Month: August 2021

Dancing and a walk in the rain – 21 August 2021

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Off on our usual Saturday run to Johnstone. Then a walk in the rain at home.

The drive to Johnstone, or to be more exact, Bridge of Weir was fairly uneventful. Just a steady stream of west bound traffic and a steady drizzle of rain that occasionally got heavier and then threatened to dry up before changing its mind again and getting heavier. It was just constant and after a while I got so I didn’t really notice it.

Today’s class started with the Tina Tango which I’m rapidly coming to grips with. Not so, the Foxtrot which was next. It sort of reminded me of the Hedgehog’s song by Incredible String Band “You know all the words and you’ve sung all the notes, but you’ve never quite learned the song”. We knew all the figures and the steps, but we never quite fitted them together to flow as they should. Jane helped a lot smoothing the transitions between figures, but it still wasn’t right. Part of the problem is learning all the figures for the dance and practising it in the living room. The room is really too small to dance the whole piece in a straight line. We have to dance three or four figures, then turn round and dance the next three or four on the way back.
After the Foxtrot we danced the Sweetheart Cha Cha which is my nemesis. I’m going to get a tee shirt with “I HATE CHA CHA” printed on it. I just don’t seem to be able to understand the reason why you MUST start on beat 2. It makes no sense. The less said about the Sweetheart, the better.
Next was what they called The Zoom Waltz, ie the waltz we learned in the zoom class. It took me a while to work out what it was, but after that light bulb moment, it started to become clear again and we managed a couple of circuits of the floor with the minimal amount of fuss and stopping.
We finished with the Mayfair Quickstep which is a fairly easy dance that reminds me of the Military Two Step we learned at school.
After all that, our brains were full and we needed to lie down in a darkened room. Unfortunately we had to drive home first. The road was even busier than last week and the drive home took over an hour.

After lunch Scamp suggested we go for a walk … in the rain, because the rain hadn’t really gone off since we left the house in the morning and showed no signs of going off now. We dressed for the weather and walked down to Broadwood Loch, round the loch and then round past the exercise machines. I took the Sony 6000 and one lens in my pocket and got a few photos as we walked round. Three photos made the cut for PoD and the final decision was in favour of the dandelion in the rain, although I liked a mono shot of some grass stems and an old fence we passed. You can view it better on Flickr.

Tonight we discussed today’s progress at ballroom class and finally settled on Vegetable Lasagne by Charlie Bingham followed by a cheapo Sticky Toffee Pudding from Aldi. The lasagne was excellent. The pudding was too, but it’s making its presence felt now and doesn’t seem so good second time around if you get my meaning.

Tomorrow we have no real plans, although the weather fairies say the weather is to be better, or at least less rain. We may go out somewhere.

Curry – 20 August 2021

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Today we were travelling to Hamilton for a curry

Traffic was horrendous on the M74 because of roadworks, but a short diversion took away some of the pain.

As soon as we reached the M74, heading south, we knew it was going to be a long haul. Traffic was crawling nose to tail and the sign said the roadworks were five miles away. Thankfully most folk were avoiding the inside lane because it only led to services. We took that road on purpose, not because we were heading for the services, but because we could drive through them, then out the other side and as a result, skip a good twenty minutes of painful first gear 10mph max driving. We turned off and I took the wrong turning at Bothwell, but I found a way through it to Hamilton after I remembered part of the scenery from when I used to work in Cambuslang over 50 years ago!

We were heading for the Bombay Cottage restaurant and got parked outside without a problem. Scamp had a Cauliflower Shimla Bhaji and I had Chicken Rogan Josh. We also shared an enormous Naan. The food was just as we remembered it and almost worth the drive through that terrible traffic. There’s not much worth going to Hamilton, except for a curry at Bombay Cottage, so we just drove home, thankfully through much lighter traffic than that on the southbound carriageway. We stopped at the shops on the way home for the usual essentials: Milk and a bottle of gin, plus a Sticky Toffee Pudding which might be for tomorrows dessert.

Since I hadn’t had a chance to take any photos today I went for a walk in St Mo’s later in the afternoon. The rain was still holding off, but it was really dull. Nothing I took looked worthwhile in the viewfinder and that’s how it proved when I saw it on the computer screen. The rain had started when I was walking home, so I gave it enough time to dry up and went to see if there was anything worth a click of the shutter in the garden when it was dry. That’s where today’s PoD came from. It’s a fern that’s growing from the brickwork of the back step. I liked the curve of the leaf and the way the individual leaflets changed size as they neared the tip. It’s almost like a fractal. In fact there is a fractal called a Barnsley fern! You live and learn!

No plans for tomorrow apart from the obvious dance class.

Out for coffee with Margie – 19 August 2021

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But before that, there was the problem of petrol.

Drove up to Tesco to check if my credit card would work with what I thought was my PIN, after the debacle with another of my cards last week. If it did, I was intending to bring back a loaf and get petrol. It did and I got the loaf, unfortunately the petrol station was under reconstruction which was annoying because that’s why I’d gone to Tesco in the first place. However, I’d just have to go back to BP on my way home, which is what I did. Bought £40 worth of that liquid gold which according to my dashboard computer would cover me for just over 400 miles. That got me doing some quick mental arithmetic while I was driving home (who says men can’t multitask?) that meant a quid would get me roughly 10 miles of travel and that’s before you consider Road Tax, Insurance and depreciation. Maybe I should start cycling everywhere instead.

However, if Scamp and I were taking Margie out to Torwood Garden Centre for coffee and a cake, I’d need a tandem with a little two wheeled buggy behind for Margie if I was to change to the eco-friendly method of travel. I put the though aside to suggest it to Scamp at a later date – Oops, too late, it’s out of the bag now!

We picked up Margie (in the car) and drove to Torwood. While I parked the car, the ladies went in and found us a table. It was a great afternoon. We talked about loads of things and I was pleased that she included Tarri in the conversation, but in a realistic, matter of fact way. She is a very practical woman, Margie. After coffee and a scone each we went for a walk round the plants. I could see that Scamp was casting a searching eye over various flower pots and their contents. I think we may be making a return journey to the Garden Centre soon.

While we had been in Torwood, Scamp had asked one of the gardeners how to deal with her ailing 35 year old blackcurrant bush and had been told to prune it to open it out and also to clear away all the leaves from the ground underneath the plant. That made some sense to us and she got started when we got back. We’d dropped Margie off at her house on the way. While she was hard at work with that, I started to pin up our new fairy lights to the fence. They seem to work and are lit as I write this.

With that done, I left her to pruning and dead-heading and took the Sony out for a walk in St Mo’s. There wasn’t much to see on a day that had dulled down a lot from its promising start earlier in the day. Lots of flies on knapweed and one of them achieved PoD. I was trying out lots of different tricks and tips to make the Sony focus more accurately. I don’t know if the problem is with the lens or with the camera or, more likely, a bit of both.

Another practise session tonight trying to make sense of the Melody Foxtrot sequence dance. It must be one of the most complicated and totally useless dance sequences designed by humans. I think after about a dozen walk throughs we have a fair idea how it works (famous last words!). We also covered the second half of the Foxtrot sequence without anyone falling out with anyone else and almost no swearing.

Tomorrow we may attempt to drive to Hamilton, just for a laugh … and a curry.

Shopping in Stirling – 18 August 2021

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We were away for the messages.

Scamp had mentioned that she fancied going to Sainsbury’s for the messages this week. The nearest one, that didn’t run the risk of five miles of queues because of road works, was in Stirling. As far as we knew, there would be no problem with folk digging up the road there, so off we went. We drove through the Raploch, once the worst housing estate in Scotland, now very up-market and the worst place to drive through in Scotland. Every few yards the road surface changes from tarmac to concrete to granite tiles. Speed bumps everywhere, and in the tiled areas they are colour matched to the tiles which makes driving very tricky, but ensures you keep within the 20mph limit. We found Sainsbury’s without any problem and I discovered I’d a message from Jamie with some very good news.

Lots of interesting things to buy in Sainsburys. First supermarket I’ve been in where they sell watches! Whatever next. But it felt like we’d gone back in time a year and a bit, because a lot of the shelves were empty. Not enough delivery drivers we’re told. Well, some of you silly buggers voted for Brexit and swallowed every fairy tale you were told. It looks like reality is coming home to bite you now that there aren’t enough low paid foreign workers wanting to come to the UK to work.

We’d found an interesting historical artefact when we were checking out the road to Sainsbury’s. There’s a Beheading Stone on a hill near the supermarket. We’d half intended going for a look, but as far as we could tell, there were no beheadings scheduled for today. Maybe another day then.

Back home we potted up the echinacea we bought on Monday. We’d bought a clay pot for it and Scamp had had it soaking in the bird bath for a few days. You have to do that with clay pots because otherwise they will draw water away from the compost and allow it to evaporate into the air. After we’d potted the plant up we gave it a good drink of pure rain water we’d collected during the heavy rain last week. Then it got to sit in the sun for a while at the front of the house, while a rose that had sat there all summer went to the back garden to rest a while.

I finally chopped and sawed down the remaining trunk and branches of the tree that had been growing between Angela’s garden and ours. The loppers did most of the work on the branches, but I had to resort to a panel saw for the trunk. I’d been talking to Fred before that and he was telling me that he recycles all his tree branches with a shredder. I don’t think we have enough trees to warrant the purchase of a shredder, but it would have been useful today. However, it all went into the brown bin today and it gets lifted tomorrow.

Went for a walk in the woods of St Mo’s later and got today’s PoD. It’s a little ball of moss on a dead tree branch. I liked the way the sun was just catching the moss. Not everyone’s favourite, but I liked it which is the reason it got PoD.

A longer and calmer practise tonight trying to put together the ‘back end’ of the foxtrot routine. Sometimes if feels more like a ‘backside’ rather than a back end, but it’s coming together slowly.

Tomorrow we are intending to take Margie out for coffee somewhere.

An afternoon in the country – 17 August 2021

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The morning was work. The afternoon was photography.

Scamp was off to have coffee with Isobel in the morning and I was left to my own devices. First thing to do was to investigate the leaking shower cabinet. It turned out to be a leak in two corners. One tiny little drip and one a bit bigger. Both were being caused by mould growth in the sealant between the glass and the ceramic base of the shower. Half an hour of poking and prodding with a wee round pointed device whose original purpose was to score cardboard teased most of the gunge out and allowed me to start to dry the offending parts. Left them to dry out properly by themselves and started the second, and bigger, task.

The top of the chest of drawers in my room has not seen the light of day for about a year. Today I was set to remedy that. I had a big IKEA bag ready to hold the stuff that was going to the skips, that meant most of it. Some things I didn’t really want to chuck away, but I had to ask myself if I was ever likely to use it again and if I wasn’t, was I emotionally attached to it. If the answer to either of those questions was YES, then it got to stay for six months. If the answer to both question NO, then it was going to the skip, via the IKEA bag. Some things even got he heave after failing only one test. Sometimes you have to be ruthless. As the bag got fuller and fuller, the top of the chest of drawers magically appeared.

After Scamp came back and we had lunch, I took all the stuff in the car to the skips. Heavens, Jamie, you’re not going to believe this, but I even parted with a camera. A working camera! I won’t list all that went to landfill, but there was a a lot. With the boot of the car empty I could go to B&Q to get a tube of sealant for the shower, and have somewhere to put it. Next stop was Screwfix for a Hive plug socket. The number of times I’ve left the house and driven to the bottom of the road wondering if I’ve left the phone charger or some other piece of dodgy equipment switched on. Now I can check on my phone if it’s on and with a touch of the screen, turn it off. Hopefully it will be worth the money in peace of mind. Two things in the boot. Time for some photo opportunities.

Drove up to Fannyside Moor and found an old fencepost strapped to its new replacement with its great collection of mosses and lichen. It looked like a little garden, although one comment on Flickr likened it to a “micro rainforest”. I understand what he meant. It got PoD. Found a little wee ladybird with sixteen spots. Dark red wing covers and white spots. It’s a Cream-spot Ladybird (Calvia quattuordecimguttata) and it’s not very rare.

Back home, Scamp made Sea Bass with asparagus and home grown Potatoes. Absolutely brilliant. Later we had a quick practise of the final parts of the Foxtrot we’ve been learning. I say ’final’, but it’s likely the teachers will add another two or three little bits to the end of the routine.

No plans for tomorrow, although a trip out for ‘the messages’ is not out of the question.

Happy Birthday Jamie – 16 August 2021

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Hope it was just as good a day as you hoped it would be.

As for us, a man was coming go give us giant cotton buds to stick down our throats and up our noses. Always that way round, never the nose first! Once he’d taken the swabs back and asked us our twenty questions we were free to go.

Today we were off for a spin. We drove off in the general direction of Loch Lomond, basically following our route to our dance class on a Saturday. We reached and passed that turnoff and headed further north west past the end of the airport and were just about to take the slip road for the Erskine Bridge when we saw the queue and the warning about a breakdown on the bridge, so instead of turning off, we continued straight on through Port Glasgow, Greenock and parked for a few minutes at Gourock. We sat in the car, eating Dolly Mixtures and watching a Royal Navy ship and a yacht cruising around the estuary.

From there we drove down past Cloch lighthouse and stopped at the garden centre we’d both been heading for. Had a bite to eat there. Not a very posh lunch, think more School Dinners. Steak and Sausage Pie cut from bit tray for me and a couple of dollops of Macaroni Cheese for Scamp. Both served with chips, so yes, very reminiscent of School Dinners. Having said that, it was wasn’t expensive and my steak & sausage was lovely, just the puff pastry didn’t have enough puff left. Scamp’s was a bit congealed.

We walked round the plants and bought an Echinacea we both liked and a terracotta pot to put it in. Scamp bought herself a top in an Edinburgh Woollen Mill shop and I got some photos.

The photos came from across the road from the garden centre where there were views across the estuary to Dunoon on one side and on the other side the remains of the the pier at what had been Hunterston Power Station. Those were just the middle ground props for the star which was the sky with it’s great cloud patterns. Well, it was for me anyway. PoD was a picture looking from Cloch towards Dunoon.

When we’d walked across the pebbly beach and on round a headland, we headed back to the car and drove on to Inverkip, then took the road over the hill to bring us back to the motorway and home.

Spoke to Jamie in the evening and found out he was intending to test his baking skills on a Swiss Roll.

Not quite the day out we’d planned, but a breath of fresh salt air and a walk along beside the Clyde estuary. Loch Lomond will have to wait for another day.

Tomorrow, Scamp is out for coffee with Isobel and I may just put pastel to paper if the weather is inclement, as seems likely and if not then I may go for a walk to see some dragons.

Just another Sunday – 15 August 2021

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Sunday is a lazy day. That about summed it up.

In the morning, Scamp cut some of her sweet peas which have not been nearly as prolific as in previous years. If I was to hazard a guess at the reason, I’d say it was the container that was the problem. Scamp used to plant her sweet peas in an old orange box. That wasn’t the colour of the box (it was painted blue) it was previous use of the container. It was a wooden box that used to hold oranges. As you can imagine, it was fairly old, dating from a time before cardboard boxes. It was falling apart and she made up her mind last year to take it apart and replace it with a plastic trough. I think the sweet peas prefer the traditional orange box. I have no proof of this, it’s just my opinion, based on a life eating oranges.

While she was gathering the flowers I started making a loaf, just an ordinary loaf, nothing fancy. Left that to prove after messing up the proportions of water to flour. You’d think by this time I’d have a better idea of how much water to use, but my excuse is that I haven’t made a loaf for a long while.

After I’d tidied up the kitchen and Scamp had arranged the flowers in a vase with an extra bloom from her rose, Troika, I offered to photograph it. An old piece of crushed velvet became the backdrop and the whole thing sat on the draining board of the kitchen sink. One of the images became PoD. We went for a walk in St Mo’s in the afternoon and I collected a few more photos, but nothing as good as the flowers. I did get a dragon or two, but they weren’t really all that successful.

Back home I got busy preparing my dinner main course which was going to be Lamb Tagine, using two lamb neck fillets. Pan fried the lamb with spices, dates and a chopped onion. Added orange juice and water and transferred the lot to the slow cooker to chug away do its work for a couple of hours. Then it was time to get the bread ready for its second prove, which I did and then went for a second walk in St Mo’s looking for beasties this time. I found a grasshopper and a shield bug that was striding out along the kerb of the boardwalk. The grasshopper almost beat the flowers to first place, but I liked the colour combinations of the flowers.

Bread baked well and tasted fine. Tagine was great, but needed three hours slow cooking, not the two in the recipe. Scamp had a piece of trout and we shared calabrese and some of our potatoes. All were deemed good.

Tomorrow we may go out for a spin somewhere scenic!

Out early for a dance or five – 14 August 2021

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The new normal for a Saturday. Up and out by 10.15.

Drove to Johnstone, flying solo. I did have a radio operator, but didn’t have the backup of sat nav. You have to fly solo some time. You can’t always be relying on instruments to guide you, besides it was a fairly easy route to follow.

Started with a couple of sequence dances and finished with a line dance! Oh No! I’ll be buying a Stetson hat and a pair of cowboy boots soon! In between there were more additions to the Foxtrot to contend with and more detail in the Sweetheart Cha Cha. We managed it, but with a bit of difficulty for both of us.

Came home and had lunch then we lifted our second, and last “tattie bag” and got a fair amount to tatties for tomorrow’s dinner and a few more days besides. Then Scamp wanted to do some pruning and I went to the butchers to get sausages for tomorrow’s breakfast, stew for a steak pie and free range eggs. On the way home I stopped at St Mo’s and nabbed a little dragonfly, a Common Darter, for today’s PoD. Still shooting with the new A6000 which is so much lighter than the E7m2. Image quality is a bit lower than its big brother, but not so much that it is getting sent back. The kit lens is one of Sony’s failures, but I’ve enough lenses to go round without having to use that bit of plastic. It’s a keeper.

Dinner was from Golden Bowl and was our usual selection: Chicken Chop Suey for Scamp and Special Chow Mein for me. Both up to the usual high standard. Watched one of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise which was just mindless entertainment, no thinking required.

Tomorrow we may go for a drive somewhere scenic if the weather is as good as today.

Friday the 13th – 13 August 2021

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Not that I’m superstitious of course.

But first there was a funeral to attend. We’d driven the road yesterday and the sat nav had found the place. Today we were going to be brave and go sat nav free. I only made one wrong turning which was amazing in itself. After the service we drove through what used to be Burnbank to what used to be the Zambezi Hotel but is now the Villa Hotel for the traditional tea after a funeral. Apart from John, Marion and their offspring we knew nobody at the tea. We sat and talked to John and Marion for a while, then took our leave.

Drove home and changed before driving out again to get The Messages at Tesco. I needed to fill up the tank of the Blue Micra and then realised I couldn’t remember my pin. I tried two and was on my last attempt when I cancelled the transaction. Thankfully you have to input your pin before you fill up or I’d really have been in trouble. Of course Scamp could have paid with her card, but I just took my card and drove off, in a blazing huff. Back home, and after I’d cooled down, we drove to the BP garage and Scamp paid for the petrol. Then I drove back and requested a new pin from the bank feeling stupid. How could I forget my pin? I’d used it just last week to pay for the camera! I know I’ll remember it tomorrow morning.

In the afternoon we went for a walk in St Mo’s and that’s where today’s PoD came from. We’d been discussing the blue flower and trying to work out what it was. I though I’d just take a photo of it and find it on Google Images Search. Then I was photobombed by a hoverfly that just flew in and wandered over the flower. I got the photo, but I still didn’t find out what the flower was.

Back home it was a Tesco pizza for dinner and humble pie for me, forgetting my pin. Friday the Thirteenth? Indeed it was unlucky for me!

Hopefully dancing in the morning tomorrow, but no plans for the afternoon. It’ll be a surprise.

Driving, Walking and Raining – 12 August 2021

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With a few sunny spells too.

We’ve promised John and Marion that we’ll be at her dad’s funeral tomorrow in High Blantyre at 10am. We were up fairly early today, so we left the house at 9.30am to do a trial run to the crematorium to check out the traffic at about the time we’d leave tomorrow. We arrived almost at 10am, so our intended leaving time of 9.15 tomorrow looked ok.

Instead of coming straight home, Scamp suggested we go to Drumpellier for a walk round the loch. She hasn’t really been out of the house since Monday, so a walk in the park would do her some good, and do me some good too. This is the last week of the school holidays with teachers going back to work today and tomorrow and those lovely children (yes, that was sarcasm!) going back on Monday. There were quite a lot of children making the most of their last few days of freedom accompanied by mums, dads, grans and grandpas, all glad to see them going back to school. Add in the usual pensioners getting in their daily exercise and you can imagine, it was a busy place.

We walked the usual “travelator” circuit for a bit and then took one of the paths into the woods just to get out of the crowds. We walked through the Peace Garden which was looking a bit sorry for itself with long grass, weeds and overgrown bushes. Such a shame that the council doesn’t do more to keep these places tidy. Yes, I know they are strapped for cash, but it isn’t until you work for a council that you see the money that’s wasted every year. I guarantee there are ways the council could redirect some of that wasted money to make these places look better. However, in doing that, they’d be admitting that the money was wasted in the first place, so it’s never going to happen.

We left Drumpellier to the mums, dads, grans and grandpas, plus the weans, of course and headed for Morrisons at The Fort. Just messages today. No time for essentials like gin or whisky, so no fun either. From there it was back home.

After lunch I spoke to Fred on the phone for about an hour and heard his news.

Up until then it had been a fairly pleasant day although the clouds were gathering now. I was just putting my jacket on to go for a walk in St Mo’s when the rain started and it was heavy rain. The shower lasted about half an hour before it dwindled away to just the occasional spits and spots. I took that as a sign that I’d get a second walk of the day. I was walking over to St Mo’s when I saw a woman waking her dog on the footpath through the trees. Once I’d retrieved the Wee Dog from my rucksack and focused I had a chance to get three decent shots. In one of them the woman was standing in a patch of sunlight. That became PoD. A bit of ‘shopping’ to get it from the raw image to the one you see here.

Some recipes are fickle. You make one mistake and the whole thing turns to a tasteless mush, or a bitter inedible mess. Carrot and Lentil Curry isn’t like that. I used the wrong seeds. Should have been fennel and I used cumin. I used double the amount of lentils. I missed out the garlic that should have gone in. I even allowed it to burn dry. However, it turned out really alright! In fact it tasted better than alright and that wasn’t just my description, Scamp agreed. That’s a good standby recipe, one you can work with.

Quick dance practise tonight because I really need to concentrate a lot more on steps and frame and a hundred and one other things. Tina Tango was looking better after some help from dance maestro Scamp.

Tomorrow a funeral in the morning and then the rest of the day will, hopefully, be our own.