Month: June 2023

Souda for Chania – 10 June 2023

Posted on by Zogman

The first Greek town this year, although Scamp does remind me that it’s Crete, not Greece!

We had breakfast in the posh restaurant we ate in last night. Sensible plates of food for once. Then we watched the sail in on a beautiful morning.

With no tours booked, we just watched until the queue for the bus calmed down then walked out and caught the €1.50 bus from Souda, where we were docked, into Chania town. We had to stand for the 15min journey which was a pain in the legs.

It was a bit busy in the town, In fact it was very busy, but it was Saturday and you have to remember that. My watch wasn’t syncing yet with my phone, so I also had to remember to add on an extra two hours to the time.

We walked through the shops, all of which seemed to sell leather goods, but didn’t buy anything. We did go for coffee in a wee cafe in a town square. We walked as far as the harbour and watched the horse drawn carriages going past. We both felt sorry for the horses.

At night we had another posh dinner sat next to a crazy man and his wife. He was telling the steward how he had a machine gun fitted to the front of his mini. He said it kept everyone out of his way. Scamp tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped as if he’d been slapped and shouted “Don’t touch me!” If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was Ray Furminger’s brother. That same kind of sarcastic humour. Great fun was had by all apart from his wife who smiled and shook her head at everything he said.

Dancing at night to music by a girl from the entertainment team. Sitting with two women who were dancers, certainly better than me, but they had the advantage of being sober.

Tomorrow it’s Piraeus

Things we’ll remember:

  • The sail in.
  • The man with the Barrel Organ.
  • Horses pulling two seater gigs in Chania.
  • Old church or cathedral. Beautiful, but dark inside.
  • Two weans chasing pigeons across the church square.
  • Watching the wee fish swimming in the harbour.
  • Overcrowded buses, going in to town and returning to Souda.
  • Mad Saturday traffic.
  • Being served ‘sit down’ breakfast in the posh restaurant.

All at Sea – 9 June 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Things we’ll remember:

  • Dance Class in the morning with the “professionals”, Aka & Gvantsa.
  • Very impressive dancers, although their idea of “English waltz” was – nothing like ours.
  • As teachers they have a lot to learn.
  • Weather hot!
  • Found sun beds quite easily.
  • Dinner in the posh restaurant again.
  • Enjoyed a show in the theatre
  • Danced at night in the atrium with a reprise of this morning’s lesson.
  • Dancing was difficult without dance shoes and on marble floor.
  • Watched the sunset.
  • First of the towel animals appeared in the room!

PoD is a view from the balcony, the menu for today and the first of the towel animals.

Tomorrow we will arrive at Chania in Crete.

An early rise … – 8 June 2023

Posted on by Zogman

… then off to the sun!

Writing a blog takes a lot of time and effort, but I like reading the blogs from past years and little things that caught my eye or imagination. With that in mind, these two weeks of blogs will be in a different format, but hopefully they will just as interesting.

  • Flew to Dubrovnik then got a coach to the ship
  • Had to have our passports stamped more times than was realistically necessary.
  • After that we were on the ship and could have that all important first Holiday Beer.
  • Most folk were away to Dubrovnik old town, so we had the salt water pool, the unheated salt water pool(!) all to ourselves.
  • Dressed for dinner later, as was expected.
  • Even so, much more relaxed than P&O
  • Finished the day at a party on the pool deck.
  • Scamp had a Pina Colada! I had a G&T.

PoD is a collage of views of Dubrovnik from our wander round the decks of Marella Explorer 2.

A day at sea tomorrow.

Almost there – 7 June 2023

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A day for doing as little as possible and not thinking too much about tomorrow.

As usual, I was just a little bit stressed, but Scamp suggested lunch at Broadwood, partly to reduce the stress and also so we had less work preparing dinner. It was the usual fare. Scamp had fish ’n’ chips and I had a couple of slices of roast ham and roast turkey with all the trimmings and a pint of murky Belhaven Best. Only drank half of it, just in case it affected my sometimes dodgy stomach.

Later I went over to St Mo’s and found a PoD which was a baby’s sunhat sitting on a tree stump. That might be a strange subject for today’s photo, but there is a Flickr group called TLOP (Things Left On Posts) and this would fit perfectly. There wasn’t much else to photograph. The dragonflies were still buzzing round the ponds and seemed to have no need of a rest, so TLOP it was.

Later we watched a Sewing Bee from our catalog of programs downloaded, but not yet watched. They seem to be making the tasks harder and harder this year.

After that it was time to set the alarm for 2.45am (!) and go to bed for a very short sleep.

Money makes the world go around – 6 June 2023

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The money in question was foreign and old.

The money was Kuna abbreviated to kn, and the part of the world was Croatia. When we were last in that neck of the woods, last summer, we hadn’t spent as much kn as we’d intended to, and when we came home it was squirrelled away for use when the time came to travel to that far land again. Unfortunately we hadn’t noticed that on the 1st of January 2023 the kn was replaced by the Euro. Scamp had noticed this earlier in the week and after a bit of calculation we discovered that our 1500kn was worth about £150 if we could get somewhere to buy it.

We were going in to Glasgow today anyway to swap out a shirt I’d bought, not noticing it was a ‘Tailored Fit’ that wouldn’t fit my not quite svelte body. We’d drop in to JL first to see what they’d offer for our kuna. The answer was that JL didn’t buy kuna because there is no demand for it now, I suppose. However the cashier said she thought Euroexchange at the opposite end of Buchanan Galleries were still buying Kuna. We trotted along and after a couple of phone calls we were told that they would buy back most of the notes. Some of our smaller denomination notes were too old and virtually worthless, but we did get a fairly decent exchange rate for our out of date Croatian money. Quite delighted we walked on to Slaters where the shirt was exchanged for a ‘normal fit’.

On the way back I could feel that the unexpected money was burning a hole in Scamp’s pocket. But she is much more cautious than me and would only part with the ‘lump sum’ if she thought she was getting a bargain, and it appears that nothing she saw fitted that bill. Lunch was in Paesano and it was just as delicious as usual, sorry Alex! Coffee in Nero was the last stop before we drove home, but on the way there I took a few photos of the Donald Dewar outside Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. Donald Dewer, in case you don’t know, was the inaugural First Minister of the Scottish Government. That became PoD.

Sun took a bit longer to come out today. Maybe it wasn’t quite sure if those clouds were going to break enough to make it worth its while and it was late into the afternoon before it finally made up its mind to shine. Even the, there was a cool breeze. Maybe this is the end of summer, when it’s only just begun.

Tomorrow Scamp is getting her nails ‘done’. A birthday present voucher from her big sister that she’s finally used. Hope they aren’t those ‘Tiger Claws’ I see some women with!

The Lawnmower Man – 5 June 2023

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Scamp was out this morning to meet June for coffee. I thought I’d cut the grass.

It’s a long job, cutting the grass. Not as bad as some folk who have enormous lawns that need a petrol driven mower, but who secretly hanker for a ride-on mower! Ours is just a wee pocket hankie by comparison, but there’s a bit of preparation needed before you get started, pots to shift and then shift back once the first cut is taken. Squirting WD40 into the squeaky rear wheel, that screeching was putting my teeth on edge.

After I’d done our wee square, I thought it would be the right thing to do to cut Bobby Flavel’s grass too. I know my method is very rough and ready compared to Bobby’s straight lines, but at least it’s done and tidy. I hope you were sitting up there watching me struggle with the mower at the end of its lead, Bobby, just managing to get the furthest edge cut. Angela was the first person to cut Bobby’s grass after he passed away and we all agreed that we should take it in turns to cut his grass. For that reason and also because she doesn’t have much free time to mow her own grass, I cut Angela’s pocket hankie too. My good deeds for the day.

If the preparations before starting are a pain, the cleaning of that mower are even more of a drag. However, Scamp maintains it well and I think my cleaning routine was almost as good as her’s. I gave the blade a squirt of WD40 and then gave the squeaky wheel the grease it wanted. Done!

I’d just finished when Scamp arrived home. Piece ’n’ Cheese for her lunch and a slice of buttered bread covered in the remains of yesterday’s stew for mine. By then the sun had made an appearance and after some dithering, I took the A7 and the big heavy macro lens out to St Mo’s looking for damselflies, only to find that the dragonflies had taken over the ponds. There were dozens of them fighting and gatecrashing each other’s parties. Just like the unruly teenagers we get in the same neck of the woods with their ghetto blasters later in the summer. At least the dragonflies were just “doing the what comes naturally” and weren’t hyped up on Buckfast!

I couldn’t get as close as I wanted to the dragonflies, so I got as good a shot as was possible and enlarged it in ON1 software at home and produces what you see here. It’s a four spot chaser.

On the way home I had to check out the work being done by the council road repairers. They’d closed off part of our street to repair a section of the road. It has been crumbling away for years and a month or so ago they patched the bits that were easy to do. This, though, was a major bit of work with the tarmac being scraped back to the hardcore base and fresh tarmac replacing it. It was supposed to take two days, but it looks like it’s finished tonight.

Another end of day seat in the sun with Scamp. Both of us reading with a glass of something to keep us from drying out in this sunshine!

No plans for tomorrow, at least not at present.

 

Some gentle gardening – 4 June 2023

Posted on by Zogman

I’ve had two trays of veg waiting to be planted. One of leeks and one of kale. Today we were on a gardening day.

First things first, we’d planned to water both front and back gardens, so I fitted the new adapter to the kitchen tap, connected the hose and turned on the tap. Water flowed out to the the front garden where Scamp was ready with the sprinkler and give the plants a good soaking. Not one drop dripped into the sink. We’ve struggled with an inadequate, poorly designed tap connector for years but this new one just works!
When Scamp was finished watering the front garden, I took over to do the back. The only mistake I made was forgetting to keep the sprinkler on when I’d turned the tap off, because if you disconnect the hose, the back pressure washes the inside of the kitchen windows, and the inside sill! Hopefully I’ll remember next time!

Scamp walked down to the Shops to get potatoes for tonight’s dinner and while she was out I planted out my kale and leeks. Eight leeks planted in a pot and six kale plants in the raised bed. Not so raised as it was last year because that top part of the wooden frame is totally rotted through, so the soil level is reduced a bit. I also planted two of my sunflower seedlings in the raised bed. I think, in retrospect that I may have been a bit hasty in planting them out. I may re-pot them tomorrow into big pots instead. Easier to move around, because in these dry days they might benefit from being in a position a bit sheltered from the direct sunlight. Y’see, I do listen to Scamp sometimes.

After lunch, I took myself out for a walk in St Mo’s with my trusty A7 and a large, heavy macro lens, looking for damselflies. I did find some, but they were too skittish and as soon as I got close enough to photograph, they flew away. Hopefully they will calm down in the weeks to come. PoD was taken in the garden and is a couple of Lupins with a Golden Torch rhododendron in the background. If truth be told, and it rarely is, it’s actually two shots stuck together in Photoshop. Photoshop’s AI is getting better all the time. While I was out, Scamp was trimming the grass edges of the paving stones. We need the paving stones to provide a solid surface in the swamp that is the back garden in the winter, but it’s hard to strim right up to them, so trimming the grass is easier than strimming in this case. The problem is that the work is backbreaking, so a little at a time is the best way.

Later when I returned we sat in the sun, Scamp with a Pimms and me with a beer and discussed Life, the Universe and Everything and agreed that the answer probably is 42.

Dinner was stew and sausages with cabbage and Jersey Royal potatoes. Scamp substituted salmon for the stew and sausages which was probably the right thing to do, because the stew was a bit tough.

Spoke to Jamie and discussed the joys of having hot water on tap, now that his old boiler has been replaced. Also spoke about the forthcoming Open Garden event that they are taking part in for the first time next week, all being well.

Tomorrow Scamp is hoping to meet up with June for coffee. I intend to do that potting up of the sunflowers.

Driving everywhere – 3 June 2023

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The dance class for today was cancelled due to too few numbers, so we used the daw wisely by tidying up loose ends.

We drove to The Fort in about 23ºc of heat with the intention of getting a pair of Crocs for me and a pair of shorts for Scamp. Neither of us achieved our goals and we went for lunch at Wagamama to console ourselves. Prawn raisukaree for Scamp and Chicken raisukaree for me (raisukaree = curry) with Ebi Katsu to share (butterflied prawns coated in panko and deep fried)

Fed and watered we next drove to B&Q to get an adapter that would allow the hose to be used from the kitchen tap without the use of a great deal of swearing and fountains of water. I think we got the right adapter this time, but I believe we may be testing tomorrow.

I fancied getting a hat (Hazy, similar to Neil’s) and that meant a trip further into darkest Coatbridge, but with the satnav to help us, we found Go Outdoors. There they had the hat I wanted in a size that fitted but at a price that was a little more than I’d intended paying. However, if you bought a discount card for £5 we got roughly £15 off the price and a further 20% off the remainder. That brought it down to what I’d call a reasonable price!! Pity they didn’t have Crocs!

We drove back to Cumbersheugh, trusting the satnav to get us back to ‘civilisation’ and I finally snagged myself a pair of Crocs to replace my ancient and crumbling pair I bought in Fuerteventura many, many years ago. Just a bit annoyed that I had to pay full price for them! Scamp also managed to get herself a pair of shorts and we drove home slightly emptier of pocket, but with new purchases.

Back home it was still hot, so to cool down I changed into shorts and went for a walk in St Mo’s. Managed to capture my first damselfly of the year, an Emerald. Also photographed a wee fly, looking a bit like a robber fly sitting on a buttercup. The robber fly got PoD. On the way back home I dropped in at the chip shop in Condorrat for a Special Fish Supper to share with Scamp. Sat for a while in the garden reading, watching the birds queue up to get some water from the birdbath.

We watched a fairly interesting Spanish GP tonight, with a few drivers demonstrating their off-road skills, but thankfully no crashes.

Got a message from Jamie to say their new boiler has been installed. Hot and cold running water is a great thing, isn’t it. That and a real shower! We know how you pair feel.

No plans for tomorrow, although we may water the garden, hopefully without flooding the kitchen!

A busy day – 2 June 2023

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Dentist and Optician on the same day, and what a glorious day.

In the morning, Scamp was going to the Dentist hoping she could repair a broken tooth. She could, but it would take some time to complete and cost a bit of money, but that’s always the way, isn’t it? The main thing is that she trusts this dentist. She, the dentist, managed to protect the broken tooth with a temporary support, but it will be about six weeks before she can start the work.

After lunch we drove over to Larky where Scamp had an appointment with the optician. I dropped her off and continued my journey to Millheugh which is really just an extension of Larkhall now, but in the past it was a fishing village on the banks of the Avon Water. It’s a bit untidy and sad looking now, but back in the day Millheugh a working salmon fishery.
I wasn’t looking for salmon today, I wanted to photograph the gully and the bridge which my mum always called the Cauves Know, but others called it the Clove Mill. Two similar sounding names for the same place. I managed to splash about and get a few shots of the narrow Powforth Glen and the waterfall that runs down under the bridge and into the Avon. My favourite made PoD. Then it was time to walk back round to the car. If the water had been just a wee bit lower today I could have walked straight across to the car, but the rocks would have been even slimier then and I’m sure I’d have fallen in.

Picked up Scamp and we drove home in sunshine! She doesn’t need new glasses and according to the optician, she has 20/20 vision now just about a year and a half after her double cataract operation. We sat out in the garden before Scamp made dinner which was Crispy Sea Bass with Lentils. Lovely summer dinner.

We watered the garden with watering cans tonight because quite a lot of the pots were drying out. I’d meant to get a new adapter for the kitchen tap today, but I forgot, so it was watering cans tonight. Hopefully I’ll be able to get the adapter tomorrow.

Ah, tomorrow. It should have been a chance to draw a line under the New Joy’s Waltz, but there weren’t enough couples to get a quorum, so no dancing tomorrow. Not sure what we’re doing, but it looks like it will be warm and dry … again.

Dancin’ with strangers – 1 June 2023

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Today we drove over to Glenburn community centre for the tea dance and there were two strangers there!

We did have a quick practise in the morning just to make sure we could actually do the devious “Outside Spin” where I have to must my right knee to push Scamp round. That could be a dangerous manoeuvre at the best of times, but in a living room and on a carpet it’s a recipe for disaster, except, it seemed to work.

I had hoped that the roadworks that had caused a lot of congestion a fortnight ago would be gone by today, but they were if anything, worse today. We really need to find a way round them. I might have found that way. We need to turn left at the busy roundabout then turn right at the end of that road. This will bring us out past the roadworks. I know this means nothing to you, but hopefully I’ll read this in a fortnight or so’s time and see how clever I was to put this reminder in. Coming from Glenburn to the M77 will be the reverse of going in true Haynes manual fashion. If that too means nothing to you, you’ve never stripped down the front wheel bearing of a Reliant Regal using Haynes Manual.

So, after arriving a good twenty minutes late, we tried a bit of Social Foxtrot and even a Quickstep with ad-lib additions by me which worked some of the time. I’d like to say ‘most’ of the time, but Scamp will read this and say “Oh no they didn’t.” There was a very small class today, only seven couples I think and one of the couples wasn’t from our class. Two asian dancers were in a category above the most of the usual couples and stratospherically higher than us … except when it came to Sequence Dances. That’s where our stepping is just so much better. Dancing in a circle and being able to follow the couple in front (unless it’s John). Never follow John I was told. He never sticks to the sequence and puts everyone who follows him off. I actually felt sorry for the asian couple. Everybody seemed to avoid them. “Who do they think they are? Coming to OUR tea dance?” Scamp went and talked to them, of course, and I was proud of her for doing so.

As usual we left early to avoid the extra busy traffic, but again the roadworks on the other side of the dual carriageway caused problems and we took about an hour to get home.

Back home, I went for a walk round St Mo’s and down to the Shops. Well, it is Thursday with all that entails. I was looking for damselflies beside the pond in St Mo’s, but there were none to be found, just a single dragonfly that was scudding around the pond at high speed looking for a mate, no doubt. Too fast for the kit lens I had on the A7. Instead PoD was a close up shot of a Marsh Horsetail. The Buttercup of the wetlands. Impossible to get rid off, according to my brother. It was sitting in a little bit of sunshine and looked translucent in the light.

Watched the final of Masterchef tonight and thought the person who won was an excellent choice. No spoilers here.

Tomorrow might be a busy day for Scamp. Dentist in the morning and optician in the afternoon is what is planned, hopefully it will work out for her. I have plans for things to photograph in Larky.