Month: March 2021

Lovely to look at but baby it’s cold outside – 21 March 2021

Posted on by Zogman

It was one of those days that looked inviting with blue skies and bright sun, but when you were out you felt the cold of the westerly wind.

I must admit that after lunch I was tempted to go out, it looked so sharp and clear with the blue sky and the sun. Eventually I gave in and grabbed the Sony fitted with the macro lens (unused today) and a Samyang 18mm in the bag. Almost immediately after parking at the station car park I changed the lenses round. The 18mm was going to be more useful today.

I walked along almost the Cumbersheugh length of the Luggie Water, an insignificant stream that used to hold some good sized trout, but is now so overfished that there is very little sport to be had. Carried on, crossing the road and walking down towards Condorrat, but couldn’t find much to interest me, or even to take the camera out of the bag. Turned and walked back and found a couple of paving stones that gave me access to a little drainage pond that empties out into the Luggie. Grabbed a very low viewpoint shot across the pond to a line of trees almost hiding the view of some houses. Seemed like that was one in the bag. I backtracked a bit and managed another low down shot of the Luggie itself with the railway bridge, poetically named Bridge SCM3 132/676, in the background. The 18mm is not the easiest lens to achieve spot on autofocus with, but it does take very good and very wide-angle photos for an economy price. Two in the bag. Of course, I took a lot more, because you can never be sure about photos. What looks good in the viewfinder may not turn out the way you’d hoped. It’s alway better to take a second (or third of fourth …) shot. So I did.

Back home it was Sea Bream with potatoes and carrots. Scamp thought the skin was underdone, but I disagreed. It smelled and tasted of the sea and the partly mashed carrots were brilliant!

In the dance class tonight we demonstrated just how badly we can dance rumba. Both of us made mistakes, me more than Scamp, of course. Then it was on to Tango with more opportunities for disasters and I did manage to provide them. I knew at the end of one ‘figure’, I should be pointing my left foot, but it just didn’t want to point. It’s a very well brought up foot and knows it’s rude to point. The right foot, however, is always ready to point, kick and tramp on any other feet in the vicinity and it gave me a proper showing up. In the end, the left foot got the idea and danced with pointed perfection.

Spoke to JIC on the phone later and he commiserated, knowing full well the problems with Tango. It’s a complete contrast to all the other dances we do. Not smooth, more staccato. Not a case of sliding your foot across the floor, more like stamping. It’s a nightmare. Well, it is for now!

PoD went to Bridge SCM3 132/676, but the little drainage pond got its day in the sun, literally. Both are on Flickr.

Tomorrow we have no plans, but we need bread and something for lunch, so a trip to the shops is not out of the question.

 

A taste of Japan – 20 March 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Have you ever had one of those days when you wake up feeling that something’s just not right and it follows you all day? I had one of those days today.

Oh dear, milky white sky, but the clouds were low too. The Campsie Fells were covered to about halfway down, but from the cloud line down they were in beautiful sunshine. Very strange indeed.

The clouds seemed to take a long time to lift and disperse, in fact it wasn’t until after lunch that things began to clear and we felt able to go out for a walk, but still that strange feeling irritated me for most of the afternoon. Scamp tried her best to lift it, and eventually a walk round Broadwood Loch and her constant chipping away at it finally broke through and the sun shone. From then on life returned to normal. We walked round the loch, but didn’t venture into the woods because I was pretty sure the path would be flooded and that would be no fun. Instead we walked clockwise against the flow of anticlockwise walkers with their dogs, around the edge of the loch. Then it was up the gentle but continuous climb past the exercise machines and on to the shops.

I suggested to Scamp today that we should perhaps declare Friday and Saturday to be no-cook or easy-cook days. When you’re retired you don’t have weekends. Heavens, many people who are working from home during this pandemic don’t have weekends either. So, to give us something to look forward to and to give the week a structure we should treat dinner at the weekend as a stay-home restaurant meal. Sometimes we should get a take-away delivered or walk over to the food outlets in Condorrat to collect a meal, or like today, we could get an easy-cook meal from M&S. Today’s meal was a Japanese food box with Chicken and Teriyaki sauce, Katsu Chicken Curry, Chicken Miso with noodles and a well named Firecracker Chicken. All served with rice. Sounds complicated, but basically you pierce the film on all the trays and bung the lot into a pre-heated oven for 20mins or thereabouts while you relax with a nice glass of red. Pudding was Bramley apple sponge from the same shop. That worked for me.

Between returning from the shops and cooking this complicated meal, I went over to St Mo’s to see what happens when two tribes go to war, and also to get some photos. Lots of rubber-men and rubber-girls staggering around but nobody seemed to be wearing any warpaint, so I presume:

  1. Peace had been declared.
    Or
  2. The batteries had run out on the ghetto blaster.

Perhaps even both. The woods were silent. The woods I went to were at any rate. Earlier I’d photographed some Flowering Currant bushes (Ribes sanguineum) almost exactly a year after my last Flickr picture of them. I also found some larch pollen buds just opening with a nice bit of side lighting and that was the shot that got PoD.

Altogether, my day was a bit like the weather. It started off cloudy but soon the sun shone and drove the clouds away. Thankfully Scamp has that effect.

Maybe a walk down the Luggie tomorrow. Haven’t been there this year I think!

Gardening, Mojave and Cannoli – 19 March 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Not quite in that order, but does the order matter? Not to me, it doesn’t.

Let’s start with Mojave. On this beautiful spring day I decided I’d back up the iMac and install Mojave. I’d downloaded it a few months ago. Said goodbye to Sierra and ran the installer. Oops. Got this message “This copy of the Install macOS Mojave application is damaged, and can‘t be used to install macOS.” Ok, no problem. I’ll just download another copy, except… Mojave is not listed in the Apple App Store. I finally found out how to download it. You first have to put the original installer in the bin then empty the bin. Next you have to restart the machine. Once it’s restarted, you must use Safari, Apples clumsy browser and then there is a path to the App Store that allows you to download the installer. Why this devious path to a free download?

It’s just a ploy by Apple. They want you to install the most up to date version of the operating system, currently Big Sur. It’s the only version available to download openly from the App Store on Firefox, Chrome or any browser except Safari. It seems that the reason they keep hiding older versions of the OS is to keep you moving on to a new OS every year or so until you can’t upgrade any more and a new computer is the only way to upgrade the OS. I’ve read this explanation many times today in different words, but all with the same theme. Apple was always seen as wearing the white hats, but like politicians, they’re all as bad as each other!

That was the morning. Later in the morning we were off to B&M to shop for a new pot for the Pieris that has been looking a bit sad since the end of last year. Also we needed new rechargeable batteries for the solar powered lights in the garden. Got both and both fitted in Scamp’s car. After lunch we were back out again in Blue this time to get ericaceous compost to pot up the plant and another bag of general purpose compost to top up the raised bed. Got both and some other incidentals.

Then the hard work began. We struggled to get that pieris out of its old pot, but it was jammed in solid. There was absolutely no give. Eventually I’d to use a hacksaw to cut the pot away. Then lifted it into the new pot and packed the ericaceous compost gently into the gaps. That should give it some growing space for a year or so. Scamp gave it a good watering, but it will need more tomorrow. I’ve rarely seen roots so packed into a pot.

We agreed that tonight we’d have fish ’n’ chips from the chippy in Condorrat, so I headed off just after 4pm. I saw the daffodils when I was leaving the house. They were shining well in the sun, so they made an easy PoD. While I was waiting at the chippy, I was eyeing up a couple of meringues in the window. Got my order in and while I was waiting I noticed a rack of cannoli, little Italian deep fried pastry shells with a sweet ricotta filling. Just to test them, I got two meringues and two cannoli. They were just as good as any we’ve had in Italy. Only surpassed by ones we bought in a cafe in Venice. The meringues were also delicious.

That was one busy day with a lot of hard work done. The pieris looks happier already. The lights are on in the garden. Hopefully tomorrow will be more relaxing.

Another lovely spring day – 18 March 2021

Posted on by Zogman

A bit of scattered cloud in the morning, but that soon burned off.

It was a lazy start to the day for me, but Scamp had done a load of washing ready for hanging it out to dry. I was just messing around with the iMac. It’s getting to the time when I have to upgrade the OS. There are fewer and fewer updates for my apps that will work on Sierra which I’ve been running since I got this computer. I think I’m ready now in my head for a jump up to Mojave. It’s a big jump because even the format of the hard drive will change. I think tomorrow may be the day.

Scamp was going out with Veronica for a walk around Broadwood are, but no all the way round the loch. I was staying in. I was intending starting a painting, but instead I began finding out what was causing two of Scamp’s light balls to stop working. The light balls are roughly spherical shapes made from a spiral of steel with a line of tiny white LEDs wound round them. They are connected to a solar cell which should power them during the day and turn them on at night, except they are not turning on. The first one was easy. The NiCad battery in it was dead. I thought we had a spare, but couldn’t find one. I fitted a standard Duracell and it worked fine, so the ‘tronics were ok. We just need to get a couple of cheap NiCad batteries somewhere. The second ball was different. It had a similar type of battery, but in a smaller size. I did have a spare for that. The problem with this light was water ingress. Scamp reckons it’s due to all that snow in January. I replaced the battery and the light winked of then wouldn’t light again. Getting a bit of external light on the problem and with a magnifier I discovered the problem. A small chip had come loose from the circuit board. I guessed I could solder it back on until I found that the metal conduction tracks were coming away from the fibre substrate. In technical terms it was gubbed. No point in wasting any time on it. Put it in the bin.

By then I’d found two problems and solved none. I went out for a walk to Condorrat to get chicken for dinner which would be Neil’s Italian Chicken. So called because it’s got the colours of the Italian flag, Green, White and Red. Green is Pesto. White is Mozzarella. Red is Marinara sauce. It’s Neil’s because he was the first one to cook it for us. Got the chicken, some mince and some beef olives at the butchers. Put them in the freezer and went out to get photos.

Bumped into Scamp on the way to St Mo’s, then carried on to see what photo opportunities were in the park. There were lots of ‘tribes’ wandering round the pond. Some of the male persuasion and some of the female. All dressed for the warm weather and all with their ghetto blasters (yes, we still have them up here in the north) turned up to the max. They were out celebrating the start of the Easter holidays, although:

  1. The holidays don’t actually start for another week and a half.
  2. They haven’t been to school for months now.

Still, any excuse for a party and a battle with another ‘tribe’.

PoD turned out to be a pretty wee pink flower. I must try to find out what it is. It looked as if it was just unwrapping itself in the sunshine and the out of focus ’bokeh’ in the background was a bonus.

Back home Scamp and I put our heads together and decided what changes need to made to the back garden. Just now it’s a bit of a mess. We are in agreement that we need to have a clear out of old and failing plants and that creates space for new ones. We start tomorrow with the first stages of that.

So, if tomorrow is as good as today, a day in the garden is called for.

Ravenscraig Revisited – 17 March 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Yes, we went back to the capital city again.

Picked up Shona and drove to the big stack of aluminium dominoes that was the Ravenscraig Regional Sports Facility, but is now the vaccination centre for North Lanarkshire.

This must be the ugliest building in Scotland. It really does look like a stack of giant metal boxes that have started to fall down. Got parked fairly easily but were amazed at the number of cars there. Although we were just observers, and not actively involved in the process, just looking at the crowds milling around outside the centre controlled by blokes with clipboards, brought me in mind of herding cattle. No social distancing, nobody telling folk where to wait or how long it would take. According to Shona that was a fair description of the process. It was dry today, but I dread to think what it would be like in the rain or what it might have been a couple of weeks ago with snow falling because there didn’t appear to be any shelter. I don’t suppose a giant gym would need shelter, but where people are queueing outside for a vaccination, a bit of shelter would be useful. But then again, this is North Lanarkshire, so normal rules do not apply. With all the foregoing said, we were both surprised when only about half an hour later Shona opened the car door and got in. Drove back to Cumbersheugh for her to go for her messages, then we two drove home for lunch.

I’d taken a few photos of flowers in the front garden before we left, and took some more when we returned, but really needed some more and a walk in St Mo’s, in the sun would possibly fill up the memory card with more useful images. Well, it did provide some, but when I lifted up one of Scamp’s planters with its host of crocuses, I saw the PoD right there. Got the folding table we use in the garden which raised the planter up enough to catch the sun and shot off another group of photos. The one you see here was about the best of the lot. I liked it. I also like the moody one of the snowdrops.

We’d got a phone number for a joiner from one of the neighbours. We’ve been talking about getting the fence between us and Angela next door replaced and Scamp wants it done before the apple trees and roses put on their spring growth. The bloke came later in the afternoon and measured up. Now we have to wait to hear his price.

Fred texted me about a new painting programme Landscape Artist of the Year (Canada). We watched the first episode tonight and it was really quite refreshing. Not as ‘po faced’ as the UK version, but I think our presenters are better than the Canadians. Some wild and woolly takes on a pastoral scene, and some standard paintings too, with lots of ‘interesting’ takes on the scenery in between. Set it to record now.

Tomorrow, Scamp is meeting Veronica for a walk down past Broadwood Stadium. Inspired by tonight’s LAotY(C), I might just paint. Nothing to do with the fact that I saw a girl sitting watercolour painting in St Mo’s this afternoon.  Brave soul!

Out for a walk – 16 March 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Another beautiful day with a wraparound blue sky to boot.

Far too good a day to lie in bed, or even to stay in the house. We had to get out … somewhere.

The ‘somewhere’ turned out to be Chatelherault in Hamilton. Now technically, that’s outside our region, but is still in Lanarkshire, so as far as I was concerned we were within our rights to go there. We got there fairly early, just after 11am and trotted off round the high level path going clockwise. We had no definite destination in mind, but I thought The Green Bridge would give us a good walk. We could always cut it short if we needed to. We passed a lot of folk who were walking anticlockwise. There will always be a few who want to do it “the wrong way.” We also passed and were passed by other walkers doing it the right way, clockwise. The path was fairly mucky in places and that was when we realised we’d left the walking poles in the car. They would have been especially useful when we were on the final descent to the Green Bridge down the slippery, mucky steps. We were warned by a couple of ladies that the last time they had walked it, they found that the path was flooded at the bottom and they had to detour over a fence into a field. Today it was flooded again, but some kind souls had built a raised path through the water and we managed to keep our feet dry.

I thought that we’d be able to take an easier path along the side of the Avon Water back to the visitor centre, but I realise now I was getting the green bridge and the white bridge mixed up. We had to cross the green bridge and climb up the path on the other side that would eventually take us along to the Cadzow Oaks and over the Duke’s Bridge, back to the car park. It was a long walk. Much longer that we’d anticipated, but really good on such a wonderful spring day.

On the green bridge itself, I was talking to a woman who came from Larkhall and sharing our memories of it- My mum used to take Alex and I down there. I think we used to get the bus down to Millheugh and we’d walk along the side of the river to Maryhoses where the green bridge is. It was a steel bridge then and it was painted green. These days it’s wooden and unpainted. It used to have drainage holes in the floor where you could drop stones through. A bloke on a bike cycled past while we were talking and on the sandy bank of the river set up a hammock to rest his weary legs … and look ‘cool’. Another cyclist was trying to cross over onto an island, lost his footing and ended up in the river. We passed him later on the path, looking muckier that ever. A long walk, but most enjoyable.

Back home we did a sort of check over the garden. What was growing and what wasn’t. Overall, it looks as if a lot of the plants have survived the vicious winter. Some work still to be done, but not as much as I’d feared.

PoD was a shot of the Duke’s Bridge just as we were setting off.

Tomorrow we are booked to take Shona for her jag in Motherwell.

Off to the Capital City – 15 March 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Today we were off to the capital city of North Lanarkshire. Motherwell.

Another bright morning encouraged us to get up and go. This time we were going to see where the ‘Supercentre’ for vaccination in North Lanarkshire was and how long it would take to get there. I used to work near where this giant sports centre is now. Then it was a massive steelworks, the biggest steel mill in Europe. On cold mornings in winter, in a cold bus and latterly on my motorbike travelling up Newarthill Road I could look over to ‘The Craig” and see the wagons tipping red hot slag into the slag heaps. It looked like lava coming from a volcano and actually lit up the sky. I wish I’d taken the time to grab some photos of that, but never did. Now it’s been razed to the ground and houses are being built on it. I wonder if the house owners know what chemicals lie under their new homes. This is where NHS Lanarkshire have sited their ‘Supercentre’. It is the strangest looking building. From outside it looks exactly like a stack of partly tumbled dominoes. We just drove past today, but lots of people were there and the car park looked pretty full. We just turned at the end of the road and drove home. Fifty minute round trip with sourdough toast and beans as lunch when we got home.

I was expecting a delivery from Amazon on Wednesday, but after lunch that little spoiler, Alexa reported that a delivery was arriving today. No idea when. Also we had a Tesco delivery scheduled for today, but no notification from them about a delivery time. Unusual for Tesco – par for the course with Amazon. To give me something to do, I used my blower brush to remove the last little bit of dust from the camera’s sensor. Yes, I know it won’t be the last, but I felt better for getting rid of it.

The postman dropped a blue box through the letterbox. My latest Baking Club kit. This one is for Cheese & Garlic Tear and Share. Sounds good and a bit less complicated than the last one. Thanks again JIC & Sim.

The Tesco delivery arrived about halfway through their promised delivery window, immediately followed by the Amazon man. He was delivering patches to repair my Goretex jackets, both of which have a few rips now. Looks simple enough to fix, but we’ll see how long they last. That left just enough sunlight to get half an hour in St Mo’s for some photos before it got too dark.

Today’s PoD came from that visit to St Mo’s. A little spider with his dinner wrapped up neatly, ready for the larder. I had gone looking for Larch Pineapples which are actually called Larch Roses. I thought I’d seen some yesterday, but what I’d seen were the male flowers, the Pollen Cones. Must go back next week to see if any of the female flowers, which will hopefully turn into pine cones, have appeared.

Watched another in the series of Drawers Off. For some reason they have at least four artists who know which end of the paintbrush to use. Not like the last lot. They were only interested in getting their faces seen on the telly. This is only the first of the week, there’s plenty of time for them to screw up.

Felt sorry for Strathclyde Uni just not quite good enough to get through to the semifinals of University Challenge. Maybe next year.

Tomorrow looks like a decent day, so we may go for a longer walk somewhere.

Mothers Day – 14 March 2021

Posted on by Zogman

So like mothers all over the UK, Scamp had her breakfast in bed.

I joined her for a while, but I had ’Things To Do’. Things like finishing today’s Sudoku and making the dough for flatbread to have with tonight’s dinner. Things like clearing away the clutter from the back bedroom. All of which gave me no time to think about cleaning the sensor of the Sony A7M2. Anything to stop me from doing it. Luckily, Hazy phoned to wish her mum a happy Mothers Day. She also gave us an update on the new kitchen which appears to be nearing completion.

After the phone call, Scamp decided we should go for a walk. The length of the walk and the destination would depend on whether or not the rain stayed off. I had my doubts that we would get far before that happened and on this occasion I was right. We had hardly got 100 yards before the first drops fell, but we were out now and the destination was set at St Mo’s Park. Probably the shortest walk and definitely the most sensible, after our foray into the wilderness of Palacerigg during the week.

We did a circuit of the pond, saw some geese that were feeding on the grass beside the path which is quite unusual as they normally stay in the pond itself being carefully monitored by the two resident swans. There were two serious looking fishermen with serious looking kit. First time I’ve seen pole fishing being done at the pond. Most people who fish the pond carry the usual kit which is a spinning rod and reel and a selection of spinners, plus the inevitable half bottle of Buckfast. More serious ones bring a seat and an umbrella, a coarse fishing rod and reel with a collection of floats and half a dozen cans of lager. The blokes today were using fishing poles made of fibreglass or more probably carbon fibre, massive things about ten metres long. They had purpose build and chrome plated rod rests too. Most significantly, neither of them had any alcoholic beverages visible about them. Obviously serious, but not ‘real’ fishermen.

We left them to their Sunday morning entertainment and did two circuits of the pond, sheltering under one of the big conifers between circuits when the rain got too heavy. We declared that two rounds of the pond was sufficient and went home for lunch.

<Technospeak>
With the walk and lunch out of the way, there was no excuse. It was time to perform open heart surgery on the Sony. It’s not that I haven’t done this operation before. Anyone who owns a DSLR or a modern mirrorless camera with more than one lens has had problems with dust on the sensor. Called “Dust Bunnies” they are the irritating black spots that appear on photos. It’s not that I have had any serious problems with the cleaning process either. I did make a tiny scratch on the glass once, but it never made a bit of difference to any of my photos. The process is simple. Remove the camera lens. Put a couple of drops of extortionately priced sensor cleaning liquid on an equally extortionately priced sensor swab. Gently wipe the swab across the camera sensor. Flip the swab over and wipe it again in the opposite direction. Put the swab in the bin. With a bit of luck, you’re done. If not, you might need to go through the operation again with another gold dust swab.

I did all that and was happy with the result. Not perfectly clean, because the sensor never remains perfectly clean, there will always be bunnies somewhere and the replicate at an alarming rate, especially when you change lenses a lot, like I do. Maybe that’s why they’re called ‘bunnies’!
</Technospeak>

I was doing dinner tonight, but it was a simple Holy Cow curry. Simplest curries I’ve ever made. I commend them to you. I also made flat bread to go with it. Scamp did dessert which was meringue nests with tinned apricots. Tastes much better than it sounds.

Dance class tonight was checking on our Waltz and Rumba then Tango. Only about seven or eight steps, but so much to remember, like bend your knees, turn your feet out, tuck your right foot into your left instep. It seemed such a performance for half a dozen or so steps, but it did feel more like a performance than either rumba or waltz did. This was a whole new ball game.

PoD was a photo of catkins over St Mo’s. I took it after I’d done the open heart surgery on the Sony. Just to test that most of the bunnies had gone and that it’s little heart wasn’t broken. If that means nothing to you, it’s because you skipped the interesting Technospeak section!

No plans for tomorrow yet because we have a Tesco order coming some time in the afternoon.

Another early rise – 13 March 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Just because we don’t need to.

Third time this week we rose early. Instead of having breakfast in bed we had it in the living room, fully dressed. Only one of those times was enforced, the other twice were voluntary. Can’t say it made the day any better, or more memorable, but it meant we saw more of it. It may continue and it may not, but for the moment it’s fine.

It was a lovely morning with sun streaming in the window. However we were waiting, or at least I was waiting for a parcel from Amazon. One of the great things about an Echo/Alexa is that it spins a green light if you have a notification, which is usually an Amazon delivery. What’s not so great is when the lady in the grey cylinder tells all and sundry what’s in the delivery, especially if it’s Scamp’s birthday present and Scamp is sitting right next to me on the couch! Well, at least she knows now that I remembered what she asked for. The delivery usually arrives within an hour of the notification. Today? Six hours.

Lunch was a giant fish finger and an egg each.  I couldn’t resist taking a photo of the eggy face in the frying pan.

The rest of the day was dull. Weather wise and also emotionally. Not a lot to do, rain looked as if it was just about to pelt down again. Scamp went out to the shops for milk. I stayed in to wait for the parcel that was no longer a surprise. The rain didn’t arrive.

Later I went for a walk to find a PoD. It turned out to be some moss seed stems. Proper name, fruiting bodies, technical term sporophytes. Otherwise known as Green Blobs (when immature) and Brown Trumpets (when fully mature). The ones you see here were found on a tree trunk and growing head-down which didn’t fit my idea of the picture, so they were rotated and tweaked in Lightroom. It had stayed dry for most of my walk, but the rain came on as I was heading home.

Dinner tonight was a starter of pizza bread with olive oil, rosemary and sea salt. It started off as a bit of left over pizza dough from yesterday, but it tasted quite good, if a bit thin. Main course was another of Charlie Bigham’s ready meals. This one was Veggy Lasagne. Honestly I didn’t notice that there was no meat in it. It was quite delicious. Pudding was another CB offering of Sticky Toffee Pudding. Not as good as Scamp’s, but still not bad. Main and a pudding for two for a tenner.

That was about it for a dull day with an unwanted surprise.

Tomorrow breakfast in bed has been ordered by Scamp.

 

Not going out – 12 March 2021

Posted on by Zogman

My primary excuse was I was waiting for a DPD man to bring a parcel

Secondary excuse was it was pelting with rain for most of the day. Tertiary excuse was I simply couldn’t be bothered until the rain dried up, the sun shone and Scamp volunteered to stay and mind the fort. Then I went out.

I’d promised to make pizza for lunch. When we were on our clandestine visit to Waitrose on Wednesday, I’d added a poly bag of mozzarella to the trolley for exactly that purpose. So in the morning I rolled up my sleeves and kneaded the dough for the pizzas and set it to prove. By lunchtime the sudoku had been done and the dough had risen a fair bit, so I stretched and rolled the dough and baked two disappointing pizzas. Scamp was kind enough to say they were fine, but I felt they were a bit flat. Never mind, they didn’t taste too bad.

Yesterday I ordered sensor swabs to be delivered by the usually trustworthy DPD today. It’s amazing the price you pay for what is basically twelve little spade shaped pieces of plastic, similar to the little spoons they give you to eat ice cream from a cardboard tub, twelve folded pieces of paper and twelve tiny rubber bands. I won’t tell you how much I paid, but it was extortion. Then, the first company I checked with wanted to add on VAT plus postage. I found a more reputable provider and went with them. Their one-day delivery by DPD was cheaper than the first one for when-we-can-be-bothered by Royal Mail. Email from DPD said delivery would be between 3.30 and 4.30pm. All was good.

By mid afternoon we’d had sleet, hail and torrential rain and it didn’t look like drying up anytime soon. Scamp went upstairs to ‘sort out’ our two massive boxes of music CDs. After an hour or so, she proudly displayed the CDs arranged into alphabetical piles for my inspection. They all went in to the two massive boxes again in a much more organised way than they had been taken out.

An hour or so later, it started to dry up and the sun was coming out again. With Scamp volunteering to mind the fort for a while, I went out with one camera, two lenses and no phone. I hadn’t noticed the lack of a phone when I left the house and I was half way to St Mo’s before I discovered my error. It’s strange how ’naked’ I feel now without a phone in my pocket. I feel vulnerable for some reason. For the few times I phone anyone and for the few times anyone phones me (apart from the lady from Amazon who tells me that my Prime account has been frozen), the only reason I carry one is to listen to music, but it’s a security blanket. That’s how I see it anyway.

It was dry for all the time I was out, but the sky was interesting and I did get a few photos. PoD became the view from the reeds and rushes beside the boardwalk looking into that late afternoon sun, taken with the Samyang 18mm lens. Quite a wide, wide-angle.

Got home to find that the parcel hadn’t arrived. Went to the DPD website to find that the order would be later arriving, between 6 and 7pm. Not a big problem. We hadn’t had a chance to go out anywhere anyway because of the weather. It arrived just after 6pm with an apology from the driver that the previous incumbent had had a break down and he was the replacement driver. Poor bloke, I wonder how many more parcels he had to deliver before his shift ended.

Dinner tonight was Salmon en Croûte by Charlie Bigham bought from Waitrose. Really delicious and served with Scamp’s shallow fried chips. Even better than my potato wedges and that’s saying something.

Tomorrow I’m waiting for an Amazon order. Hope they perform better than today’s DPD men. Weather looks similar to today’s.