Month: July 2016

Getting things done – 11 July 2016

Posted on by Zogman

11julyI had a few things to do today and after I got started, late as usual, I got started on my To Do list and tonight, everything is ticked off.

It was another day of mixed fortunes as far as the weather goes. We had sunshine, rain and wind today in almost equal doses. Most of these climate elements were acted out under cloud cover.

One of the good things today was the delivery of my Grass shower gel from Lush. I had wondered if it would be the solid gel that they seem to have adopted as their base shower soap, but it was true shower gel. Expensive, but so good to have again. I will use it sparingly, I’m not that dirty these days 😉

Among the items on my To Do list today was thinning out my basil seedlings that have been sitting on the kitchen window sill for the last month. Scamp thought they should be left as they were, but I decided they’d grow better after they had been thinned out. We’ll just have to see who was right.

Scamp came to salsa class tonight, but didn’t dance. I think that was a sensible decision as the tempo towards the end of class was becoming quite frantic. Hopefully it won’t be too long before she’s joining in again.

Today’s photos are details from Scamp’s favourite rose. Alec’s Red was a wedding present from my mum, dad and Alex. It’s a beautiful deep red rose with a heavy scent. It’s followed us all around Scotland as we travelled around following the work in the 70s and 80s. It’s been a central point of the front garden here since we moved in in the mid 1980s. I had a bit of concern when I was taking some shots of it in bright sunlight, using extension tubes on the ’10. I noticed considerable evidence of flare appearing on the finished images that I hadn’t seen in the viewfinder. I think it may be due to some light getting in from the extension tubes which have worked really well since I got them, but they are plastic and maybe there is too much wear in the mounts. Some more research is necessary.

May go to Glasgow tomorrow to get some photos of the Homeless Football World Cup if it’s not raining.

Did I say it was meant to rain today? – 10 July 2016

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10 JulyWell it did.  It rained and rained and rained.  Then it rained again, just to make sure.  We watched Lewis Hamilton win the British GP.  We watched Andy Murray win Wimbledon.  We didn’t watch Portugal win Euro 2016.  That would be too much excitement for one day.

I made some bread, I did some sketching, I did some moping around the house.  I was hardly past the door today.  I did manage to get a photo of one of the roses from the back garden and in doing that, I was trying out my new tripod.  It worked perfectly.  Unfortunately, the same can’t be said about Flickr now.  Another night of irritating problems with uploads.  I was attempting to upload two photos.  I managed to upload one, but not the other.  Checked the flickr (lack of ) help page and found I was not alone.  As someone says, these things used to happen at weekends and during the (US) night when nobody was at work on Flickr to fix things.  Now it happens all the time.  Weekends and weekdays, night and day.  You get the feeling that nobody cares any more.  Until I find an alternative, I’m using 500px.  Just click on the photo as usual and it should load for you.

After all the faffing around trying to get time lapse shots to work, I forgot to check that amazing camera, the on in the iPhone.  It’s got a time lapse setting built in.  I also found a couple of apps, one free and one cheap.  Results so far are impressive.  Must post them when I have time.  They definitely won’t be going on Flickr.

Maybe, just maybe the sun will come out tomorrow.

Dull, dull, dull – 9 July 2016

Posted on by Zogman

9 july bFrom start to almost finish today we’ve been labouring under grey skies. Occasional showers of drizzle made things even more miserable although it did brighten up in the evening for an hour or so before sunset.  We got the bus in to town in the morning and found some Spanish sun in Cafe Andaluz, always a bright spot on a dull day. Tapas and a glass of red made the day that little bit better.

Loads of activity in ‘The Toon’ with groups of Street Soccer players wandering around. George Square has been transformed for the event. I might drop in some time this week to see if there are any ‘photo opportunities’.

Got some paint in Cass Art. It’s times like this that you realise how much you miss the Art Store. Millers used to be an alternative too, but the half pan of paint I was buying was over 50% more expensive in Millers than in Cass Art. That’s just greed.

Maybe I’m a traditionalist, but the move to paperless transactions does annoy me at times. It’s nice to get a paper receipt that you can check while you are still in the shop. You can’t do that with an electronic emailed receipt. My e-receipt today was for £9.90 and that was what I was charged in the shop. The itemised bill was for:

Liquitex Ink 30ml Carbon Black £4.95
Liquitex Ink 30Ml Tit White £4.95
Total £9.90

What I actually bought was:

Liquitex Ink 30ml Tit White £4.95
W&N Mauve Half Pan £4.00
Total £8.95

That’s nearly a pound difference and I’m a pensioner (shades of Grandpa Charlie). Where the Carbon Black came from I’ll never know. Where the Mauve Half Pan went, I’ll also never know. What a White Tit is, well, that’s anyone’s guess.
The moral of the story is, be a bastard sometimes, insist on a paper receipt and check it before you leave the shop. If there is a difference between what you bought and what you paid for, kick up a stink. Unless, of course, you profited from the error. Charlie Christie rules OK!

More Repairs – 9 July 2016

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8 july bThe Megane was due in at the garage for 8am, so it was another early rise, this time for both of us.  Got it down there on the dot at 8am.  Back for breakfast then just after that, decided to set the garden back the way it was before the fence went up.  Almost the way it was.  Scamp wanted the compost bin put in a new position, so clearing a space for it and levelling it was the first order of the day.  With that sorted, we could procede to refill it from the six black bin bags we’d filled with the compost.  Then plants in their pots had to be relocated round the periphery of the garden.  Some trimming next.  Two branches of the Rowan Tree were encroaching in the neighbour’s garden, so I lopped them off.  Dead headed the Schoolgirl rose at the front and that’s where I found the caterpillar.  It ended up in the front grass to fend for itself.

Just before lunch, the garage phoned to say that the Megane was ready and for once the bill was slightly smaller than we had estimated.  Every little helps.  Picked up the car and came home for a well earned lunch.  After that, I drove us in the Megane with its new CV joint boot to Bishopbriggs to get a lightweight Manfrotto tripod I fancied.  It will probably be a ‘car tripod’ as the big Manfrotto is a bit of a tight squeeze in the boot.  It really is a neat little thing and is much less cumbersome than the big 055CL.  However, I will keep the 055 to hold the D7000 because it feels much more secure on the big Tri.

Went for a walk over St Mo’s and got the shot of the damselfly.  The Pana lens wouldn’t focus on the damsel because it found the daisies in the background more attractive, so I used manual focus and focus peaking on the ’10 to get accurate focus on the insect and it worked perfectly.  The butterfly is a Ringlet and this is the first time I can recall seeing this name.

One wee sad thing today, but a happy thing too.  Val wanted a DSLR.  He’d been given one by one of his friends, but that person asked for it back.  He’s been looking for a cheap second hand one for a while with no success.  I had a D70 that’s been redundant since I got the D7000, so I stuck on the Nikkor 70-200mm and gave them to him.  I think he liked them.  I hope he enjoys using them as much as I did.  A wee bit sad for me parting with them, because they’ve both been great tools for me, but hopefully a happy day for Val, who’s going through a bad patch just now.

More problems uploading to Flickr tonight.  That’s the second time this week.  I finally got the images uploaded, but I think I may be looking for a new repository for my images soon, along with a few other people according to the forums on the net.

It’s not been a bad day at all weatherwise.  A little rain in the morning, but lots of blue skies and a lovely sunset tonight.  Let’s hope for more of the same tomorrow.

Stupid O’ Clock – 7 July 2016

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7 JulyWoke at 6am and couldn’t get back to sleep again, so it was off again to Auchinstarry to walk along the canal to Twechar and then back along the railway to Auchinstarry again and then drive home for breakfast.  That’s twice this week I’ve needlessly woken and walked in the middle of the night, well, almost in the middle of the night!  The walk along the canal, although interesting wasn’t as good as Tuesday’s one along the railway.  Yes, the birds were singing and the smell of the flowers was great, but it was a lot cloudier today and the light wasn’t as good as Tuesday’s.  That said, I did manage to get a photo of a deer racing up towards Barr Hill and a nice wee peaceful shot of the canal at Smithstone.  Smithstone was a wee hamlet near Auchinstarry in the early 1900s.  My dad told me about it, but he pronounced it ‘Smeeston‘.  Now Smithstone is a new housing estate in Cumbernauld.

After breakfast, I took the car down to get expert opinion on a leaky gasket on the offside drive shaft.  It goes in tomorrow to get it fixed.  Apparently it’s a known problem with Renaults, but more of a problem with Corsas.  Why don’t manufacturers act on the information they are getting from dealers and redesign these things before they become a bigger problem.  That’s what turns people away from British and European cars.  I think our next car will be a Nissan, a Honda or a Kia.

We went to Vecchia Bologna for lunch and although it wasn’t the best I’ve had there, it was most enjoyable.
So tomorrow will be another enforced early rise to get a new gaiter fitted to the Megane.  What we do with the rest of the day will depend on the weather.  After a fairly decent day, it’s raining now, and is forecast to rain all night, but tomorrow is supposed to be fair.  Saturday is set fair too.  Sunday?  Oh dear, I think I’ll stay in bed all day on Sunday!

Life in the Wetlands – 6 July 2016

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6 July bWell, so much for the plan to go walkies early in the morning.  I’ve discovered that it only works if you get up early.  9.15 isn’t early, certainly not early enough to drive to Auchinstarry for a walk along the railway.  That’s the only thing that prevented the walk.  The weather was lovely.  Unfortunately it didn’t last.

Went to meet Fred P for coffee at midday and after half an hour the staff in Costa were putting out the buckets and the signs that said “Wet Floor”.  That’s what happens when you are sitting in the new town centre in Cumbersheugh.  It’s only been open a few years and already it’s as waterproof as a sieve.  It only took us the usual couple of hours and two cups of coffee to set the world to rights.  Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn and the bastards who skimped on the seals in the glass roof of the Antonine Centre in Cumbersheugh.  All topics of conversation today and all problems solved … our way.  Hang them all!

The rain only got worse as the afternoon dragged on.  Managed to get a few shots of flowers and plants in the garden.  Not grab shots, nicely calculated shots.  My only regret is that I couldn’t get a clean angle on the Gazania that didn’t include the hanging basket holder.  I think it was still my favourite shot of the day.

Not as much rain predicted for tomorrow.  Still wet, but not AS wet … allegedly.

Sleep Walking – 5 July 2016

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5 JulyWoke at 6am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I decided that as it was a lovely looking day, I shouldn’t waste it lying in bed, so I got up and dressed and drove down to Auchinstarry and walked out along the railway. Although the birds were singing in the trees, I couldn’t see a single one and there were no deer or other animals to be seen either. What there were, were hundreds of slugs and snails, probably encouraged out after the overnight rain. Although I quite like snails, slugs not as much, I didn’t want to spend my walk photographing them. Instead, I took some photos of the leaves and plants that were shaking off the rain. In the process, I got soaking wet, but that’s inevitable as soon as you leave the path. By the time I got back it was just after 9am and time for breakfast and the sun was still shining. That was so much better than lying in bed thinking I should be doing something more creative. Scamp was just getting up when I got in and breakfast was beckoning.

Skipping forward to lunchtime, I took myself off to the pool for a swim. No gym yet, I’m not ready for the full exercise regime just yet. On the way, I stopped in at Jim Dickson to get two new front tyres to be ready for the drive down south later in the month. £100 lighter, I went to the pool and had a relaxing sauna, swim and steam bath. Then I intended nipping in to B&Q to get a price for some gravel to edge the grass at the back garden, then going to see what was wrong with the air-con in the car. It was supposed to be a quick visit, but then I bumped into an old colleague Mae Campbell (no relation). We spent nearly an hour standing taking about folk we used to know and schools and stuff. That put paid to my visit to Bonnybridge to check the air-con. Oh well, maybe tomorrow.

Flickr seemed to be working better tonight and when I uploaded the photos, the first one that appeared was the mono shot of the grass flower. That made me think of a Lush shower gel I used to get called, oddly enough, ‘Grass’! They had stopped making it, but I was told in the shop to check the ‘Kitchen’ area on-line as Lush occasionally made up small batches of some discontinued lines. Lo and behold, this week there was a short production line of … Grass!  Ordered on the spot.

No great fakery today with the photos, not anything like yesterday’s forgery. Only cropping, a bit of tonal adjustment and then, for some, a reduction to black and white.

Don’t know if I’m doing an early shift tomorrow. It depends on my sleep pattern.

Another Wet One – 4 July 2016

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4 julyWet from start to finish today, but stuck to my guns and went out in the rain to capture something of the essence of the day. There were quite a lot of people about given the weather conditions. I felt sorry for the poor wee man sitting fishing under his umbrella. I hope he caught something – not the cold though! My cold has lifted thank goodness. Scamp is still coughing, but I think she is on the mend now.

It would be nice to say that these were all as they came out of the camera, but as usual, some ‘shopping’ was necessary.
The man with the dog for example:
When I got the base photo, the dog was off investigating an interesting scent in the woods, so I had to wait until it surfaced again, but then the man was facing me and had lost his hunched shoulders pose that really summed up the rainy day. No problem, I cut out the dog and added it to the original base photo, then blended it in with a vector mask. Although I knew it was raining heavily at the time, the photo didn’t show it, so I added some rain as a layer and changed the layer type to Lighten and it looked so much better. If you can’t see those carefully crafted raindrops, check out the version on Flickr 😉  EDIT!  Well, you will when Flickr remembers how to upload files.  What’s the point of having all these bells and whistles when the basic system doesn’t work.  For Flickr read Fuckr.

Had coffee with Val in the middle of the day and enjoyed the chat. It’s always good to see old friends you haven’t met with for a long time. Had a long discussion about computers and programs. Picked up a few tips on new apps to try, both on the PC and on the Mac.

Dinner was a bit rushed as I decided at the last minute to go to salsa after all and with Scamp’s blessing. I knew that Jamie Gal wouldn’t be hosting tonight’s session, and was hoping it wasn’t Colin but dreading it might be Shannon although there is one worse than that. Surely she wouldn’t inflict him on an advanced class. Keep him for the beginners. It turned out to be Will who taught a good class very clear instruction and a great deal of humour. Total enjoyment for the full hour, 9/10 Will.

Driving home, I thought I might attempt Charing Cross Mansions as a sketching objective some time. One of the prettier architectural frontages of Glasgow. I would need a dry day for that, and the weather forecast doesn’t seem to include one of those for the foreseeable future.

More than halfway – 3 July 2016

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3 JulyI hadn’t noticed it, but on Friday we reached the halfway point on this year’s 366. So that means we are on the home stretch, doesn’t it? Should be easy from here on in. It never is though and just at present I’m going through the doldrums with no great interest in taking photos. Maybe it’s the feast of photos I took on holiday last month that’s to blame. 1115 photos in total for June, 936 of which were taken on our fortnight cruise in the Mediterranean. I need some more inspiration, but the weather has been poor for the last couple of weeks and that’s partly the cause, but it’s not the whole story. I just need to apply myself to the task and get on with it. I’ll start tomorrow. I should start today, but this is the weekend and I’m too lazy to do anything much now. That’s the problem. Procrastination. Tomorrow I must get off my backside and take some meaningful photos. Otherwise the 366 becomes a joke. Just a couple of grab shots of flowers to mark the PoD isn’t what I started 365s (or 366s) for. The shots have to be meaningful and be much better quality than I’ve been producing of late. Halfway through a 366 is a good place to start raising the standard.

Today we didn’t do much of note apart from go to the Sunday Social in the afternoon to see just how far we could push Scamp’s shoulder before it became painful. The answer was that we could actually get quite a lot of moves done. Much more than I thought we could. I don’t think she’s quite ready to go back to class yet, and as Jamie Gal is off in London this week, it’s probably best not to return to classes until next Monday. That’s not procrastination, that’s simple common sense. I’m not sure Scamp agrees totally with the logic, but I don’t think she’s quite ready for the speed of a class rueda yet.

I had one of the dinosaur bones from Chapmans in Baldock for dinner tonight, well, I had half a bone (actually a short rib) the other half will either be a large lunch tomorrow or dinner tomorrow night.  I’d forgotten just how good they are.  Forty-five minutes in the oven at gas 6 covered in tinfoil and it comes out a treat.  Thank you JIC for introducing me to this culinary delight.

Anyway, it’s flooers again tonight with a half hearted attempt at patterns with some strawberries. Not exactly award winning stuff.

Looking for that second chance called Tomorrow

A Lost Day – 2 July 2016

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2 July bI spent most of the day in bed. I don’t want to jinx anything, but I think it might have broken the back of this cold. Last night, I was dead on my feet by the time I went to bed, and this morning was a lost cause.

Scamp drove us in to Robroyston and a cup of coffee helped me on my way to fitness. Didn’t manage to get out for any photos, so todays shots were taken in a rush through the kitchen window, but they are Pictures of the Day and therefore count.

Tonight we went to friends in Hamilton and had some lovely food, including a Tiramisu which almost equalled Scamps. I never thought I’d say that. Maybe that will encourage her to up her game. Only kidding Scamp!

Looking like a better day weather-wise tomorrow. Hope it is because Scamp needs some good weather to brighten her day and wipe out her cold.