Author: Zogman

Dancing in the morning – 29 August 2018

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Today Michael had deemed that the dance lesson would be in the morning.

That meant an earlyish rise and we were out by 10.15am. In Glasgow we started with a fairly lengthy waltz lesson covering all we’d learned so far with Michael tweaking and gently adjusting it. Things were beginning to make more sense. Next was quickstep and that wasn’t much clearer than it had been before. I’d forgotten just how fast it was. Tango was much better. Got the head movement and the staccato style of the dance better. Today we had to change partners for a while just to see how the other half danced! Finally we were on to Jive, but not the Dance of the Seven Spins, well not at first. We started with the Ladles and then went on to the Lindy Hop. Mental wee moves from the 1920s. I don’t know what they were drinking when they invented it, but I’d like to taste it! And that’s when the Seven Spins came back in to complete the sequence. It did all fit together after all.

Coffee afterwards to calm down and take stock. Yes, we certainly are improving. Michael spent some time with us, correcting mistakes, but not nearly as much as he spent with the other couples. We must be improving. On the way to coffee we passed Hutcheson’s Hospital grabbing a ray of sunlight and shining brightly. That became PoD. I say ’became’ because it is actually a Vertorama, a made up name for a vertical panorama. It’s made up of two shots, one of the top down almost to the start of the street and another of the foreground cobbles combined in Lightroom and then processed a bit to brighten up the white building.

Went for a walk when we came back, just over to St Mo’s, but there really wasn’t much of interest there.

Salsa at night was fairly interesting in the first class (7.30) but I just can’t get into that second class. Maybe my dancing brain is exhausted by the end of the day but it just seems a bit of a drag. I think we’ve agreed to dismiss it from our dancing day.

Tomorrow, Scamp has a coffee booked with Shona in the morning and I have coffee booked with Colin and Val in the afternoon. Fred is supervising the fitting out of his new bathroom.

Brambling – 28 August 2018

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Couldn’t decide what to do today, so did nothing for a while.

Tried to install the Nissan Connect app on my phone. To get it to work you have to fill in a lengthy form online, then you are asked to log in. The log in failed because apparently I used the wrong password ( I hadn’t). Then the whole webpage froze. Restarted and tried the application form again. Surprisingly it allowed me to go through the whole procedure without an error. This made me think it hadn’t recorded my data the last time. This time, a different page appeared and a confirmation email appeared in my inbox. Successfully logged in the second time, but couldn’t get the app to connect to the car. According to the FAQ on the Nissan Connect site, the iPhone doesn’t have the full Bluetooth app, which is surprising as it connects perfectly with the car to play music. Gave up at this point. Life’s too short for such badly written software. Shame, because after a year I’m getting to like the car.

In the afternoon I took the Dewdrop out to get some more brambles. Lots of flies about, one of which made PoD. Sun was hiding most of the day, but it was quite warm enough for shorts, however I was careful when picking the brambles to avoid more scratches to my already scarred legs. Apparently if I had seen the sun, it would have been surrounded by a red glow, caused by smoke being blown across the Atlantic from Canada!! So say the weather fairies anyway. Just over 1kg of brambles today. I think that should keep Scamp going until next year DV. I thought it would take ages to get the purple stains out of my hands when I got home, but Swarfega got the stains out pronto. The only problem was it also took all the moisture out of my skin too.

Out fairly early tomorrow for an 11.30 start at the dance class. May take the Dewdrop out again afterwards, because I think the SPDs are beginning to settle in.

Coming Down – 27 August 2018

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Returning to normal today. No security checks, no check-in required, but it was raining.

Warning, this paragraph may contain Technospeak
Scamp went to buy Tesco, or at least that’s how it seemed, considering the weight of the shopping bags I carried in. While she was there, I posted the backlog of photos on Flickr. One of the great things about Lightroom is that you can export three or four days of photos as a catalog from one computer and import them into another. Not only are the photos imported, but any adjustments you’ve made to them are imported too. Another feature of Lightroom is the ability to geotag photos using the ‘Maps’ panel. You just drag and drop the photos on to the map and Lightroom automatically adds the location info to the files. That’s a feature I hadn’t used until today.
Technospeak all gone!

My contribution to the day was watering the slug nematodes into all the exposed earth I could find. I’m sure one wee woman thought I was completely aff ma’ heid when she saw me watering the flower pots just after the rain had stopped. It would have taken too long to explain to her that I was watering in microscopic worms that would kill the slugs and eat their eggs and that the best time to do it was after rain. It would have taken too long and it wouldn’t have changed her opinion. The coarse rose I bought ’Dahn Sarf’, as Ray would say, was a bit better than the normal medium rose, but still not really coarse enough. However it did the job and that’s it done for this year. We’ll see if those microscopic assassins have done their work next year DV.

Since we were going to salsa later than usual, I had enough time left to go over to St Mo’s and capture a pretty red dragonfly, but you’ll have to look on Flickr for that, because I decided that PoD should be a landscape view of the park. Just a little gentle adjustment to brighten it up a bit because, although the rain had stopped, it was a bit dull today.

Salsa tonight was a one hour class with a silly wee Rueda move a bit like the despicable Enroscate  and a reprise of various moves we’d been doing over the last four or five weeks. Knee survived, but it was giving me gyp all through the class. Maybe have to go see David on Wednesday, Tuesday being his day off, as Scamp reminded me tonight.

Tomorrow looks dry, so I may take the Dewdrop out for a run.

Going home, flying home – 26 August 2018

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It was dry for a time this morning, but it didn’t last.

It rained, then it rained harder and harder. I’d have liked to have gone a walk this morning before we got on that big bird and flew north, but the rain prevented it. There’s a great walk round the golf course near Hazy and Neil’s that takes you through some lovely old hawthorn and beech trees. Apparently, if you’re really lucky you get to see some deer too, but not today. Too wet and if it’s been raining for some time, the trees just shake their leaves and you end up wetter than ever under them. We just stayed in and talked.

Hazy decided she’d join us on our trip to Gatwick which was good. I was amazed at the amount of surface water that had gathered on the roads when we were being driven to the airport. Water with white foam on top, whipped up by the cars’ tyres. I suppose it occurs mainly after a sustained dry spell. Anyway, I imagine it was quite unpleasant to drive through. Thankfully, that was Neil’s job today.

Arrived at the airport with plenty of time in hand and volunteered to put my wheely case in the hold for free and to free up some of the overhead locker space for those who were in a hurry, unlike us. Swiftly through security and into the waiting area. Had a vile cup of brown water and a lovely pizza from Jamie Oliver’s take-away, while Scamp and a latte and an ‘OK’ Portuguese custard tart from the same. I bought a painting magazine and we went through to the gate. Boarded quickly and efficiently, unlike the SqueezyJet like boarding procedure at Glasgow.

<Technospeak>
Reading my magazine, there were two articles dealing with the hues in blue paint. One claimed that Ultramarine Blue is warmer in hue than Cerulean and the following article completely refuted that! This from what is meant to be a fairly authoritarian magazine. Any blue which tends towards red must be a warm hue. Not my opinion this time, it’s basic colour theory. Absolute crap. Stiffly worded complaint ready to be emailed to the editor forthwith.
</Technospeak>

Waited our usual half hour at Glasgow for the bags to arrive, but at least that was better than the fifty minutes the message board was predicting.
The flight distance from London to Glasgow is approximately 345miles and takes about an hour.
The distance from the plane to the carousel is approximately 0.5miles and it takes about fifty minutes.
Bus in to Glasgow and then the X3 out to Cumbersheugh. I won’t go into the comparative distances and times, I’m sure you know my thoughts on that by now.

Watched an amazingly expensive (in terms of damage to cars) first five minutes of the Belgian GP. Thankfully everyone walked away unhurt. Then it just slid into the usual boring parade of cars. <Yawn>

PoD was the view of the rain streaking across the aircraft window as we left a wet London for a wet Glasgow!

I think it may still be raining, but it’s going to be drier tomorrow, so they say. We’ll see.

A day at the airies – 25 August 2018

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Today we went to Brooklands Museum to see the airies and the cars, but mostly the airies!

During breakfast Scamp and Neil settled on Brooklands Museum as the place to visit today. I’d heard of Brooklands, the first car racing track in the UK. I didn’t know then it was the first dedicated car racing track in the world. Eat your heart out America, we were first. Hazy was going to spend the day resting, so she would be feel refreshed enough to go out tonight.

The trip to the museum only took the half hour Neil predicted and it was a lovely day again with blue sky and just a smidgin of clouds. We drove past Mercedes World where some posh people were scooting round a racetrack in equally posh Mercs. They even had water sprinklers spraying a piece of the track to provide a skid pan. However, that wasn’t our destination, you just had to drive round it to get to the museum. After the brash flash of Mercedes World, Brooklands looks a bit downmarket, but that just disguises the history that it holds.

First up was the Malcolm Campbell Shed with the really old cars that raced on the Brooklands circuit, then through the motor and pedal cycles section to the Formula 1 area. After that Neil left us to go and read in the cafe and we visited the airies. Big airies. The Sultan of Oman’s beautifully kitted out VC10, the BAC 1-11, the Viscount and the Vanguard. All passenger planes, all part of my growing up. It would take too much time (and be boring for you) to name them all, but it was a trip through time. PoD was the view dead on the nose of a Jetstream.

At the back of the Aircraft Park is the banked section of the race track. I climbed up part of it, almost two thirds of it, until it became too steep. Then I realised that in section it wasn’t a circular curve, but a parabolic curve and became incredibly steep the further you went. It’s an amazing thing to see and to think that those old solid wheeled cars in the museum raced around this track. If you can’t visit this place, Google it and be amazed.

Lunch was steak pasty with chips and veg for the boys and baked potato with tuna for Scamp. Then after a look at the inside airies and another climb of the banked track we headed for home. It was clouding over a bit by then, but not cold.

Out at night to an Indian restaurant with Canute and Delia. Delia looking great after her recent op. Food was good, service was poor and conversation was the usual D’Aguiar tennis match of seeing who could give the cheekiest answer to cause the most hilarity to all concerned. A great night, marred slightly by the noisy, and I mean NOISY bunch at an adjoining table. Why must some people shout at each other all the time? Are they all deaf or just stupid? Easy question.

Anyway, a good day and evening too.

Where the crows fly backwards – 24 August 2018

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In Kingston on Thames today on the bus.

Went to a Nero for a coffee. Seemed to confuse the poor server with “Sitting in. A regular one shot, extra hot latte and a regular americano.” She replied “To take away or to have here.” I growled, “Sitting in, that’s what I said.” Probably took her too far off the script. The bloke next to me said “I’m surprised she understood you with that accent.” Hackles up! “Sorry, I couldn’t understand you with yours”, I replied. He just laughed and asked where I came from. I gave Scamp’s non committal reply “Just outside Glasgow”. Then he told me he came originally from Motherwell, but moved down to London when he was 21. Went to work at IBM. “But,” he said, “I was a smart bugger then”. I questioned the ‘was’ and he just said that brain cells deteriorate with age, then went on to explain all the medical problems he’d survived, finishing up by saying that he had a 6 year old sitting outside. I said “Good for you!” and he just laughed and said “It only took a minute.” Both us burst out laughing. Then he took his tray outside, stopping to have a word with Scamp. When we were leaving, I tapped him on the shoulder and told him I originally came from Larkhall. “Oh my God.” he said “Where the crows fly backwards!” I don’t know when I last heard that one. Probably when I was at school. Wished him good day and he did the same then we went on our way.

Wandered round the town looking for a coffee shop that Neil had told us about where you could buy coffee beans. Finally gave up the search and went for a walk along the river on a breezy day with bright blue skies and a few white clouds overhead. Sat for a while and sketched a bit of the river and the boats moored by the path while Scamp remarked on the variety of boats on the river. Big boats, small boats, a wooden scull and a full paddle steamer. Finally gave up when I realised that the sketchbook wasn’t going to take the watercolour paint, it just sort of beaded on the surface.

Went for lunch in a wee cafe selling home made quiche and vegetarian food served with healthy looking salad. I had Salmon Quiche and Scamp had Veg Lasagne. Both of us tried each others, but both settled on our own as the better option. My side of Sweet Potato with Chilli and Kidney Beans was delicious. Walked on to Bentalls where Scamp found a set of four glasses to replace or augment ones we have at home. One of which is missing. I went to the Apple shop to try to find out how to get Apple Care, but I think it should be renamed Apple Doesn’t Care. They don’t seem to want to sell it, telling me that I’d have to bring my computer in to the store so the ‘experts’ could check it over first before they’ll allow me to give them money. No thank you Apple, that’s not how it works. It looks to me as if they are only interested in selling you Apple hardware and aren’t interested in after sales service.

We did eventually find the coffee shop, but neither of us were that impressed with their coffee and at £8.50 for 250g it was just a little over the top. Also over the top was the nearly £15 I paid for a G ’n’ T and a pint of IPA. Admittedly it was a double G, but £15 for two drinks? What is it with London prices. Blame Brexit.

Bus back to the house and Neil was on dinner duty, making Spicy Prawn Risotto. We have now got the recipe!! Pudding was Vienetta. Something we haven’t had for years. Watched another film, Victoria and Abdul which was quite funny.

Today’s PoD was taken under the bridge over the Thames. I just liked the patterns.

Tomorrow Neil is taking us somewhere if his viral infection is not too bad. Not sure where yet.

One in the bag? What bag? – 23 August 2018

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Another early rise!

Up at 6.15am after about 4.5 hours sleep. Taxi came at 7am and a driver from Pakistan took us to the airport an kept us entertained with stories of a gay breakup, the current weather in Pakistan and the expectations of a new era under a new political leader. Unfortunately the new era was in Pakistan, not Brexit shackled UK. His flow of consciousness ended with an exhortation to try an automatic drive car next time. “You’ll never go back to manual”, he said.

Had a coffee in Caledonian at the airport. Possibly the worst run restaurant in Glasgow, if not the world. Today we were served promptly, but others were complaining loudly and getting nowhere. When it came to paying, nobody wanted to take our money. There were some dazed looking servers going around doing anything but serve. Really, giving somebody a credit card machine isn’t enough. You have to teach them how to use them and also how to respond to a customer trying to catch your eye. Eventually Scamp had to go to the bar and pay there. All this on a really quiet weekday. Heaven knows what it will be like at a busy weekend in the summer. Caledonian, there is a difference between laid back and totally unconscious.

Bumpy flight down to Londinium, but a nice gentle, controlled landing into rainy Gatwick. Sitting in the airport bus I saw the PoD. Wide angle shot of the plane from just under the port wingtip. Only had time for one grab shot. One in the bag.

Inside the terminal, we wandered around the car park until we eventually found directions to the Express Pick Up hidden round a corner behind the lifts. Just got there as Neil was drawing into a parking space. He drove us back to the house in their new (manual drive) car. Very comfortable and a nice array of ‘tronics in it. Listened to an interesting Spotify playlist Pop goes Classical. It’s now on my list too.

Lunch was pizza (for me, I forget what everyone else had) at a garden centre near the house. We’d been there before and that’s how I knew to order pizza. Small, thin with good toppings. Lovely.

Came home and found that the photo I’d taken at the airport wasn’t on the card! The bag was empty. Took some photos of the figs growing in the front garden, but the actual PoD was a shot of Mal sleeping on Hazy’s bed.

The early rise was beginning to catch up with me. I went for a snooze before dinner and what was dinner? It was take away pizza. Not as good, in my opinion, as the one in the garden centre, but it was a Domino’s and it had anchovies in it. Why don’t we get them in Cumbersheugh? Maybe they don’t travel well. We watched Moana, another Disney film. We are reverting to our childhood.

May go to Kingston tomorrow.

Dancing and Competition – 22 August 2018

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Wednesday is dancing day, but we’re not good enough to compete yet.

It seemed that half the Buchanan Galleries car park was cordoned off today. Maybe it’s getting painted, maybe they’re going to re-cover the floor, maybe they’re not going to do anything at all and it’s all just a ploy to annoy us. Most likely the last one. Anyway, it didn’t stop us getting parked on level 4 which is quite good for midday and midweek. So off we trotted to Blackfriars to strut our stuff.

First up was Jive and maybe because I’m getting used to it and maybe because we’ve been practising more, but I’m beginning to enjoy it. I still get mixed up with the different spins in the Seven Spins, but even that’s beginning to iron itself out. I need some mental mnemonics to fix numbers to names. After that was more or less sorted, Michael added in four Ladles. What a ladle is, I do not know. It seemed a bit like Ochos in Salsa. In salsa that’s a bit of time wasting move that nobody apart from Shannon seems to like. I didn’t like it much in Jive either.

On to waltz and although we’re not perfect at it yet, the moves are becoming slicker. One of the lady helpers cleared up a few of my mistakes and set me right on a few other things. Next a quick reprise of quickstep which is fine when you’re walking through it, but is a nightmare at dancing pace. Still learning the basic steps. Last, it was Tango which I always found a comical dance. It’s not so comical when you have to dance it. It’s very quick and staccato. I never can get the head turn correct. I always go left – right and it should be right – left. More work needed here, definitely.

On the way home we stopped off at Colin’s to drop off two photos, one painting and one pot of jam. All for the Industry section of Chryston show which is on Saturday. This is the first year we’ve entered anything and it’s one of the few times we’ll not be able to go. Stayed for coffee at Colin and Evelyn’s and talked for a couple of hours. We got a conducted tour of their garden again. Lovely garden, but it seems to take 24/7 work to keep it that way.

Grabbed a camera when we came back and got an hour in St Mo’s. Lovely evening light and lots of photos of spiders, tiny wee ones on their webs. Most were rejected, but a couple were decent and that’s where today’s PoD came from.

Dinner was beef burger (own make), sausage, egg and chips. Scamp, of course, decided to forego the meat and had egg ’n’ chips. Our own Charlotte potatoes didn’t make very good chips. They’re much better boiled.

Up and out early tomorrow, hopefully.

Should have gone to Specsavers – 21 August 2018

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Today dawned with lots and lots to do. Best get started.

First thing to do was to design and cut the mat (frame) for the little piggy painting I did on the cruise this June. It was an instant hit with Scamp, which is a good start, and it always brings a smile to my face, even on ‘black monkey days’. Ok, maybe not a full smile, but at least a tweak to the corners of my mouth. It deserved a decent frame. Frame cutting needs accurate measurement and an ability to subtract and divide. Photoshop is also a good tool to use to try out your finished calculations and see what the finished article will look like. By lunchtime, the little piggy was in his new home. Also the tractor was securely garaged in his and lastly, I’d found another landscape photo in portrait format and in monochrome if that’s not an oxymoron! Three submissions for Colin tomorrow.

A ‘piece ’n’ bacon’ and I was ready to face the shearers. Scamp drove me to the train station and I was quickly whisked away by the silent power of electricity into the bomb site that is Queen Street Station. Nothing says ‘Welcome to Scotland’ like a half demolished station with no coffee shop, no magazine shops, in fact no shops. Just a hundred sheets of dirty polythene hanging from the rafters. It’s a disaster. Walked over to West Nile Street and had my hair cut by the non-speaker barber. He may not speak, but he finished his No3 on the sides and No4 on top in double quick time and he made a very good job of it too. Sometimes it’s nice to just sit there and watch the hair falling off and ponder the fact that every time I go there my hair gets more and more sparse.

Paid for the cut and itched my way back to Bucky Street via Sausage Roll Street where I grabbed a few shots of what was Scamp’s favourite Chinese restaurant in Glasgow, now just a gaping hole between the buildings on each side. It’s been scraped down to basement level by the demolition crews after the fire in March. It’s a strange thing to see in the centre of Glasgow, but I don’t expect it will stay a vacant lot for long.

Along at Bucky Street I saw and shot my PoD. Poor Donald Dewar’s statue has a hard time with its specs. This time some kind soul had given him a new pair. Possibly he what thinking “Should have gone to Specsavers”.

Dinner tonight was a piece of Smoked Haddock with Cheese Sauce, served with Potatoes and Spinach. Home grown potatoes of course.

Tomorrow is dancing in the afternoon and then we’re going to hand in our competition entries to Colin, all being well.

The Long Arm of the Law – 20 August 2018

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This morning I was up and out early, very early for me.

Picked up June just after 8am, then picked up the (im)patient, Shona, then it was on to the M80 and a fairly clear run into Glasgow until Robroyston where traffic started to queue up. Actually, I was surprised we hadn’t run into more traffic earlier, but I suppose the workers were already in work and the school run doesn’t usually involve motorway driving. Got parked fairly quickly and easily, sent the mum and daughter off on their travels and settled down with a good book, Becky Chambers – Record of a Spaceborn Few. Strange SF, but really enthralling. I’d only been sitting a few minutes when I saw Scamp’s text -“Remember to look for the coffee shops.” Cryptic, but I knew what she meant and went in search of the coffee shops.

It turned out to be just the one coffee shop, an independent with a large frontage. Got a very decent take-away Americano and a packet of biscuits and went back to the comfort of the car.

Soon afterwards the twosome returned with smiles on their faces. It was a different doctor Shona had seen and he had pronounced her fit and ‘normal’ whatever ‘normal’ means. Anyway, that was the result they were hoping for and puts her back in the queue for the operation she’s been waiting for. He also suggested she had “white coat syndrome” as so many of us have.

Back home I got ready and took the Dewdrop out for a run, having stuffed a poly bag in my rucksack on the chance that I found some brambles along the way. I did and came home with just over 400g of berries and a bruised knee where I’d fallen down a banking in among the brambles. It was a good run, although one knee was aching and the other one was grazed and bruised. Today’s PoD came from that cycling visit. A wee dragonfly perched on some builder’s rubble on a fly-tip site.

After dinner we went to Glasgow to find that the parking charges had gone up and there was no 6.30pm class any more. That’s what happens when you miss one week of salsa. Today’s move was Lizzie and for once I managed to get it right.

Came home and checked in with police 101 to tell them we were available to hand over the footage from the dash cam. Just after 10.30 two polis arrived and had a look at the footage on the computer and agreed that as there wasn’t much damage to the car and none to the occupants, it was unlikely the matter would go to court. Breathe a sigh of relief. Still not totally settled yet, but I should know the final result by the end of the week.

Tomorrow? Going in to Glasgow to get my hair cut and probably cut mats for the painting and the two photos for the flower show.