the slightest. I think it was the prospect of lunch that got them more interested.

Painted a little when I got home after another bowl of the rather excellent Fish Stew I made yesterday. Sorry, I completely forgot to mention the fish stew yesterday, I got so carried away with the bread. Anyway, lunch was Fish Stew. After that, although the sky was darkening, I was going stir crazy so I drove down to Auchinstarry and walked along the railway. It’s ages since I’ve been along that way and I really enjoyed the walk.

When I got back Scamp was getting ready to go to the Witches sort of Halloween party which has a Tropical Theme this year. Great excitement.

After she left, I put the finishing touches to the painting I’ve been doing for the last three days. Just a wee sketch with watercolour washes. Not from one of my photos this time, but from a Google Street View on Skye!! Absolute mine of possibilities for the frustrated artist. These were the final washes on the painting. I’ve been trying to work wet on dry for a change with water-colour. I think it’s working, at least I’m impressed with it. On a completely different topic, another thing that impresses me about the new phone is the lightning connector. or more so the fact that you can plug it in to the phone upside down or right way up, in fact there is no right way, they’re both right. Fantastic bit of planning. Not like the USB male plug that only goes on one way round, but both sides look alike. You know what I mean, it’s just a stupid setup. Why someone hasn’t reinvented it by now I don’t know.

Mambo No 5 – 22 October 2015

Posted on October 22, 2015October 22, 2015 by Zogman

Today I made some bread. I made the bread. I didn’t just pour some flour, yeast, salt, butter and water into the mixer bowl and switch the mixer on. No, I mixed the ingredients by hand and then kneaded the dough by hand until I got a springy dough. I then proved it for a couple of hours before knocking back and proving for a second time for another couple of hours. In those couple of hours Scamp and I left it to its own devices and went out for a cup of coffee and a wander round the shops.

While we were out, I saw today’s pic and stripped the back protective film from the back of the iPhone (now christened “Mambo No 5” – Google it!) and it took its first ‘real‘ shot. I thought it handled the contre-jour (backlighting) very well. Impressed so far with the camera. While we were in ASDA, I wanted to Google something and found that I was connected to 4G. IN ASDA? JIC, I was even more impressed than I was with the camera.

When we got home, the bread (remember the bread) was looking good so I fired up the oven and when it was good and hot, I baked an exceptional loaf. Much better than Monday’s. I think it was my manual skills that made the better bread. It must have been, because the iPhone was off all the time.

Now that I’ve settled on Mambo No 5 as my new phone, the iPhone 4 is somewhat redundant. I’ve checked and I won’t get much money for it, so I’m hoping to unlock it and use it as a spare. Now in contact with the Vodies who are processing my request as we speak. Oh, yes, and I got a text from them telling me that they are sending my Vodafone order by Royal Mail. Is this a new iPhone 6s? I certainly hope so