Month: July 2023

Another box arrives – 21 July 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp was out early to go to the dentist to get phase two of her tooth replacement completed. This one involved two injections and a reshaping of the old tooth to take the new ceramic crown. Also she had x-rays taken and an impression made. The procedure lasted just under an hour and a sorry looking Scamp arrived home with that numb mouth we’ve all suffered at some time.

Meanwhile there was a knock at the door just after 9pm and there stood a man holding a big cardboard box with my name on it. It was a new camera, well, it was a second-hand camera really. I rarely buy new now. It was a Sony A6500 first announced in 2016, so it is old, but not ancient. It will replace the A6000 I’ve had for a few years. I’m selling the A6000 to offset the price of the new kit. I had a look over the new camera and it does all the things I want it to and a few other things as well. I think it’s a keeper, but I’ve only had a few hours in a busy day to play test it. Over the weekend I’m hoping to find a dry hour or so in the midst of all the rain that’s predicted to test it out more fully.

 

When Scamp returned and after her mouth had thawed out, I though it might be a good idea to walk down to Broadwood Farm for lunch. I’d had their carvery a couple of times and fish ’n’ chips the last time. Both were perfectly fine and good value for what we paid. The fact that I could also have a pint of Tennents had no bearing on the matter at all. Anyway, today I had one of their pizzas. I think they made a mistake with the pizza. I think they baked the cardboard box and threw away the pizza. It was totally tasteless and running with oil from the pepperoni. Never again.

After we walked back Scamp wanted to cut the grass front and back. I moved all the pots from the front of the front garden to allow her to run the mower down the edge of the tarmac path, then I replaced them. Once she’d finished mowing the front and was emptying the mower, I strimmed around the other three sided of the front grass. Then I strimmed round the pots in the back garden. I don’t mind the strimming, it is hard on my back, but I hate cleaning the mower afterwards.. The actual cutting of the grass takes about 10 – 15 minutes. Cleaning the mower afterwards can take half an hour. There must be a better way to do this.

By then I was thinking I might take the new camera over and introduce it to St Mo’s. It performed quite well, although the battery power diminished very quickly. Admittedly I’d been adjusting settings quite a lot that mean the rear screen is on a lot and that uses a fair bit of power. It’s something I’ll check in the coming week. PoD was a cluster of caterpillars high up in a tree. I think they are the caterpillars of the Buff Tip Moth, but I’m not sure.

The weather predictions for the weekend don’t look great. Lots of rain for most of the UK. I think our first lot is due tonight, so it might be a wet drive to dance class tomorrow. Other than that, no real plans.

Off to Hamilton – 20 July 2023

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… but not to “buy the wean a bell.” That cryptic message will be lost on almost everyone, but I’m not explaining it further!

After a lazy morning on what was a beautiful, almost totally dry day, we eventually went out and walked down to the shops. Scamp wanted something to take to John & Marion tonight, and also wanted a hanging basket for the back garden. We accomplished both in double quick time and walked back home.

A knock on the door heralded the arrival of the parcel Scamp was expecting earlier in the week. It was a surprise present for two of our friends, but we were both underwhelmed by it. It wasn’t quite what she was hoping for and her disappointment was obvious.

Later I took a walk over to St Mo’s to see what was worth photographing while Scamp started the ironing. It was St Mo’s that the PoD came from (not the ironing!). It is one of two real ‘keepers’ from a batch of about 50 I’d taken with the big camera on silent motor drive. A great way of filling up the SD card, but a trick that rarely seems to result in any good photos. Luckily for me today was one of those days when it worked. The ‘Marmalade’ hoverfly was the PoD. It was almost beaten by the result of another ‘blitz’ shot. This one was a lone soldier beetle testing the strength of a single strand of a spider web. Both are on Flickr.

By the time I got back from my St Mo’s Safari I just had time for a wash and brush up before we headed off to Hamilton for dinner with John & Marion. It’s ages since we’ve been there. We’ve both had such a busy year this year. Big birthdays for both Scamp and Marion. Retirement celebration for Marion and a Golden Wedding anniversary for us. Of course, she’s not really retired until the schools go back in August!

Back home late and for some reason there was a parking space just waiting for us back home. That was nice of someone to do that for us.

Tomorrow Scamp has the dentist first thing in the morning. Best time for it, I suppose. I’m waiting in, hopefully not in vain, for yet another parcel.

A surprise parcel – 19 July 2023

Posted on by Zogman

A warm sunny morning, at least it was in the house with the sun streaming in the window.

The postman arrived just before lunchtime with a parcel. Scamp was expecting a parcel today, and was sure it was for her, then she noticed it had my name on it! It was a camera bag from Alex. I’d completely forgotten he said he had a spare bag that wasn’t big enough for his needs and it was too late to send it back. It was an ideal size for my A6000 and space for an extra lens. I phoned him to say thanks and we had a good talk about what we’d been doing. I also sent him a link to a website where you can book a Glasgow walk for free with an option to make a donation to the RNLI. We agreed it was worth looking into.

I’d noticed today how dusty and rough the inside window sill had become, so while Scamp was off up to the town centre I sanded down the sill and gave it a first coat of varnish. Waited for it drying which was almost instantaneously given the heat coming in from the sun and gave it a second coat. In all, the sill had three thin coats of varnish and looks much better now. I wonder who invented the disposable vinyl gloves. Whoever they were, they must have had the idea after they’d been painting window sills. I finished the job with clean hands. A first for me!

Scamp had had her nails done for going away on the cruise and now she wanted to get the remaining coating removed. The lady who did her nails said it was fairly easy to get them done and she has now booked a session to get the coating removed and redone.

When she returned I grabbed my camera and went out for a run to find some scenery worth shooting, but first I dropped in at Colin’s house to find out how his wife was keeping. She’d been in hospital after she’d come home from holiday and had an emergency operation. She looked a bit tired, but that’s to be expected. I remember Scamp looking a bit like that after her op. Good to see her up and about, albeit with a stick, but we’re all getting to an age when we need some extra support sometimes.

We stayed for a while just blethering in the sun. I hadn’t realised what a lovely little sun trap they had in their patio. Colin wouldn’t allow me to go without some veg so I came home with four courgettes and a cucumber from his garden.

I did get a chance to get my landscape photo, but PoD went to a bunch of Hydrangea flowers. Scamp’s Hydrangea Paniculata ‘Switch Ophelia’. A variety of hydrangea that changes colour throughout the summer. We feared the hot weather might have killed it, but here it is flowering happily after a fair bit of hydration.

Busy day tomorrow. Things to do and places to go, hopefully.

Gardening, shopping and organising – 18 July 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Not necessarily in that order, so it’s probably best to get things sorted by date and time.

The shopping came first. I wanted a bag of rolls to enclose the sausages I was intending to cook for my lunch. That meant a trip to Tesco, because The Shops only sell soft bap rolls, not the crispy Scottish rolls we like. So I drove up to Tesco to get the rolls, milk and also some raspberries for Scamp. While I was there I had a look at their selection of hardback books. I’m not entirely sold on my most recent Kindle book, so I might go for something mainstream for a change. Must ask John who the author he told me about is (and write it down this time). So no books for now, but I did get the milk, rolls and rasps. One roll with ordinary sausage and one with red onion sausage. I think the red onion sausage was the better of the two. Scamp had her usual one roll ’n’ egg.

With the afternoon came a shower of rain that looked as if it was going to be heavy and prolonged, so we took the nearly dry washing in. Of course that was what it was waiting for and the rain promptly stopped. Meanwhile I was making tomato soup. Scamp bought two packs of tomatoes that had been reduced in Tesco on Sunday and yesterday I roasted them with an onion and some oil for an hour to concentrate the taste. Today all I had to do was add a litre of water, two stock pots, a tin of tomatoes and a cup water, bring to the boil and simmer for an hour. That left time for mixing up some seaweed fertiliser (disgusting stuff) and giving all the plants front and back a bit of a feed. Meanwhile Scamp was pruning the climbing rose in the back garden. I used the loppers to chop down the higher branches she couldn’t reach, accidentally slicing off two branches with buds still unopened. One of them Scamp managed to retrieve and put in a glass with water on the window ledge. It will open. She has a knack for these things.

We walked down to the shops to get the makings of a stir fry for dinner. Back home the soup had been cooling, and I blitzed it so we could have it as a starter for dinner.

I’ve been meaning to phone Val and take him for coffee. This week I went one further I got Val to set a date and then told Fred who said he was free that day too. So we three are going out for coffee together next week, for the first time in ages – fingers crossed.

I went for a walk around St Mo’s while Scamp interrogated June over the phone about her weekend with Shona. I’m glad to say the bus trip went well. My photography gave me a few insect photos, one of which got PoD. Must get out and do more landscape photos. Insects are ok, but this time of year is great for landscapes too.

The soup was the best I’ve made for a while, but the stir fry didn’t turn out all that well. The pork which was the protein in my share was a bit tough and Scamp’s veggy version was just a bit too spicy hot for comfort and also she thought the veg needed more cooking. I had to agree about the veg, but the sauce was just spicy enough for me. Foodies! Never happy.

So, you see, Gardening, Shopping and Organising, but not necessarily in that order!

Tomorrow if the weather is favourable we may go out somewhere.  Otherwise we’ve got some more shopping to do.

A bit of history – 17 July 2023

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Off to see a castle.

Mondays seem to be becoming our day to go out for a spin. Today we were off to Blackness near the Forth Bridges. We were going to visit Blackness Castle what a fellow teacher once called “The Ship Shaped Castle”. That’s a really accurate description of this building. From the air it looks just like a ship. In fact the tower at the front of the castle is called the Stem tower, like the stem of a ship.

It’s a narrow road that takes you out through the village of Blackness to the castle and we were lucky that when we got through the gate there was one space left in the carpark. It wasn’t really a cold day, but the wind was taking all the sun’s good heat away. Not for us the roasting 40+ degree temperatures Italy and Spain are enduring. We don’t mind a bit of a cool breeze, although it was more than a fresh breeze blowing along the Firth of Forth today.

We were allowed an hour and a half’s parking time and we thought that was fair. If everyone took their 90mins then more folk would get to see the castle. It really is an impressive building, but we’d been before, a couple of times, and just wanted to refresh our memory of it, as well as give me a chance for some photos.

I suggested we drive the 12 miles to Cramond once we’d left. Cramond wasn’t as busy as I thought it might be. We’d brought a flask with us so we had a cup of coffee after we got parked in the gigantic carpark. After coffee we walked along the esplanade for about a mile and a half. I was wearing my Famous Blue Raincoat, but Scamp was risking the weather in her hoodie. The clouds seemed to be gathering and the sunshine we’d had at Blackness had all but disappeared. That wind was still there and it was getting cool now, but that didn’t stop us finding an ice cream van and getting a cone each. We sat near the ‘Toblerones’, the WW2 submarine defences, and ate our cones while being given a running commentary from a rather loud spoken woman who was telling all and sundry about a wonderful garden party she’d been to where they had a ‘three piece band’ who played wonderful music from her era.

Drove home along the M8. Always a dreary road just like being in a conveyor belt running at two speeds and with trains of articulated lorries in the nearside lanes exchanging places in the outside lane just for something to do, it seemed. It must be a boring job being a long distance lorry driver. I expect you need something to keep yourself interested.

That was about it for the day. An interesting day. A bit of history and a bracing walk. PoD was the view of the Central Tower from the North Tower.

No plans as yet for tomorrow.

More rain again – 16 July 2023

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It seems we are in a cyclic weather pattern. Wet in the early morning which continues to mid afternoon when the sky brightens a bit and the rain gradually fades out. By evening, around 7pm the sky clears and there is colourful sunset. By late evening and into the night the clouds reappear and the cycle continues.

This pattern has continued for more than a week now with little change and we’re really becoming quite fed up with it. I think it’s time the powers that be had a word with the weather fairies and told them to get the finger out and give us July sunshine in July. That’s what we pay our taxes for and we’re just not getting value for money! Get It Sorted.

Today followed that pattern, albeit with the addition of some wind, surplus from that presently being handed out to those in the south west of the UK. We had two plans for today. One for a damp day and one for a dry one. We implemented the Damp Day Plan and drove up to Tesco to “Get the Messages”. Came home with a boot fairly full of essential foods, beverages plus assorted household stuff.

After lunch I took my recently waxed boots for a walk in St Mo’s along with the A7 and the big, heavy macro lens. I was looking for ‘beasties’. I got one long shot of a Common Darter dragonfly and just over 30 shots of a Wolf Spider. That’s what happens when you forget that you’ve set the High Speed Motorwind. Even worse, I had switched the camera to ‘silent shooting’, so I didn’t even have the machine gun noise to warn me that I was filling up the SD card at a frightening rate with shots I’d just had to ditch in the bin later. No wonder the camera felt heavier when I was going home. I’d dressed for the rain we’d been promised, but the weather fairies got it wrong again and I was sweltering in a, supposedly, breathable rain jacket. Still, I did get the shot of Wolfie, the female wolf spider with her egg sac dragging behind her.

Dinner was Fennel with Cod and Prawns. It’s a long time since I’ve made it and, even if I say so myself, it tasted great. Even better was the fact that there were individual pots of ice cream for dessert! Scamp had Salted Caramel and I had Chocolate.

Spoke to Jamie after dinner and heard that we may indeed be getting a visit from Simonne this coming week as she’s on a whirlwind tour of labs in Central Scotland. Also heard that the plans for the new roof of their house may not be ready in time to get it replaced until spring. The wheels of English Heritage do turn slowly.

Watched Sewing Bee later and commiserated with the contestant who didn’t quite make it to the semi-final. Good to hear in the news that Djokovic was beaten by Alcaraz in the mens final at Wimbledon.

Hopefully we’ll get some good weather tomorrow and we’ll be using the Dry Day plan!

 

 

An early rise – 15 July 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Well, definitely an early rise for me.

We were up, fed, watered, washed (and in my case shaved), dressed and out the door by 9.45am, ready to drive out to Brookfield for our first dance class in a fortnight and only the second dance class in over a month. We were both a bit apprehensive about how we would get on with this dancing lark. We had had a half hour practise last night and it had gone fairly well. I’d remembered more than I thought I would from the Quickstep and we’d pushed it beyond that up to the end of Scamp’s knowledge of the steps.

We had our usual sequence dance to start with. Then instead of the quickstep, the teachers took us through the Rumba routine we’d been learning a fortnight ago. It’s similar to, but not the same as the rumba we learned during Lockdown. It’s our “Zoom Rumba”. Today, as usual they inserted new figures and then tweaked some of the elements we already knew. That worked well, mainly because we already had a good basis to work from.

Next was quickstep and we struggled through it, and again they added new figures but explained them well and allowed us to film them so we could go over them at home.

Overall, it was a worthwhile morning with a lot of consolidation of what we already knew as well as adding in new material. I felt we got round the floor quite well, not perfect by any manner or means, but adequately.

Drove home and after discussing what lunch and dinner would be, we settled on going to the Red Deer on the way home and having a late lunch or and early dinner, call it what you will. Scamp had fish ’n’ chips and I had gammon steak, both served with chips.

It had been raining during the night last night and although it was dry and bright, it looked like it might return to rainy weather later. However, the wet weather stayed away and we had a dry afternoon. I went out for an hour in St Mo’s and got some insect photos. Scamp said she was reading, but I’m sure she was poring over those new moves we’d filmed.

Watched the first night of the Proms and disagreed about a new version of Finlandia. Scamp thought it was too fast and I liked it.

PoD was a cobbled together photo of mating Burnet Moths, technically it’s ‘focus stacking’ and it worked.

No firm plans for tomorrow. If the weather is good we may go for a walk, otherwise we’ll go shopping. Either way, an early rise is not on the cards.

Rain again – 14 July 2023

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Another day of cloudy skies and rain.

It’s almost back to bullet points because neither of us got much done today. Scamp did some washing and hung it out in a dry spell, just as it started to smirr. We decided the breeze would dry the clothes more than the rain would wet them and they stayed like that for about half an hour. That’s when the thunder started and the first big drops hit the window. Then it was a mad rush to bring them in before they got soaked. Surprisingly, our Scamp’s calculations about the wind versus the rain were correct and the clothes were drier than they might have been.

I drove up to Tesco to get lunch. We just can’t get decent Scottish well fired rolls in the new shops, so we have to drive to Tesco for rolls and we might as well get the rest of the messages at the same time. A roll ’n’ flat sausage, well, two rolls actually. One is never enough! After that, Scamp was reading and I was trying to get my head around Adaptive Presets in Lightroom. Sounds boring, but it’s so much more than that. I scrubbed through a 16min video by some bloke explaining a technique that could have been covered two minutes. In fact after all 14 minutes of waffle, he DID explain it all in two minutes at the end. After all that it didn’t actually do anything amazing.

Later in the afternoon I gave up on the idea of a walk today. The rain just wouldn’t let up. Instead, I cut the remains of what might be our last Schoolgirl rose for the year and took some photos of it with the A6000 on a tripod. That’s what you see here and that is the PoD.
This morning I did get a nice surprise on Flickr. My landscape shot across Fannyside Moor which is more of a painting than a photograph, to be honest, got into Explore. Explore is an award in Flickr. Nobody knows who awards it and you are never told why. Some say it’s simply a random selection made by a computer. I tend to believe that. Still an award is an award.

Early rise tomorrow because the dance class starts at 9.30am instead of 10am.

 

 

Rain again – 13 July 2023

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This wasn’t a day for doing a lot, although we did prune some roses and deadhead a few more.

For most of the morning we watched the rain showers roll in from the west, dump some rain and then fly off to the east, only to be joined by more rain clouds arriving from the west. I really do believe the Scottish rivers and lochs, that were predicting drought conditions a month ago, are no full to overflowing!

Eventually we dragged ourselves out for a walk to the new(ish) retail park to do some shopping during a dry spell. I carried the bag half way home and then Scamp took over while I went for a walk in St Mo’s. There wasn’t much insect life around. Lots of soldier beetles making more soldier beetles, but very little of photographic interest. I had taken only the A6000 and came home with 30 images which were whittled down to 9 keepers, and even those were only just worth keeping. To supplement the 9 I took some shots in the garden using the A7iii. That gave 8 images from which 7 were keepers. Today’s PoD came from those last 7. It’s Scamp’s Roxanne geranium which seems to have taken over a large pot in the garden, sprawling over on to the grass. It’s lovely!

We watched the final of Glow Up. If you haven’t seen it, is is the most outlandish collection of potential Make Up Artists (MUAs) all vying to outdo each other with the most outlandish make up ‘creations’. Worth looking for on iPlayer.

No more rain after the morning’s heavy showers, but the weather fairies all agree we’re due for more tomorrow, and the next day. Hope June and Shona don’t get caught in any of them on their three day holiday.

No plans for tomorrow yet for the reasons given in the previous paragraph. It all depends on the weather.

Out in the country – 12 July 2023

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Scamp went out this morning to meet Annette.

Her parting shot as she left the house was “I’ve got my key”, but she hadn’t. She phoned to say she’d left her key in the house. I said not to worry because I’d be at home for a while because I was entering into what felt like a long text conversation with someone in America trying to solve the saga of Google’s need for SPF which stands for Sender Policy Framework, but you probably knew that already, didn’t you. As it happened, my connection got reset and I didn’t really have the time or energy to restart it. Instead I phoned Scamp to say I’d drive up to the restaurant and hand her the key. I was going that way anyway because I’d had my fill with computer techy stuff for the day. I’d already struggled with the rather overbearing IONOS for half an hour and got nowhere at the end of it. The previous domain manager,1&1, was so much easier to work with.

It was another lovely morning, but as I was leaving to drop off Scamp’s key, there was a definite dampness in the air. By the time I got to the restaurant it was raining and by the time I has driving away it was pelting down. I was heading for Fannyside Moor. My quiet place. It was still raining when I got to the parking space beside the Scots Pines but I didn’t mind sitting in the car for a while until the rain blew away. It didn’t take long and the sun was coming out drying out the road. I walked along the road for a stretch looking for a chrysalis I’d seen the last time I’d been there, but it was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps the moth or butterfly inside had performed its transformation and flown away. I hoped it had.
The breeze was driving the clouds around the sky. That’s why this area is so interesting, the colours and shadows on the land change constantly and there are very few buildings to get in the way. I saw a tiny little ladybird, probably about 4mm diameter, but wrong lens, too slow to spot it and didn’t get the shot. I watched the swallows or swifts (I’m not a bird spotter, so I can’t tell the difference) flying low over the ground. Traditionally a sign that bad weather is on the cards. I headed home before I got caught in another downpour.

Scamp had just returned when I got home and we compared our day. Then I decided I’d pot up some strawberries from an old broken hanging basket that wasn’t hanging anymore. I managed to get four of them planted in the top of the terracotta strawberry planter. The last one is now in the raised bed which I think is full.

PoD was a landscape shot looking south over Fannyside Moor.

No plans for tomorrow.