Author: Zogman

Safe to go back in the water – 18 September 2018

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Scamp decided it was time we went swimming again and I agreed.

I’ve always thought it was a good idea to go to the gym at least once a week, in principle at least. The actual practice of getting up of my backside and going to the gym or the pool is a different thing entirely. Today we would attempt that ‘different thing’.

Given my fragile state this week, it was decided that Scamp would drive and we’d just go to the pool, not the gym. For once the pool wasn’t clogged with ladies of a certain age standing around in groups talking, or lazing in the jacuzzi when it was on its cleaning cycle. I walked in to the pool wondering if there was a shark alert I hadn’t seen because it was totally empty of people. There was water in the pool, of course and the water was fairly cool. So much more refreshing than the over warm temperatures much earlier in the year when we were last there. After two or three lengths of the tiny pool, I went to soak up some heat in the steam room. That’s when I realised that there was no door on the sauna. Listening to conversations in the steam room, it appeared that the sauna hasn’t had a door for three weeks. Something to do with it needing special hinges, apparently. Special in that they need to hold the weight of the door and allow it to swing open and closed. Perhaps they need to be hand made by a special hinge craftsperson somewhere in the European Union and Brexit is making it difficult to decide on the exact hinge design to facilitate the exit from the sauna. Perhaps they just can’t be bothered. It’s difficult to phone for a joiner when you’re sitting on your hands. The staff seem to be very good at hand sitting at Westerwood.

Well, that was the first of the winter visits for us and it was fairly successful. I’m not a great fan of the sauna, but three weeks is a long time to get a door fixed. Back home after lunch I went for a walk around St Mo’s intending to get some shots of the variety of fungi that have recently appeared. However, I forgot to bring my Gorilla Pod with me and I’d also left my phone at home, so that restricted the shots I could take. Not an excuse, just a statement. I did get a grab shot of the park bench dedicated to Rose and Spencer Tracy. Not The Spencer Tracy surely?

Came home and made that vegan Aloo Saag again. Used the Magimix this time to blitz the spinach. I didn’t think it did quite as good a job as the liquidiser, but it was much, much quicker. Just a note to self, not really for general consumption. The aloo saag was however consumed with gusto!

That was about it for the day. Just thinking about battening down the hatches before Storm Ali comes charging in tomorrow morning. Glad I’m not going to work.

With my increasing fitness, thanks in part to the swim and the heat in the steam room this morning, I think we’ll be going to Blackfriars for dancin’ tomorrow. Dancin’ at night too perhaps.

Cold begone! – 17 September 2018

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Woke with a fairly clear head this morning and the roughness in my throat had gone. I was miraculously cured!

Just as well really because today is Monday and that’s Gems’ Day. There is no way I could have gone to my bed and stayed there all day while they were singing. What I did do was strip out some old silicone sealant from the shower cabinet and dry out the resulting cavity. Then resealed it and left the bathroom smelling strongly of vinegar. It’s not the best repair in the world, but I think it’s waterproof, or at least better than it was which is the next best thing. Tomorrow, I have to put the shower cabinet back together again with more silicone.

With that done I was free to go out and take some photos. I drove up to the back of Fannyside to see if there were any likely subjects. I found a field with some black sheep that looked as if they’d just arrived from the sales. Usually sheep spread themselves thinly across a field, but this lot were all bunched together and when one of them ventured away from the crowd, the rest followed like … er … sheep! Must visit them next week to see if they’ve settled in a bit better.

My subjects today were macros. A scary looking Daddy Longlegs spider, some Cladonia lichen and some moss fruiting bodies. And the winner is <Cue Drum Roll> The Cladonia. It was a neat, low, tight bunch and that helped keep them nicely in focus.

Scamp was eager to help out with the beginners 6.30 class tonight, so we left early. Unfortunately there was an EIS union meeting in the main hall of the STUC building, so parking was at a premium and we were lumped in a small room on the second floor. Worse still, it was a carpeted room. It’s really hard to dance on a carpet, and especially hard to dance salsa on a carpet. They were doing turns tonight and with the friction of my feet on the carpet, it wasn’t doing my poor wee knee any good. Thankfully the meeting finished before our own class started and we were back on a hard slippy floor. Tonight’s move was called ‘Seo’. Not its real name of course. That was just the name of one of the dancers in a video the teacher had learned the move from. Jamie G once taught a move called Setenta Batman. We searched YouTube to find that move without any success until years later when another teacher told the class that the move was called Setenta Batman because the teacher in the video was wearing a Batman tee shirt. You get used to this method of naming moves after a while.
Andrew and, the newly returned to the fold, Megan had their first beginners class tonight. Apparently it went really well. I don’t imagine we will be helping with that class … Ever!

Tomorrow we may be going for a swim. If so, I may go to the gym and loosen up my leg on the bikes. First time since the spring, I believe!

I’ve got the Cold – 16 September 2018

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Woke with a sore throat. It couldn’t have been last night’s rum ’n’ blackcurrant, surely. The Ribena is supposed to be good for you!

Felt as rough as my throat. Had breakfast and gargled with some awful Listerine which usually sorts it out pronto, but it didn’t today, so pulled up the covers and went back to bed. Surfaced an hour or so later feeling just the same. Decided that I’d better get up. Vertical is sometimes better than horizontal with the cold. The hot shower helped a bit, but only a bit.

Watched an ‘eventful’ Singapore GP with very little to recommend it other than Vettel coming in third. They really need to do something about Perez before he kills or maims someone. Crashing into someone you’re racing because the won’t let you past is a sign of the wrong temperament for a racing driver.

Decided that as the rain had gone off, I’d get covered up well and go for a walk in St Mo’s. That’s where today’s PoD came from. Also decided that I wasn’t fit to go dancin’, certainly not salsa dancin’, so we stayed at home. I felt sorry because I’d also done Scamp out of her evening’s dancin’. Hopefully I’ll be fit for class tomorrow.

That was it for a dull day in the rain. Tomorrow will be better.

I have seen the future and it works – 15 September 2018

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Electricity travels at almost the speed of light. Diesel is hard to spell and is a fossil fuel.

Today we took the ‘leccy train to Embra. We didn’t intentionally go the ‘leccy route. It just happened that the train we were waiting for was powered by the new clean, invisible power source. The Stirling train that preceded it was powered by old fashioned, smelly, hard to spell deisil, desil, diesel. That’s because they don’t have electricity in Stirling yet. They still have gas lights in the street and coal fires. I do feel sorry for them.

The super fast ‘leccy train took longer than the diesel trains they are replacing. Maybe it was cheap, slow electricity they were using or maybe it was Abellio who now run Scotrail who couldn’t manage the rail system properly. Surely not! Anyway, we got to Haymarket and walked up the road for morning coffee in Nero, but not before I set the Samyang loose in Ladyfield which is a great canyon between large imposing office blocks. That’s where PoD came from. I really like the perspective this lens gives. With one in the bag, I could enjoy my morning coffee.

After that we walked up through the Grassmarket to see if anyone was actually selling grass. They weren’t, but I wasn’t surprised because I hadn’t seen anyone selling hay at Haymarket. (Sounds better with a Chic Murray delivery.) From there we headed for the Royal Mile which was mobbed. I was beginning to think that there had been an extension to the Fringe Festival, but it was just the usual bunch of escapologists, jugglers and fire eaters performing for the tourists. We’re not tourists, we LIVE in Scotland. There did seem to be quite a lot of tourists about, but I later checked and the Norwegian Jade cruise ship was docked at Leith, so that probably explained things.

We walked back down through the Old Town and from there along George Street, then back along Rose Street, eventually giving up and heading for the tea room at the National Gallery where our lunch was a shared baguette of smoked salmon with leaves and mayo and a two cups of tea, paper cups, to Scamp’s disgust. After our light lunch we just got the train home. We’d had a bit of a wander around the Capital and were ready to return to the real world.

It was a dull day weatherwise with nothing much to recommend it. I took a few more photos to test out the ability of the Samyang, but am fairly confident that at f8 or better it can handle almost anything I can throw at it. It’s a keeper, for sure.

Got the ‘leccy train back home and it was fast! Impressively so. Shave a good 10 minutes off a 45 minute journey. The folk in Stirling don’t know what they’re missing. They thought it was a great thing last year when the diesel trains replaced the steam trains they’d had for years. Not to mention that the carriages had roofs, not like the open carriages they’d had before.

Tomorrow it’s the Cumbersheugh 10k, so if we’re not out by 10am we’re locked in until midday. I don’t suppose we’ll mind as the weather is to be ‘Scottish’. Hopefully dancing later.

Coffee and the Bridge to Nowhere – 14 September 2018

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Coffee first then a walk over the bridge from nowhere to nowhere.

I met Fred for a coffee and a wee natter this morning. Just the two of us. We’d both forgotten to invite Val and Colin, so we share the blame. Topics were mainly about painting, drawing and photography. No politics for a change.

When we were done, instead of going our separate ways, we went by the new bridge. It’s not really new, it’s been there for a few years now, but few people cross it, so it’s new to a lot of folk. I’d never had cause to cross it until today, because both of us were parked on the north of Central Way that bisects the town centre and the coffee shop is on the south side. Here’s the first amazing thing. You don’t need to climb any stairs to get on to the bridge, there’s a lift. Hardly anyone crosses this bridge, but there’s a lift. The second amazing thing is that the voice that tells you “Doors Closing”, “Lift Going Up”, “Level One” etc, has a Scottish accent! The third, and probably the most amazing thing is that the lift and the bridge haven’t been vandalised yet. Maybe that’s because the lift and bridge take you from a ground level carpark to an upper story carpark. Who in their right mind builds a bridge and installs a lift to take you from one carpark to another. There is no direct access to any offices or shops from this bridge, just carparks. Maybe it was designed by a forgetful driver who couldn’t remember where he’d left his car and wanted easy access between the two possible sites. Who knows. It’s just another Cumbersheugh Anomaly. What it did do was give me PoD, so it can’t be all bad. One more strange anomaly is that when you do get across there’s a covered walkway along the side of the carpark, but only for about 20m then it just stops. The walkway continues, but then it’s open to the elements. It’s as if they just got fed up with the idea and abandoned it. It’s typical of Cumbersheugh, half finished. Walked across the wasteland of the upper carpark in the rain and drove home.

We were going out tonight to a meal in Glasgow to celebrate Scamp’s sister’s birthday which is actually tomorrow. Unfortunately she’ll be on her way to Southampton tomorrow for a holiday cruise to the Canaries. The meal was in the Premier Inn on Sausage Roll Street and although there were no sausage rolls involved, it was a good night. Most enjoyable. Again, because drink would be taken, we got the bus in to Glasgow and the bus back again. Sometimes I feel we spend half our lives on the x3.

That was about it for a wet and windy Friday in September. Tomorrow we may go east to Embra where you get a better class of weather than here.

Posh Fish ’n’ Chips – 13 September 2018

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But without the chips.

Today we went to The Barras to have lunch in A’Challtainn Fish Restaurant. Drink would be taken, so we went in to Glasgow on the bus. Coffee in Nero and then a walk down Bucky Street and across the Merchant City to Glasgow Cross, then off into the depths of The Barras. I found it difficult to work out where I was for a while. There were buildings where there used to be empty spaces. There were empty spaces where there used to be buildings. Some of the buildings that were where I left them the last time I was there had now been wrapped up like Christmas prezzies and were being shot blasted. As we walked past these plastic covered buildings I wondered what it must be like working in those conditions. It was noisy enough outside, it must be (literally) deafening inside.

Thankfully Bill’s Tool Store was still there, so we had a landmark. We were headed further in to the Barras to a place called BaaD (Barras art and Design) bad acronym. We were booked for 1.30 and it was only just after 1pm when we arrived, but it wasn’t a problem because they weren’t busy. The food was lovely. Scamp had a starter of Smoked Salmon Crab Cannelloni. The Cannelloni turned out to be a slice of smoked salmon wrapped round a portion of crabmeat. My starter was Grilled Sardines. Both starters were served with Smoked Herring Roe which I can remember having when I was really young because my mum loved it. I didn’t, and I still don’t.
Mains were:
Scamp – Sorched Scottish Salmon, Lime Pickled Fennel & Smoked Mussels
Me – Crab Linguini, chilli, garlic, lemon, white wine & parsley
Both had complementary Smoked Herring Roe.
We finished off with coffee.
All in all, the food and service were exceptional. Who would have thought that there would be a posh fish restaurant in the Barras (and no chips).

After our lunch we walked back up through the town and got the bus back home. Not before I got today’s PoD outside TJ Hughes. I’m not sure if it looked better in colour or mono. I risked the colour version.

Tomorrow it’s coffee with Fred at midday and dinner with June, Ian, Jackie and Murdo in the evening all being well. Might even have fish ’n’ chips!

Shiny and clean again – 12 September 2018

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No drilling the wall this morning, but we were up early anyway.

I thought that as the car would be going in for its first service next week, I should make an effort and give it a bit of a wash and brush up. It didn’t take too long and then I took it for a run to Craigmarloch to dry it off. Of course, when I was coming back the rain came on to wash away any remaining suds. Saw the strangest thing when I got to the Broadwood roundabout. The lights were at green for me, but one bloke held at the red light decided he could nip in in front of me, then seemed to realise that the roundabout IS actually light controlled. By this time he was halfway across the road and blocking both lanes. When he’d sheepishly reversed back behind the line, I just managed to get past on amber. What a numpty. Having said that, I’ve done the same thing myself a few times.

Drove a clean car in to Glasgow to go to ballroom class. Managed to get a few shots of the shiny reflective building with the new toy, but the PoD was a view of Buchanan Galleries through the glass brick windows of the car park.

Waltz is getting smoother. Quickstep is getting quicker and Lindy Hops are as bad as ever. Almost a private lesson today as the rest of the class were rated as ‘Beginners’ and I think we are now ‘Improvers’. Knee was sore, but I had taken Scamp’s advice and downed a couple of Paracetamol before I left the house and they kept things manageable.

After class, Scamp had business in town and I went for a browse in CassArt. Didn’t find anything but students with lists of things to buy for their courses and grants that no doubt would be reducing by the minute.

Drove home and discovered that Jamie G was not taking the salsa class tonight. Nobody was willing to say who the teacher would be, which can only mean one thing, or one person. We made the decision that it was too wet to go tonight with no sign of any fun in the class. We’d supplement our Salsa time on Sunday with a Sunday Social instead, hopefully.

Tomorrow we’re booked for lunch at a posh fish and chip shop in The Barras!

What’s he building in there? – 11 September 2018

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Title courtesy of Tom Waits, fitted this morning perfectly.

We have been in the habit of having breakfast in bed most mornings, but this morning our new next door neighbour decided it was time for us to stop this leisurely pursuit when he started drilling into the wall on the other side with a hammer drill. I don’t know what he was doing, but by the sound of it, he was hoping to strike oil, or maybe open a hole into our bedroom so he could have a word with us. I imagine he was putting up shelving in his attic which would be about level with our upstairs, his being a single storey and ours being a double. Anyway, my book was getting boring and his boring was getting on my nerves, so I got up, dressed and went down stairs. That’s when the drilling in the wall stopped!

I had intended to go looking for another body repair shop to fix the scrape in the car door today, but before I could really do that, I had to at least try to clean it up a bit. When I got started with a cloth and some Brasso (just the same as T Cut, but a fraction of the price), I found that the paint layer was undamaged. One tiny little chip and that was all. I decided to forego the expense of the body shop until it’s necessary, some time in the next two years. Procrastination is the name of the game! I’d just wash the car instead. That’s when the rain started. Did I say “Procrastination”? Maybe I’d wash the car tomorrow. The rain was getting heavier anyway.

It stayed raining for most of the afternoon, at least until the DPD man came with two parcels. One contained coffee and the other my new, well new to me, Samyang 7.5mm. I stuck it on the camera and took a few shots of the living room and laughed at the size of it, the living room, that is. I now know how estate agents get those shots of enormous rooms. Super Wide Angle Lenses, that’s how. I took some of the garden too and noticed that the rain had stopped. Too late to wash the car now, there were new toys to play with!

Walked round a bit of Broadwood Loch and got the PoD above and a whole lot of others besides. The lens is a lot bigger and bulkier that the slim Oly 9mm, but there are a host more controls. The images it creates are sharp and really well saturated. I think this one’s a keeper. It better be, it’s paid for now.

Dinner tonight was fish pie. Very tasty. Followed by Apple Pie using our own James Grieve apples and this is where the InterWeb is such a mine of sometimes useless and often fascinating information. Did you know that most apple trees have diploid chromosomes? I’m sure one or two of you out there are saying “Doesn’t everyone know that they have two chromosomes?”. The rest of us are saying “Does it make them taste better?” Most people know that you have to cross fertilise apple trees, that is you can’t have two apple trees of the same variety and hope that they will pollenate each other, but did you know that some trees are partially self fertilising? Apparently it all depends on the spring weather. If it’s a dry, warm spring, the chances of success are better than if it’s the damp and cold spring weather we usually have. Our James Grieve is a partially self fertilising and that brings me round to how I found out all this information and so much more. You see, I was just wondering if it was “I before E” in Grieve. It was, but I got drawn away from my spell checking into the private lives of our apple trees. Aren’t computers wonderful. You’d never go and look up an encyclopaedia to check a spelling and get drawn in like you can on a computer. With that thought I’ll finish this blog for today.

Tomorrow we’re dancing in the afternoon and hopefully at night too.

Late start. Lost day – 10 September 2018

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Slept too late today because of a late night last night. In so doing, I lost the best part of the day.

If there was a best part, that is. Drove out to Airdrie to try another garage to get the scrape fixed. The owner was off on holiday. How inconsiderate of him! Who decides that these people can swan off on holiday any time they choose. He should have known I wanted to see him, even if I didn’t know him and hadn’t heard of him until yesterday. Only one more garage to try and that will need to be tomorrow.

Parcels are coming tomorrow. One contains coffee from Perth and the other contains the Samyang 7.5mm lens for the Olys. Don’t know which one get to play with it first. It seems to me that the Oly 5 gets the best shots from the short lenses an the Oly 10 certainly works better with the longer zoom. In particular, the Oly 10 does not work well with the short kit lens. Don’t know why, it just is.

Avoided Gems in the afternoon by driving to Auchinstarry and walking along the canal, over the plantation and back again in the rain. It was the rain that helped produce the PoD, so I shouldn’t be too critical of the weather. Weather is just there. It’s a given and you have to use it to your advantage. Of course, you could do like I did the other day and add some golden sunshine in Lightroom or ON1, but you should really accept what you’re given and do something with it. I don’t think I’ll ever be happy to do that though 😉

Salsa tonight was half an hour of beginners being amazed that they have mastered Dile Que No, which is no mean feat in week 2 of the course. That was followed by an advanced class reprising moves we’ve been doing for the past three weeks. I’m not complaining at all. I think that’s exactly what we need some times. I enjoyed the night, but my knee was giving me gyp for the last half hour.

Tomorrow, I’m hoping to go out looking for someone to give me a price for fixing my scratched car. Alex sent me some shots he’s taken with the Samyang he used to have and they look good, so I’m hoping for some decent weather to test it out.

Just one of those days – 9 September 2018

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Do you ever have one of those days when nothing happens, but then you have difficulty in recalling any of it? No? Must just be me then.

Didn’t get up until late. There seemed no point as the sun seemed to disappear, then reappear again weaker than it was. It would repeat this sequence, then come back strong again before starting again. It was also raining fitfully. Almost as if it couldn’t be bothered becoming full on rain, it just wanted to drizzle all day.

It was Scamp who decided we must get up and go shopping. Not go for messages, go shopping to Morrisons in Falkirk and she was driving. So off we went (we got dressed first 😉 ) We hadn’t gone far before the rain started in earnest and continued all the way to Falkirk. We went to get milk and muesli and came home with a whole lot more. Loads of stuff. Morrisons weren’t doing breakfast, well they were, but it was taking 20 minutes for hot food and we wanted hot food, so we said “no thanks” and came home to make breakfast / lunch. Not brunch, because that’s american (with a small ‘a’) and we’re not the sort of people who do brunch. Whatever it is.

After lunch or breakfast whatever you want to call it, I went out to see if a bloke in Coatbridge would fix the scrape I made in the car last week, but he only fixes bumps and wasn’t interested because the paint was scraped and he didn’t have the tools to do paint jobs. He did however tell me about somebody on the other side of town who could do the job. That’s tomorrow’s visit.

Came home and took today’s PoD from the top of the Whin Edge Brae above Mollinsburn. Faked it back home to produce moving clouds in the sky area but static grass stems in the lower part. Also gave it a warmer light overall. Not great, but at least I took a photo today.

Spent the evening tweaking the email settings on my Linx 12×64 and finally managed to get all my emails working on Windows 10.  We should have been  going  to Mango to dance with The Dark Side, but just before 6pm when we were due to leave, we had to put the house lights on because it was so gloomy and the rain was battering against the window.  We couldn’t really be bothered, so we left it to another day.

Just one of those days.

Tomorrow I am hoping to go to sunny Coatbridge to see a man about paint.