Author: Zogman

Out for a spin – 4 June 2020

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The weather wasn’t very promising, but we just had to get out of the house.

Drove to Torwood Garden Centre to get a pot for Scamp’s new rose. Ended up with a boot full of plants, compost and other ‘essentials’ Plus the back foot well was also being used as secondary storage. We did manage to leave some stuff at the garden centre for other folk, but not a lot. I shouldn’t complain because I got some leek plants and some chard which we did have seeds for, but were too late to sow this year.

Interesting to see their method for limiting the number of folk in the centre. Torwood is the best organised I’ve seen so far. You need to take a trolley in to the shop, you can’t go in without one. They have 30 trolleys and a maximum of two people can go in with one trolley. That way they limit the number of people in the place to a maximum of 60 at any one time. Check out is so much better than Calders. Torwood have two tills running and no big long queue. The path to the tills is clearly marked and when you get there, every step in the process is calculated and run with military precision. I was impressed.

We had bought a longer hose and back home, after lunch I assembled it. It was a lot more complicated than our old one and it gave us both a headache trying to roll it back into the carrier without any kinks. I think we’ve managed it, but it won’t be needed for a while because it rained nearly all day. This is only the start of the deluges according to the weather fairies, but we shouldn’t complain after all the hot sunny days.

Dinner tonight was Thai Chicken Stir Fry from the Muirhead butchers, but I made a mess of cooking it and it ended up too dry. I tried to blame Scamp, but we both knew it was my own fault.

PoD was a flower we saw at Torwood. It’s a Paeonia Patio ‘Kiev’. Too big and showy for Scamp and she’s probably right. It wasn’t a day for taking pictures. Sunny then wet then sunny …

Hoping against hope that the weather fairies will have got it wrong and tomorrow will be dry and sunny.

A fair bit cooler – 3 June 2020

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It was a bit of a culture shock the 10º drop in temperature, but it made a pleasant change … sort of!

Watched a social distanced Cheltenham Science Festival which was compéred by a friend of ours Jamie G. It was about colour and the various presenters produced a great show with limited resources. Impressed

Spoke to Hazy later in the morning and caught up with a few things like gardens and temperatures. For once, we were warmer than down south, well, we had been warmer before today.

After the phone went down I set to work putting the bathroom back to the way it had been before Monday. That took a bit longer than I anticipated because most of the tubes of silicone I was going to use as adhesive to stick the plastic boards back on were either going off, or had been used before and were solid. I found one more expensive tube that had been part used, but was still liquid inside and that got the job done. It sometimes pays to use the full price materials rather than B&Q own brand. With the bathroom sorted, I had to do the same thing with the cupboard in the back bedroom. The boxed-in part of the cupboard had been ripped out when I was trying in vain to find an isolator to turn the water off to the toilet on Monday. That’s why I was replacing the panels in the toilet. This was easier. I just drilled a few holes in the plywood and screwed it in place with wood screws. Oh, the benefit of having a power drill with screwdriver bits. Pity the batteries are so bog awful.

After lunch we went out for a walk round St Mo’s. We went round once and then Scamp went home for coffee and cake, while I did another circuit to get a PoD which turned out to be the spider you see here.

Yesterday I did do a sketch. It was a quick pen sketch of my well worn Palomino Blackwing soft pencil. A Christmas present from Hazy and Neil-D. Great sketching pencil, probably the best ones I’ve ever used. I still have nine left, but will keep using this one until it’s right down to a nub. I’ve got a pencil extender ready for that eventuality, but it’s actually quite comfortable using a small pencil. Try it sometime.
Today’s sketch was a pencil sketch of my baseball hat. Bought about this time last year to take on holiday. I don’t think it will be going far this year.

Tomorrow we may go out somewhere for a drive. More rain forecast. If I have time I’ll take the bike out for that trial run.

Back at the wheelhouse – 2 June 2020

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Before the wheelhouse visit, there was a toilet to fix. Almost as important there was a consignment of coffee due in today and Scamp was off to see Isobel. There you are, the day in a nutshell.

Scamp had a timeline sorted out. She’d go and visit Isobel in the Village and if the plumber hadn’t been by the time she returned, I could go to Clachan of Campsie and she’d stay in until he and the coffee came. Sounded like a plan.

However, before she went I did a rain dance. Not a real dance. Instead I washed the car which is usually the equivalent of it. Almost every time I wash the car, the rain comes on. Lockdown has seriously restricted our driving, but it hasn’t stopped the trees producing their annual sticky buds, or the seagulls crapping their sticky paint removing crap all over the cars. At least the detergent gets rid of the resin from the trees, but the seagull crap is almost impenetrable by any spray or detergent, although the Supergard™ spray is good if you catch the dirt before it gets bonded to the paintwork. That wasn’t the case today. It was the worst mess I’ve ever had to remove, but finally I declared it good enough.

After coffee, Scamp went of to cheer up Isobel and I finished my Sudoku. An hour or so later the plumber arrived and declared that the problem wasn’t with the bit I was playing around with yesterday, but with the float valve (no, I don’t know what that is). He fitted a new one and the toilet now fills, stops and waits for the button to be pushed before emptying and repeating the cycle.

Speaking about cycles. Scamp arrived just as the plumber was leaving, so that gave me the opportunity to drive out to Wheelcraft. Got as far as Twechar and the first drops of rain appeared on the windscreen. They didn’t last and the sun came out. Then a mile or two down the road I drove into the next shower. It was like that all the way there. Place was mobbed as usual with a variety of bikes in various degrees of disassembly. There was even an expensive and complicated looking three wheeler recumbent. I really liked the look of that one, but I’d hate to be riding it with a big sixteen wheeler artic on my tail. Now Big Al may take a while to get round to fixing your wheel, but when you get it back, it looks like a totally new one, just out of the wrapping paper. Gladly paid him then asked if I could take a photo of him in his workshop. I’d brought my old Oly 5 with the Samyang 7.5mm fisheye lens. Ideal for making his work area look even more crowded than it already is. That was the PoD.

Not so much rain on the way back, so I set to and built the wheel back up with the brake disk and tyres on and was just thinking I’d go out for a quick test run when the sky darkened and we could hear the rain battering on the back window. Then hailstones started and I sadly put the bike back in the hall, hopeful that I might get to test out Big Al’s work tomorrow.

Today was Blackout Tuesday to mark the killing of George Floyd in America. All over social media black squares appeared. I added mine. I’m not political. I think Scamp has taught me that life isn’t black and white, it’s all shades of grey. I had never heard of George Floyd before the 25th May. He may have been a good man, he may have been a bad man. I don’t know. I don’t believe he was perfect. What I do know is that he shouldn’t have been killed, so that’s why I put my own black square on Facebook and Instagram. I didn’t post any pictures today, apart from here. Here is different, it’s another shade of grey. This is my site and I choose what content goes on here. That’s why there is a picture at the top of the page and that is why this paragraph is here too.

Tomorrow, the rain might stop.

Went to see a man about a wheel – 1 June 2020

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Before I went to see a man about a wheel, I had a look at the upstairs toilet. It’s been a bit flaky for a while now with the overflow running into the toilet. Usually it stops after a few minutes, but this morning it just kept running. Not dribbling either, but running fast. As soon as water was coming in, it was going out again. Couldn’t find a stopcock in the toilet area, so had to turn off the water at the rising main. Long story short, the plumber is coming tomorrow, hopefully in the morning.

Phoned the bike shop to see what the progress report was on the bike wheel. Basically there was no progress because he couldn’t find the wheel. I said I’d drive over and help him look for it. His workspace is incredible. There must be well over a hundred wheels in this tiny little room, all waiting to be repaired, plus another fifty or so rims and well over a hundred hubs. He’s a great bike mechanic, but he is so disorganised, it’s a wonder he gets anything done at all and this coming from me, a master of chaos. I found my bike wheel right away and after some discussion he said he would start it as soon as he’d finished the one he was working on. Then we had a discussion about what was wrong with the world in general and teenagers in particular. He said he’d give me a ring when the wheel was ready.

When I walked down the lane to my car I saw today’s PoD. I had brought my camera of course, for just this eventuality. As it happened, the depth of field wasn’t as good as I’d hoped, but I actually like the hills slightly out of focus. It gives more prominence to the foreground which is the interesting part.

Back home Scamp was admiring the new rose she’d bought.  It arrived earlier in a big cardboard box about a metre high and about 30cm square at the base.  It really is an impressive rose and I’ve forgotten its name already.  Now the search begins for a suitable pot to put it in.  She was tired of sunbathing which she’d been doing all afternoon I think, and wanted to go for a walk. I’d been driving in a hot car for an hour or so and I too fancied a walk. We walked to St Mo’s and went round the pond once. As usual, too many people in too small a space. About a dozen teenagers sitting swearing and drinking at the start of the forest. I wondered what Big Al would have to say about that.

Tonight I was free to sketch anything I fancied. What I chose was my dad’s Bahco shifting spanner. A lovely big heavy piece of kit made of Vanadium Steel. It made a good model with curves, straight lines and lots of texture. This was Lockdown Library No 50.  The half century!

At 9.15 my phone rang. Big Al had finished the wheel and it would be ready to pick up in the morning. I think the man must sleep in that workshop.

Hopefully the plumber will come tomorrow morning and I’ll be free to go and collect my rebuilt wheel, then we may drive down to speak to Isobel.  However, the weather doesn’t look that clever tomorrow with rain forecast and a significant drop in temperature.

Up early again for the last day in May – 31 May 2020

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That didn’t mean that we were doing much more than getting up, but it was a start.

We finally chose to go for a walk after Scamp had spoken to her wee sister and told her she’s been talking to her big sister yesterday. Also after I’d hung out most of the washing. It was much cooler and much breezier than yesterday with the wind coming from the east. We walked round St Mo’s and then paused for fifteen to twenty minutes watching half a dozen dragonflies, not damselflies, big dragonflies clattering about the wee pond. Some were obviously females, busy egg laying and some were males chasing off the competition, but they all combined to show off their aerial skills as they flew round and between the various obstructions in their path, which included us. Utterly fascinating and perfect for taking you out of yourself and the problems of this new world we are living in.

Back home and time for a Sunday lunch of eggs, black pudding, beef-ham, sausage and tattie scones, all fried. It’s ok to eat healthy six days of the week but on the seventh you can fry your food.

We knew the good weather wasn’t going to last, so Scamp made the most of it. She slapped on the Factor 50 and took herself and her book out into the garden to soak up some rays. I adjourned to the ‘Painting Room’ to sketch today’s drawing which was ‘A Phone’. My choice was an old black bakelite rotary dial phone. They have so much more soul than the black glass slabs we use for everything from sending messages to photographing everything and occasionally even speaking to people. The old black bakelite phones were used for speaking to people and nothing else. I got the basic shape drawn and photographed, then put some black watercolour on it to give some tonal gradation. Happy with the result, I went out for a walk with the ‘big dog’ to see if the dragons had calmed down.

Thankfully they had calmed down and I did get a handful of decent shots, but only after rejecting a bucket load of junk. Today’s PoD was one of the best. It’s a Four Spotted Chaser and it was resting after a strenuous morning.

Got back just in time for dinner to be served. It was Neil-D’s lovely summer style rice and chicken with a variety of veg and condiments. Avocado as starter and Churros as a dessert. A nice bottle of Malbec to wash it down and then a seat outside to watch the sun go down. That’s what the last day of metrological spring is made for.

I watered the back garden afterwards while Scamp fed the front garden plants with some seaweed fertiliser. Coffee to finish off, with a drop of alcohol to take the edge off it.

Not a bad day, all in all. Hopefully we’ll manage one more day of this early heat before the rain comes in the middle of the week. May go and see a man about a bike wheel tomorrow.

The early bird get the photo – 30 May 2020

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Out at around 7.30am because Scamp wanted a photo of her trio of azaleas and I had worked out that 7.30am would be as near as damnit the right time. It was … nearly. Took the photo and went back to bed.

Shock, Horror! No breakfast in bed today. Up before 8.30 and breakfast in the living room. Next, we’ll be having breakfast at the table, or is that a step too far?

After breakfast we went for a walk. What’s become our ‘new normal’ walk. Down around the football stadium and back up the hill. It’s a good mile or so and is not too busy. Apart from joggers, I think we only passed three people today. If we’d crossed the dam we’d have been dodging the socially un-distancing hordes. It was a pleasant day with a slight breeze. Enough to cool you without feeling cold. When we passed the shops the queues were extraordinary. It was a Saturday and it was warm and there were no other kinds of shops open yet, so I suppose it was just the desire to buy something … anything! We didn’t feel the need, so we didn’t join them at this point.

Back home for coffee and a plan for the day. Scamp wanted walk over and visit her sister after lunch. That would give me time to get today’s sketch of a geranium completed with a bit of luck. Luck was on my side for once and, although not as satisfying as yesterday’s painting, todays was ‘adequate’. That’s all, just adequate. I had just finished it and was sitting in the garden with a pair of bluetooth headphones on so I didn’t need to listen to ‘Brain of Britain’ next door proving that empty barrels do indeed make the most noise, when Scamp phoned to ask if she should get a chicken for dinner. Apparently the queues from this morning had decreased significantly. I agreed that it would be good and walked down to the shops to meet her. We just had a basket this time, so bought more or less what we needed and no more.

Still a very pleasant day and much more comfortable than yesterday. I didn’t think the azaleas would cut it as PoD so went out to find some beasties. Scamp went out to sunbathe. She has this enviable ability to tune out distractions when she’s reading because ‘BoB’ was still droning on to anyone who would listen and also to anyone who wouldn’t.

Managed to get a clean shot of a Common Blue damselfly. Isn’t it a terrible shame calling anything ‘Common’. We humans are so superior in their outlook aren’t we. Well humans in general are, but not me. I’m generous to a fault. I wouldn’t call anything or anyone ‘Common’.

Dinner was brilliant. Roast chicken with roast vegetables and potatoes baked in the oven, followed by real fruit cocktail, not your common tinned stuff!

Tomorrow, weather wise, we are expecting more of the same, but after that there may be rain!! Oh No! But the gardens need the rain.

Lockdown release begins – 29 May 2020

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It was true, we were allowed to go out today. Nominally 5 miles, but who was counting.

We were very cool about it to start with, as you sometimes are when you’re desperate to do something, but don’t want to show it. Scamp did some washing and hung it out. I started my Sudoku and made some coffee. We watched a rather boring webinar from our man in Falkirk. We had a spot of lunch too. Moved stuff around the garden and planned some repotting. Eventually we just decided we had to go out. Somewhere … ANYWHERE!

Scamp suggested Fannyside, but we though we’d do a drive past the garden centre anyway. Again, playing it cool and saying that we’d maybe go there during the week. We drove up to B&Q, but the queue there was looooong, so we turned around and drove up the long way to Fannyside, up past Arns forest and round the top of the road. Stopped at the draw in by a stand of Scots Pines and just listened to the silence. Hardly a sound, hardly a breath of wind. We heard a cuckoo. First time I’ve heard one this year. It was miles away, but it was a measure of the lack of noise that its call came over so clearly from its perch about a mile away. Got today’s PoD which just had to be a landscape. I’ve taken so few over the last couple of months that had become a thing to savour. Got a little macro of one of a trio of flies that had socially distanced themselves on a fence post.

Drove back by the moor road and then the unspoken agreement was that we were going to Calders garden centre. Scamp wanted pots and I wanted seeds and then it seemed churlish not to buy a couple trays of cheerful red flowers. Smiles on faces all around. Not all the shelves are full and the variety of plants is still a bit poor, but it was good to be able to browse around outside without a mask. Yes, we used them inside, but for a while, outside we felt like the world was returning to normal, the old normal.

Back home I grabbed two carrots, three tomatoes an onion and half a head of broccoli, arranged them tastefully on my painting table and produced today’s sketch ‘Vegetables’. I was quite pleased with it. Really need to have a look at what paints I need as a lot of them are going down quite quickly. I should be able to get them from some online art shops.

Later it was dinner in the garden and a glass of wine to wash it down. Couple next door were having a noisy dinner with some of their relatives, but although I moaned about the noise, it was just ordinary folk letting off some of the steam they’ve been bottling up for the past couple of months.

We had our first taste of Scamp’s “Westfield Gin Company”distillation. It was very nice. Reminiscent of Elderflower Gin. We only had a small sample, then we had to try it against a commercial variety just for comparison purposes!

All in all, a good day for what might be the beginning of the end of Lockdown and a really hot one. Tomorrow is to be slightly cooler which will be a good thing.

Another hot one – 28 May 2020

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Out for a walk, but only to the shops today.

Walked down to the shops to get tonight’s dinner and ended up with a fair bit more than that. That’s the problem with having to take a trolley (no baskets). There’s a tendency to lift more than you really need, and that’s what we did. Went to get a curry for dinner and came home with three bags full of stuff and a bunch of flowers. Wore our new facemasks in the shop. First thoughts are that the elastic is too tight and my mask is a bit small. Maybe I’ve just got a big head!

Listened with interest to Nick the Chick’s declaration about what phase 1 of the release from lockdown will mean. I like her delivery. It seems sensible, professional and calculated. Still don’t like her, but despite her small stature and big heels, she is head and shoulders above Bumbling Boris. Some nice little snipes from her about Dominic Cummings too. Nothing that could be seen as libel or slander, but quite pointed none the less.

Spent the afternoon trying to copy Lucy’s mask. I think I made a fair go of it, but I’m still not sure how to easily join the outside skin to the inside like she did. It’s definitely not as neat as her professional looking stitchery. May try a slightly different shape tomorrow.

Went for a walk in St Mo’s while Scamp soaked up the sun in the garden. She was well protected with factor 50, I know, I’m the one who has to rub it in to her back and today I dried my hands by rubbing the remainder into my face. Got some photos of a bright green spider. After some research I discovered it was a Cucumber Green Spider and fairly common. I’ve never seen one here before. Only one damselfly and it was far too skittish to get a decent shot of.

Sat in the garden after dinner which was actually quite good. For once I’d say it needed a bit of salt, but Scamp didn’t! Sat with a glass or red and took in some rays. Then went to do today’s sketch which is poor, very poor. The task was to sketch A Water Tap. I chose the plastic tap on the wash hand basin in the downstairs toilet, because I was fed up with drawing metal. The only good thing about drawing in a toilet is there is a place to sit!

Tomorrow! Tomorrow we will be allowed a tiny smidgin of our freedom back. We may go out for a run somewhere!

Yet another beautiful day – 27 May 2020

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Another day when it was criminal to lie in bed.

So out we went again. Just a short walk this time and fairly local. Didn’t drive 30 miles just to check our eyesight as the ridiculous Dominic Cummings claimed he did. Does he really think we believe him? Does he really think our collective heads button up the back? I’m sure he’s right that Boris’s head does. Just a wee walk then. Got my first damselfly shots of this year and just as I was congratulating myself on the capture, I watched a blur of red as a damselfly appeared from stage left, grabbed a moth or maybe a fly that was sunning itself on a horse tail and scoffed it for its lunch. Amazing! It was all over in a couple of seconds.

Back home well in time for our own lunch (not a moth sandwich), then waited around the house for the Asda driver to discharge his load of groceries. With all the stuff safely stashed away, Scamp went out plastered in factor 50 to read in the sun and I took the ‘big dog’ out to see what we could see. And what we saw was one deer that saw me first and wasn’t ready for its close-up, so it made a sharp exit. Saw some tadpoles that have just the hint of frog legs appearing and also spotted Mr Grey studiously stalking something at the edge of the reed beds. Got a couple of grab shots of a pale coloured damselfly among the gorse bushes, but nothing really sharp.

Spent some time when I got back sketching out the shape of the panels of Lucy’s mask. Used Inkscape which is a free, open source vector graphics package that now runs cleanly on a Mac. Much more sophisticated than it used to be in its previous incarnation. Still more clunky than Corel, but it’s free and it works. A useful tool for the arsenal.

Today’s PoD is mating damselflies. Pretty standard, but the colours look more saturated than usual. That’s probably due to the strong sunshine they were taken in. Sketch of the day was ‘Keys’ and was just another attempt at rendering metal in ink and watercolour. Not nearly as good as yesterday’s, but still a worthwhile practise piece.

Tomorrow if the weather is good we may go out walking again. If it’s not I’m going to attempt a Lucy Mask.

Another day, another walk – 26 May 2020

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Today I thought it was Sunday all day long. No reason why, except for Cabin Fever.

Phoned the bike shop in the morning (once I’d established that it was Tuesday and not Sunday) and got a promise the bike wheel would be finished by the end of the week. I sincerely hope that Big Al was not suffering from the same day-dislodgement that had overcome me.

After lunch we went for a walk more or less the same one as yesterday but in a slightly different direction. By the time we got home the sun was warming the place up nicely and we took the chairs out to the garden Scamp with a Pimms and me with a beer. Read for a while then got a surprise.

The girl next door, Lucy gave us a couple of facemasks she had made for us. We both thought that was very kind of her. They were much simpler than my pattern and much more effective I’d think. Curved to fit the face. She said she’d been making them for her gran and grandpa and thought we might appreciate one each too. Like I said we thought that was good of her, but then I thought, does that make us the old people next door? Scamp said “Yes, probably”. Doesn’t matter I liked the thought and because she’s just finished a fashion design course in London, the stitching was so much better than mine!

Dinner was Sea Bass with Potatoes, Broccoli and Cauliflower. Delicious! Scamp was chef tonight.

PoD went to a photo I took earlier in the day of a winged aphid on a rosebud. Scamp appreciated the detail in the picture, but wants rid of the beasties before they damage her roses.

Today’s topic was ‘A Pasta Dish’. I think by this time the setters were becoming tired with the whole EDiM thing and just throwing words and phrases at the list. This is my response to the prompt. There is a dish and there are two pieces of pasta, but really it’s a vehicle to practise drawing cutlery.

Tomorrow we are booked for an ASDA delivery in the afternoon, so any walks will have to be in the morning.