Kingston – 6 February 2020

Off on our travels again.

Today we’d earmarked Kingston upon Thames as the place to go. We’d been there before a few times, but that doesn’t mean we can’t go again and probably find new wonders to explore. Now that we know how to use Oyster cards and even simpler credit cards to pay on buses and trains, travel without a ticket is the way to go. Single price journeys are so much easier to work with too.

So it was a walk along to the bus stop, then the No 71 to Kingston as the lady’s voice from the speaker reminded us at every stop. Then a visit to M&S for a new bunnet followed by a coffee in Nero. After that, a walk round the market and then down by the Thames in the sunshine under a bright blue sky where we saw some cormorants drying their wings.

Lunch was Japanese street food in Itsu. Mine was a Chicken Noodle soup with lots of ginger and Scamp had a Chicken and Coconut soup. We both shared a portion of Chicken Gyoza. To finish off we had a beer in the Druid’s Head. Managed to find most of the stuff we needed for dinner in Waitrose and got the bus back to Chessington.

PoD was the Thames walkway at Kingston. SoD was a snail which was the answer to the “Crawl” topic.

 

 

Tunnels and Trains – 5 February 2020

Goin’ down south to have a good time …

Out early(ish) for the taxi to the station for the train, then another train, walked for miles through underground tunnels, then another train. Climbed the stairs and missed the next train (as usual). Got the next one and then out of the station in a strange land. Started walking to the house. Discovered I’d lost my old brown bunnet somewhere. Oh no! Thought about going back, but where would it be? At the station? On one of the many trains? In a tunnel? At another station? Impossible to work out where, so resigned myself to the fact that we’d be separated forever. Hopefully someone who needed one would find it and give it a new head to keep warm.

Got to Hazy’s house after the long walk along, almost overtaking some of the cars stuck in what seems to be a perpetual traffic jam.

At Hazy’s we met Tilly the new cat and Penny the aloof matron. It was pizza for dinner tonight. A big 12” anchovy and olive for me while Hazy and Scamp shared a mushroom, peppers and anchovy one.

PoD was a grab shot, taken at Vauxhall. SoD topic was Dotty. Two ladybirds making more ladybirds was my take on the subject.

Fairly early to bed tonight after a long day of trains, tunnels and lost bunnets.

Tiger – 4 February 2020

A beautiful bright morning. Seemed a shame to waste it.

Drove over to Drumpellier Park and walked round the loch in the sunshine. On the far side of the loch the water had overflowed into the bank of trees and it looked just like a mangrove swamp. We were expecting to see crocodiles in the water and a snake or two hanging from the trees, but all we saw were a gang of Mallards quacking away as they paddle through the maze of tree trunks. We went for a coffee in the wee cafe, at least it was coffee we asked for, but I think we got Babychinos instead. There certainly wasn’t much coffee in evidence. The place seemed to be full of mums and babies, three of whom were having a laughing competition to see who could make the most noise. Even the scones were a disappointment today. Not a good day at the cafe.

Drove home and after lunch I thought I should start today’s sketch and the topic was Tiger. I’d thought of doing a Tiger Lily or a De Havilland Tiger Moth, but finally put pen to paper and copied a tiger from a Google Images shot. My first attempt wasn’t all that good, so I tried a practise piece on my doodle sheet, beginning with the nose rather than the eyes. Then the beast you see above appeared through the doodles! It became PoD.

Scamp and I were discussing PoDs this morning and I was admitting that the quality of my PoDs of late has not been really worthy of the name. On dull, wet, dark days it’s difficult to find suitable subjects for the PoD, or even a decent photo to put into the 365. I’m loathe to stop the 366, but I have to say that the time it takes to make a silk purse from a pig’s ear photo, even in the best of software is disproportionate to the quality of the finished product. Also, taking the photos, processing them, sketching something that fits the February day’s prompt and then posting both shots, plus the blog takes a lot of time. As some of you will have noticed, if anything else happens on any given day, the blog is the one that suffers and I find myself playing catch-up next day.

With that in mind, and it being February, I intend to still take a photo if the light and the weather suits, but hopefully I’ll manage to complete a drawing or painting from the month’s list and this will become PoD. Hopefully once February is over and we are into the lighter days of March there will be more opportunities for photos DV. If not, then I will probably suspend the 366 and just post the occasional good quality photo.

Plans have been made for tomorrow. Hoping for some decent light to get some photos too.

Dreadful Dancing – 3 February 2020

But before we come to that, it was a windy, wet day, but I posted a letter, solved a problem (perhaps), got rid of some stuff and I got one decent shot.

So, with Gems coming today and no Margie because she’d called off, I grabbed the letter and a bag of old laptop batteries and went out to solve a problem. The problem was the poor mpg on the Juke. I took JIC at his word and checked the tyre pressures. Front 31psi should be 36. Rear 29psi should be 31. The rear ones weren’t a problem, but the front ones certainly were. Crouched in a heavy rain shower and got them all up to the recommended pressures with the automatic pump at the petrol station, because I don’t trust my old pump that plugs into the lighter socket. It seems to be working JIC. Mpg seems to have improved after a very rough and ready check. Will keep you posted.

Next on the list was the letter. I’d recently signed myself fit in mind and body to drive a motor vehicle and was given a new plastic driving licence free of charge on the understanding that I’d cut through the old licence and return it to the DVLA. I cut it up over a week ago and today I posted it away.

The stuff I was getting rid of was a collection of old laptop batteries. Two HP and two Apple batteries. Easy peasy, there is a metal container at the recycling centre where you can drop them off. There’s a load more stuff that needs recycled from the back bedroom, but that can wait until next week.

With that all done, I drove up to Fannyside Moor looking for some inspiration. It came in the form of a bank of cloud lying over the loch. I’ve photographed that tree for many years with many cloudscapes behind it and with varying degrees of success. Today wasn’t one of the best, but it recorded the day.

With that I drove home and started to make dinner. Tonight it was red pasta day. Just a basic sugo with some finely chopped shallots and mushrooms mixed in. Seemed to work well.

Now the dancing. We started with the Saunter Together which I thought we’d mastered, but I was wrong. After a couple of dummy runs we did a passable version of the first part, but the second part still eludes me. Next was Foxtrot and I was confident we’d have that off pat. Again I was wrong. We just kept making mistakes. I got lost. Scamp was determined to turn the opposite way from the one I was trying to turn her in (for once, I was right too!). We just made a pig’s ear of it. Finally the Waltz, and finally we found we could dance that. Not perfectly, but definitely much the best of all tonight’s dances. Only stayed for an hour because our brains were befuddled.

Came home and I sketched tonight’s Burger. I don’t like salad on my burger and I detest mayo on it too, so my burger is a hamburger with a nice piece of melted cheese. If I’m going to have to draw and paint it, I might as well make it the burger I’d actually eat.

So, some successes and some work in progress. Wind seems to have died down a lot after a very stormy night last night. That said, it was sleet that was falling when we were on the way to the dance class tonight.

Tomorrow no real plans. Maybe move the settee round and clear the floor for some Foxtrot practise.

I saw shadows today – 2 February 2020

It was another of those dull days we’ve grown to accept this January and February. I went out for a walk and saw some shadows.

You don’t get shadows on a dull day. They only appear when there’s direct sunlight. It didn’t last long, but I managed to get a few shots in the time it was there. One of them became PoD and that’s what you see above.

Earlier, in the morning to be more exact, I started to recover the back room from the piles of rubbish and not-so-rubbish that was covering every horizontal surface. I used my usual FKB method. File, Keep, Bin. Some of the stuff was in the Keep box. Some went into the File box, in fact some of the stuff that had been put in the Keep box got moved to the File box in phase 2. The remainder dropped into the Bin which is now overflowing. The bonus from this is that I’ve once again found the top of the chest of drawers and with just a little more work, I’ll be able to sit on the sofa.

Later in the afternoon, I went out in the rain to try to find some photos, that’s when I found the sunlight and grabbed my few shots. Back home I started to make dinner – paella. We were just finishing dinner when Scamp’s phone announced that tonight’s Sunday Social had been cancelled because the Record Factory was hosting a Super Bowl evening instead. I wouldn’t like to be in their shoes when Shannon goes eyeball to eyeball with them tomorrow. That Canadian snarl will freeze them to the floor. Seriously though, 15 minutes before the social was due to start and we get a message to say it’s been cancelled. Somebody somewhere has some explaining to do.

At least it gave me an extra two or three hours to get my February drawing done. Today’s topic was Paris and rather than do the usual and expected Eiffel Tower, I drew one of the gargoyles from Notre Dame. The purists will know that you can’t actually see the Eiffel Tower from this angle, but that’s what artistic licence was designed for.

Tomorrow is a Gems day. I’m hoping for another few minutes of shadows to allow me to grab some more photons.

A Day in Perth – 1 February 2020

Just a gentle drive up the M9.

Drove up the M9 at a sedate 63mph trying to find out why the Juke doesn’t seem as economical as it used to be. It could be JIC’s suggestion of the new tyres or possibly they are under inflated, but the fuel consumption was extra poor today. Can’t explain it. Saw the new Juke in the shopping centre in Perth. The ergonomics of the controls on the steering wheel seem to be even worse that the Red Juke’s. Not sure I like it. Of course the display model was top of the range, so not a real comparison with ours.

Anyway, we’d hoped we’d be driving away from the rain today, but that wasn’t to be. It followed us up the road and dumped even more of the wet stuff on us. Took back a pair of summer sandals that didn’t fit Scamp and got some bags of coffee and tea then drove back down the road again getting the same mpg as we had going. One brighter was driving along past Stirling with a rainbow arching over us as we drove. It seemed to be keeping pace with us. Never seen that before.

PoD was the ‘Perth Moonshot’ which was an old church with masses and masses of scaffolding shrouding it. It looked like Cape Kennedy with the nose cone of a rocket just showing above the scaffolding.

Back home it was soup and bread for dinner. Both were deemed great.

First drawing done for EDiF (Every Day in February) and 28 Drawings Later, both on Facebook. Hopefully I’ll get it posted after posting this.

Tomorrow we may go dancing.

Just keep on cooking – 31 January 2020

This was going to be a busy day.

Crawford, Nancy, June and Ian were coming to dinner and I was doing the main course and the pudding. Main was fairly easy Cod with Braised Peas, Lentils and Bacon. Pudding was the worry. It was Crème Brûlée. Difficult to type, but hellish to make. Basically a baked cream custard with burnt sugar on top. I might have made it before from a packet, but never from eggs, cream, sugar and lots of beating. However, the only way to do it was to get started.

Before I started, I chucked some flour, water, yeast and butter in the mixer and beat it for 10 minutes. With that done, I boiled then simmered the cream and vanilla pod (forgot to mention that in the list of ingredients). While it was simmering I separated the yolks from the whites of four eggy-weggs and beat the living daylights out of them and some sugar with a balloon whisk. Finally gave up and used the electric hand mixer. Oh, thank goodness for the person who invented electric beaters! Mixed in the creamy stuff and beat it again until it thickened, except it didn’t thicken. I don’t know what I did wrong, it just wouldn’t thicken. Eventually I just filled the ramekin dishes with the yellow mixture and stuck then in a tray filled with water and baked them for about an hour. They looked better, but still not right, but I wasn’t caring they were set to cool and later went into the fridge as a punishment for not thickening properly.

Scamp went out to lunch with the witches and I managed to grab a five minute dry spell to get today’s PoD which is one of Scamp’s Christmas Roses (Heleborus Orientalis Lenten Rose). Scamp’s contribution to tonight’s meal had been made first thing this morning and was a lovely lentil soup made from a ham hock. Thick and tasty and a lot easier to make than the Crème Brûlée.

When she came home it was time to clear the table and set it out for dinner. The visitors arrived on time and we settled down to the food. The soup tasted great. The main course seemed to go down ok, but the Crème Brûlée was a disaster. It hadn’t set properly and the burnt sugar topping was brick hard.

Other than the pudding the night was a success and we staggered off to bed around 1am.

Tomorrow we may go to Perth. You will have gathered from the lateness of the blog and the last paragraph that this a catch up, so I won’t spoil the surprise by telling you whether we went to Perth or not!

Out on the town – 30 January 2020

Today was the anniversary of the day we first met. A much more sensible anniversary than the day we married.

Simply put, if we hadn’t ever met, we wouldn’t ever have married, but if we’d met and never married, it would have made little difference to us. To other people it would have been important, but to us it would have simple have been a convenience.

We got the bus in to Glasgow today. Not the slow X3, but the much quicker X28 from Condorrat. True, we had to walk over to Condorrat, but it was worth it not to have the bus stop at every one of the 5,000 stops all the way to Glasgow. Well, it seemed like that anyway.

We went for coffee in Nero before we walked down through the town. I watched an older woman struggling with a smartphone until a young bloke helped her to dial her friend on it. After a couple of attempts she managed to complete the connection and asked the bloke the name of the coffee shop she was in. She then relayed this information to her friend who told her he/she would meet her outside the Concert Hall. Again she asked for help from the young bloke, but this time he couldn’t help as he didn’t come from Glasgow, so another couple provided directions (it was actually just next door). We take technology like smartphones for granted and for those of us who are adept at using it, we can find all the information we need at the touch of a button. For others it’s a bit of a trial. It’s easy to forget how bamboozling modern technology can be. I hope she found her friend.

We walked down Bucky Street and I grabbed today’s PoD outside the Apple shop. I wonder how much business SimplyFixIt gets from this sign? Walked further along Argyll Street an up past the old fruit market for lunch in Gandolfi Fish. Lunch was Smoked Haddock Goujons as starter for both of us followed by Oven Baked Cod with Pomme Anna and Kale for Scamp. For me it was Sea Bass and Prawn Risotto. Washed down with a bottle of Italian red. For once we had a pudding: Panna cotta with Strawberries and Basil for Scamp. All of it absolutely brilliant. Service too was done with a smile which always helps. Had a drink in the Gandolfi Bar next door, but it was a dull, cold and uninteresting place. We wouldn’t go back there, but Gandolfi Fish is on our list now.

Bus back to Condorrat and then walked home in a gathering gale with splashes of rain. It didn’t matter, because we’d had a great day.

Tomorrow we’re cooking for six!

It rained – 29 January 2020

I think it had an early breakfast to give it the strength to keep going all day.

There was no chance of going out photographing today without a pair of waders or a wetsuit. The furthest we went was Tesco to get the makings of tonight’s dinner and also some of the makings of Friday night’s dinner. At Tesco I bumped into the bloke who used to own the garage we always took our cars to. Now his sons run the place and he’s retired. I asked him how he was getting on with having so much time to himself and although said he was keeping busy, I didn’t get the impression that he was totally relaxed with it. It takes a while to leave one lifestyle and embrace another.

Back home we ignored today’s dinner and Friday night’s dinner and concentrated on tomorrow’s itinerary and lunch. I think we have it sorted now. Hopefully I’ll be singing its praises tomorrow.

For dinner tonight Scamp made Chicken Cacciatore. It was delicious. I couldn’t attempt something like that. I’d take my hat off to her if I was wearing one.

Today’s PoD was a tabletop shot of my partly disassembled pens and a drawing to prove that I’m getting ready for 28 Drawings Later which starts on Saturday.

Tomorrow, a day in town for lunch and hopefully not so much rain.

More bloody problems – 28 January 2020

Not satisfied with yesterday’s four bottles, the vampires want more blood.

Phone call at just after 9am from the doctor’s surgery to say that the blood I gave yesterday had arrived at the lab without any labels, so could I please donate more. I tried to explain that I have a limited amount of the red stuff in my veins and it would take me a while to replenish my reserves sufficiently for another donation. We agreed a date and time and the receptionist apologised for the problem. I’m sure she’s one of the vampires, because I heard her licking her lips as she put the phone down.

When I looked out the window the ground was white. No snow was falling and the sky was clear, but all around was crisp and even, just not deep. Two out of three will do me for a photo or two. But that would be later. It wasn’t even half past nine and I had a book to finish. February’s Son. Brilliant book.

After my morning coffee and after solving an incredibly difficult Difficult level Sudoku, I went out and cleared the snow from the car and drove Scamp down to Broadwood Farm for her lunch date with Mags. Got some bread and milk on the way home and then went out for a walk in St Mo’s with three cameras. Old EPL 5 with an ultra wide lens. New GX 80 with a wide zoom and middle aged E-M1 with a macro. Surely I had everything covered? Indeed I had. Lots of photos taken and all cameras used. Haven’t picked a PoD yet as this is an early version of the Blog. Happy with what each of them produced though.

Back home again and after lunch which was a piece ’n’ roast beef with garlic and coriander, just to dissuade any more hungry vampires pretending to be from the doc’s surgery. I made some soup. What Scamp calls ‘just soup’. In other words, nothing fancy, just soup. When Scamp arrived after walking back from lunch we finally put the Christmas decorations up in the loft and by that time it was late afternoon and it was getting dark. The clouds had sneaked in when we weren’t looking and taken away all that good sunlight from this morning, but not to worry, I did get some shots to prove I was out in it. The best one turned out to be the view along the snow covered boardwalk taken with the Samyang 7.5mm fisheye. Not your normal, everyday lens, but what it does, it does well.

No plans for tomorrow, we’ll have to wait and see what we get up to.