Went to Kizomba this afternoon, before the Sunday Social. It was good. Not the best, but better, much better than the last two numpties who pretended to teach it. Unfortunately, the earlier than normal trip into Glasgow really shortened the day. To ensure that we got parked and into the Garage in time, we had to leave home by 2.30. That didn’t leave much time for going anywhere or doing anything other than dancing, so in that respect, it was a bit of a wasted day. I had an hour when we got back to go over to St Mo’s and get some photos. The results are above.
Month: August 2016
Cushions – 20 August 2016
Some people will complain about anything. Today as we were getting off the bus in Glasgow, one wee woman was berating the driver because the seats were too hard on the bus. She told him in no uncertain terms that he should be supplying cushions for the seats. The poor man just agreed with her. It was certainly the path of least resistance today. The bus he was driving was definitely a bit rickety and seemed to be playing the complete percussion section of the First Bus Orchestra all by itself, but cushions? I think that might be a step too far.
We had been promised rain today and we got it in abundance. After walking down Buchanan Street in the rain, it simply got heavier as we waited to see the Gay Pride march go past. We felt really sorry for them plodding along in the rain trying to look suitably festive in their rainbow capes, rainbow flags and rainbow scarves, soaked to the skin. Scamp was looking for one of her friends who was supposed to be taking part, but she later confessed that said friend was probably still in the pub. I might have felt sorry for the marchers, but I felt even more sympathy for the poor drivers in town who had to sit and wait for about half an hour for the parade to pass through, with only two short breaks to allow the traffic jam to partly clear. Polis were nowhere to be seen at any of the road junctions. Total shambles.
Lunch was a pizza each in Mediterranianeo in Ingram Street, then we went for a walk in the rain to get a couple of DVDs for tonight’s viewing and avoid another night of the dreadful Rio Olympics. Then it was home again on the bus, and who was sitting behind us? That’s right, that same wee woman. It was a different bus from the one we went in on and the seating on this one was far superior. I don’t know if she critiqued the cushioning as she left the bus, but I wouldn’t have put it past her. See JIC, it’s not just me.
Dry weather forecast for tomorrow. Not sunny, but dry. We’ll take that.
I didn’t know you could do that – 19 August 2016
I’ve had the Nikon D7000 for over three years now. In that time I’ve settled on it as my ‘good’ camera. The one to use when quality is paramount. I use it in manual mode most of the time and allow the camera to decide the best ISO setting to use within the limits I set. I also use it in AF-S mode. Single servo focus because I mainly photograph still objects, landscapes don’t move much and flowers, although they do move, don’t wander far from their stems. Maybe too it’s that I’m a control freak and like to know exactly what my camera is doing and can predict how it will react in any given situation. Today I started using AF-C for probably the first time since the early days just after I acquired the camera. AF-C is Continuous servo focus. The camera continually focuses and if the manual is to be believed, “if subject moves, camera will engage predictive focus tracking to predict final distance to subject and adjust focus as necessary.” I am so glad that was cleared up, I thought it was going to be complicated! What I do know is that it works and it keeps things in focus while they are moving, and even if I am moving. That’s what I found today. It never ceases to surprise me what this camera is capable of and I’m sure there are even more surprises hidden deep in the manual waiting to be discovered.
I went to the physio this morning and felt a lot better once he had stretched, manipulated and massaged my shoulder and neck once again. Maybe it’s just that feeling when you stop hitting your head against a wall. It’s so nice when you stop. Went swimming in the afternoon.
I’m becoming absolutely pig-sick of the Olympics on TV. Events over-running and programme schedules being changed with no notice. News when it arrives an hour late crammed with results and interviews with athletes before we get to the nitty gritty of what’s happening in the rest of the world. Only two more days to go and it’s finished, because it doesn’t look as if the Paralympics will be covered in the same way as the able bodied version. Don’t you feel so sorry for the athletes in the Paralympics who have trained for years, only to find that in the eyes of those running these games, they are second best.
Weather today at home, as predicted, was wet from about 12midday and it stayed that way until early evening when it dried up.
The end of summer? – 18 August 2016
Today started cloudy and remained that way until the early afternoon when the sun finally broke through.
I went for a walk along the railway hoping to get some black and white shots, or more exactly, some shots that would transfer well into black and white. It didn’t happen. I couldn’t settle on anything at all and came home with a few photos, but nothing that I would be happy to upload to Flickr. Just as well really as Flickr is in one of its strunts when it refuses to upload any photos. That is why today’s link takes you to the full size image instead of Flickr. This is happening more and more recently of late to Flickr and makes me glad that I didn’t opt for a ‘Pro’ account, ie. one that I have to pay for. Flickr is owned by Yahoo and Yahoo appears to be in trouble at the moment, so it’s spending less and less money on peripherals like Flickr, so outages aren’t dealt with as an urgent need. All it means is that I’ll upload tomorrow, not today. It matters very little today as the only decent photo I got was the one above of some pansy seeds.
Rain due tomorrow. The garden needs it.
Green – 17 August 2016
I’d read on a blog somewhere about taking shots of part of an object or even parts of an object and allowing them to define the whole and another about taking more time to study a shot before taking it. They must have struck a chord with me because that’s what I found myself doing today. First when we went to Strathaven this morning after we’d picked up our new reading glasses in Larky. We were sitting having lunch in a wee cafe. The local secondary school was coming out for lunch too and for a time we were surrounded by school weans. I felt quite nostalgic for a while. Aye Right! (that mean’s “No I DId Not” in Scotland). Anyway, we were sitting next to a wall and over the wall was the Powmillon Burn and a beautiful fern lit by contré jour light (backlight). It looked good, and it still does after Lightroom has had a go at it. I took another wide angle shot from the same position, but it did not come out of Lightroom very well. In other words, it was rubbish.
That sort of set the tone for today’s photos. Also,most of them were green, like the fern, but one that bucked the trend was a shot of a Yellow Wagtail which wasn’t a plant and wasn’t green, but it WAS only a part of the frame, because I couldn’t get closer and I only got one shot. Remember, it’s better to have one shot in the bag and then try to improve on it rather than fart about trying different compositions but then miss the shot entirely and end up with nothing. The other one that wasn’t green was the blue blobs shot which was taken with the intention of having only one flower of the three in focus.
After Strathaven, we came straight back home as I wanted to get the ingredients for tonight’s dinner and Scamp wanted to cut the grass in the back garden. Grass is also green, or am I stretching this too thin now?
With the dinner half made and having solved today’s Sudoku puzzle while sitting in the garden, I went for a walk to St Mo’s to see if there were any other parts of things I could isolate and that’s where the leaf and the two grasses came from. Back home I finished making today’s dinner – Thai Green Curry. Total coincidence!
Possibly one more glorious day tomorrow before the rains come.
On the buses – 16 August 2016
Today I had a retinopathy appointment where the nurse takes a photograph of the retina of my eyes to check for damage to the small veins and capillaries there. As the nurse sometimes needs to put drops in my eyes to get a clear picture, I can’t see very well for a couple of hours afterwards, so I had to get the bus instead of driving. Since we were limited to the bus to start with, it made sense to use it again to go for a wee run.
It was a beautiful morning again and it looked like it would stay blue sky and sun for the rest of the day, so we headed east to Dunfermline in Fife.
We went for a walk through Pittencrief Park wandering around the flower beds. I walked through the greenhouses too, but Scamp decided to wait outside in the sun. We both agreed that the flower beds were looking a bit untidy, with weeds taking over in places, but if councils continue to refuse to increase the council tax supported by the Scottish government, then the less important jobs will not be done. Corners will be cut, but unfortunately the grass won’t be.
Lunch was in Wetherspoons. Damned by some for having a boilerplate menu and a poor selection of beers, it suits us fine. It is what it is. Eat, drink and don’t pay too much. That’s our motto.
Back home we sat in the back garden with a Pimms each and a book to read. Enjoying the late afternoon sun.
A walk in the sun, beer and fish&chips for lunch, then Pimms in the garden and best of all, no driving. What’s not to like?
Happy Birthday JIC on a significant date 16 – 8 – ’16.
Cake Today! – 15 August 2016
Well, we did have cake today! Woke to sunshine that didn’t really go away all day.
The sun enticed us out and into the wide world. We couldn’t agree on a destination until Scamp suggested that we go a walk along the canal. Now I go there quite often, but it’s a while since she’s walked along it, so it was decided that we’d drive to Auchinstarry and walk along to Twechar and back.
Today was the day the teachers went back to work after the summer hols and as we were walking along the railway, I was thinking about all the times I’ve sat in the assembly hall at school listening to head teachers and deputes droning on about grade averages, STACs, child protection procedures and other dry, boring paper-pushing nonsense. They always started with a jolly “Well I hope you’ve enjoyed your holidays and are feeling refreshed. Here’s the bad news …….. “. Drone, drone, drone. It was essential to get there early, not to show you were interested, although there were some that did. No, it was to grab the seats at the back where you could doodle unseen on the hundred page handout you’d been given with charts and tables and mind numbing statistics that meant nothing to anyone but the bean-counter who had created them. “Can you see this Powerpoint alright at the back?” some depute would ask. “Yes, we’re just not interested.” we’d mumble in reply.
Ah, but while all my former colleagues were enjoying this annual festival of figures and meaningless jargon, we were out in the sunshine, admiring the flowers and the light through the leaves and counting the wee fishes and talking to the ducks. It was when we were walking back along the canal towpath I heard what I thought at first was a motorbike before I realised that although the pitch of the engine was rising, it wasn’t changing gear and it seemed to he coming from Barr Hill which has a roman fort, but no roads. I knew what it was then, it was a Piaggio. It’s an Italian plane type called a canard. Which is a plane with a wing towards the rear and two little winglets just rear of the nose which makes it look as if it’s flying backwards. Some people think it looks like a duck, hence the name ‘canard’. Some have actual tail fins and tail planes like a normal aircraft and some have jet engines, but most have pusher props. That is, the propellers stick out the back of the plane and push it through the air rather than pull it like a conventional plane. (I like planes, in case you hadn’t guessed.) I’d seen one last year at almost exactly the same place, but hadn’t got a photo of it. I started taking my camera out of the bag and tried explaining to Scamp what it was I was so excited about. She didn’t share my enthusiasm and said “Oh, so it’s a plane?” I managed two shots of the Piaggio before it disappeared into a cloud. Neither of them very good. I’ve never managed to get a good clean shot of this plane. You can see today’s effort above. Maybe one day …
After we drove home and had lunch, Scamp wanted to work in the garden. I dumped my photos into Lightroom and let it get to work on them. Then we sat in the garden and read until it was time to make the dinner and then get ready for salsa class. I had done my exercises from the physio this morning under a hot shower and they paid off while I was in the class, allowing much more movement than I’d had last week. We were able to complete almost all the moves tonight which is proof that we are moving in the right direction.
Beautiful sunset tonight which augers well for tomorrow’s weather. We’ll see what the day brings. If it’s as good as today it will be very welcome.
Hobbiton – 14 August 2016
According to the weather fairies last week, today was to be a beautiful day. Yesterday they said that Sunday was to be a bit cloudy but with sunny intervals and Monday was to be a beautiful day. Today was less than beautiful and there was a distinct lack of sunny intervals, and now the predictions are that Tuesday, not Monday will be a beautiful day. It’s like “cake tomorrow, but never cake today.” However, we struggle on with grey skies and the eternal prospect of good weather some day.
It was dry, not very windy and quite warm, so we went out for a walk. Today’s choice of walk was around one of the paths at Chatelherault near Hamilton. It’s a huge area with forest, grassland and interesting architecture. The main building on the site is the former Hunting Lodge and Summer House for the Dukes of Hamilton and looks out over an avenue of trees which originally led down to Hamilton Palace which has now been demolished. Behind Chatelherault is a large forested area of gigantic redwoods, pines and also some natural hardwoods. The Avon Water runs through the estate and it was looking very fishable today with tea coloured water just running off a spate.
We left the car in the car park and headed for one of the shorter routes. Shorter, but still quite demanding, especially to two walkers who will happily admit they are out of condition. I think we need to visit the gym more than once a week to get back to a reasonable degree of physical fitness. That said, it was an interesting walk. Lots of ups and downs, muddy paths and demanding stairs to climb. Perhaps it was because we were watching “The Hobbit” last night, but the whole place had the feeling of the set for that film with thinning of the pines allowing the light to penetrate and made it much less gloomy than commercial woodland. Unfortunately we didn’t see any hobbits.
There wasn’t much to photograph today, but it has potential if there is a bit more directional sunlight to play with. I did manage to fake a shot of the frontage of Chatelherault with a bit of levels adjustment in Lightroom, then I pasted in a more interesting sky from one of yesterday’s shots. The peas are two of the potentially five pods from our single pea plant. I think I planted the other peas upside down and they are growing down the way.
Hoping against hope for cake tomorrow.
The Lodge – 13 August 2016
Today was to be dry, and so it dawned. Dry with a little sprinkling of sun – even better. The weather fairies had been telling the truth for once. That said, we took ourselves off to the wild highlands or at least the Trossachs which is a sort of tame wild highlands. We were pointing the car at David Marshall Lodge or DML for short. Instead of our usual route through Thornhill to Aberfoyle and up the Duke’s Pass to DML, we rebels took the alternative way through blue-rinse Callander and over the other side of the Duke’s Pass to DML. Callander is usually a bottleneck on this drive and so it was today, but the bottleneck was caused by two of the boys in blue (with yellow hi-vis jackets and a speed gun) checking the speed of anyone wishing to venture in to the town from the general direction of Stirling. Not that we had much chance of raising our speed above jogging pace because some numpty at the front had forgotten to bring the red flag with him to indicate that a motor vehicle was approaching. That’s the way it seemed anyway. We passed the polis quietly, sedately and well under the speed limit. The drive up the Duke’s Pass was uneventful and terminally boring. It’s strange that when driving some roads, the scenery is much better in one direction than in the other. I hadn’t noticed how little of interest passed the car as we travelled along this road until today. We arrived at DML only to find that, Shock! Horror! they’ve changed the name to “The Lodge”. Now to someone born and brought up in Larkhall, The Lodge is synonymous with either Lambeg drums, Orange sashes and flute bands or groups of men congregating in a hall with a builder’s square and a pair of dividers over the door. I’d never been involved in any way with either group but that is what The Lodge means to me. Orange or Masonic, these are the only Lodges I’ve known about and this was neither. No sashes of any hue, no aprons and no rolled up trouser legs – do they really do that? What happened to David Marshall? Was he ex-communicated? Did he retire? Was he sacked? Maybe they found out that he didn’t belong to either Lodge, and he had to go. We’ll never know, I guess. However, like the Clyde Arc will always be the Squinty Bridge and the Tradeston Bridge will always be called the Squiggly Bridge, so The Lodge at Aberfoyle will alway be DML to us.
We paid our £3 for a day’s parking and headed off to get some foties and to walk the paths. Set up my tripod below the waterfall and waited until the lighting was right. Took a couple of test shots to get the shutter speed and the exposure right before starting the long exposure shots to get the water looking fluid. Then some prick, sorry if you’re offended by the description, but that’s what he was, walks right in front of me just as I’m taking the first exposure. Photobombed by a moron. Really, they walk among us. I wasn’t for moving, despite the midgies which were clouding round me. He proceeded to clamber up and over some rocks. Maybe he thought he was a rock climber. Nah, you need to have a brain for that. I was waiting for him to fall in, that would have made a good shot. I took a few shots with him in different positions to make sure I could easily edit him out later. When I was happy with what I’d got I walked back to Scamp who was standing near his keeper (who was quite apologetic) and said to her, “Don’t worry, the monkey won’t be in the final shot.” Some folk shouldn’t be allowed out, even with their keeper.
After that, we had to cut our walk short as I was getting eaten alive by midgies. We had a quick lunch at the cafe. Scones are good and coffee is brown(ish) water. Don’t risk it if you like your coffee to taste of coffee. If you normally have your caffeine hit in Starbucks, you probably won’t notice any difference. After that we drove down the other side of the Duke’s Pass and on to the Loch Ard road which is a dead end road after about 20 miles or so. We didn’t venture that far. We stopped in a parking place and Scamp opted to stay in the car while I went looking for more photo opportunities without idiot photobombers. Met a group of mallard ducks that seemed quite happy to pose for me until it became obvious that I had nothing worth eating with me, then they went off in search of better feeders. Photographed some wee sailing dinghies on the loch, passed an outdoor wedding reception in full swing (hope they had lots of DEET spray) and drove back home. Bypassed Callandar just in case the polis hadn’t filled their quota of speed merchants.
Dinner was yesterday’s curries reheated and served with rice and home made flatbreads. I think they tasted even better than yesterday. Maybe it was just that we’d been out in the fresh air. Looking for similar weather tomorrow. That would be nice.
It didn’t get any better – 12 August 2016
Got up. Had coffee. Went to the physio to be ‘manipulated’, pummelled, stretched and have pins stuck in my shoulder. All the while listening to the Zumba instructor next door exhorting her class to “Don’t give up now!!” (It beats me why people go to these classes to listen to ‘thump-thump’ music while sweating half their body fluids away and being castigated by a skinny sadistic instructor. It must be the masochistic streak in the human race. You wouldn’t catch me being tortured for an hour and paying for it.) Rested for half an hour and then had more pummelling, stretching and ‘manipulation’ before being set free. Until next week. Came home. Had mince with an egg cooked in it served on a piece of bread for lunch (Quite a West of Scotland delicacy). Dinner was provided by Bombay Dreams and as usual their portions were enormous. Half today and half tomorrow, we decided. No point in stuffing ourselves. Not for breakfast, though à la N. D’Ag. No, reheated for tomorrow’s dinner.
It rained all day.
Tomorrow will be better say the weather fairies. Sunday will be sunny and warm they say. We can only live in hope. If not, construction of the Ark will begin tomorrow.