Month: August 2024

Gardening – 11 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Actually it was Scamp who was doing most of the gardening on this beautiful sunny day.

I think my contribution could be better described as “pottering”.

While Scamp was cutting the front grass and moving all the pots around herself because she knows exactly where they go and in which direction they face, while I’ll just plonk them in a spot with the same shape as the shape of the pot base. Unfortunately that doesn’t work with circular pots which have two axes of symmetry. I’ve given up offering to help, because I know it will be refused.

Anyway, while the cutting was going on, I was in the back garden photographing butterflies on the Buddleia bush. The bush has been flowering for about a month now and not one butterfly has ventured near it. Today, after I’d cut away a lot of the flowers that were going to seed, not one, but two butterflies were climbing over each other to get to this nectar rich plant. A Small Tortoiseshell butterfly got PoD.

Earlier I was spraying the big splat of seagull diarrhoea that had been dropped from height on the passenger side of the car’s windscreen. A few of scooshes of screen wash and it started to melt away quite nicely, but it left unsightly white streaks all down the bonnet. The easiest thing to do was to wash the car, and that’s what I did, the old fashioned way with buckets of water lots of detergent and a sponge. Buffed it dryish with those green mitts and left it to dry completely in the sunshine.

Back to gardening again and I emptied out our final potato bag and collected 650g of Charlotte potatoes. Scamp’s and my favourite variety. Since I had the garden table set up and the big black plastic tray, I potted up five wee chilli seedlings that were looking a bit poorly after being planted some time in the spring. I blamed the compost Tesco sold us to plant them in. It looked more like floor sweepings than compost. Anyway, they’re in better stuff now. Good compost mixed with sharp sand and Perlite for drainage. Hope they enjoy the view from the bedroom window.

Spoke to Jamie tonight and heard about Simonne’s visit to the Olympics while Jamie worked from home and did some gardening. Good to hear that the green beans are growing and the cobs of corn are ripening hope the squirrels give them a chance this year.

Tomorrow I’m intending donating a thimbleful of blood for my three monthly checkup. Thunder showers are forecast for most of tomorrow.

Windy day and Driving – 10 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It was a bit of an uninspiring day. Gusty winds again and the threat of showers that never came.

I just couldn’t get out of the bit today. Nothing physically wrong, I just could not shift myself from the sofa. Maybe it was the thought of driving in to an evening dance at Brookfield that failed to inspire me or maybe it was a hangover from yesterday. I still had the sore back, and I think that is caused by carrying a heavy camera bag. Maybe I should listen to my body more!

Eventually we did the same as yesterday and walked down to the shops to get dinner. I had decided to have a venison steak that had been languishing in the freezer since May, but I had no appetite. Then Scamp suggested something simple like a baked potato and that worked for me. It was a heavy bag I was carrying back from the shops and was reluctant to hand it over to Scamp, so we both walked home, with me carrying a bag with two bottles of no-alcohol (and no-taste) beer and a heavy camera bag (then I wonder why I’ve got a sore back!).

When I got home I just turned around and walked halfway round St Mo’s, then back again, about half an hour it total, but happier now that I had a couple of fairly decent shots in the bag. PoD went to a Common Drone Fly, or so said Mr Google and friends, lunching on some cow parsley flowers. By the time I got back we just had enough time to have a baked potato each and then we had to get ready for the evening’s entertainment.

We were driving the Brookfield, but as we were driving out of the estate I saw the big splat of seagull diarrhoea on the passenger side of the windscreen. A couple of scooshes of screen wash told us it was stuck firm and there was no point in damaging the wiper blades on it. A job for tomorrow. On the M80 first it was a police car with blue lights on travelling in the same direction as us, next a 40mph speed restriction flashed up on the overhead gantry then about two miles later the next message was “Pedestrians”. Never a good thing on a motorway. However for the rest of the drive in to Glasgow there was no sign of police vehicles or pedestrians. We carried on regardless. Of course everyone had obeyed the 40mph sign 😉

The rest of the journey was just normal Saturday evening busy. Until we came to the Irvine turnoff, our turnoff. Then ahead was two lanes of red lights for as far as we could see. For the next five miles it was first gear and stop, first gear and stop. Then the blockage seemed to clear and we drove the rest of the way unhindered. We later discovered there had been a two car crash somewhere ahead of us and we were the lucky ones who joined the queue when it was at least moving, if slowly.

The dance itself was really great fun, mainly because we were at the same table as Barry & Cath plus Cath’s sister and Niahmat & Audrey and another couple we’d met at a dance weekend in Perth. The table was a bit congested, but the jokes and laughter lifted the evening. We danced a few ballroom dances and, I think, all but one of the sequence dances. For once, the night really flew in, although as we neared the Last Dance there was a bit of a lull sometimes. As if the energy had gone out of the night.

I almost always enjoy driving home at night from a Brookfield dance. Absolutely no need to drop out of 5th gear, even across the Kingston Bridge. We parked and I had a wee dram while Scamp, unusually had a decaf coffee before bed. Something in the dancing put my back right again and something about the night put me on the right road.

Tomorrow I might was the car, or the windscreen at the very least.

Wild Weather – 9 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

We woke to high winds with gusts in excess of 45mph. Wild weather.

Scamp was out to FitSteps in the morning. Wild winds couldn’t stop her doing her keep-fit exercises. I stayed home to read and to challenge myself with Wordle and Spelling Bee. After that my whole day turned. I just felt deflated and had no wish to do anything. I don’t know what caused it. It wasn’t my “Black Monkey” feeling, I was just totally fed up, and nothing Scamp did when she came home could lift me out of the hole I was in. Even worse, I couldn’t lift myself out either.

Eventually after lunch she Scamp she was going to walk to the shops and invited me to join her. I did exactly that and we walked and talked as we fought our way against the gale. On the way back, as sometimes happens she sent me on a walk round St Mo’s while she carried the messages back home.

I did feel a bit better when I got home although I had a sore back and a bit of a headache, but after a couple of hours snoozing on the sofa, I woke to sunshine, internal sunshine at least. The ‘ennui’ if that was what it was had gone. Maybe my snoring had frightened it away or maybe the Black Monkey had stayed in St Mo’s to pester someone else. I don’t know. All I can say is that I was much happier than I had been this morning and glad to be back home again.

While I was in St Mo’s I got a PoD which was, as you can see, a bee busy collecting pollen from some pink Knapweed flowers With those 45mph gusts today I wasn’t expecting to see many insects, but a bee’s gotta do what a bee’s gotta do, I suppose.

Dinner was Coconut Curry with Haddock. It’s one of the dishes Jamie & Simonne made during the holiday. Another thing that probably helped brighten my day with is cheerful colour scheme and spicy flavours. I recommend it to you once the recipe gets to Neil to be included in the Foodies Book.

The wind outside has eventually died down and we have peace in the garden for a while. Hoping to go dancing tomorrow, all being well.

Dancin’ again – 8 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

A day that started well, but inevitably the rain spoiled the afternoon.

Scamp was out in the morning to get her hair cut. I was stuck at home tidying up things I should have done last week. Not real things you can touch, just computer stuff. When Scamp returned looking beautiful, we got ready and drove in occasional sunshine to Glenburn. Our first tea dance in about a month.

It was more a blether than a dance. Lots of folk there, folk we hadn’t seen for ages. A few faces were missing, but this is still school holidays in Scotland and some folk had other places to go.

We did dance a fair bit. We struggled through the Four Seasons Waltz, but made a poor show in Kirsty’s Waltz Nioli. We were agreed that more practise is required. I think we danced more sequence dances that ballroom dances, mainly because the repetition in sequence means that muscle memory takes over after a while. Of course you still have to keep a watchful eye on where you are in the moves, because autopilot is not one hundred percent perfect, as we found out today.

It was a good day and I really enjoyed it. Company was good and we bumped, not literally, into a couple of folk we knew. By the time we were leaving at 3.30 the rain had drifted down from the Gleniffer Braes and a misty drizzle made driving a wee bit less enjoyable than it usually is.

Dinner tonight was an M&S stirfry. My turn to cook and for once I was quite well organised, with everything to hand more or less

By about 7 o’clock the rain had fizzled out and I was trying to get some moody shots of the wet rose leaves on the climbing rose, but for some reason, the focus ring was controlling the aperture. It happened on both cameras and I just couldn’t understand what was happening. A chance comment by one person online told me what was wrong. There is a three way switch on the Tamron that can be programmed and a month or so ago I’d set it to switch between focus and aperture control. Then I’d forgotten all about it. I pressed the button on the lens and everything went back to normal. So glad I found that because I’d have looked a proper numpty if I’d taken the lens back to the shop and told them it wasn’t working as it should!!
If none of the foregoing makes any sense, don’t worry, it’s just photog’s nonsense.

PoD was indeed a rose leaf, backlit and with raindrops still on it.

Hoping against hope for a decent day tomorrow, but it doesn’t look likely.

Wet and windy – 7 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

After yesterday’s beautiful clear skies, today was back to white skies and occasional rain showers.

The breeze was getting up too and the combination of all three gave me cause to forget any ideas of wandering the countryside looking for interesting views. I may have been completely wrong and the weather in St Mo’s microclimate might have been sub-tropical, but I didn’t think so.

We drove to Tesco, but the weather there was just the same as at home, but we got some milk and eggs and a couple of apples then drove home again. After receiving a royal wave from Sir Fred the artist as he drove away in front of us.

Lunch was beans on toast. Nothing wrong with that, but it was a measure of the day. Jackie phoned Scamp later in the afternoon and while they were having a chinwag I played around with a set of acrylic pens Fred had given me yesterday, or maybe the day before. I wasn’t really taken with them, but he had sent me a couple of pictures he had painted with them, so I felt duty bound to try them out. Maybe today just wasn’t the day for them. Instead I chanced a couple of photos during a dry spell and a Cerinthe flower made PoD. Strange purple/blue flowers that look a bit like Shrimp Plants. By switching to manual mode on the a6500 I managed to get a fast enough shutter speed and a deep enough aperture to get a couple of decent shots in the wind that was blowing.

We couldn’t decide on what to have for dinner, then one of us, probably Scamp suggested fish ’n’ chips from the chip shop. By the time we had decided to go to the chip shop, it was really too late. We decided to leave the food until we came home from dance class.

Tonight, Kirsty was revising the Rumba before turning it into a Cha-Cha, a fast one at that. Lots of lovely little twists in it that made the two routines totally different. Lovely, that is, when you could manage the switch. I think I have it now, but we’ll find out tomorrow. We’re hoping to go to the first tea dance in about a month. But back home and today, we had our fish ’n’ chips after dance class and it was delicious. I’ll probably suffer for it tomorrow, but tonight it’s fine.

Tomorrow Scamp is booked for an early session to get her hair cut, and as I said, we’re hoping to go to a tea dance in the afternoon.

Culross (Sorry Hazy) – 6 August 2024

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We couldn’t decide where to go today, once we realised it really was dry outside!

After discussion and after rejecting A Walk Down The Green and after accepting Dunfermline only as a last resort – there’s nothing there now except the park and the peacocks. I suggested Culross.

I follow a Canadian photographer Gaetan Bois who almost always uses a cinematic 2:1 format (two units long to one unit high) and often shoots with a wide angle lens. I’ve tried his method and while it doesn’t always suit my subjects, it gives an interesting frame for a photograph. I just knew I could get some nice wide angle shots across the Forth estuary from Culross.today that would work with the 2:1 format. Thankfully Scamp agreed without knowing my reason and off we went.

Culross was very busy. The carpark was almost full, but we found a space and with blue skies and fluffy clouds above us, we went for a walk. Keeping the Forth on our right hand side we walked in the general direction of Preston Island which, if you’ve read the blogs before, you’ll remember is not an island any more, but has been reclaimed using slag from the now defunct Longannet power station. No, I was lugging a heavy camera and two heavy lenses today, so no long walks thank you very much.

We did walk along the path beside the old rusty railway and crossed at the gate, then walked further on until we found a seat. Some of the views south, across the water to Bo’ness, are quite stunning, but today the tide was well out and it wasn’t so inspiring. That didn’t stop me from taking plenty of photos, of course!

One of the reasons for going to Culross was that we could have a spot of lunch, either at the Red Lion pub or at the Biscuit cafe, so after our rest we walked back the way we’d come to find somewhere to eat. The first possibility was the Red Lion. It had been busy when we were walking out and when we reached it on the way back, it was possibly even busier. No free seats in the marquee, so it would be the Biscuit cafe.

We got there just as a table was being cleared, so at least we’d have a seat. After a look at the menu, Scamp settled on a scone and a latte. I fancied a bacon roll and a flat white. When the girl came to take our order Scamp asked for a scone with jam and cream. No scones – sold out. I asked a bacon roll. You guessed it, no rolls. The girl was very apologetic. There were more people than they’d expected. I ended up with a flat white and a bowl of very good soup. Scamp had a latte with a slice of my bread. Still, it was a lovely day and we needed a good day after yesterday’s rain.

We had a look in the pottery shop downstairs, but the prices were a wee bit more than we were willing to pay, so we returned to the car and drove home, still in sunshine, but with a few black clouds now on the horizon.

Dinner for me was Sunday’s stew with potatoes and cauliflower. While Scamp’s was Cauliflower Tomato Cheese a new twist on Cauliflower Cheese from an old Rose Elliot book. We watched a few folk running races and some bikers too at the Olympics in Paris

PoD was a view across the Forth to Bo’ness, just as the tide was beginning to come in. It just didn’t inspire me once I’d messed around with it in Lightroom. The colours just didn’t work, although the 2:1 proportions worked for me. However, once it was reduced to black & white, I liked it and that’s what made it PoD.

An hour ago we had a really heavy shower of rain. It only lasted ten minutes at most, but dropped a fair amount of rain in that time. I’m glad we didn’t get caught in anything like that during our walk today.

We’re hopefully going to dance class tomorrow, other than that, nothing planned.

 

 

Wet – 5 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It seems like only the other day we were pleading for rain so we wouldn’t have to water the garden. Today we got our wish.

It started off dull with the clouds sliding down over the Campsie Fells. It had rained all night and we said “Thank you” for some rain at last. Today we were looking for the tap to turn it off again. I think it was the lack of light that was getting us down more.

We drove to Tesco for the normal Monday shop and I bumped into Fred. Haven’t seen him for ages and that’s probably because he hasn’t been out much. He did have a wee prezzy for me, a pack of acrylic paint pens. The colours are a bit lurid, but they might be interesting to mess around with. I think we’ll try to arrange a coffee for Fred, Val and I with maybe the chance of coercing Colin to join us. If nothing else it would be a chance to do a book exchange.

Shopping done, we drove home, still in the rain and packed all the stuff away, then had lunch. I had a sandwich with cold meat that had been in the fridge. Later I wasn’t feeling well and I’m thinking that cold meat might have been the culprit. It’s now in the bin.

I did get out for a while in the back garden, when Scamp was risking the rain to prune her newly transplanted Candelabra Primulas. I was more interested in the Japanese Anemones and sheltered under the rowan tree and got a few shots of them. One of the shots got PoD.

On Saturday we had walked in the sunshine past the Mausoleum in Hamilton and through the underpass below the M74. The photo of the underpass with some silhouetted figures got Explore this morning. That was a nice surprise, I wasn’t expecting it. I was hoping my photo of the Dent sheep would Explore, but interest in it has fizzled out.

Scamp was determined to Dyson the living room today and I helped out, moving stuff around and doing a bit of dusting round the window sills … inside, of course. After that I felt a bit dodgy and almost fell asleep on the sofa, so I took myself up to bed for an hour. I think that helped, but what helped more was Scamp making an excellent vegetable omelette for dinner. Such a pity, her’s wasn’t a patch on the one she made me!

Watched a bit of the indoor cycling at the Olympics and it was passably interesting. I think I might have an early night tonight. Just finished The Long Drop by Denise Mina. Based on a true story about Peter Manuel a serial killer back in 1958. I remember walking to school and everyone saying that Manuel had been hanged and being shocked. It wasn’t the best book I’ve read, but parts of it were very well written. 3/5 on Goodreads.

No plans yet for tomorrow, but the weather looks hopeful.

Chiffchaff – 4 August 2024

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That’s what I saw this morning, although it might have been a Willow Warbler.

It was when I had filled up the birdbath in the garden that I noticed some small birds using it for their morning shower. Sparrows, Dunnocks and this other smaller pale yellow bird with a dark streak of feathers across its eye. I knew I’d seen it last year about this time and was certain it was a Willow Warbler. I grabbed the first camera I saw and put the Tamron lens on it. By the time I got back to the kitchen window it had disappeared, but the other birds were still there, having a great time splashing in the water. I took a few shots of them, but kept one eye open for the new bird. It appeared working its way along the rail of the fence and behind the Rowan tree. I’m not usually the most patient person, but I waited until I had a clear view of it and then rattled off four or five shots, one of which became PoD. One in the bag before lunch! That’s not bad going.

After lunch I processed the pictures and indeed I had a fairly clear view of the new bird. It was clear enough and that meant I didn’t have to go for a walk today, which was good because it wasn’t the most inspiring day with a featureless white sky and no sign of the sun shining through. Instead I started cooking today’s dinner which was diced steak that had been lingering in the freezer for quite some time. Just for a change I made it in the Instant Pot using a version of a recipe I’d found online. After a dodgy start where the meat had to be eased off the bottom of the pot, I set it to ‘Slow Cooker’ mode. I set for two hours, with half a bottle of beer to give it something to absorb while it was cooking.

Meanwhile, Scamp was in the garden chopping up a yellow Candelabra Primula into three separate pieces and then potted the pieces up into three separate pots because it was definitely restricted in the original one. After that she walked down to the shops to get some things for tonight’s dinner.

As the afternoon progressed, it seemed to get darker and the clouds got heavier, but the rain held off until much later.

The Instant Pot chimed to tell me that it was finished cooking and I set it to ‘Keep Warm’, which it did until dinner time. The stew was served with potatoes and was very good indeed. Scamp’s dinner was Ratatouille with potatoes. Dessert was Tiramisu which was delightful. Not long after that the rain arrived, which is good, because we don’t need to water the garden!!

Spoke to Jamie and he seems to have his week planned out with a day’s holiday and two days working from home. Good to hear that his garden is doing well, even if his tomato plants seem to have picked up blight from somewhere.

It’s still raining here and tomorrow looks wet too. The bird has been ID’d by a birder on Flickr as a Chiffchaff. Thanks for that Andrew.

Great naan and average curry – 3 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Today was forecast with rain, but the weather was warm and dry for most of the day. After discussion we decided on a trip to Hamilton, to Bombay Cottage for a curry.

We got seated right away and although I had very little to look at in the conservatory, Scamp had a great view of some wedding guests being piped in to the Town House which used to be the Town Hall. It seemed to be a grand event with a piper and colourful bridesmaids, and of course a beautiful bride. Thankfully I was facing the wrong way and missed the show. What a shame. However I did see the lady photographer with her two cameras slung at hip height. I’m not sure I agreed with her handling of the cameras, in fact I’ve rarely seen any professional photog shooting one handed with her shooting list held in the other hand. I wonder how they turned out, and how many hours poring over Photoshop made them worth seeing.

Food was good, but not great, the naan was a bit underdone, but that was more our fault for not specifying ‘well done naan’. It’s saving grace was that it was there in one naan shaped piece and not the chopped up atrocity that ’s sometimes served. My Rogan Josh was a bit mild for my liking and Scamp’s Shimla Bhaji was similarly lacking in heat. All in all, ‘could do better’, but it was saved by the Ice Cream with Raspberry and ‘Scooshy Cream’. A house speciality. I just knew we wouldn’t need anything else to eat after we got home … and I was right.

It was still a lovely day, so we parked at Hamilton Palace Retail Park and walked down so I could take some photos of the Hamilton Mausoleum. Originally the burial place of the Dukes of Hamilton, but subsidence in the 1960s and 1970s mean they were re-interred in a cemetery in Hamilton. It is still an impressive building.

We extended the walk by taking in the underpass that goes under the M74 and allows access to Strathclyde Park, locally known as Straffie. On the way I managed a few shots of folk walking through the blacked out underpass into the light on the other side. Out of Hamilton and into Motherwell, or maybe into another world. It wasn’t clear!!! One of those shots got PoD

Once we were safely through the Stargate without entering another dimension, we walked back again, retracing our steps before driving home.

There was washing to be hung up and it did get a gentle blow for the wind for an hour or so, but then the weather looked like it was taking a turn for the worse, so we brought them in again. Just in time to miss the rain that had been promised by the weather fairies.

Watched two more episodes of the Turkish Detective and that about wrapped up tonight’s exciting viewing.

Tomorrow we may go out for a walk if the weather holds.

Getting things done – 2 August 2024

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Scamp was out to FitSteps and I was hoping for a lazy morning … but.

I got strange emails from someone, possibly robot generated which said I had to sign in with my password. No indication who or what was requesting it. So I typed in my password … ‘course I didn’t. Do you really think my head buttons up the back? (That was a rhetorical question). I deleted it and it came back, again and again and again. Each time I deleted it, it returned.

I gave up and when Scamp returned, I drove up to the doc’s to book my diabetic blood test. I had already tried to phone the health centre, but I got a terrible line each time I tried to speak to Gort’s sisters who man Kenilworth. I finally got to speak to a human face to face after driving to the health centre and she gave me my little sample bottle and a note with my date to donate some blood and also a date to speak to the nurse.

When I got home we drove in to Glasgow to book the car in for MOT. I had had enough of phone conversations for one day. Got the MOT booked then we went for lunch in JL.

Later, while Scamp went looking for a new bag ANOTHER ONE, I wandered round Buchanan Street taking candid photos of folk, any folk who would stand still for long enough for me to press the shutter. Then we met up again and drove home.

The messages I’d got in the morning just wouldn’t go away and Scamp was getting similar messages from Mickysoft. I began to smell a conspiracy. Were there really Reds under the Beds?

I left it for a while and made dinner which was paella and a really good one for a change. The fact that it was washed down with a very nice red wine only improved dinner even more.

I got an WhatsApp from Alex to say that their car was booked in at Edinburgh for the flight to Jersey and then I realised that we had forgotten to book ours in at Glasgow for that same destination. Oops! While I booked the car in, Scamp booked the Holiday Inn. Rather than get up at stupid o’clock it would be so much more civilised to walk across to the check in. Thank you Alex.

Those messages that started this morning just wouldn’t go away. Then I realised they were only appearing on my phone, and not on any of my Gmail addresses. That narrowed things down. The clincher was the dates they started appearing. Those three things gave me the solution which was to simplicity itself to repair. Thankfully it worked.

That was about it for a fun-packed day which ended better than it started. PoD was a photo of a bloke sitting on a bollard gazing in bemusement at the crowds rushing past on Buchanan Street. Some editing was necessary.

Tomorrow looks like it will be wet, just as this evening was.