Month: September 2022

A toy off the rack – 30 September 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Scamp was out in the morning in the torrential rain to go to her FitSteps class. I offered her a lift, but she wouldn’t hear of it. I think she was glad to get out of the house for a while

The expression “A toy off the rack” came from Skye. When one of my nieces was quite young, she’d accompany her mum to the shop.

Notice, shop, singular. There is only one shop in Staffin. One shop and one post office.

Or when she went with her mum to the ‘Big City’ of Portree. She would pester her mum for “A toy off the rack”. That meant she wanted something, anything, a toy. And all the toys were kept in those rotating metal racks. Since then it’s been synonymous with somebody in the house wanting something. Today it was me. I’d just spent a considerable amount of money on a phone which was coming today, but now I wasn’t satisfied because it looked like there wasn’t enough storage on it and I was moaning that I should have bought the bigger one. That’s why Scamp was so determined to get out for a while.

I got the message that the phone was coming around 4.30 and it was just 12.30. There was nothing for it but to wait. Eventually the DPD van stopped outside and there was a knock at the door. The man photographed the parcel and left. It must have been a horrible day for driving with all the water that was pouring out of the sky. I sliced open the box with an old bone handled knife that must be older than me. Probably wearing on for 90 years old, and here was I using it to open up a piece of tech that would look like black magic to the person who made that knife. There was a black slab of glass and metal in the black box. I took it out and plugged it into its black rapid charger with its black cable and it lit up with a blue light. Were you really expecting the light to be black?

I knew it was going to take about half an hour to charge, even with a rapid charger, so I took my camera out to have something to talk to when I went for a walk in St Mo’s. There wasn’t much to see today, but thankfully the rain had stopped and there was even a chance that the sun was coming out. PoD turned out to be a shot of two women walking home along my favourite path through the trees. It was good to see that some brave folk were out for a walk through the woods without a care, or an umbrella. I had my Goretex jacket on. I know just how fickle the Scottish weather can be.

The phone was charged and it was big and maybe a bit clumsy, but it was fast. Once it had done all the things that new phones do, I transferred almost all of my apps from the old phone and then set about tidying thing. Chucking things out and found that that 128GB will probably be enough for the present moment. I eventually got to be just after mindnight after winning a lengthy fight with Spotify, but having scoring draw with WhatsApp. I’d had enough of phones. I went to bed. That’s why this is a catch up.

No plans for tomorrow. If it’s good we’ll go for lunch somewhere.

 

A much better day – 29 September 2022

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Decided to have one more try at the Samsung website.

The expression “A Dug wi’ a Burst Ba’.” springs to mind. I just couldn’t let it lie. I just tried to buy the phone this time, but it still kicked me out. Then I thought it might be the extra £100 from Jamie’s generous offer that was causing problems. With a heavy heart I removed it and tried again. Lo and Behold, it worked! DPD sent me a message this afternoon to say they would be delivering my parcel tomorrow. Let’s hope it’s the phone and not the box to return the old Huawei!

So, with a skip in my step and after a lift from Scamp, I got a train in to Glasgow to meet Alex. We got the bus out to Kelvingrove and the picture above is what we saw when we got off, PoD captured. Beautiful light on Glasgow Uni with dark glowering skies above. It only lasted for a few minutes then the light was gone, heading north to brighten somebody else’s day. We listened to the organist playing the gigantic pipe organ in the main hall of Kelvingrove Art Galleries, then we had lunch. After that Alex wanted to photograph the ceiling of the main hall, so I loaned him my wide angle lens while I wandered round the galleries. For the first time in my life I plucked up courage and asked a total stranger if I could take their photo. Thankfully, she said Yes. I never asked her name and she didn’t ask mine, but she was sketching a plaster bust in one of the galleries. Thank you, whoever you are.

After we’d covered everything in the building, we walked up to Glasgow Uni. All that good light was well gone by then, but Alex was heading for the famous Cloisters to get some slow shutter photos of folk walking around them. I did the same, but neither of us was all that successful and we left the excited ‘Freshers’ to their conducted tours and walked back down the hill to get the bus into Glasgow.

There was a bloke came on to the bus in a fancy motorised wheelchair. We were impressed at the way he could manoeuvre it into a busy bus and then reverse it into the wheelchair space. I told him as we left how impressed I was with his driving skills and he just laughed and said “Thanks for noticing!”

Another coffee in Nero and we walked down to the bus station. Alex was getting the bus home and I was heading to the station hoping that Scamp would give me a lift home from there, which she did.

Dinner tonight was Chicken Cacciatore. Delightful with a glass of red. A great end to a really good day.

Tomorrow looks like rain from start to finish!

Entertained by Margie – 28 September 2022

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This afternoon we went to visit Margie.

Margie is one of Scamps friends. She is a ray of sunshine on a dull day, and today was a dull day. As usual our conversation ranged over may subjects, taking in, on the way: The difference between a Carry-out and a Take-away, what a Boogie is and how you’d draw one and the horrors of hospital food, especially Gravel Hotpot. No, not Gravy, Gravel, apparently that’s what it looked like! Three hours gone in a flash. What an entertainer. She’d have made an excellent stand-up comedian when she was younger.

We drove home and we should have stopped at the shops to get some spinach to add body to the pesto I was going to make for dinner. If we had, I might have remembered to get some pine nuts, because there were none in the cupboard. But we didn’t and the pesto tasted fine with the spaghetti without the spinach and the pine nuts.

I spent most of the evening wrestling with, and swearing at, the Samsung website. Badly written and riddled with error codes. I eventually gave up when it crashed just as I was about to buy my new Samsung Galaxy S22 Plus phone after struggling, and failing to get the 0% finance deal for some undisclosed reason. Your code worked perfectly, Jamie, as did trading in Scamp’s old unused Huawei phone for a healthy discount. I tried talking to ‘helpers’ on Chat, but they were as useless as the website. I think it might have been an omen. Keep the phone you’ve got. You don’t need a new one.

Today’s PoD was a grab shot of some carnations sitting on the kitchen window ledge. It was dull and gloomy by the time I was taking the photos and the final result was a grainy as a sand dune, but thankfully ON1 came to the rescue and removed all the digital noise without altering the flowers too much. At least something worked today.

Off in to Glasgow tomorrow to meet Alex, hopefully and talk some technospeak with him.

Back to the garage – 27 September 2022

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Today we were going back to the garage.

We had a problem, but not with the car. The service history hadn’t been updated and wasn’t signed. I thought it would be a quick and easy fix, but forgot that the log book is a legal document and needs to be signed by the person who performed the service. That meant I had to wait for the service manager to take the book to the mechanic for him to sign, then bring it back. These little things seem to matter.

With the book signed, we continued on to Morrisons in Stirling. It was nearby and we hadn’t been to it for years, besides Morrisons is the only place we can be sure to get Neapolitan wafer ice cream. Just to be sure again, we got two packets. Of course we got other less important things too, like food.

After that we drove back through traffic that was considerably lighter than yesterday’s moving car park. Scamp discovered that the reason was probably the fact that there were three cows on the M73 after discovering that the grass was indeed greener on the other side of the fence. Something in the region of a ten mile tailback for three cows. And we wonder why the country is going to the dogs … and the cows.

I’d put the idea of a new phone on the back burner a week or so ago, today I turned up the gas. I had been looking at getting a Samsung Galaxy S21 FE, but Samsung UK didn’t have any to sell. John Lewis had none in any of its shops, Curry’s and Argos did have some, but they didn’t do 0% finance which the other two did. I’d read somewhere that Samsung had halted production of the ‘older’ phone, to concentrate on their newer models. I started looking at a more recent S22+. To help offset the cost, I could trade in an old phone – that offer wasn’t available for the S21 FE. The only stipulation seemed to be that it didn’t have a broken screen and that it would hold a charge. I put in the IMEI number of my old A40 and there it was, an instant £150 discount. I might just take them up on the offer.

With a bit of a smile on my face, I went for a walk in St Mo’s and found lots of spiders sitting in their webs, patiently waiting for an unlucky fly. However, the PoD turned out to be a shot of the late afternoon sun glancing across the Campsie Fells. I also walked over to Condorrat to get some stew and some mince to fill up my section of the freezer.  Back home I ordered another batch of Rave coffee.  Slightly different from what the Perth shop sells.  Not better, nor worse, just different.  A pleasant change.

It wasn’t until later in the evening that I discovered I’d brought something else back from St Mo’s. A tiny little tick on my wrist. It’s now gone to tick heaven. First one for ages. I hope it’s the last one for a while.

Tomorrow we’re visiting Margie. Always an entertainment.

Lunch in the Toon and a Wanderer returns – 26 September 2022

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We took the train in to Glasgow today after Scamp had run us to the station.  Just a wander around the centre of Glasgow with maybe the chance of a lunch thrown in.  Seemed like a good way to use a sunny day.  Sunny, but not all that warm, well it is nearly the end of September.  Glasgow was busy, probably partly because this is the end of September weekend which is a local holiday.  We walked down Buchanan Street and heard a bloke playing a blues on nice sounding guitar.  I gave him a few quid for his efforts.  We walked back up and found the restaurant Val had praised a few weeks ago.  It’s called Mozza and is part of a chain.  We’d been impressed with their pizzas when we’d been staying in Annette’s caravan in St Andrews last year.  Today’s pizza wasn’t a patch on the St Andrews one.  I had Italian Sausage and allegedly Italian Broccoli, but what was on my plate was cabbage, possibly Italian cabbage, but nothing like broccoli.  It was smothered in half a ton of cheese.  Scamp was smarter, she’d asked for just a little cheese and her’s looked a lot less of a mess.  It wasn’t expensive, but it wasn’t all that great either.  It wasn’t as bad as Doppio Malto’s effort, but way below Paesano in my quality rating.

We went for coffee in Nero after the disappointing pizza and then headed for the train.  Just missed the train back by seconds and with 25 minutes to wait for the next one, we went for a walk round George Square and down to Cass Art to see if they had a sale on … they didn’t so we ambled back to the station and on the way I got a few shots of the big glass building that is 110 Queen Street.  I liked the round table set for a meeting.  That became PoD.

Back home and had just finished a coffee when the phone rang and it was the garage to say the Blue car was ready.  I drove the White Duke over to Stirling, noting  the two mile queue on the other carriageway, the carriageway I would have been using to drive home.  Picked up our car and found that an upgrade to the Engine Control Unit had solved the problem and an upgrade to the sat nav and radio had also been done and checked.  I haven’t tested their checks yet, I was too busy plotting a route home that would mean the wheels were turning all the time, but I think we may go for a run soon.

That was about it for the day.  Nice to have the Micra back, but I admit I almost stalled it a couple of times forgetting it wasn’t an automatic!

No plans for tomorrow yet.  Weather looks reasonable for the time of year.

 

Hardly past the door – 25 September 2022

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It was a dull day. Rain that couldn’t make up its mind what to do at first, but settled for that misty, not-quite-rain we call Smirr in Scotland. Just plain miserable.

I made another start on clearing up the back bedroom and managed to find the sofa under old jeans and tee shirts that really need to be repaired or consigned to the bin. One pair of jeans have already left the room to go into a charity bag. Another pair is teetering on the edge of that same abyss. A load of old electronic junk is ready to meet the ‘small electrical’ skip in the near future. Heavens, if I keep going like this, I might even find the carpet soon.

After lunch I stretched a sketch of a house with the intention of splashing paint on it, but it didn’t quite dry out until much later in the day, but I’m sure it will be there tomorrow ready to be painted on. Watercolour, I think. Maybe a practise piece for a bigger painting on real watercolour paper.

Dinner was last night’s curry reheated. It tasted fine, but in retrospect, maybe it needed a little bit of liquid to help it soak into the rice.

Watched last night’s Strictly, but it was the same old stuff with the same old comments. Only the faces had changed’, and even then, only some of them. Same ‘judges’ same awful presenters. We discussed who would be first to go, but we both thought it would be the same person. We’ll see if we’re right next week.

Spoke to Jamie later and we discussed Assisted Steering or whatever it’s called on his car. He loves it and I hate it. Maybe I’ll come to make friends with it, but that will take some time. He sent us a newsletter from his new company which welcomes him into the team. It makes impressive reading. Seventeen years experience in the field? Where did all that time go?

The photo for today’s PoD was a tabletop shot. No way was I going out to wander around in the rain getting wet just to click a shutter at the right time. It covers two bases. It’s today’s PoD and it covers the brief for this week’s Flickr Friday which was ‘Drop’. This week it will be in on time.

No plans for tomorrow. The weather looks better than today, according to the weather fairies predictions.

 

Dancin’ – 24 September 2022

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Difficult dancin’ too but, I did tell them I wasn’t to move my left foot from the floor. That’s what made it difficult.

We drove the White Duke to the dance class in Brookfield. Never once did I move my left foot off the floor. I tried out the cruise control on the quieter stretches out approaching Paisley, but I didn’t like the way the car took over the driving, controlling not only the speed, but also the steering. It’s called ‘Assisted Steering’ and it attempts to keep you between the white lines. That’s what my friend, Colin, claims to do when he’s driving on memory. Keep it between the white lines and on the left side of the road! Actually, it drove quite well. Part of the fear is gone, but part is still there. Now, perhaps, I know how Scamp feels when she says it feels like the car is getting away from her. Anyway, we made it with time to spare.

We stared today with the Mambo Marina. It’s a silly, but cheerful little sequence dance with, what Stewart calls, ‘Happy Music’. We know it and it was one of the first sequence dances I learned. That got us on our feet and warmed up, because it was a cold morning this morning. 4.3ºc when I was making the breakfast.
Next it was Gershwin Foxtrot. We’d been practising this at home in the living room and although the heel turns and spin turns were difficult to control when dancing on a carpet, we felt we were progressing. Stewart, the perfectionist, found lots of my steps to criticise, but I understand where he’s coming from. Positioning on the dance floor is important in ballroom. I’m so used to Salsa where you don’t mind where you end up or what direction you’re facing. It’s a couple dance that really can be danced on the spot. Most of the ballroom dances flow round in an anticlockwise direction and a bit of floor craft is necessary to make sure nobody crashes into anyone else. Although a certain person who shall remain nameless did once deliberately crash into a show-off latin dancer, and enjoyed it! We’ve almost completed the Gershwin now with just a couple of figures left to round the whole thing off.
We finished today with Tango Serida which I’d never danced, or don’t remember dancing, although Scamp knows how it all works. To help out us beginners, S&J did a couple of walk-throughs. In the end, we were almost ‘getting it’.

Drove home via the Clyde Tunnel and, again, my left foot stayed firmly fixed on the floor. MPG for the journey was in the mid 50s which is quite good for a fairly heavy automatic, I think.

The rest of the day was spent recovering from the dancing and the stressful drive back, although I did go out for a walk in the afternoon and managed to get some lovely light on a spider stretched out over its web. That got PoD.

Dinner tonight came from Bombay Dreams and was delivered very promptly. The food was just as good as it usually is. I can’t find anything to beat BD for good Indian food, certainly not locally.

We watched the tedious matching up of the professional dancers with the celebrities in Strictly, actually a recording from yesterday. We have today’s equally cringe inducing first dance recorded to watch tomorrow. We just like living in the past, you see!

We watched ‘Ridley’, Hazy. Actually we quite enjoyed it and found that ‘Ted Hastings’ could hold a decent tune. It was a bit long for a police drama, though.

No plans for tomorrow. No F1 GP to watch, but I suppose there will be something to do in the garden!

 

Out to lunch – 23 September 2022

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June and Iain were taking us out to lunch today.

The day started with a morning call from Hazy. She sounded good and she agreed that she was feeling a lot better on her new meds. We caught up with all that was going on down south and we relayed what news we had. A good start to the day!

Scamp was out to FitSteps and while she was out I’d intended doing some painting, or slapping some paint on a piece of paper with pencil scratches on it, if you prefer. It never got done. Instead I took a series of selfie pictures, distorted ones for a FlickrFriday challenge. Unfortunately, I think I left it too late to post them because they’ve not appeared on the website. Still, they made an interesting, or funny, PoD.

Just as I was finishing, Scamp arrived home, had a quick shower and got changed. I’d already shaved off the stubble from the photograph session so a quick shower for me too and a change of clothes and we were both ready to go. No phone call from the garage to say when the car would be ready, so I was going to miss out on my lunchtime drink. There was no point in both of us missing out, so I said I’d drive us back home after lunch. That would allow Scamp to have a cheeky wee red with her meal.

June and Iain were waiting for us at the restaurant which wasn’t busy, so we got to choose where we sat. Scamp and Iain had Fish ’n’ Chips and June had Beef Bourguignon. I had my all time Dead Deer favourite, Gammon Steak with two eggs. The food didn’t take long to appear after our drinks, and it seemed to go down well. I must say that my gammon steak was the best I’ve ever had in the Dead Deer. Almost perfect. The only thing missing was the grilled pineapple rings that I used to get. The others went on to have dessert. Scamp had Banoffee Pie and Iain had White Chocolate and Raspberry Tart, but June was the star with a Black Forest Flower Pot with Dark Mousse, Cherries in Kirsch, Brownie Pieces and Whipped Cream! If you had seen it on the plate, you would have believed it was a real flower pot that had fallen spilling out its soil. It looked too good to eat, but it was scoffed! I had coffee. By the way, Hazy, there was no great revelation.

We sat and talked for a while, a long while and set the world to rights again. If they had only asked us, we could have fixed thing properly without the need for a Tory leadership contest, but they never listen, do they.

We thanked our kind benefactors and while they waited for a taxi, I drove Scamp and me home. Still no message from the garage to say what was going on with the car.

I phoned the garage when we got home, but nobody at the service desk wanted to answer. I left it a quarter of an hour and phoned again. This time I got to speak to the bloke who had arranged the car being signed in. He said they were still working on it and when I pressed him on a date for completion he said Monday or Tuesday next week. I asked him for a confirmation email that my insurance had been extended and he agreed to send it. I’m still waiting, but as it’s now almost 11pm, I don’t think it will arrive tonight. Yesterday I thought this garage had turned the corner, but now I think it’s in a one way street, going the wrong way. I’ll give them until Tuesday and then I’ll doorstep them to get an answer.

One final practise of the Jet Lag Waltz tonight and another of the Gershwin Foxtrot. I think we’re ready for the last dance class for almost a month while the teachers swan off to teach on a cruise ship. Somewhere warm, no doubt.

So, hopefully the White Duke will take us to Brookfield tomorrow and bring us back safely. Just as long as I remember to keep my left foot on the floor.

An early rise – 22 September 2022

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Up and out fairly early today to take the car to the garage for its service.

I thought it was going to be a nightmare run to Stirling. The rain was torrential when I woke, but by the time I was leaving it was tailing off and so was the traffic which usually turns the M80 into a carpark if you are travelling before 10am. A nice easy run to the garage.

Spoke to a lady assistant who asked if I’d had any problems with the car since the last service and when I handed her the typed up A4 sheet, she said “Oh! I see”, read it and promptly passed it on the service manager. Actually they couldn’t have been more helpful today. They seem to be under new management, so that might explain it. I signed all the paperwork, drew in a sharp intake of breath when the service assistant told me the cost of the Major Service and we walked out to my car for the day. It was a white Nissan Juke – automatic. His parting words to me were “Just remember not to lift your left foot.” Wise words. At the first roundabout I stamped on the brake, thinking it was the clutch. “Don’t lift your left foot” became my mantra for the drive home. My first thoughts were It’s BIG, It’s a bit noisier than the Micra and It’s got Sport Mode!!

After a bit of a kerfuffle I managed to reverse park The Beast and like all Nissans it complained about everything with warnings on the dashboard screen and beeps for every infringement.

I thought it would be good to go for a drive with Scamp. I knew she’d hate it. It’s too big and it goes too fast. I have to agree, but first I had to find how to put fuel into it. I could not find the switch to open the door that hides the fuel cap. The Micra has two tabs, one opens the bonnet and the other opens the fuel compartment. Eventually I gave in and read the instructions. To open the door, you press on the rear of the fuel compartment door, just like the Megane. Problem solved.

We drove out slowly and put in a few quids worth of petrol, then went for a run to The Kelpies. Just to annoy Scamp, I put on the heated seats when she wasn’t looking. That gave her a shock and a laugh (you taught me that, Jamie). I still don’t like them and Scamp hates them. I managed to drive all the way to Falkirk and only once did an ‘emergency stop’ by trying to use a clutch that wasn’t there. I also gave Scamp a laugh when I started trying to change gear in an automatic. My hand went to the gearstick quite a few times. When we parked at The Kelpies, I tried to pull on an invisible handbrake – the joys of ‘electronic handbrakes’.

The Kelpies were just as magical as they always are. We walked round them trying to see them from a different angle and being amazed at how lifelike they are. It was quite quiet today, no crowds. Well, it was quiet until a lorry load of visitors arrived and mobbed the place. There seemed to be hundreds of them. We went into the cafe and had lunch before they realised there was food nearby. Today’s PoD came from Helix Park, where The Kelpies live. It was a snap shot, not a snapshot. Saw it and took it before I realised that the bloke was with the woman in the background, wearing the yellow jacket and she was photographing him. Oops!

After we’d seen the great metal horses and walked round them, we headed home. Scamp bought birthday cards in Condorrat while I processed today’s photos. After that, we wrote the cards and I walked to Condorrat to post one. Hopefully the other will go to June for safe keeping tomorrow.

Oh yes, tomorrow. I got a phone call from the garage about 5pm to say Would it be ok to leave the Micra with them overnight until they finalise their investigations? I agreed that it would be fine by me. They confirmed that they would extend my insurance. So I get another day to find our more about the White Juke.

Tomorrow June and Iain are taking us out for lunch at the Red Deer (AKA the Dead Deer). Looking forward to it. Also looking forward to getting my Blue Micra back.

A walk in the park – 21 September 2022

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It was a lovely morning. It would be a shame to waste it.

Too often on a lovely sunny morning, like today, we have a coffee and open our tablets or laptops and cast an occasional glance at the world outside. Scamp has said many times that we should just go out and enjoy it, rather than sitting looking at it. That’s what we did today.

We drove over to Colzium and were one of three cars in the car park that can easily hold twenty. We walked up to the big house, then followed the steep road round the house and up the hill to the Tak Ma Doon Road, but rather than walk on to the road, we turned right and stayed on a path that took us down to the Colzium Burn. At the burn we turned left and followed it up and up and up until we reached the second bridge over the water. The light was really good on the first of the three waterfalls that tumble under the bridge and through a ravine, into a deep pool downstream. So good that I just had to take some photos.

We walked over the bridge and down the path on the other side of the burn and then we went for a coffee and some shortbread biscuits in a wee cafe that we visited a month or so ago. The sun was warm enough for us to sit outside although we kept getting buzzed by wasps.

Suitably refreshed and with a couple of shortbread biscuits squirrelled away to have when we got home, we walked round the lower part of the park and back to the car. The clouds were rolling in by then and it looked like the weather fairies warning about rain might come true.

Back home it was filled rolls for lunch and after some discussion, an old favourite, Fish Fingers, Egg, Spaghetti and Chips for dinner. I’d already downloaded the photos to the computer and knew there was enough there to get a PoD, so a visit to St Mo’s wasn’t necessary.

I got a phone call from the Nissan garage late in the afternoon, to check that I was still available for the service tomorrow and did a I have “any concerns I wished to speak about this evening?” I said “Oh yes!”, but agreed that I’d list them and hand it in tomorrow. That gave me the incentive to get my ‘concerns’ down on paper. It’s now written with one copy for the Service centre, one copy for the manager who I’m hoping to speak to, and one copy to go to Nissan UK.

PoD was a view of the first waterfall at the top of the walk today.

Tomorrow the Blue car goes in for a service. I’ve booked a courtesy car. I wonder what I’ll get! If the manager reads my list of ‘concerns’ first, it might be a pedal car!!