Author: Zogman

A cold windy day – 7 December 2024

Posted on by Zogman

We hadn’t planned anything for the day and it didn’t look like there was going to be any reason to go out.

Basically, that was the story of the day.

It was such a dull day too. I had no reason to go out to take a photo. Instead I decided it would be a tabletop shot today. I chose the Hebe cuttings Scamp had taken, with permission, from Jackie’s bush in her front garden in Skye. She had watered them today and a little bead of water was nestled in the bottom of some leaves. An ideal subject from a less than ideal day. After about a dozen shots I had one I was happy with. It was a 30second exposure which will give you an idea how low the light level was in the toilet today. The toilet has been a great place to photograph plants. Awkward to get the Manfrotto tripod into, but a great setup to shoot in. PoD done and dusted.

With a few hours left were taken up with building this year’s calendar. I’m only really about half way through the first attempt and there’s still a lot to do, but a start has been made.

A pizza for dinner, because we were going over to Brookfield in the evening for the final evening dance of the year. Quick change of clothes and a shower, then we were off into Storm Darragh. Again, we were just on the edge of the worst of the wind, and thankful for it.

Arrived in plenty of time and had a great night of dancing and what can only be called a “Carry On”. Spoke to folk at our table who I may, in the past, have described as slightly standoffish, but once I took the time to talk to them, they are just ‘folk’.

Drove home along a motorway that was busier than I’d anticipated, probably due to shows and pantomimes emptying into the motorways. After we left Glasgow everything calmed down and we got parked quite easily at home.

We watched the qualifying for the F1 GP of the year, and had a wee snifter each to keep our eyes open.

Wind is still quite strong and noisy, but it’s calming down, I think.

No plans yet for tomorrow.

Windy night and a windy morning – 6 December 2024

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We didn’t fancy going anywhere today which was lucky because I still had a fair amount of tidying up to do on the computer. It’s working, but things keep changing inside its silver box. I don’t know what’s going on, but it feels as if things are settling down. I hope that’s not Famous Last Words.

Leaving the computer aside, there were a few tasks in the garden needing seen to. Not a lot, but the sunflower that turned its back on us needed to be chopped down and the assorted miniature sunflowers around the edge of the raised bed had to go too. Not much else, but the place just looked a bit better after that. I passed my secateurs over to Scamp and she chopped down the dead stems of the geums.

After lunch which for Scamp was turkey sandwich and for me it was a sandwich with pastrami and mustard. It’s a long time since I’ve had pastrami. Anyway, after lunch I went for a walk in St Mo’s. It was only about 2.40pm when I went out, but you’d have believed it was about 5.40. I don’t think the sun shone at all to day.

There were thin pickings out around St Mo’s, but my favourite by far was a shot I took on the way there. It’s a bush called the Snowberry and you can see from the photo that it’s well named. It produces the white berries in the autumn but they don’t last long and seem to degrade quickly.

When I got home I worked on the photos for a while before starting to get ready to go out to Bombay Dreams for dinner with June and Ian. I was looking forward to one of their famous curries. We had noticed that the quality of their take-away meals had slipped a fair bit the last time we’d ordered one, but tonight the service was really slow and my pakora was only part cooked. Portions were smaller than they used to be, but many restaurants are doing that now to avoid bigger hikes in their prices. However, the restaurant was about a quarter full which is not what you expect to see on a Friday night. Waiters constantly asking if we wanted more drinks became annoying too. This was not the Bombay Dreams we used to visit fairly regularly a few years ago.

Worse was yet to come. We’d been told there would be a special karaoke event. It was awful. One bloke attempting to encourage the participants to come up and sing, by singing off-key himself, there was no attempt to segue into the next track, just stopping in mid track and changing the music. I could go on, but I won’t. A totally wasted night. I don’t think we’ll ever be back. What a shame.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go dancing at night. The last Evening Dance of the year. Wind and rain forecast! No karaoke!

Sometimes a good sleep is what you need – 5 December 2024

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I slept well and didn’t wake until Scamp brought my breakfast at 9:20am. It was her turn to make breakfast anyway.

<Technospeak>
Later, after a cup of coffee I explained my plan. I must have been going over the problems with those bloody SSDs in my sleep, because I realised that the common factor in them all was the dodgy SSD. My plan was to buy a new Samsung SSD, not a cheapo Crucial and use a memory stick to install the operating system into that drive. Once that was done, I could erase the new drive and clone my up-to-date backup onto the new SSD which would then be the driver for the iMac. That was the simplified version.
</Technospeak>

Long story short, it worked perfectly. The backup installed everything on to the Samsung drive and I’ve been processing the images for a good few hours tonight. Isn’t technology wonderful, when it works!

I saw a strange sight when we were in Coatbridge to buy the SSD. An African lady walking past Tesco with her message balanced on her head while she held a loud conversation with someone on the phone. I’d never seen anything like that in Scotland, although I had in foreign climes in the past. Scamp said it was a good sign when I showed her the photo. It looks like she was right.

More mince ’n’ tatties again tonight, hopefully without the heartburn this time. Scamp had fish fingers and potatoes for her dinner.

I’m off to bed now, because my wee brain is full!  Still having problems with images. More things to do tomorrow.

High winds and heavy showers forecast for tomorrow.

We start the battle again tomorrow – 4 December 2024

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My parting words yesterday were “… I will let the whole thing cool down until we start the battle again tomorrow …” and that’s basically what I did.

I have two SSDs which can run the iMac. One seems to be damaged, or mismanaged in some way, but the other, the older one, does work, although the operating system isn’t as up to date as the dodgy one. Before I went to bed last night I swapped the dodgy one for the less up to date one and it just worked.

It was a foggy morning and we drove up to Calders to get some compost and plastic pots to plant out some cuttings Scamp had ‘acquired’ from Jackie. She, Scamp, was booked to have her hair cut later in the morning , so on the way home we drove past Condorrat, where the hair dressers is, to ensure the four way traffic lights wouldn’t block the entrance to the hair dressers. They didn’t, thankfully. On the way past St Mo’s park the fog was turning to mist and rising very photogenically from the surface of the pond.

We parked at the house and I grabbed a camera and went for a walk in St Mo’s. Beautiful light and excellent shadows from the trees in the park. Plenty of subjects and when I’d done one circuit of the pond, I came upon a group of about a dozen Canada geese paddling in one of the channels that had been dug to increase the cover for the waterfowl. They took one look at me then turned a blind eye to me. I think they were pretending that if they didn’t look at me, I wasn’t there. I decided to do the same after I’d taken half a dozen photos, and walked on without looking in their direction.

Back home I uploaded the photos to the laptop, so at least I would have them saved somewhere on a computer and could retrieve them sometime.

Of course I couldn’t leave well alone and, started looking in detail at what was happening with the dodgy drive. None of it made sense and the more I looked the worse it became, and the more fankled I became.

The bright spot of the day was dinner which was Mince ’n’ Tatties. It gave me heartburn later, but that was a small price to pay for such a lovely meal. Thanks Scamp.

At night we went dancing in Kirsty’s class. Tonight was the last class of the year and hopefully the last time we’ll be on that tiny wee dance floor. Every dance tonight was a sequence dance, starting with the Sambarina which I hate. Then it was on to other dances. Some just silly wee dances, but some real sequence dances we knew. A lot of folk gave up on them but about six of us, three couples managed to finish them. Actually, if you ignore Sambarina, it was a good night.

Drove home and watched the penultimate episode of Shetland then we both went to bed to read for a while after another disappointing day.

Still no photos to show, but hopefully I’ll process some on the old drive tomorrow..

Tomorrow we may also go in to Glasgow.

Oops I did it again – 3 December 2024

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I blew up the computer again today. This time, knowingly.

First things first. Hazy got her belated birthday box today, delivered by Royal Mail a day late. That may be the last time we use this overprices but untrustworthy delivery company. Some poor bloke is intending to buy the Royal Mail. Good luck with that mate. Anyway, Hazy enjoyed her extended birthday! We had a good talk to her in the late afternoon.

It was a bright day for a change, but it looked cold outside in the morning so we just stayed inside looking out at it until lunch time when we were entertained by the local grey squirrel who was checking out all the local gardens, looking of anything it could eat.

After lunch I took the A7 out for a walk in St Mo’s and deliberately walked the long way round the house first to chase away the rat with the fluffy tail. I think also frightened the man at the corner of our block who was measuring up a neighbour’s garden for a new fence.

The good light had gone by the time I got to St Mo’s, but I did a walk round the pond to keep my step count up and took a few photos. I really need to get up and out early(ish) if I’m going to get any good light at all.

Scamp made a really delicious Fish Pie for dinner. Unlike Jackie’s fish pie with mashed potatoes on top, this one had sliced potatoes on top and a lighter sauce.  I thoroughly enjoyed it.

The PoD was intended to be Mr or Mrs Squirrel, but I blew up the computer again and it’s still struggling to get everything back into the big silver box, so the photos might not arrive until tomorrow. A bit like the Royal Mail.

I had decided to have one last try at installing the Paragon software, but for some reason the iMac wouldn’t restart after the installation. I’m guessing it’s because I’m running the show on an SSD and the software was designed to run on a ‘real’ computer. But because the internal hard drive of the iMac is junk, the SSD is a better choice.

The long term solution is a new iMac and although the prices can be eye watering, it’s my hobby, and I’m willing to pay for it. What I don’t want it to be is the constant struggle I’m having just now. At this moment the iMac is reinstalling the data from (yet) another SSD and will hopefully be finished in about an hour. Then I will let the whole thing cool down until we start the battle again tomorrow.

Hopefully we’ll get out tomorrow to get some potting compost and some pots for Scamp to take winter cuttings.

Happy Birthday Hazy (and the solution)

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Scamp often complains about the amount of SSDs (Solid State Drives) that congregate round the iMac. Today the would prove a life saver.

<Tecnnospeak>
My solution was to format the drive that wouldn’t start yesterday and install a new clean operating system in it after downloading the OS from somewhere in California. Then I could copy a backup (Scamp complains about the number of backups I do too, but this is why I do it) into the once dead, but now cleaned out drive. The computer would then do all the surgical cutting and sewing together of the backup to the operating system.
</Tecnnospeak>

Long story short, it worked again. This is either the fourth or fifth time I’ve had to use this method. It took about four hours in total to fix things, but it worked. Thank you Andrew Tsai who was the first person who could explain in simple English who to do this incredibly difficult task.

As I said, the operation takes about four hours to complete, and since, once you’ve started, there is very little you can do except watch a white line crossing a black screen, I thought I’d make myself useful, since Scamp was off shopping in Tesco, and tidy up some of my room. It’s a work in progress, but I know I have to start somewhere. I can now find the carpet!

After Scamp returned and we’d had lunch we spoke to Hazy whose parcel hadn’t arrived in time for her birthday, today (Happy Birthday Hazy). We got to hear all the gory tales of picking bits of tooth out of her gums and the useful, but disgusting tasting salt water mouth washes she’s had to endure.

With just enough daylight left, I took my camera and a long lens and went for a walk in St Mo’s to concentrate on photography for a while. Today’’s PoD is a view across St Mo’s pond. I’ve taken that photo umpteen times, all for different reasons. Today’s reason was the colour in the sky and the reflections on the pond.
Yesterday’s PoD was a dried up weed looking as if it was struggling against the driving rain. One of those occasional showers we get driven along by a north wind, also taken in St Mo’s.

Tomorrow I’m looking forward to a less stressful day, if that’s possible.

A disaster – 1 December 2024

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A day when everything went wrong.

It started like any other changeover day. The end of one month and the beginning of another. Last month’s photos had to be sorted and the rejected photos put in the bin. Then the worthwhile shots were stored in a separate folder. Most of that worked well. The next task was to store last month’s photos offsite in my 2 Terabyte external hard drive. That’s where the problems started. The external drive wouldn’t show up on the list of drives, so I couldn’t add November’s photos to the 2024 folder on the hard disk.

I thought the disk was damaged. The spinning disks inside an external hard disk are very easily damaged. A drop from a table will probably kill one. I thought I might have bumped it or pulled a cable out without shutting it down properly, but when I tried the hard disk on my MacBook and it came up with exactly the same error. Next I tried the disk on Scamp’s PC and it read perfectly. Curiouser and curiouser?

It took me a long while to work out what was going wrong. It looked like it was something to do with an operating system upgrade I’d done halfway through November, and this is where I have to resort to Technospeak. Sorry Jamie.

<Tecnnospeak>
To put it simply, the problem seems to be that the storage disks I’ve been using since I moved from PC to the Mac, about 15 years ago, are now not being read by the new version of MacOS. Technically, my hard drive storage device and Microsoft computers use a system called NTFS and my Mac computer works on a different system, APFS, and never the twain shall meet … Except that they might be able to meet in the middle using a clever bit of software.
</Technospeak>

That’s where the problem became a disaster. I downloaded the ‘bit of software’ from Paragon Software a genuine company who I’ve used for years to do this exact thing. After installing the software you must do a restart to allow the software to work, but the computer wouldn’t restart after the installation. I just kept getting an error message. I tried lots of avenues to fix the problem, but none of them worked. I thought I might have picked up a bit of dodgy software or had a virus, but careful checking told me that was not the case. I was almost in tears, but decided there must be a way out and did the sensible thing and slept on it. Scamp told me to do that last bit.

TBC.

An early rise – 30 November 2024

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We had to drive to Brookfield half an hour earlier than usual, so we had to be up earlier than usual.

Brookfield were having an early Xmas fair and needed to use the hall from midday, so the proles had to be out by then.

At least the heating was on when we arrived. A quick sequence dance to start the day, then we were into the Hoabie Quickstep, named for the inventor’s dog, apparently. I think I danced like that dog today. My mind was a total blank. Even with Scamp talking me through the parts that made up the quickstep, I couldn’t remember them. Finally after about half an hour of shuffling round the floor like a complete beginner, things began to click into place and the Hoabie Quickstep was in my head. Now all I need is for my feet to learn it!!

Next was the Blue Angel Rumba, which I ‘sort of knew’, ie not very well. One of the tracks Stewart played was Silent Night sung(?) by Stevie Nicks. It was the worst rendition of that song I’ve ever heard. I often slag off street singers by saying: “One of the most important things a singer must learn is how to sing” Even the worst street singers are better than this. Really, it put my teeth on edge. Listen to it if you dare and see if you agree with me.

The next dance was Jane’s version of a Rumba we’ve been learning forever. Every time we get it clear in our head, she changes bits of it. Today it was a move / unit called “Round the World” which was ok, but nothing special. I wasn’t impressed, but it was probably Ms Nicks’ earworm that was gnawing away at my ear canals.

Drove home across the Kingston Bridge and for once it wasn’t horrible. We made good time and I think we were both happy to be home for different reasons.

After a quick lunch of half a Ginsters Cornish Pasty for me and a Ginsters Chicken Pasty for Scamp, I went for a walk in St Mo’s where I got today’s PoD of a collection of Canada Geese getting ready to fly south after stopping off at St Mo’s for a break. I walked down to the shops to get some peas and chicken thighs to make tonight’s dinner Chicken and Pea Traybake. One of the easiest meals to make because it’s all done in a tray in the oven.

Later we watched Strictly and weren’t impressed with many of the dances tonight. We could do better. We can always do better, just as long as it isn’t the Hoabie Quickstep with music by Stevie Nicks

So today was the last day in November with its snow, frost, unseasonal temperatures and floods. It was also the end of meteorological Autumn. Winter will begin tomorrow. There’s a thought!

No plans for tomorrow.

Dull! – 29 November 2024

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Scamp was out to the last FitSteps of the year. Stayed home and read more of The Black Loch.

When she returned from her exertions we filled a box with some of those plasticky things that look like white Cheesy Wotsits then put some bits of wood in and also some bolts and nuts to make the box look like it had something interesting inside before wrapping it up, taking it up to Tesco and posting it to someone as a little surprise. Probably not the surprise they were expecting. Just a little bit of fun!

In two weeks we’re hoping to last tea dance of the year and while we were in Tesco, Scamp tried to find me a Xmas jersey to wear at it. Most of them were awful, but I did find one I might pay money for. Only maybe though. I’ll see if the price will come down in the next few weeks.

With just enough light to see my way round St Mo’s, I took the A6500 and one lens for a walk. There wasn’t much of interest, except for a strange yellow glow in the sky from a very low sun. I clambered down a banking that led me down to the pond and got some shots from there of what looked like a bonfire being built in the pond. Surely not. After climbing back up, I was taking some photos of the reflections at the outfall from the pond when a gang of rowdy Mallards flew in and the shattered the peace. So I went home.

We watched another episode of Shetland and just when everything was looking a bit clearer, there was another twist in the story. I know we should have expected it, but there’s always a cliff hanger in these stories.

That was about it for today. Not a lot to report, really.

We might need an earlier rise tomorrow because the politburo at Brookfield need time to set up a Xmas Fayre.

 

A busy day – 28 November 2024

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Some days are filled with To Do lists and some are just made for lounging about. Unfortunately today’s was one of the former.

What with writing yesterday’s blog and posting it, then driving to the tea dance at Glenburn and back again, it felt like it was non-stop.

It started with a lazy look at Wordle and Spelling Bee. Wordle was easy, but I’ve still not completed SB. Then it was time to fill in the spaces of my memory of yesterday, typing it up and posting it. By then it was almost lunch time and a welcome wee piece ’n’ bacon and another slice on blackcurrant jam. Both delicious. Thanks for organising that, Scamp. That left me just enough time to wash my face, shave and get dressed for the Tea Dance. Then we were off with the thermometer in the car reading 0ºc. Brrrr!

By the time we reached Glasgow the temperature had risen to 2ºc and the heater was pushing out warm air as fast as its wee fans could heat it. Fairly easy drive to Glenburn although there was a lot of ‘tutting’ from Scamp when the boy racers were slaloming through the traffic on the M8, managing to shave off a decent 20 seconds from their journey time. You have to ask yourself; Is is worth the effort for 20 seconds max with the possibility of a bump and the polis being able to read your speed using the melted rubber on the tarmac as a guide and fifteen folk able to identify you with their dash cams. It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.
But we all do it, don’t we? Or is that just me?

Apparently the there was a prize for the worst example of bad parking in the car park at Glenburn. Cars dumped everywhere. It must be something in the water today. Anyway, we didn’t miss anything, because Stewart was waiting to see how many latecomers like us would appear, blaming traffic, roadworks and diversions. Nobody believes any of those tales, but everyone tells them.

Waltz to start as usual, then the lethargic Rumba One followed by Rumba Two, which is almost exactly the same as R1 but slightly faster. We danced the usual list. A Foxtrot, a Quickstep, a (Real) Rumba, a Salsa and a Bachata. Interspersed with the ‘real’ dances were quite a few sequence dances. A good crowd at the table we were sitting at. David and Carol with occasional visitors Linda and Billy. Good patter flowing around the table as always.

We left just after 3pm to avoid the school rush and for once I decided to take the Kingston Bridge road rather than the M74/M73, and for once it was the right decision. Stopped at Asda for a bunch of flowers for Scamp, she deserved it for keeping me fairly close to the right steps at the right time.

By the time we got home it was dark. That’s what happens in Scotland in November. Dinner was a reheated paella from yesterday. Scamp sorted it as usual heated enough to kill off any nasties in the rice, but not enough to turn the whole dish into mush. Something else learned today.

It had to be a tabletop photo today due to lack of light. It’s a little orchid we picked up in a garden centre earlier in the year. All the flowers died away after a while and we thought it was dead. Then one day I was sure I could see a tiny green shoot appearing from the stem, so we took a bit more care of it after that and fed it some liquid orchid food. Then this week the flower opened. We were delighted.

I’m still struggling with the new watch, but things are coming together now. Much more complicated than the FitBit, but it works.

Scamp is intending going to the last FitSteps of the year, but nothing else planned. Rain forecast.