Author: Zogman

Happy Birthday to me – 8 April 2021

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Today I added another year to my account.

It was a wild day. Gusty winds and occasional blashes of rain. It didn’t look like a good day for a walk, unless I was walking in the house.

Breakfast in bed and then a lazy morning. For the second day this week I got the Sudoku out without having to resort to checking my mistakes on my Sudoku app. Either things are looking up or the Birthday Fairy is looking out for me.

It was a relaxing day. There was little chance to get out and go for a walk. After lunch I did drive down to the shops to get today’s dinner. Tonight we were having an M&S curry which meant that nobody had to cook. I wasn’t going to walk down in a gale and horizontal rain. That’s what I bought a car for. I did come home via St Mo’s hoping to get a PoD, but there was little of interest with such low light. I came home almost empty handed.

While there was very little light for most of the day, later in the afternoon the sun did shine for a while and it lit up a wee bunch of yellow flowers sitting on the kitchen windowsill. That was just enough to give me a subject and the unnamed little yellow flowers became PoD.

Hazy and Neil D had set up a Zoom chat with us and JIC and Sim for 6pm. We had a long chat and a good laugh with them. Good to get everyone together again, just talking as if we were all in the same room. Just as we were bringing the chat to a halt, JIC and Sim disappeared when the battery on Sim’s laptop gave up the ghost. We said goodnight to Hazy and Neil D and closed the connection. Thank goodness for the folk who invented and run Zoom. It’s a terrific lifeline, even in these days of greater hope.

The curry was hot tonight and I was glad I’d opened one of the bottles of beer Jackie had sent me today. Pudding was another M&S offering, an Apple and Bramble Pie served hot with cream. I may need some of my Gaviscon tonight with a buttery tear & share, a creamy curry and a pie with more cream. It was a great day. Thank you all for your organisation, your good wishes and your prezzies. I enjoyed it tremendously.

Funniest card went to Jackie’s “Let’s face it. Even the bin has more chance of going out on your birthday this year!” Very apt as it arrive just after I’d brought the bin in. Did you know today was bin day as well as my birthday, Jackie?

Tomorrow it’s my dad’s saying “Back tae auld claes and purrich.” Back to normal. It looks like the weather will be calmer, but not better.

Baking – 7 April 2021

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Today I was making Cheese & Garlic Tear and Share.

First thing to do today was make the dough.

Kneading, for some reason is good for increasing your step count. I think it’s the constant rhythmic movement of the wrist when kneading the dough that makes the Fitbit think you’re walking, when you’re actually standing on the spot. Ten minutes of kneading for the dough then an hour and a bit of rest for the dough and the baker. That gave me enough time to get the majority of today’s Sudoku done.

By lunchtime it looked as if the dough was about to burst out of its clingfilm covered bowl, but I let it stay there until I’d finished my French Toast or Eggy Bread to some. Scamp was off to meet Veronica and go for a walk with her round Broadwood Loch. I was keeping up my virtual step count with an extra bit of kneading. The next bit was a bit dull. The big ball of dough had to be divided into 24 equal balls and each one was to be filled with some mozzarella. Actually it was quite relaxing once I got into the zone. Packed twelve of my cheese stuffed balls into two round tins, left one to rise and put the other one in the fridge for tomorrow. Baked the tin of doughballs that had now risen and merged together after drizzling them with melted butter, garlic and parsley. This is definitely not a low calorie bread. The bread looked exactly like the picture in the recipe. I was impressed. So was Scamp. The only thing wrong with it was that the cheese I’d so carefully hidden in the balls, had disappeared. Maybe tomorrow’s will be better. Still it was a tasty tear and share. Thanks again JIC and Sim.

Just as it was coming out of the oven, Scamp appeared. I guessed I’d have time for a photo expedition to St Mo’s, so with a newly cleaned sensor and a single lens I went off to seek some subjects. There wasn’t much directional light and you know how much I like Light! I did however find today’s PoD on my weary plod home. It’s a Horse Chestnut bud recognisable by the scar just beneath the smaller buds. Seen from the front it looks like a horses hoof print with little nail holes too. Hence the name Horse Chestnut.

Dinner tonight was fish ’n’ chips. Fish on a Wednesday is a tradition in the house and tonight was no exception. Scamp has cleverly found a way to reduce the smell of the cooking oil, by lighting a scented candle in the kitchen. It works wonders.

We had a quick practise of the three dances we know and without a word of lie, we hardly put a foot wrong.  Why does it all go to pot when we’re dancing in (virtual) class on Sunday?  It must be the pressure of dancing for the teachers and knowing they are watching.

Watched Line of Duty tonight and am still looking for the User’s Manual to explain exactly what is going on!

A parcel seemed to arrive today but seems to have been spirited away. Also spirited away is the Fairy Garden. In my St Mo’s walk today I wondered if it had been vandalised, but no. Every single piece of the garden had disappeared, including the stars hanging from the trees, all the little doors and even the washing had been taken in! All gone back to fairyland I presume.

Must get this blog posted and get to bed. No plans for tomorrow, other than breakfast in bed.

 

 

Another cold day – 6 April 2021

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What has happened to spring this year? We seem to be back in winter.

Another lovely day … as long as you were in the house with the heating on. Once you stepped out, you found out what the Arctic feels like. Of course, I speak from experience. We both stepped out, but only as far as the car. We drove up to Tesco and while Scamp waited in the queue for the chemist to get her meds, I wandered round Tesco picking up the makings of lunch and dinner. Then it was a drive home through a snowstorm. I kid you not, this weather has only got worse since Donald Trump was chucked out of the White House. Bring back DT, Make Weather Great Again.

After lunch we agreed that we should go out again, but this time we’d be walking. Twice round St Mo’s pond without a photo being taken. Then to lengthen the walk we followed the path down in the general direction of the shops, but turned left before we got there. Walked down to the underpass that would take us to Broadwood Loch, but again turned left and went back up to the house. While Scamp was admiring a Magnolia bush, I was looking at some yellow flowers nearby. I took some photos, but they didn’t make PoD.

After a coffee and while Scamp was reading, I went for a walk in St Mo’s. Yes, it was cold, but not too cold, especially if you were out of the wind and in the sun, which I was for a while taking photos of Larch flowers, the aptly named Larch Pineapples. I named them that, you won’t find that description in Wikipedia. Even they didn’t make the grade for PoD.

I walked across what is usually a swampy mess past a small pond. Today with my new waterproof boots on, it wasn’t really all that wet, but it did give me a chance to test the grip from the Vibram soles, and they did get a bit wet. I felt better. They now looked ‘lived in’. Found my little ladybird still sleeping away the cold weather in its little crevice in the ash tree and grabbed the best photos yet of the insect.

<Technospeak>
Back home I squirted all the photos into Lightroom and decided the ladybird and the larch pineapple were the best of the bunch, so I used a new processing app on the iMac to do an auto adjust of the two shots. The results were interesting. The larch pineapple was worse after its dunking in the auto adjust bath. Highlights blown out colour just not right. The ladybird looked a lot better after its magic processing. I can’t explain it. It must be something to do with the basic colours of the subject and the browns and oranges of the ladybird pic work well with the algorithm for tuning the adjustments. Finally decided that the ladybird got PoD and used the new Capture One processing, but processed the larch pineapple with Lightroom.
</Technospeak>

Watched a BBC 2 programme we’d recorded last week about a Scottish painter James Morrison who painted wonderful landscapes from the North East of Scotland. Beautiful enormous watercolours and oils. If you have the time and inclination, watch “Eye of the Storm” on iPlayer. Quite stunning work and a great old man who died soon after the film was made, aged 88 I think. I have to thank Fred for telling me about it.

Tomorrow, Scamp is hoping to go for a walk with Veronica and I’m hoping to bake something interesting for her to come back to.

The North wind did blow – 5 April 2021

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And we did have snow.

Thankfully not a lot of the white stuff, but the evidence was there, on the cars and on the grass. It soon melted in the sun. A beautiful looking morning with blue skies all around and bright sun. However, one look at the outside temperature told a different story 0.7c is pretty cold, even for early spring. I thought we might stay in the warm for a while before we risked going out for a walk. Just to give the world a chance to warm up.

An hour or so later some clouds were arriving from the north and we felt it was time to go out and stretch our legs. Out of the wind, it was quite pleasant, but facing into it, you really did feel that icy blast. No more snow, but a bitter cold. We walked down and round the end of Broadwood Loch, over the dam and down the long winding path past the exercise machines then up the hill to the shops. Not a lot needed today. Just some mozzarella cheese and some fruit and veg. Then it was back home to make lunch.

Yesterday I’d made paella for dinner and as usual I made too much. Scamp had the idea of making some arancini with it. Little balls of left over rice and peas stuffed with mozzarella, dusted with flour, dipped in egg then rolled in breadcrumbs before being deep fried in oil. Scamp was doing the making of the balls and the stuffing with breadcrumbs, plus the dusting with flour. I was doing the dipping in egg and rolling them in breadcrumbs until I had enough to slide into the pot of hot oil. We had about three or four each and that was more than enough for a lunch. They were tasty, but if I was making them again (and I hope we will) I’d use a bit more mozzarella next time.

The lovely sunshine and blue sky kept calling me, especially as the clouds had cleared away again, leaving a sparkling day. However it only took a moment to remember that cold wind that would blow away any enjoyment of a walk in St Mo’s. Anyway, I had enough photos from the morning’s walk I thought. I spent the afternoon watching a tutorial for a piece of editing software I’d got a free, not time limited, copy of. It’s a cut down version of the full editing package which costs an arm and a leg. It must have been one of the best video tutorials I’ve seen. Hardly a stumble in the guy’s explanations and everything clearly presented. No histrionics either. So many people, mainly americans, have to shout at you and dance around when they’re supposedly teaching techniques. No, this was an adult, confident in his ability. He did do a bit of soft selling at the end, but didn’t push the full price version. I was impressed.

It was spaghetti with a tomato sauce for dinner, but the star attraction was home made Sticky Toffee Pudding with loads of sauce and custard. Delightful, Scamp!

Today’s PoD was a branch of blossom caught on our morning walk. I could get used to this morning walk regime. It means we have to get up fairly early and get out. It also leaves time for me to go for a photo-walk later in the afternoon if time and weather permit. It’s so easy to just vegetate on cold days like today. I should have gone out in the afternoon, but my time wasn’t totally wasted. The PoD was processed in the new software which is called Capture One. I knew you’d want to know that JIC.

Another brightener today was seeing the first swallows and this is week 14.  Fairly late this year, but what a welcome they had, flying all the way north from Morocco and arriving into a snow storm!  Whatever would they be thinking?

No great plans for tomorrow, but if it’s as cold as today which seems likely, I may do some fancy Tear and Share bread baking.

 

What a difference … – 4 April 2021

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… a day makes. It was like a return to winter.

All the things the weather fairies promised came true, well, almost. We haven’t had the snow storms yet, but the high winds and the cold Arctic blast have been making their presence felt all day. Tonight the wind is howling round the house and making us feel cold, even inside.

We didn’t go far today, but we did encourage each other to go out for a walk in the afternoon, just to blow the cobwebs away. I have been making an active attempt to bring some structure to my week by shaving at least once a week on a Sunday. After we came back from the walk I was wishing I’d left it to the afternoon to do the facial hair removal. My face was almost numb with cold. It was hard to believe that yesterday afternoon I’d walked round St Mo’s without a coat or a jacket. Today that would have been suicidal. A coffee when we came home with a cannoli helped brighten the day a bit.

We watched the boat race in the afternoon, once we’d warmed up. Quite enjoyed it because it was coming from Ely and we’d walked past the place where the rowers were preparing themselves. Yesterday we watched Ali getting her 30 seconds of fame on TV rowing in a four with presenter Mike Bushell. Today it was the real thing. Ali wasn’t racing, of course, but she was probably their marshalling.

I had a look at another of Scamp’s little hanging lights from the tree in the garden. It had been working so well recently, but for a week it had been out, so perhaps a new rechargeable battery was required. Well the battery looked battered indeed, covered in rust as was the circuit board. However, when I checked it with the multimeter, it was half charged, then I noticed that the small chip that I imagine is a voltage regulator with four legs, only had three and as I scraped off some rust from those three, they reduced to two. Water ingress would seem to be the problem. It went into the bin No User Serviceable Parts Inside. Cheaper to replace than repair. Isn’t that the story we all hear these days.

After dinner we were prepared to demonstrate our skills at the Telemark Turn, but both our feet got tangled, went the wrong way and generally weren’t interested in dancing tonight. Everything we did seemed to turn out wrong. Helpful hints from the teachers must have looked as if they fell on deaf ears. They didn’t, it was just that the feet weren’t responding to requests tonight. More practise required I think is the solution.

Spoke to JIC after the disastrous dancing class and heard about all things down Cambridge way. Good to hear that things are improving down south too as far as weather and opening up are concerned. Good news.

PoD was a photo of a decorative egg cup we saw on our walk around St Mo’s earlier in the day. Presumably it was meant to hold an Easter Egg. The carefully designed and manufactured egg cup looked like it was rejected as unwanted baggage.

Tomorrow there is still the threat of snow, but unlikely to reach the Central Belt of Scotland, so we might just be lucky enough to miss it. It will, however be cold.

Walking the canal – 3 April 2021

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It was too good a day to spend inside reading.

Indeed it was a day, for getting your boots on and going for a walk along the canal bank. Drove to Auchinstarry and rejected the first car park without looking. Not nearly enough space there. Luckily, at about 10am we found a space in the car park at the quarry. Boots on, new boots for me, and off along the canal tow path. There were crowds of people out there making the best use of the warm weather and the sun. Some were walking in groups, some were in twos, like us and some were going solo. It didn’t matter, as long as they were out, taking advantage of the Easter holiday and the sun. A little note here: As far as I’m concerned, this is the Easter holiday. For as long as I can remember it’s been the Easter holiday because it falls at Easter. I realise there are some who will say it should be called the Spring holiday because Easter may cause offence to those who are not Christian. I don’t consider myself a Christian, but I still say it’s the Easter holiday, because that’s what I was brought up to call it. If you don’t like that, then call it what you think it should be, just don’t expect me to change my opinion.

It wasn’t just walkers out in the fresh air, there were cyclists and joggers too. It seemed that everyone wanted a slice of this warm weather and the feeling that the world was changing for the better. Yes, I know there is forecast to be an Arctic Blast tomorrow, but we’ll deal with that when/if it comes.

We walked along as far as Twechar, then crossed the road and took a different path back, along the old mineral railway line. It was supposed to be upgraded by January past, but they’re still working on it. However, I must say it looks a lot more accessible than it used to. There’s even a tarmac path along part of it, which might be going a bit far for a rural pathway. A good solid hardcore base with some gravel on top would have sufficed as long as it was done properly. Let’s see if it survives the first hard frost.

When we got back to the car, the car park that had been only half full was now chockablock. Cars everywhere and at least two cars cruising up and down hoping for a space. One of them would manage to get into the space we left, but which one would be quick enough, I couldn’t say. We were heading to Kilsyth and Lidl. We went looking for bread and a bottle of gin. We put a whole lot more than that into the trolley. Why are we the ones who trundle forward in the queue only to find that the computer till goes down just as we’re about to put our purchases on the conveyer belt? It mainly seems to happen in Lidl. Last time it was an idiot woman who tried to use a cancelled credit card to pay for her goods. That caused the computer to have a hissy fit and the woman to say she couldn’t see what she’d done wrong. Maybe it’s Kilsyth people who don’t understand how these things work. Today it was the receipt dispenser that went on strike. The manager did his best. He pushed a pen into it, but that didn’t seem to work. I can’t see why. Then, I think he went for his tea because he went into his office and didn’t come back, leaving the till operator to punch button after button on the till to no avail. I’d imaging Ctrl Alt Del key combination, pressed twice would fix things. Either that or pull the plug and push it back in, then wait twenty minutes. Tills are probably running on Windows Vista. (In joke!) When we finally sneaked into another queue and got served, we drove home for lunch.

After lunch we sat on the front step reading. Totally different from sitting inside reading. Scamp had a Pimms and I had a can of Guinness to cool us down, it really was that hot. All the while the iMac was doing a complete backup now I was sure Mojave was working. I knew it would take hours, so I just let it get on with it. I got fed up with just sitting there reading and the Guinness was finished anyway, so I slunk away with the camera to walk a circuit of St Mo’s. Yes, the Fairy Garden is still there, looking pristine. After a couple of photos and one circuit of the pond I wandered over to Condorrat and got a bag of chips to share with Scamp and also a box of Cannoli. This was greeted with great smiles when I returned home. We sat on the front steps in the sun eating chips. What could be more natural.

The bloke next door appears to have discovered fire. He had built a log fire in a big metal bowl in the garden yesterday and again tonight he did the same. It stinks the whole street. I don’t expect it will last long, I hope it doesn’t. When the rain arrives, possibly tomorrow, it will put the fire out and by the time the wood dries out he’ll have forgotten how to make fire again, I’m sure.

PoD was taken as we started our walk along the canal at Auchinstarry.

Weather is forecast to take a turn to the worse tomorrow with high winds blowing from the Arctic and threats of snow even down to low levels. I don’t think it will reach us, but you never know. May do some baking!

New Boots & Panties – 2 April 2021

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I said I’d do it and I did.

Out fairly early and drove in to Glasgow. Parked at Tiso and found the boot shop in this open plan shop. There was a family already being served. A noisy family. Actually, the family weren’t all noisy. The ‘son’, I presume it was their son, but he could have been their grandson, was the one who was buying the boots and he said very little. The mother/gran had the most cutting and loud voice I’ve heard in a long time. The father/grandfather was the ‘comic’. He kept on making sarcastic comments about the boy while he was trying to lace up the boots. I felt really sorry for the boy and almost left, but thankfully they gave up with the snide remarks after a while and they all left to pay for the boots. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to take children out without a certificate of competence.
With the annoying couple out of the way, I got a sensible bloke who fixed me up with a pair of leather boots with decent soles and comfortable too. I could have said “comfortable to boot”, but that would have been a step too far!! He even stretched them slightly to improve the fit. I’ve never seen that done before and apparently it only works on leather boots. Leather, Goretex upper and Vibram sole. Happy (Easter) bunny. So happy in fact that I also bought a pair of lined walking trousers.

Just to make the most of the visit I took a look upstairs at the bikes. I saw a lot of shiny coloured biked, but nothing that I’d like to part with cash for and nothing I’d like to part with my Dewdrop for. I’d initially been looking at E-bikes and foldable, but there wasn’t a big range of E-bikes and no folding bikes. I was a bit concerned at the weight of the E-bikes. Maybe in a year or two … DV.

Stopped on the way home, hoping to get some stew at the butchers in Moorhead, but then realised the queue went all the way down the street. At least ten people in the queue. Well, I might get some stew, but not today.

Drove home by the back road and saw the potential for a panorama picture. Lovely light on the hills and hardly a cloud in the sky. A beautiful spring day. Hard to believe that snow, even to low levels is forecast for Sunday.

After showing off my new purchases and having giant fish fingers with an egg for lunch, we went for a walk in St Mo’s to see if the Fairy Garden was still there. Contrary to my fears, it was and I’m almost sure some additions had been made. A better view of the fairy washing line made today’s PoD.

Thanks to Ian Dury and The Blockheads for the title of today’s blog.  New boots and not quite panties, but trousers covers the same area.  I suppose I could have called it Baggy Trousers by Madness!!

We almost had enough warmth today to sit outside for a while. Almost, but not quite. Tomorrow looks set to be even better. We may go for a walk, somewhere local. Well, I’ve got walking boots now. I need to use them. By the way, the annoying couple in Tiso were english. Just saying!

 

Huntigowk – 1 April 2021

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Or April Fool’s day if you’re not Scottish.

We had a late rise today, because although the weather looked good, it might be trying to fool us into going out and getting wet. Just to be sure, we had an extra lazier morning than usual. However I did manage to get Thursday’s Sudoku completed. I also kneaded some dough for a loaf, so maybe not all that lazy after all.

As lunchtime approached Scamp volunteered to drive down to the shops to get some ‘messages’. While she was out I backed up the nearly five hundred photos I’d taken in March, and that was after I’d culled an extra three hundred! Belts and braces style, they are backed up twice in two different drives, so this took quite a while. When Scamp arrived home, in addition to the usual stuff, she also brought a chicken. So that was tonight’s dinner sorted.

After lunch, Scamp wanted to get started again in the garden. Especially she wanted to plant some flower seeds and chop out a chunk of the Astilbe plant that grows beside the kitchen steps. I like the plant, she doesn’t, but I allowed her to chop out a section to give to Isobel who doesn’t have one in her garden. It’s a pretty plant to my eyes, but I agree it does spread quite aggressively. I hope she warns Isobel about that.

While she was working on the planting table in the back garden potting up flowers I got ready to go for a walk. I’ve been waiting for weeks for Tiso to open because I really need a new, decent pair of boots. I checked on line to see when they would be allowed to open and found to my surprise they had been open since 1st March! Just to be sure I was right, I phoned the shop and sure enough, they were open from 9am to 5pm all week. I think there is a loophole here. Cycle shops have been allowed to open for some time and Tiso has a large bike shop in their building. Whatever the reason, I’m intending going in to visit them tomorrow to get the aforementioned new pair of boots.

Walked over to St Mo’s and expected to see the tribes of braves and squaws slugging their firewater and practising swearing at each other, BUT… Instead of tribes of marauding teenagers, I found a neatly stencilled sign announcing a Pop-Up Fairy Garden. Behind the sign, and around all the trees were fairies, fairy doors, magic treasure chests and even a fairy washing line. Absolutely gobsmackingly brilliant. It must have been a lot of work by someone. I had to take some photos of it, because it was a Pop-Up and because it was done by fairies, I knew it might not be there tomorrow. My favourite was the fairy washing line and it made PoD. Thank you, whoever you are.

After the photoshoot at the Fairy Garden I went for a short walk in the woods, found the Larch Pineapple and got a few shots of it in a gentle breeze. Much easier than trying to hold the branch still in a gale with one hand while operating the camera with the other. Happier with this photo. It’s on Flickr too.

The bread was baked in the oven and when it came out, the chicken replaced it. As usual, it was delicious served with broccoli and rustic chips.

A parcel arrived by DPD from Perth. I ordered coffee on Tuesday night and it arrived today. That is consistently good service and consistently great coffee.

Quick practise of the Telemark Turn in Tango. It took a few tries to get that spin to work again, but we haven’t practised for a few days. I have to keep working at these things otherwise the muscle memory fades.

Tomorrow, hopefully, a visit to a cycle shop for a new pair of walking boots.

 

 

 

Out early and out of North Lanarkshire – 31 March 2021

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We’d planned to go out today, driving and walking if the weather permitted and it did, so we did too!

We drove to Chatelherault in Hamilton or Fernigair to be more exact. I was never in Fernigair, I only passed it in the bus coming home from work in Cambuslang. I must have passed it going to work too, but I was probably half asleep then. I remember that all the houses were wooden framed and painted dark brown. Now they’ve all gone and been replaced by the tiny chicken box houses that cost a fortune and become too small for a growing family which forces them to buy a bigger chicken box somewhere else. And so the money goes round.

Chatelherault was then a private estate, owned by the landed gentry and mere proles like us were not permitted to even see their grand house behind its big stone wall. Nowadays anyone can tramp round their once private estate and that was our intention today. Last night we planned our route. We’d take the low path from the ‘Big House’ down through the forest and along beside the river to the ‘White Bridge’, then climb the steps to the high path and from there back to the car. That was the plan. Plans are a great idea. Even better is ignoring them.

The walk started well and there was just the hint of blue sky breaking through the clouds. What’s more, it was quite warm. Not South of England, 24º warm, but nearer 12º Scottish warm. We wandered along the path through the trees and listened to the Avon flowing beside us on the right and to the waterfalls coursing down the side of the glen on the left. Of course I just had to try a slow shutter shot (or five) of the waterfalls. The path was fairly dry which was good because I’d worn my Merrell blotting paper boots. Their only good point is the grips on the soles that are much better at preventing slips than the polished soles of the Clarks boots. Now if I could only remove the soles from the Merrells and glue them onto the Clarks boots I’d have the ideal walking boots. Even better, if Nic the Chick would let Tiso open up sooner, I’d be able to buy a pair of boots the equal of my Frankenstein invention.

Back to the path. The path meanders horizontally and also vertically which makes it much more interesting than any road or asphalt path. Parts of it are almost straight and the gradient is gentle, but that’s because the path is following the route of an old mineral railway line. After that line ended we had to climb steps over a rocky part and then it was down the other side and we were almost at the White Bridge. There is a tubular metal barrier across the path at that point and a sign saying PATH CLOSED. The amount of boot marks and paw prints gave the lie to that notice, so we to ignored them. We both knew that the White Bridge was no longer there. Only the pillars remain. Scamp wasn’t happy with clambering over a gap in the boardwalk that would take us to the remains of the bridge and to be honest, neither was I, but I did it and came back without injury.

We discussed our best path back to the car and decided not to climb the steps to the high path, but rather take a fork in the path we’d seen on the way there, that would take us to the Old Avon Bridge. We found the fork without any trouble and followed the path below the Duke’s bridge and after a few hundred yards were at another decision. Do we follow the path to the Old Bridge or take a path up the side of the glen to the Big House. We chose the latter and it was a tough climb. A rest halfway up gave us time to catch our breath and we continued on to meet yet another level of path. From there I could see the avenue at the front of the house. It was an easy ramble from there along past the White Park cattle the estate is famed for and on to the car for a slice of orange, then home.

After we’d had lunch and I’d inspected the photos. I took a walk over to St Mo’s partly to get some more ammunition for a PoD and partly to stretch my legs. The photos didn’t really materialise, but my legs felt better for the stretching.

PoD became the photo of the Duke’s Bridge taken at the start of the walk. About seven miles walked and according to my Fitbit 16,000 steps and 69 sets of stairs climbed. Unfortunately, only 7 out of 8 active hours. The Fitbit is never satisfied!

Saw some Wood Anemones and bright yellow Celandine on our walk. Also smelled Wild Garlic which will always be called Stinking Ingins. (ingins is Scots for onions). I should have foraged some to make pesto.

Hopefully a more gentle day tomorrow. Maybe another leg stretching walk in store.

Welcome to the fairy dell – 30 March 2021

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We have twinkling lights all round the garden. Now it’s a veritable fairy dell.

This morning we were working in the garden. Scamp was doing the directing and I was doing the heavy lifting and the digging. We were moving pots around to make better use of the space we have. One of the Azaleas was travelling out near the back fence to provide some colour until the Buddleia comes into flower. That left more space between the other two azaleas. The space where the plant was moving to was very uneven and it took a bit of spade work to level it off, but that little bit of earth shifting helped provided a more stable bed for it. The place it’s in was once hidden by a metal clothes pole which I cut down last year. This new planting makes good use of a bit of wasted space.

Still on a garden theme, I got my old multi-meter out and checked the voltage of one of the batteries in the solar powered lights that ring the tree. They seemed ok and the solar cell was producing just under a volt, which should have been enough to charge the single 1.2v NiMh battery. I replaced the battery and put it all back together. Weeks ago I bought Scamp some warm white lights to run along the fence. Today I tacked them to the fence with the staple gun. With the electrical work and the landscaping done, we had lunch.

After lunch we walked down and around the boardwalk at Broadwood Loch, then over the dam and back up home. Three goons were flying kites with SNP logos from the path across the dam. That about sums up the SNP it these, its troubled times. Flying a kite indeed!

Later in the afternoon I went for a walk in St Mo’s because I didn’t have many photos from the Broadwood walk, but found very little to interest me. That seems to be a theme these days: “very little to interest me”. I blame the restrictions on movement. I think I’ve photographed every interesting thing in St Mo’s. We need to get out somewhere else. I ended up taking the PoD in the front garden. One of the flowers on our Forsythia bush. It’s the bush where the flowers appear before the leaves.

Interesting microwave curry ready-meal from M&S tonight. Really very tasty. Must look for it cheap again some time.

Watched Line of Duty and am still confused about who did what, when, to whom and why. Are they all lying, and why does this new DCI Davidson sound as if she’s English, pretending she’s Scottish when she is actually Scottish?

It’s all too much for me, but the fairy lights are looking good. Scamp likes them. Tomorrow we may go for a walk somewhere south.