A morning in Town – 28 May 2024

Just a morning wander around Glasgow while the car got a checkup.

The blue car was booked in at Macklin Motors for a safety check on the seat rails and Scamp and June were going to a funeral celebration of the life of an old choir member. I didn’t know him, so I just dropped her off at Ian’s/June’s house, then I drove in to Glasgow.

I was early getting there, so I dropped off the keys and went for a walk in the town. I had only three places I planned to go and the weather looked good, although the weather fairies were predicting heavy rain later in the morning.

First thing to do that wasn’t on the list, was coffee in Caffè Nero. Note the spelling. I’ve been spelling it wrong for years! Caffè Nero it is from now on, at least until I forget and resort to MY spelling again. Anyway, coffee first, then plan out the rest of the morning.

Anyway, I walked down to the Apple shop to find out how much I’d have to shell out on a new iMac. The answer was that it would take all my savings, tripled to get what I would like. I found a couple of ‘advisers’ who talked to me in a language I understood. Not ‘Topsy & Tim’, but not too technical either. Interesting to look at the back of the model that would probably replace, my present one. No USB-A (the big rectangular plug we all know). Everything was USB-C the tiny little oval plug that goes in either way round). Much smoother and allegedly a much quicker transfer of files. Sorry, Jamie, just a little bit of ‘Technospeak’ there.

I came out knowing a bit more about the new models and gratified when the first ‘assistant’ said that a seven year old iMac wasn’t ‘old’. At five years old it was described as Archived by Apple!

Next stop was Tiso just 100m down Bucky Street. I’m looking for a new waterproof jacket. My old blue Spray Way has so many tears in it, it looks like the patches are there to hold it together, which is probably what they are doing. I did actually find a Berghaus at a reasonable price and joy of joys, it had a zipper inside pocket. It also had a net lining which means the Goretex lining doesn’t stick to you. It’s on the list to be approved by the Boss!

I just stepped out of the shop and the rain came on. I looked at my watch. It was 11:20. The weather fairies were right! Next stop was Cass Art, for a 0.5mm pump action pencil, for light sketching. I also got a putty rubber to clean up my smudges and some charcoal ‘paint’ to make more smudges. Then my phone pinged to send me the video of the visual check on the car and to say that it was ready. Walked back to the dealership, signed the form picked up my keys and drove home. After lunch Scamp phoned to say she was ready to be picked up from Costa Drive-In.

Scamp made dinner tonight and it was a beautiful Prawn & Pea Risotto. Traditionally cooked, not my bake-in-the-oven one. Lots of prawns and peas and lots of fresh lemon juice to season it. Dessert was an Italian Cream Bun I’d picked up on my walk to the dealership.

Every day it seems we’re finding more things we can do with OneDrive. There are strange restrictions too, like being told I’m using Illegal language is data I’m trying to back up. It turned out that there are symbols that can’t be backed up with OneDrive! Perhaps my new Windows Monkey can explain the next time we’re speaking to him!!

PoD was a photo I took in Exchange Square in Glasgow of a bloke passing a poster in a shop window with a message that read: “Shall I compare thee to a Summer’s day?”. I thought is was comical given the weather.

Today’s prompt asked for A Butterfly. We haven’t had many butterflies visiting the garden this year. It may have been the wet spring we’ve had or the cold, long winter. I had hoped for some Orange Tips or Peacocks, but even they have been in short supply. Hopefully with summer just around the corner, we might get some butterflies fluttering by. We can but hope.

Again, this is a catch-up.  I’ll be glad when  EDiM is over.  The painting/sketch is quite enjoyable. Sometimes it takes 15 minutes, sometimes an hour.  Then the hard work starts.  It has to be scanned, cropped and exported. Then the blurb has to be written and both the artwork and the text have to pasted into Flickr and then Facebook. The whole procedure takes on average an hour to an hour and a half. That’s on top of the normal photo for PoD. That’s why I’m seriously considering making this the last of these sketch challenges.

Maybe some light shopping tomorrow, but nothing else planned.