Month: January 2023

Busy, busy, busy – 31 January 2023

Posted on by Zogman

A lazy start, but that didn’t last.

After that lazy start and another chapter read in my book, we drove up to Tesco. Scamp wanted a gift bag and a card for a new baby in June’s extended family, no, not Shona, nor the other fella (heaven forbid). It was Ian’s daughter who had a 9lb 9oz baby boy at the weekend (do your own conversion you metric people!). We had bought a couple of baby things yesterday in Glasgow and apparently you then have to buy a gift bag and, of course you need a card. I gave the blue car a tank full of petrol, but thankfully I didn’t need to gift wrap it, or send it a card. I just filled the tank until it was full and it said “Thank you very much, I was thirsty.” We drove home because I needed a cup of coffee.

Next jaunt was to Calders garden centre, although it seems that at present they don’t have a garden as part of it is going to be a new restaurant and tea room. Scamp has always said that’s where the money is made these days. There were six of us crammed into a table that would comfortably have held four, but no more. Food was poor. Scamp’s soup had no taste of anything, she said and my baked potato was tepid and also had no taste or texture. The tea was ok! We were on a timer too, because Scamp had an appointment with the nurse at 2.30, so we had to leave earlier than we’d have liked. Bumped into Isobel who was having tea with her granddaughter and told her I was a “Cheeky So and So!” Who? Me? You must be thinking about someone else, Isobel!

Drove through pouring rain to get to the doc’s and waited while Scamp got an all clear for her chest infection. Next we were off to Tesco where we attempted to buy half the shop. Drove home and I just had enough time to grab a pair of boots and have a short walk in St Mo’s. Just one circuit of the pond and a short walk through the woods. It was in the woods that today’s PoD came from. Although I was focused on the larch pine cones, it was the sunset that held all the interest and the colour. Processed in three different apps. Lightroom, Photoshop, On1 and back into Lightroom. It was worth it, though, in my opinion.

Dinner tonight was Scrambled Egg on a slice of bread for Scamp and Mince with an egg poached in it, also served on a slice of buttered bread for me. A Larky favourite.

Tomorrow I’m intending to pick up Val and take him for coffee in Costa. Looking forward to some good technological conversation. Hopefully it will take his mind off his bad leg.

Happy Anniversary to us – 30 January 2023

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Not the legal anniversary, that’s still to come, all being well. This is the one that matters to us.

We were getting the bus in to Glasgow today. I like to have my earbuds with me when we go on the bus. It helps to pass the time and Scamp says she doesn’t mind, but I couldn’t find the little white pill case that holds the earbuds anywhere. I only spent about ten minutes searching for the case, but eventually we had to leave to walk to Condorrat to catch the bus.

Walked through JL and out into Buchanan Street and from there to coffee in Nero in St Enoch’s. Then we got the subway to Kelvinbridge and walked to La Lanterna in the West End. The place wasn’t busy to start with, then about half a dozen girls rolled in and the silence was shattered. Scamp had arancini as a starter and veg lasagne. I had bruschetta as a starter and meat lasagne. I wouldn’t say it was the best lunch I’ve ever had. The bruschetta was a slice of French bread, no garlic and cold. Basically it was a roll ’n’ chopped tomatoes. Scamp was happy with her arancini but wasn’t so complimentary about the lasagne, while mine was fine. Maybe not their finest offering and a relatively uninspired menu overall.

We walked up Great Western Road and had a drink in Oran Mor, then got the subway back to Buchanan Street. Scamp got some Rituals shower foam then we caught the bus home.

I’d taken some photos in Glasgow with the A6000 and my favourite was a grab shot taken through a window in Cafe Nero. That became PoD.

Remember that white pill case with the earbuds. It turned up, sitting on the duvet in our bedroom. I was sure I’d looked there and it wasn’t to be seen. The fairies must have brought it!

Tomorrow we have a table booked for lunch with Crawford & Nancy and June & Ian. I’ve been warned not to have the coffee as it makes Costa coffee look great. I’ll heed the warning.

A dull day – 29 January 2023

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I drove for about three minutes today. I must have driven about 200m. That’s as far as I wanted to go.

Last night I’d parked at the top of the road, because we didn’t get back from dancing until after 11pm. That meant almost all the parking spaces were gone. This morning a space appeared, so I walked up the road and drove the car down to a space outside the house. I locked it and went home. That was the sum total of my walks today. It was such a dull day I didn’t want to go anywhere. I knew the light would be poor wherever I went on the central belt. Today’s PoD was going to be another tabletop.

Lunch was the usual Sunday fry-up and dinner was, as predicted, yesterday’s curry reheated with some yoghurt added to thicken up the sauce and some Garam Masala for flavour and a pinch of hot chilli powder to give it a little kick. Still it needed something and we were both at a loss as to what that was. It filled a wee space. That’s about as good as it got.

Spoke to Jamie later in the day and heard about their plumbing problems. Glad to hear you got them fixed.

PoD was a tabletop. It’s the desiccated flowers from a Christmas flowering cactus. Pretty little things in their own right.

That’ about it for the day. Tomorrow we’re hoping to go out for lunch somewhere. More later, hopefully.

Dancin’ in the Evenin’ – 28 January 2023

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That was the focus of the day really. The light that would brighten our day. Would we go to the dancin’ in the Evenin’ or not?

It was a bright start to the day with sunshine streaming in the front window and it was when it lit up the wee bowl of roses that sat on the coffee table that I grabbed my camera and took the first photos of the day. I discovered that if I angled the shot in the right way I could frame the flowers with the black screen of the TV. In fact, if I chose to use the long lens of the 105mm macro, I could make the TV screen appear bigger and therefore give a bit more of a background than if I used any of my other lenses. Too much information? Probably. Anyway, it worked and I’d a shot or fifteen in the bag.

Scamp had already decided yesterday not to go to today’s dance class on the grounds that she might still pass on her coughs and sneezes and as it takes two to tango or quickstep or even waltz, that meant I didn’t go either. I didn’t mind, because I’m a lazy so and so and another hour in bed suited me fine.

After she took her final meds for the week, she began to feel better and the coughing reduced in intensity and volume. It looked as if we might go to the ball tonight after all. We didn’t have any cans of juice or lemonade to take to the Saturday Social and it’s not a tea dance, so we walked down to the shops to get some. On the way back I took a detour through St Mo’s and the best I got was a couple of shots of golden light on the trees across the pond. It didn’t matter, because I was sure one of the shots of the roses would fill the bill for PoD.

It turned out I was right. With a little Photoshop jiggery pokery I had a decent shot of roses bathed in sunlight, contrasted against a black background. The shots of the trees across the pond just looked dull and uninteresting by comparison.

Dinner was Easy Chicken Curry from a recipe I’d read about in last year’s blog post where I’d written about the previous year’s blog post, (January 2021) and it was back in 2021 I found the recipe and instructions. It was messy to make up with half a dozen spices mixed by hand into the chicken, but after that and with yellow fingers from the turmeric I fried the chicken and added tomatoes. Basically that was the curry made.

After dinner we dressed for the social and drove to an already busy Brookfield where we got seated with Barry & Cath and Niahmat & Audrey. No holds barred in that crowd, everyone got a slagging for one reason or another. Also Niahmat and Scamp shared notes (no pun intended) on singing with the SNO chorus.

We danced almost every dance we knew, but I drew the line at quickstep. I really didn’t think Scamp was fit for that kind of dancing. We did one of every dance, remembering the nurse’s message not to overdo things. We left just before the end because we were both tired out.

How nice it was to travel over the Kingston Bridge at a gentle 40mph when we’re usually stuck to a stop/start 4 or 5mph on a good day.

Tomorrow we’ll do a self assessment to see how much energy we expended doing the most intensive exercise we’ve had all week. No plans for going anywhere.

What a difference a week makes – 27 January 2023

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A week ago Alex and I stood on the pier at Culross in ‘the golden hour’ and shot off over 100 frames between us. Today I took about 20.

Last week the sun during that hour was glorious, as were the colours it produced. Today there were light patches in the clouds, but no actual sunlight and no shadows either. What a difference a week makes.

Scamp suggested a drive to Torwood Garden Centre to buy some seeds this morning. I added that after we visited Torwood, we should continue on to Culross, sorry Hazy. (Hazy absolutely hates Culross which we now call “The ‘C’ Place”) Alex and I had lunch in a wee cafe there last week and it’s not far from Torwood. After a lot of discussion we settled on lunch at Culross and leaving Torwood for another day. Scamp was adamant that would give us both some time to do what we wanted. Me to take photos and her to read in the car with a view to look at occasionally. That worked for both of us.

I walked to the end of the pier, just like last week, but the view, without the blue sky and the sun wasn’t quite what I’d hoped for. I took a few photos and then we went for lunch. Scamp had Mac ’n’ Cheese and I had Stovies. Much more like my mum’s stovies than anything I’ve tasted. Chopped up potatoes, onions and sausages with a heavy gravy, that’s typical stovies. I thoroughly enjoyed them while Scamp said the Mac ’n’ Cheese was quite good. Damned by faint praise I think. Fed, watered and photos taken, we made our way home. Into the deeper gloom of Cumbersheugh.

Scamp’s cough is definitely becoming less noticeable and that’s a good thing, but she didn’t want to go to dance class tomorrow just to be sure she wasn’t going to pass it on to anyone else. She had also cancelled today’s FitSteps class for the same reason. We’re still not sure if we’ll go to tomorrow evening’s Ballroom Social. I leave it up to her to decide.

So, the visit to “The ‘C’ Place” was the highlight of the day. The photos weren’t brilliant, but I didn’t find a PoD which is the view from the end of the old pier looking over the Forth estuary to Edinburgh.

Tomorrow we may go out again in the afternoon. It depend on the weather.

 

The Fort and The Luggie – 26 January 2023

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We were off to The Fort today, again in brilliant sunshine.

Scamp wanted to return some things and I wanted to spend some book tokens. We did think we’d manage lunch too. That didn’t happen, but two out of three ain’t bad. I did get my book and it’s a physical book, not a Kindle or an audio book. I blame Hazy for that after she gave me an over 470 page book for Christmas. That’s given me back the incentive to start reading ‘paper’ books. Not so good for reading in bed, in the dark, but easier to pass on to someone else.

Scamp got her money back from pre-Christmas purchases then charged round the big new Boots trying to find nail varnish remover. To be honest, it’s the worst laid out shop I’ve ever been to. Almost no signage to help the unwary and ultra safety conscious. Any shop where you have to produce proof of age to buy a foil for an electric razor is taking things too far.

We bought some food, some flowers and NO DRINK in M&S, not that we often buy drink there. No, we get most of it from Tesco where it’s cheaper. As it happened, neither of us were bothered with going for lunch and we just drove home … after we found the car in the enormous Fort car park.

After lunch I went for a walk, not in St Mo’s today, but along the Luggie Water. It’s ages since I’ve walked the Luggie and I really quite enjoyed the walk. PoD is a shot, taken with the A6000 of the falls at the east end of the path. Taken with an ultra-wide angle lens, from almost at the water level with the camera on the Gorilla Pod and with a slow shutter speed to ensure I got some movement in the water. I was concentrating on the technicals of the shot and hadn’t noticed, until I looked at the shot on the computer that it looks like there’s a giant Platypus Duck coming out of the waterfall!

Mushroom Risotto for dinner. Hand made in a pot on the stove this time using a cherrywood paddle. Sometime it’s best to take the technology out of food preparation. It was lovely, by the way.

Scamp seems to have lost most of the squeaks and whistles that the cough was helping to produce. Also, although she’s still coughing, she feels that the phlegm is moving out of her system.

Tonight looks cold again (-2ºc) but tomorrow the clouds and rain are rolling in, so maybe not a good day for a walk. Glad we got out today.

A late start and a lovely day – 25 January 2023

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I must have been tired, because it was well past 9am when I woke today.

Scamp was already awake and reading her Kindle. She too must have had a good night’s sleep. It’s good to see her beginning to improve.

I though we might go for a walk today because it was a bright winter’s day. Scamp said we needed some shopping, so I suggested we drive to Lidl in Kilsyth to get the shopping then go for a walk along the canal. Just a short walk along the canal cross over the Plantation and back along the old mineral line. That would cover both options. So that’s what we did, kind of!

We drove to Lidl and got the messages as usual and also as usual we bought more than was absolutely necessary. We even found they had Neapolitan ice cream wafers! Sharp eyed Scamp spotted them in a freezer. When we came out Scamp asked if we could go to Colzium instead of the canal. The suited me too, so we drove in to the parking area that has more craters than the moon (I’ve never been to the moon, but I’ve seen pictures and Colzium wins on crater count). Parking was easy, it was just the driving that was dangerous!

We walked a slightly shortened version of our usual exhausting climb along the banks of the Colzium Burn and Scamp managed it easily. I got lots of photos, from little pockets of snowdrops to rushing waterfalls the burn was tumbling through. PoD was a 15 frame panorama that was eventually cropped down to a 12 frame. I felt the sky was a bit bland, although it was a beautiful blue, so I slipped in another one, one of my own from a few months ago. It seemed to suit the picture. It’s a view across the farmland of the Colzium Estate.

Back home it was Haggis, Neeps and Tatties, because it was Burns Night tonight and Haggis, mashed Turnip (Neeps) and mashed Potatoes (Tatties) is traditional. It was absolutely lovely and as Scamp herself remarked perfectly portioned. Not too much of any of the constituent parts.

I forgot to mention that my new driving license dropped through the letterbox this morning. Once you reach 70 you have to update your driving license every three years. My update is now almost complete. I still have to post off my previous license which I have cut in half as required by the DVLA. Scamp got her first one a week ago.

Tomorrow we may be driving to the Fort to visit M&S and Waterstones. I’ll let you guess who goes where!

 

It was a dull day again – 24 January 2023

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Worse than that, it was a dull day with rain. Never a good combination.

Scamp’s cough wasn’t abating and by the time I’d showered and shaved, she was just ending a call to the doc’s and had been given an appointment with the nurse for mid afternoon.

It hadn’t looked as if we would be going anywhere anyway, and as the cough had been there since Friday, it was time to let a professional have a look at it. I was planning on making a pot of soup in the new magic pot. This was to be Minestrone, but a different recipe from our usual one. Some unusual ingredients like courgette in the recipe would be interesting.

We drove up to the surgery. I dropped Scamp there and then went to Tesco to get the extra ingredients for the soup. I also managed to get a bottle of Benylin, Red Benylin no less. This is the most sought after medicine of the moment and here was a bottle sitting on a shelf, the last one again. Yesterday’s bottle of Benylin had been the wrong one, but it too had been the last one on the shelf. Drove back to the surgery and was just parking when Scamp appeared from the chemist and we drove home. She was told to take 8 steroid pills a day for five days and was also give a five day course of antibiotics. Shake her and she’ll rattle! but they seem to work because she’s not coughing quite as much.

I chopped the veg and made the soup and it tasted really too thick and quite bitter. A generous pinch of sugar helped with the bitter taste and after decanting a bowl full of concentrated tomato soup and replacing it with a bowl full of hot water, then giving it another 3min pressure cook, we had a decent minestrone. Still not as good as the original, but the courgette worked well in the mixture of veg. My only mistake was channeling my Simon & Garfunkel when I bought my herbs. I bought Sage and it should have been Thyme. Parsley would have been good too, but Rosemary would have been overpowering. You can have too much of a good thing!!

We watched an episode of Silent Witness, but the shock factor is being overplayed now and it’s becoming difficult to see where the past ends and the present begins. We both agreed after the first episode that it’s time to put it to bed, so the entire series was deleted. Thankfully you can do that with just one button now on Virgin.

I’d decided when we came back from the doc’s that I wasn’t going out in the drizzly rain to take photos I wasn’t really interested in. That’s why today’s PoD is cut flowers. Usually a photo of flowers is a last resort for me, but today’s were planned and I knew Scamp was just waiting for an opportunity to throw some of the wilting flowers out and the wilting ones are my favourites. I could have used more interesting lighting, but I was happy with my Yellow Lilies. They became PoD.

Tomorrow is to be a better day than today. We might just manage a short walk if Scamp is up to it. We’ll wait and see.

 

Writing and Seeing – 23 January 2023

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Being able to write legibly is a skill I’ve never learned properly.

I hadn’t realised how clumsy and untidy my handwriting has become. I write this blog every day and in addition I write emails and messages, but all these communications are done through a computer keyboard, never directly from pen to paper. Over fifty years ago and in a different life, I was taught how to print properly for my job as a draughtsman. For five years I refined my printing style and took advice from the journeymen I worked with (No women then, just men. Live with it!). When I look back at my writing then and compare it to my handwriting now, it’s difficult to see the difference. It’s just the same untidy scrawl. So that is why when I was writing a letter today it took about two hours and countless sheets of paper in the bin and it’s still not finished. Tomorrow I start again with a fresh sheet. Maybe there’s a moral there, or maybe not.

While I was struggling with pen and paper, Scamp was off meeting her ‘big sister’ for coffee and a long blether. Things were discussed and plans set. Both sisters seem to be reading from the same hymn sheet now and ‘wee sister’ will now be consulted, if she hasn’t already been.

After a lovely crispy ‘well fired’ (ie almost burnt) roll with cold meat, we got a call from Hazy asking how we were. Once we confirmed that we’d tested negative and that we were feeling a bit better, she went on to give us more details about their Spring Break and their Summer Holiday, now booked. Both looked great and reminded us of the family holiday we’d had almost two years ago. We hope the weather is kind to them on both occasions. The accommodation looks fantastic. She has agreed to help me with moving my journal, which is what the blog is written on, to a new version. Not a very big undertaking, but better to get an expert’s advice and Hazy is definitely the expert on these matters.

Later in the afternoon I told Scamp I was going out to get some photos and would have a look in Condorrat for a bottle of Benylin to sooth her cough. She had tried in Boots and they had none in stock. The chemist in Condorrat had one on the shelf. Not the ideal one she wanted, but it was better than nothing. This winter cold is really getting to everyone and everyone seems to have the same symptoms.

On the way back I got some photos in St Mo’s. PoD turned out to be a leaf dangling from a branch with the watery sun shining through it. Sometimes, as photogs, we Look, we Focus and we Capture, but we don’t See. I looked at the light on the leaf and the bokeh behind, but it wasn’t until I had the shot on the computer that I Saw the spider.
In too much of a rush. Not taking time to stand and stare.
Maybe there is moral there too, or maybe not.

No plans for tomorrow, apart from a hand written, legible letter. We’ll see how the day pans out.

An improving picture – 22 January 2023

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Still being cautious about saying we’re on the mend, but I think we are.

It was a dull kind of day, even for a Sunday. Not really a day for going out if you didn’t need to, so we both stayed in to watch Laura Kuenssberg attack MP James Cleverly but the irresistible force met an immovable object in Nicola Sturgeon later in the program. Interesting wordplay between them.

After lunch Scamp decided on Paella for dinner and we had very little paprika in the tin. Something we’re hoping to remedy next month. For today, though, a walk down to the shops would suffice. I walked the long way, going round St Mo’s first. There was nobody about, so it was safe to crouch down behind the litter bin to take some close up shots of some fungi that’s growing out of the side of it. Two sides, actually, one south and one west. Nothing at all on the north or east sides. Something to do with the way the wind blows possibly. I don’t know. Mr Google was stumped by the fungi and thought they were sponges which I must admit they do resemble. Carried on round but saw nothing to compete with the fungi, so one of them, the crunchy looking one became PoD. I imagine the hairs you can see are dog hairs, they certainly are not mine!

Paella was passable but nothing spectacular. We ate about half of it and the rest went in the bin. I didn’t fancy making arancini with it tomorrow, besides I’m wary about reheating rice and chicken.

Spoke to Jamie later and he encouraged us to do a Covid test just to be sure. I’d suggested that to Scamp on Friday when I was feeling worn out, but she was reluctant to do it. I think it was the memory of our own bout of Covid back in the summer and having almost exactly that same feeling. Thankfully we both tested negative tonight. Heard that Simonne will have to go to hospital to have her tonsils removed after they found a possible lump on one. Nothing malignant, and it’s not an emergency, some time in the spring.

It was a warmer day today as opposed to a less cold day. The temperature got up to about 8ºc which is almost tropical for January. Hoping for a similar sort of temperature tomorrow and maybe a chance to get out for a walk together. Scamp may be having coffee with June, but that’s not confirmed yet. It’s a wait and see thing!