Author: Zogman

Dancin’ again – 17 October 2024

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After the recent changes to the Tea Dance schedule, we were back on track (allegedly) until next year. I’ll believe it when I see it.

We were off to Glenburn today for the first Tea Dance in a while. It started with a waltz as usual and also, as usual, I couldn’t put a foot right. Eventually I had to admit that I’d lost the waltz completely. Cha-Cha was better and I managed to keep everything working in the proper sequence if not the proper time. Lots of sequence dances in between the ballroom and latin dances and although it was a mixed bag, I think we both enjoyed it. We were sitting with David and Carol again and the conversation was as lively as usual.

After the tea break we started the second half with a waltz … again. I feared the worst, but Scamp suggested we try Kirsty’s Waltz Nioli and it almost worked for the first track, so we stayed up for the second track too and lo and behold it did work. Once through the whole dance and then on to the second round. I’ve a feeling it was muscle memory that was dragging me around, although Scamp’s whispered prompts helped too. I was really pleased with Nioli!

Drove home through heavier traffic than I’d anticipated, but would have got home earlier if I hadn’t gone via Tesco. I got a microwaveable Chicken Biriani for dinner, not noticing that it was a meal for one. Instructions were a bit ropey. They said to pierce the film in a few places and cook for 3min 30sec. Stir halfway through. How can you stir the curry if the film hasn’t been removed? Tell us that Tesco!
We agreed that the curry biriani was actually very good and we’d get it again, but then we’d buy two, one each! We completed the dinner with a baked potato each.

I hadn’t had time to take a photo in the morning and by the time we got home, the light was fading, so it was an inside shot today of a cutting Scamp had taken from a Honeysuckle. It’s sitting in a rectangular glass vase. I’m not sure it will actually take root, but I’m hopeful it will. It got PoD.

The prompt for today was Journal. I think my sketch of a hand writing in a book is reasonably good, sketched with a Lamy Safari fountain pen and a Pentel Sakura brush pen. It fits the prompt without having to twist things around as I usually do.

Tomorrow we’re booked for lunch with June & Ian.

 

Cardigan, Doll and Sketching – 16 October 2024

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Scamp was off to meet Isobel in the morning. Just before she left, she got an “Ur ye in?” text from Hazy, to which she replied “Phone dad. Ahm gaun oot!” Those of you who are englanders might not understand this and I’m not explaining. We had a three way discussion of the week so far, then Scamp was off to drive up to Costa for her meeting with her cousin. Meanwhile, Hazy and I had a discussion of books, new cars and Bake Off. Nice to know we’re on the same footing with Bake Off. Thanks for the recommendations, H.

It was a fairly lengthy phone call, almost an hour by my reckoning and I really enjoyed it. My task for the day was to find my Lamy Safari fountain pens, refill them with black drawing ink and get a sketch done. I actually cleaned and filled the Safari and the ABC child’s pen, although I only used the Safari for today’s prompt which was Grungy, not Grunge as I thought it was. Grungy was much easier for me. Just pick a face from Google that looked lived in and sketch it with a lot of corrections. That did the trick. By the time Scamp had returned, I was done. Fifteen minutes later the sketch was scanned, resized and posted.

After lunch, Scamp parcelled up a cardigan and a woollen doll Isobel had knitted, then I did the addressing of them to Grian and Scamp went off to post them. She’d already posted a couple of cards. One to Allan & Jaki and another to the new Gran & Grandpa.

Later in the afternoon I went for a walk to St Mo’s. On the way I dropped in at Brodens and booked a tab for June, Ian, Scamp and I. St Mo’s was a bit dull by the time I was getting there, but I did manage to get a couple of decent shots from the batch I took. Just leaves showing off their autumn colours. Lazy photography.

Tonight was a simple dinner. We had the last of the Butternut Squash soup from a couple of days ago, then Scamp had home made Ratatouille, “Rats” to us, and I had a veggie chilli which had been maturing nicely in the freezer and was blinding hot once it was reheated!

No dance class tonight. It seemed to be a last minute decision by Kirsty. No reason given. Maybe it was because it was October Week and she thought there wouldn’t be enough folk. We don’t know.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go to the Tea Dance in Paisley.

Everybody need a good punch sometimes – 15 October 2024

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It was me who needed it. Scamp just needed elastic.

That meant a drive to The Fort. We could have taken a bus there, but it would have meant a good half a dozen changes and really, it would have been quicker walking. No, we drove, because that was one of our reasons for buying a car.

Before we drove away, however, I needed to stabilise the tyre pressures in the car. I thought I’d need to use the fancy new electronic pump at the garage, but as it happened, all that was needed was to release some pressure from two of the tyres. After that we were balanced again. It all started just before the car went in for service and before the new tyres were fitted, so I can’t even blame either party. It’s a pneumatic mystery.

We drove to The Fort. It was absolutely jumping! We’d both forgotten this is October week or “Tattie Week” as we used to call it. The holiday began during October in the 1930s when children were taken out of school to help with the potato harvest. The tradition continued until the 1980s when new farm machinery made handpicking obsolete. You see what you’re missing, all you youngsters! Anyway, although there were no tatties being picked at The Fort, there were hundreds of weans out with mums and dads, desperate to spend money.

Scamp was looking for elastic and after getting help from one bloke who was filling shelves in Hobbycraft, we solved the elastic problem. I was looking for a leather punch to put a new hole in my belt and managed to get one for a tenner. With our first boxes ticked, we fought our way through the mob to find two baby cards. One for the mum and dad, Jaki and Alan and another for Gran and Grandpa Jackie and Murdo. Now we were free to stravaig as far and wide as we could in this great shopping complex. Scamp went to find some fruit and I went browsing in Waterstones and found the latest Ian Rankin book. Rebus Goes To Jail or something like that. After that we drove home, still checking those tyre pressures, but they were fine.

I had hoped to go for a walk and take some photos in the late afternoon, but after attempting to fix a computer problem with Scamp I gave up the idea and went for a scrounge in the garden instead. That’s where today’s PoD came from. It’s another change of colour for Switch Ophelia the colour changing Hydrangea. Taken with the Sony A6500 and a Sigma 18-50mm F2.8 an excellent combination.

Today’s prompt was Guidebook and my sketch was a wee sarcastic jibe at the folk who still post sketches done in iPad and even AI generators. No actual sketching and certainly no ink used in a group that is only for ink sketchers. Some folk think they’re so clever, that nobody will notice. But we do!

Tomorrow Scamp is intending having coffee with Isobel. I might dust off my old Lamy fountain pens and do some even older fashioned ink sketching. The prompt is Grungy.

A cold start to the day – 14 October 2024

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A temperature of 3ºc in the morning is just a little cool. We decided to read in bed for a while before facing the day. At least it was a Positive three degrees! We should be thankful for small mercies.

Eventually we did drag ourselves out of bed and I started by collecting the odds and ends of things that needed to be taken to the skips once the world had defrosted. After that it was the inevitable Wordle and Spelling Bee that took up my time and soon it was lunch time.

We both had the same thing for lunch, it was the remains of the leftover chicken from Saturday. It had lasted well and although, maybe a bit dry, had plenty of flavour. Scamp has boiled the carcass and made the basis of some stock with it. After lunch I had a look at a couple of recipe books to find the makings of Butternut Squash soup. Probably using the leftover chicken stock. As it happened, it’s still leftover, but in the fridge now.

I’d gathered up a big barrel shaped collapsible container full of the chopped up buddleia and teasel bushes yesterday and today they went into the boot of the blue car along with a big plastic basin full of old phones with some odds and ends. The old blue zip-up bag went onto the back seat and that just left room for me and my camera bag.

The skips were busy today, it being Monday. They’re always busy, but on a Monday it’s busier than normal. Folk are cutting down and trimming trees and bushes as the flowers fade and the leaves start falling. The garden waste skips were the busiest today. I got all the bags and basins emptied and then went for a run up to Fannyside.

Fannyside is such a quiet space and if there is just a gentle breeze like there was today, it’s the most peaceful place on earth. Only the birds calling from the trees and the occasional plane making very little noise, but drawing white con trails across a blue sky. A great place to watch the world go by. I took a few photos, but only two made it to Flickr and of the pair, only one got PoD. It’s a wee Flowerpot Man Jackie gave us many years ago. He lives on a ledge in the downstairs toilet and holds one of the Christmas Cacti. His face always brings a smile to mine.

Back home I was ready to start that Butternut Squash soup. This was a new recipe to me, from a Mary Berry book. One of the thousands she’s written. I did eventually get it made and although I thought it was a bit thin, Scamp disagreed. In the end I had two bowl of it and Scamp only had one, so it wasn’t that thin!

Today’s prompt asked for “Roam”. I couldn’t be bothered with another person walking up a hill with a rucksack on their back, so instead I rearranged the letters and turned it into “Roma” and sketched what might have been a grand building in Rome. Actually I drew the sketch yesterday and kept it on the back burner until today. Who’s to know?

The plan for tomorrow is to go to The Fort. Scamp is looking for elastic and I’m hoping to get a leather punch to make more holes in my belt. I must be losing more weight!

Another dreich day to begin with – 13 October 2024

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I think the temperature was around 3ºc when I was making breakfast, but that was from reading the temperature directly from the sensor at the outside of the back door.

Something had gone awry with the wireless connection between the sensor and the display. The sensor hangs on the door jamb at the back of the house and the display lives in the nice warm house itself. The sensor seemed to be reading, but the display wasn’t receiving. The repair is simple. It’s just a case of removing the old batteries and replacing them with new ones. The calibration isn’t so easy, although we’ve done it many times since we bought this usually trustworthy bit of kit about 30 years ago(?). A long time ago, anyway. After reading the instructions carefully, it all came flooding back and, as we watched the temperature drop outside the back door, the internal display followed it. Success!

Shocked to hear that Alex Salmond had died yesterday. Sixty nine is no age at all these days. I never really liked him, but he did seem to have the best interests of the nation at his heart. Such a shame.

I was staring into space after fixing the temperature gauge when I noticed the sun had crept round to light up the sunflowers Scamp had arranged in a vase. They really glowed in the sunlight, so I grabbed the A7 and took half a dozen, ok, nearer a dozen photos. One of them made PoD. Nice to see a bit of sunshine to brighten our day.

After an elegant lunch of fried cloutie dumpling, fried bacon and a fried egg I girded my loins and put on my boots, fleece and gloves and marched into the garden to do battle with the Teasels and Buddleia, then chopped them into easily transportable chunks that I could bag ready to go into the skips tomorrow. It really was cold and the spines in the teasels would have ripped my hands to pieces were it not for the gloves.

Jackie phoned Scamp just as I was debating a walk in St Mo’s just in case the sunflower photos wouldn’t quite cut the mustard once they’d been processed. I was halfway round St Mo’s when I realised I didn’t have my phone. It’s so strange and disconcerting when you realise you don’t have your phone with you. I just feel so disconnected from everything just because my lump of plastic, glass and some ’tronics isn’t in my pocket. I walked back and heard all about the goings on with the “Gorgeous wee baby” up in Skye.

Dinner tonight was Burrata and Tomatoes with Basil as a starter, followed by leftover Chicken breast and Spinach made into a pie with Potatoes on the side. Dessert was Apple slices in pastry. I thought it was lovely. Scamp wasn’t impressed with her work. Never satisfied!

Spoke to Jamie later and heard his planned holidays climbing mountains in Arran and later in 2025 a wedding in the highlands. We’d been planning holidays too. Some time in the new year hopefully, a week or so in the Canaries would be nice.

PoD was indeed,  the sunflower in the sun. Today’s prompt for Inktober was another uninspiring “Horizon”. What is the horizon, but a curved line that the human eye sees as a straight line. I gave a simplistic answer to a simple prompt, as you see here. The prompts this year are tedious.

I think I may be taking some garden refuse over to the skips tomorrow if the weather is good.

 

Going nowhere – 12 October 2024

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Heavy rain showers and a temperature hovering around 11ºc marked the day. We wouldn’t be going far today.

We did drive to Tesco to get a load of veg and some essentials. Real essentials today, like toilet rolls and milk and more things of that ilk. I bumped into Fred there and stood talking for about fifteen minutes before Scamp spotted us and I had to go to be a trolley pusher.

Back home it was tea and toast for my lunch, but one slice of the toast had a scraping of ‘fishy jam’ on it to brighten the day. We needed something to cheer up the day. It was a day of short spells of sunshine interspersed with heavy rain showers and a clump of thunder, thankfully only one.

I toyed with the idea of going for a walk in St Mo’s, but those heavy showers put me off. Instead, PoD was a photo taken from the back bedroom of the Campsie Fells with the Meikle Bin behind them. Did you know that the Meikle Bin is not part of the Campsie Fells, but stands about two miles north of them and its name means “Big Hill”. Very imaginative!

Scamp had bought a chicken when we were in Tesco and that was the focus of dinner, along with a few potatoes and some corn on the cob that needed consuming. Dessert was an apple and bramble crumble made with the last of our own apples and some brambles I’d picked over at St Mo’s a few weeks ago and had been in the freezer.

Today’s prompt was “Remote”. I didn’t draw the landscape that Fred suggested, but the Amazon remote controller for the tv. First attempt was poor, but the second one was better.

Hoping now for some decent weather tomorrow to get out somewhere.

What a difference a day makes – 11 October 2024

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Yesterday it was blue skies all day long with an aurora later to put the cherry on the cake. Today it was sun, then cloud followed by rain and that was just the morning.

Scamp went out to FitSteps and I stayed home to sketch today’s prompt which was “Snacks”. I chose a double decker sandwich, mainly because I’d drawn it last year, or was it the year before? A lot of the time they just repeat. The sketching was a bit ropey, but with a splash of W&N watercolour it brightened up. By the time I was finished, Scamp was back home.

After lunch Scamp did a bit of reading and made some veggy mince to go with tonight’s ‘tatties’. Meanwhile I walked over to St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which was the leaf of a Lady’s Mantle plant spattered with that morning rain. The great thing about Flickr is it encourages you to find out what these plants are called. As usual, the photo is an amalgam of two different but not too dissimilar views of the same leaf, joined together seamlessly in Photoshop, then Lightroom.

On the way home I visited the butchers in Condorrat and bought 500g of real mince. Back home I separated it into two halves. One went into the freezer and the other half was cooked for my dinner. I’d also got a bag of Cyprus potatoes. I didn’t know you could still get them, but there they were, all the way from Cyprus.

Once the two mince lookalikes were cooked and plated they looked surprisingly similar. Mine was minced meat and Scamp’s was made from barley and brown lentils. Both plates of ‘mince’ had carrot, turnip and onion in them and, of course, the ‘tatties’. The taste of Scamp’s was impressively, very like my ‘real’ mince.

That was about it for the day. The blue sky never returned, but the rain did. We can’t make up our minds on a destination for tomorrow. It looks like it will be dry, but cold. Sub-zero temperatures forecast even down to our elevation of 150m.

 

Cold but clear sky – 10 October 2024

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A clear, cold day 3.1ºc in the morning. Not a cloud in the sky when we woke. That was the incentive to get up and go!

Scamp filled the flask with boiling water and then filled a bag with some biscuits and crisps so we’d have something to eat when we arrived at Cramond. It’s a village in the north west of Edinburgh and sits on the River Almond where it meets the Firth of Forth. There’s very little to do there, except go for a walk. We chose not to walk out to Cramond Island, which is only an island when the tide is out. When the tide comes in, it returns to its island status. There’s even less to see on the island, but there are the remains of some WW2 gun emplacements and, of course, the submarine blocking concrete structures we always called the “Toblerone’s” because they looked just like those chocolate triangles.

We walked up the hill and went through the grounds of Cramond Kirk, a place I never knew existed. I didn’t take any photos. I’ve got this thing about cemeteries and churchyards. Instead we walked through the churchyard and out the other side to a big park with the ruins of a Roman fort laid out in the grass. We didn’t know then, but we do now that a building which looked like an office was actually a cafe and we could have had something to eat in it. Maybe next time. Instead we walked through some woods, down to the promenade.

We walked east along the promenade for a mile or two and then decided we should turn back. So far the breeze had been on our backs and I just knew it was going to feel colder when we were walking into it. Even with my gloves on, my pinkie fingers were freezing in the wind and I was glad to get back to the car for coffee, biscuits and a heat! I was also glad I’d decided to wear my big lined Berghaus jacket today.

Drove home and did some shopping on the way. The weather was still bright and cold. Scamp had bought some fancy timed lights that come on for six hours, then go off for eighteen. Battery operated, so not so delicate as solar powered lights. We put them up on the Rowan tree in the back garden and lit them about 6pm. I’m not sure I’m going to wait up until midnight to find out if they are working like they should!

I got a cryptic message from Alex tonight about 10pm. It just said “Look up in the East”. I did and once my eyes became accustomed to the light, there it was, a pink light in the sky, then it became two lights, side by side. The Aurora Borealis. I remember Fred saying that the best thing to do is photograph it with your phone camera because it’s more sensitive than the human eye. That’s what I did and this is what appeared.

PoD was a group of trees that I really like on the Cramond Promenade. I’d have liked the people to be nearer, but took what I got and we walked on. It was too cold to linger

The prompt today was “Nomadic” and I drew the sketch you see here of my idea of a nomad with his camel. I think the camel looks better than the nomad, even if it doesn’t seem to have any legs. It was probably on the Buckfast last night and that’s why it’s ‘legless’.

With that bad joke, I’ll leave you to go and look for your own aurora. Scamp’s intending to go to FitSteps tomorrow. I may do some more sketches.

 

Welcome Grian Murdo Macdonald – 9 October 2024

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Allan & Jaki’s wee boy was born last night, 8-10-2024 at 11.21pm, weighing in at 8lb 9oz. Those of a non-imperial persuasion can do their own calculations.

I was meeting Alex for another day in town. Weather could have been kinder to us, but it was dry for most of the day, but it was cold.Scamp kindly gave me a run to the station and I just missed the train! Not to worry, I was early and so was he for once. After coffee in Nero we went for a walk down Buchanan Street and took in this week’s artworks on the Clyde Walkway. From there we walked downstream and continued taking photos on the walkway and The Squiggly Bridge. Official name ‘The Tradeston Bridge’ but real name The Squiggly Bridge.

From there we crossed the river and walked through the mountainous office buildings on the ‘South Side’ before recrossing the Clyde by the King George V bridge. From there we made a series of zig zags until we followed our noses to Paesano for lunch. One Number 5 for Alex with less cheese and one Number 3 as it comes for me. Only non alcoholic drinks for both of us because Alex doesn’t drink and I was driving tonight.

The cold was starting to bite when we came out of Paesano and crossed the road to George Square looking for subjects, but there were very few. Eventually we gave up and went to Costa for a coffee and a heat. Cost I hear you say? Surely Nero? No, it was Alex who was buying and he wanted to go to Costa. Actually the flat white was just like real coffee. I was impressed.

After a heat, we headed back to the bus station, agreed to meet again in two weeks, then went to our respective sides of the bus station where, for the second time today I was just in time to see the X3 disappear round the corner.

Got back home to a plate of ‘Just Soup’ which went down nicely. Then it was time to get ready for tonight’s dance class. This Foxtrot we’re learning is quite tedious. It’s got that ‘manufactured’ feel to it, as if they are trying to cram in a load of different figures into a dance that wasn’t made for them. I can’t really explain it any better, other than to say that when Kirsty is demonstrating each of the two halves that make up the full dance, she demonstrates on the diagonal of the square dance floor. However when we’re dancing it, it’s on the shorter orthogonal, so it’s a bit of a cheat. Also, when we dance round the edge of the floor, everyone can follow the leader, but if we tried to use the diagonal, we’d crash into each other. A bit of mathematical spacial awareness, there. Just believe me, she’s cheating!
Anyway, we did get to do the individual sections and occasionally managed to join them together into a complete dance. Who said dancing is easy?

PoD today was a couple sitting at the ‘Graffiti Gallery’ on the Clyde Walkway with the ‘Blue Man’ keeping his eye on them!

Today’s prompt was ‘Sun’. The old,ancient Derwent Linemaker 0.5 pen came good again and produced the ink linework for this sketch of a man walking into the sunset. It was later augmented with some watercolour, but I think I might have been better leaving it as pure ink. Too late now.

Tomorrow, for once this week, we have no plans!

Another day, another appointment – 8 October 2024

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This time it was an appointment at Monklands hospital, but don’t panic, it was just for a checkup. Scamp came with me to keep me company.

The sister at the health centre had been a bit concerned by my low BP a month or two ago and when I said I’d had a couple of dizzy spells, I think she decided to get it looked at. So she sent me for an ‘echo’. I’ve had one before a long, long time ago and the result was that everything was ok. Thankfully after I’d been rolled on to my side today and had an ultra-sound taken of my heart, the technician said she had “no concerns”. She also said that “everything was pumping well”. That was a relief. All we needed to do now was to find the car and also find a way out of the housing estate I’d parked in.

Back home I could enjoy my lunch, a roll ’n’ cold meat. Scamp had a roll ’n’ scrambled egg which she managed to keep on the roll. Yesterday she managed to drop her fried egg on the kitchen carpet! Don’t tell her I told you.

Yesterday I washed and polished the bathroom. Today I was hanging up a new hook for her body polisher. We bought the hook at the weekend and it’s exactly the same as the one I got when we got the new bathroom, ten years ago, and it’s still stuck to the wall. Very clever wee thing.

Today’s prompt was “Hike”. It was drawn a week or so ago when I was getting organised for Inktober. It’s always good to have some of these drawings done early so they only need to be posted in Flickr as needed. I quite liked this sketch, it was so much more lively than yesterday’s.

I’d gone over to St Mo’s in the late afternoon to find a PoD. It’s getting harder and harder to find something interesting to post every day, but thanks to Scamp I had one already done. It’s a trio of roses that she cut in the garden and brought in. Beautiful blooms. Really deserved PoD.

We had Salmon Balls for dinner. I do believe you were sniggering about them when we were discussing them on Sunday, Jamie, but they were actually very good. We had them with potatoes and tender stem broccoli. So much better than yesterday’s disaster.

Tomorrow I’m expecting to meet Alex in Glasgow to go for a walk, take some photos, exchange news and have a pizza.