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Brambling on a Dewdrop – 28 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

I dusted off the Kona Dewdrop today and took it out for a spin.

I’d forgotten just how steep some of the hills are around here. Probably they aren’t so steep, but they felt it today. It’s been almost a year since I’ve had the Dewdrop out and it shows. I really need to get more exercise. Simply walking isn’t enough. Cycling not only works on the legs, but also on the arms, as I found out today. I think it’s coming to crunch time. If I’m going to keep the bike, it’s got to be something more than an ornament in the spare room.

A bit of light shopping in the morning put some more money into Tesco’s coffers and also put some veg and stuff into the fridge. Pizza for lunch and then it was time to decide if I was going to use the bike to get me down to the path where the big fat brambles (Blackberries to some, but always Brambles north of the border) are to be found. There’s no real place to park a car there, but a bike can go almost anywhere and doesn’t seem to mind if you leave it in a hedge row for an hour. The first thing I noticed was that my balance needs some work. It’s easy when you’re going fast, but when you’re travelling slowly the gyroscope effect of the rotating wheels isn’t there and that’s when the wobbles set in.

The first place I looked had only a few big fat berries. I took some anyway, but made sure the ones I picked were far enough away from the fairly busy road, so had less change of being contaminated with exhaust fumes. The main path I was looking for was much further away from the road and it was there I was fairly sure I’d find some decent fruit, which I did, but not as many as there were last year. After an hour or so’s picking I had collected enough to have made it worth my while.

While I was out I spotted a fly on a reed stem and after a few misses, managed one good clean shot of it. When I checked the magnified view on the screen I thought it was a Robber Fly. Quite a nasty piece of work. After checking when I got home, Google agreed with me.

The road home was fairly easy, downhill and with a tail wind for most of the way. The cyclist’s delight. That’s when I felt the ache in my arms. Maybe the seat is too high or the bars need to be raised, but I don’t remember changing anything since last year. Maybe I just need more practise.

For dinner we had arancini made with the leftover risotto from last night’s dinner. Little balls of risotto dunked in to flour, then egg, then coated in breadcrumbs. It’s one of those occasions when you really need three hands and preferably four! Scamp did the forming of the balls and the dusting with flour while I took over from there coating the balls in egg wash and then coating them in breadcrumbs. They were left for a while before being deep fried in oil, then left in the warm oven to let the heat percolate right through. They were absolutely delicious, eaten with tomato sauce.

Spoke to Jamie and were shocked at the cost of getting their roof repaired. I think he knew it was going to be expensive, but was hoping for a little less. We’ll probably take the pair of them out to lunch when they come up to visit in the autumn.

Scamp is out with Shona tomorrow after she (Scamp) gets her nails done. I’m hoping to have a more relaxing day than today. Oh yes, and 670g of brambles are now in the freezer!

 

Smelling Sweetly – 27 August 2023

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Scamp was off to a hotel in Glasgow to learn how to make perfume. I stayed well away!

Scamp met Annette on the bus in to Glasgow. I’d walked over to Condorrat with her and was quite pleased that I did, because it was there I found today’s PoD. While the two friends went in to Glasgow, I walked back home and, having my camera with me took to opportunity to get some photos of the Honeysuckle flower that was to be PoD. Back home I sat down to read another chapter or two of The Brass Verdict. I did a bit more clearing out in the back bedroom and also considered putting some air into the Kona’s tyres, but didn’t quite get round to that.

I checked the recipe for tonight’s Smoked Haddock and Leek Risotto – one of the easy ones that you bake in the oven and don’t have to stand for half an hour stirring. We needed a few things and I grabbed a bag and walked down to the shops. It wasn’t a heavy load to carry back, but I had bought more than I really required for dinner. I don’t think the recipe had mentioned Crunchy Ice Lollies or Jam Donuts, but for some reason both of those items had found their way into the message bag. How strange.

On the way back I found a strange looking object on a wall. It looked like the broken lid of a Jerry Can and had a flower growing out of the top. It looked a bit like an alternative flowerpot and was interesting enough for a photo or two. Try as I might I just couldn’t get a good shot of it. Eventually I decided I’d taken enough photos and spent enough time on it and walked up the rest of the way home.

It took about five minutes to process the honeysuckle flower. It took about an hour and a half to piece together two photos of the alternative flowerpot. In the end they both went in to Flickr, but the honeysuckle won PoD hands down.

I was just finishing the flowerpot when Scamp texted me to say she was on the bus home. I said I’d meet her at her stop and walk home with her because it’s a lonely path over the motorway and although it wasn’t that late, it’s always better to have somebody to walk with.

It seemed from her description that the perfume making was quite an interesting experience. Not just a cobbled together talk with a Powerpoint presentation and a bottle of smelly stuff to take away. There were 24 different ‘notes’ divided into three categories of Base notes, Middle notes and Top notes. All the participants could blend them any way they chose. Everything measured by drops, or even ‘half drops’. It sounded fascinating, but not really for me, I think! I did sample some of the testers and ‘Wood’ definitely did smell woody. Similarly, Passionfruit had that sharp sweet scent that only passionfruit has. But the one that stood out for me was ‘Rose’. I immediately smelled Turkish Delight which, of course is made from rose water. It sounded an interesting afternoon for Scamp and Annette and I don’t suppose the two glasses each of Prosecco did any harm too!

Watched a crazy Dutch GP with drivers splashing through rain, driving in the sun and finally back to torrential rain which resulted in the race being stopped until the clouds rolled away and the track dried out. An interesting race for once.

The Smoked Haddock and Leek Risotto was delicious, but that was more down to fresh smoked haddock than to my skill. We might make arancini with the leftover risotto tomorrow.

No plans for tomorrow.

Dancin’ Saturday – 26 August 2023

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Driving through the roadworks. Roadworks that will last until the end of September!

We drove over to Brookfield for a reasonably successful dance class, and ignoring the roadworks, it was a pleasant enough drive. Two new members, two girls. One just likes to dance and the other one wore a Fit Steps tee shirt and thought she could do it all. Oh dear, wrong thing to say.

While Jane and Stewart took them aside and explained what we were doing in class, we practised our Joy’s Waltz. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a great improvement on last week. We did actually manage once through the entire routine without a mistake, well, almost without a mistake. Then it went to pieces again as it often, but not always, does! I am improving and when I get things like the Outside Spin right, I can feel that I’m getting it right.

A couple of easy sequence dances to ease the new starts in to this strange old fashioned way of dancing, where everyone does the same moves at the same time. After that we hurtled in to the new Cha-Cha with the terrifying Cross Basic. I don’t know if it is really basic, but it certainly has the ability to make us both cross. For once, Stewart agreed with me about who was moving clockwise and who wasn’t. I’m glad someone agrees with me sometimes. By the end of that part of the lesson, things were making much more sense.

Another sequence dance and then a chance to practise the Quickstep. If there is a great stumbling block in our dances it’s the Quickstep. It really is well named. The steps come at you so quickly it’s almost impossible sometimes to stop and find out where you are in the routine.

All things considered, it was a worthwhile class where we learned a few things and got a chance to practise lots more things in a big dance hall.

We took the M8 – M74 – M73 – M80 route home and stopped at Tesco on the way to pick up lunch. We’d already decided tonight’s dinner was coming from Golden Bowl.

Rain showers all afternoon, but I braved them to take a walk in St Mo’s where PoD was a ladybird hiding under a knapweed flower.

Watched the qualifying for the Dutch GP. Interesting but not as enthralling as the World Athletics Championships, especially the pole vault where the Swedish vaulter Mondo Duplantis cleared an incredible 6.1m.

Tomorrow Scamp is heading to Glasgow for a perfume making class. Thankfully I wasn’t invited!

Out to Lunch – 25 August 2023

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It was Scamp who suggested that we go out to lunch today.

In the morning she went to her FitSteps class and I did some housekeeping. Actual, physical tidying-up housekeeping, but also the more interesting and almost invisible housekeeping on the computer. I was searching for a sofa bed that I knew was in the back bedroom / painting room / spare room. I’d seen it recently under a pile of books, a rucksack and a blizzard of paper. After some rearranging of things, a disposing of rubbish and just finding better places for jackets and hats to live, there, under it all was the sofa bed. It’s not completely unearthed yet, but now I know where to look the next time I might need it.

The computer clean-up took longer, although there was far less physical work involved. It’s so easy to get sidetracked into looking at photos you haven’t seen for a while and then that leads to more photos that look interesting until nearly an hour has gone and you still haven’t accomplished what you set out to do. It was when Scamp returned I realised that I was only half way through the clean up or what became a clear out. However I did manage to get the required photos put in the bin and their replacement put in place. I’ve still to empty the bin, because, well, I’ll need to check that I wasn’t throwing good photos out with the bad, and you never know when I’ll need that one or that one or …

I shut the computer down. I powered it off and we went out to lunch, just as the rain came on. Thankfully it didn’t last long because we’d agreed to walk down to Broadwood Farm for a cheap lunch and a glass of something alcoholic. After all it was Friday and the end of the historical working week. Not that I’ve been involved in any working for a while now, but you have to keep these traditions alive! Fish & Chips for Scamp and small carvery for me. Small because that means two of the three meats that are always available, Gammon, Turkey and Cardboard. It’s actually advertised as Roast Beef, but it’s so dry the gravy won’t be absorbed into it and it tastes like cardboard, so let’s cut to the chase here and call it what it is – Cardboard. Some mixed veg and Cauliflower Cheese brightened up the plate and actually the food was good, washed down with a pint of Tennents for me and a glass of 19 Crimes Red for Scamp. The father of a family sitting on the other side of the room had a broad southern Irish accent, and although he was speaking quite loudly, I couldn’t understand more than about three words in every sentence. This got me thinking: Is that what I sound like to English folk? I must ask Simonne the next time we meet. Scamp thinks Simonne can probably decode my accent by now!

Back home the streets were drying, but not for long. I was just thinking I might get an hour in St Mo’s when down it came, straight down rain. As soon as it had disappeared to bother somebody else, I got my boots on and went for a walk with the A6500 and a 50mm macro lens. The 50 did its magic again. 50mm used to be the lens to stick on your camera. A general purpose go anywhere lens that could handle most things. That part hasn’t really changed, but having the ‘macro’ part means it’s possible to focus down to about 30mm from the front of the lens and still get super sharp images. Kind of two lenses in one. Today it took a photo of a swan drying its wings while standing on a rock in the middle of St Mo’s pond – the swan was standing on the rock, not me, BTW! Daft, but not stupid. It took a photo of a tiny, about 3mm long spider on a web. Last, but not least it took a photo of a Red Admiral butterfly sunning itself on a bush. First red admiral I’ve seen this year and even better, there were actually two of them! The butterfly got PoD and the other two are able to be viewed on Flickr.

Swans are sneaky things.  You’ve only got to ask Jamie about their wiles!  The one referred to in the previous paragraph successfully enveigled itself into the photograph, but it’s now been bounced out and replaced with the butterfly.  Swan’s! You can never turn your back on them for a minute.  Ask Jamie!

A thin G&T each tonight because we’re out early tomorrow intending to drive to Brookfield to demonstrate that we have been practising the Outside Spin, if not the Cross Basic.

Waltzing around – 24 August 2023

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This morning we had a quick practise of the waltz. I needed it.

We spent so long yesterday arguing about whether we were going clockwise or anti-clockwise when we were doing the Cross Basic, I forgot all the stuff I’d learned about the Outside Spin. So this morning we concentrated on the Outside Spin. After a couple of mistakes I got back to the basics of it, and this next section is for my benefit. It will make no sense to anyone reading it, except me and perhaps Scamp:

After the Drag Hesitation, and the backward steps turn right and plant my right foot, then spin clockwise on it around Scamp. After that it’s a Back Lock and we’re nearly finished.

I think that’s it. It seemed to work yesterday and this morning.

That was this morning. This afternoon we drove to Glenburn to a very small group of dancers. First dance of course was a waltz. That’s when I realised I’d left the Outside Spin in the house, I must have, because I certainly didn’t have it with me! I just couldn’t remember how to get my feet to complete that simple couple of sentences in italics I’ve just written. It just wouldn’t come. Disaster! Thank goodness for sequence dances Stewart interleaves between the ballroom and latin dances. They repeat and repeat short ‘sequences’ of moves. That’s where they get their name from and also why they are so popular. After you’ve danced them for a while, they become embedded in muscle memory. I haven’t repeated the Outside Spin enough times yet to embed it.

After the halfway point of the tea dance, after the actual tea and coffee had been served and cleared away, the first dance of the second half is a waltz again and this time I stumbled through the waltz again, but this time it was a bit clearer and I remembered some of Stewart’s prompts and also Scamp’s hints. It was better, but not very elegant.

Barry and Cath, two long serving salsa dancers, and excellent tango dancers joined us after tea time for a blether. Also another dancer lady, Margaret McIver, sat and talked to us at tea time, but the two teachers sat in their little cliques and hardly spoke to us at all. That is not my idea of what teachers should do. They should encourage folk to join in the dance community and mingle. Maybe it’s just me, that I always find fault with teachers!

We left as usual just after 3pm to avoid the worst of the school transport, and we had a fairly easy run home.

I grabbed the opportunity of a few shots of our Japanese Anemone in flower in the garden and that became PoD.

Not the best dancing day, but maybe I’ve finally solved the problem of the Outside Spin and all it needs is practise now.

I think we both felt the temperature dropping a bit today. That seems to be the way the weather is going for next week according to the Weather Fairies.

No real plans for tomorrow, but we may go out to lunch.

A change of destination – 23 August 2023

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I’d intended going for a walk with Alex along the Forth & Clyde canal and we did start the walk, but then had a change of direction

We both agreed that the weather wasn’t playing fair with us and those big black clouds weren’t allowing any directional light through, so instead of ploughing on, we walked back to the car at Auchinstarry and drove to the Kelpies instead.  The further east we went, the more sunlight we saw.  We were definitely going in the right direction.

The Helix Park, where the Kelpies live was mobbed.  Not so the carpark you have to pay for. Only foreign visitors were parked there and a couple of photogs (us).  Most of the locals, and by Locals I mean, mean Scots would rather squeeze into a tiny space in the free carpark and then walk a mile to the Kelpies than pay a few quid to park right next to them.  We were the odd ones out.  Alex paid, I drove.

I think we were both looking for ‘people shots’ today and anything just that wee bit unusual. A different angle or something that took your fancy, really.  I was trying to get more photos of people, something I usually avoid. Today I’d break my rule. We had a quick lunch and then split up.  I tried a few shot of barges on the Forth & Clyde canal, that same Forth & Clyde we’d rejected back at Auchinstarry as a bit boring with too much flat lighting.  It’s amazing what a difference a few miles makes. After a couple of hours of shutter clicking we were done and headed home. Alex to Motherwell and me to Cumbersheugh after I’d dropped him off at the train station.

Back home it was Carrot & Lentil Curry for dinner made by Scamp.  Not as hot as it sometimes is, but it will improve tomorrow, I’m sure, but if it stays the same as today’s, I won’t be disappointed.

A run through of the Outside Spin again tonight and I was much more confident about it.  Still not so confident about the Cross Basic in the Cha-Cha, but after a heated discussion I’m beginning to see that Scamp is probably correct in her description of it. We may get a chance to test out both tomorrow if we go to the tea dance.

PoD turned out to be a ‘people photo’ from The Kelpies.

Tomorrow there’s a tea dance and we may go to it.

 

 

A day among the beasties – 22 August 2023

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The beasties in question were damselflies, dragonflies, butterflies and a single little caterpillar with a face that only its mother would love!

In the morning we did little except Wordle and Spelling Bee. Then Hazy phoned and we had a good half hour chat about the Wales holiday with the Welsh side of the family. Pity the house wasn’t quite up to the Cumbrian one, but you always have to take estate agent’s descriptions and photos with a pinch of salt. Glad that everyone took their turn at cooking, and it’s alway good when everyone sits down to a meal together.

Lunchtime arrived much quicker than I expected and after we were fed and watered, we walked down to the shops to get some messages. It was on the way back home that I thought I might just manage to get some more butterfly or dragonfly photos in St Mo’s

So on with the boots and out I went to see what I would find today. It was actually quite warm in the sun and I made the right decision for once and left my raincoat at home and wore a hoodie instead. There were hosts of dragonflies about, but they were too busy dive bombing each other and flying dogfights among the rushes. Mostly they were common darters, with the males outnumbering the females about 2:1. I gave them up as a subject for today. The days are getting shorter as we move into the last quarter of August, so the dragonflies had other things on their mind.

I did find a couple of peacock butterflies sunning themselves on the flowers, but they were too far into the bushes and I knew they’d fly off as soon as they saw me coming. Also, it’s prime tick weather just now and I don’t want any more of these black devils on me. Neither them nor the inevitable clegs which you may know as horse flies. So, no butterflies either. I was busy photographing two hoverflies on a lovely pink knapweed when a common blue damsels dropped in and sat quite comfortably watching me at work before it too became a subject. I kept expecting it to fly off, but it seemed happy and obviously saw that I wasn’t a danger to it. With a couple of dozen photos taken, I headed for home for dinner which was cauliflower and potatoes with a cheese sauce.

It wasn’t until I was processing the photos that I noticed the cheeky green insect (don’t know what it was) poking its head up from the knapweed flower. Photobombed by a tiny green insect. That shot became PoD!

A quick practise tonight of Joy’s Waltz, especially the Outside Spin. Then a run through for Scamp of the new Cross Basic in the cha-cha which is really just another of Jane’s add-ons that are designed to look elegant, but cause a lot of grief! Most of the problems were ironed out … eventually.

I’m planning on meeting Alex from the train tomorrow and we’re heading to Auchinstarry to get some photos of the barges at the marina.  Scamp might be having coffee with Isobel.

The Complaints – 21 August 2023

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We have an ongoing problem with British Gas. We have not had a gas bill from British Gas since November 2022. Since May 2023 Scamp has phoned, chatted with the ‘help bot’ and sent a picture of our gas meter as requested, but still no bill. Our smart meter still reads and updates the electricity and gas usage and sends the results to British Gas who are our supplier for both gas and electricity. We receive regular bills for the electricity we use, but the gas readings go into a bin somewhere, I think.

We have received FOUR identical replies from British Gas recently, stating that problem has been “picked up by their specialist team and is currently in the process of being worked on”, but, as yet, they still haven’t produced a bill. It may be time to move on! Scamp wrote another email to them today which will probably generate a fifth identical reply.

My part in this sorry tale was to give a one star review on Trustpilot today. It was picked up and I now have an address on Twitter (or X) to write to or an address on Facebook if I don’t tweet or X. The message was probably generated by a ‘bot’, but who knows, maybe it’s some poor soul’s job to reply to these complaints.
At least it gave us something to do this morning.

I think that was the excitement over for the day, after lunch I went for a walk in St Mo’s to see if there was anything wanting its photo taken. There were clouds of Peacock butterflies in the sheltered parts of the park, and also a couple of dragonflies, but that was it, really. One of the dragonflies got PoD, but only after using some very clever AI apps in Lightroom. I’m not a great believer in AI, but it has its uses.

No plans for tomorrow. Weather looks less than brilliant.

Gardening and wildflowers – 20 August 2023

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A lazy day, with little to recommend it.

We did a bit of gardening in the late morning, just pruning the Buddleia in the hope that it would encourage more flowers, but I really think it’s past now and needs a serious haircut before the winter winds arrive. Scamp was busy moving some Honesty plants from the nursery pots to the pots they will hopefully live in until they flower next year. She can be quite ruthless with plants, ripping them out if she thinks they are ‘going over’, ie not producing the flowers they should be. I was also chopping down as much of the Aquilegia I could get away with. It’s well past first flush of flowering and there’s just the chance that it might flower again before the end of the year. More work needing done:

  • Sunflowers need staked.
  • I think we need to think about some winter colour.
  • We need to remove this year’s flowers from the Rhododendrons. This one is contentious. Some folk think we shouldn’t remove the old floret stems and some think we should.

Basically the garden is doing well. The few veg I have are coming along nicely, especially the leeks and the kale. Maybe we should plant some tatties soon for a Christmas crop.

In the afternoon I went for a walk in St Mo’s and got a few interesting wildflower photos, there being very little insect life about apart from the usual skittish Common Darters. It was a very green photo of a Pineapple Plant that got PoD. I remember when I was wee, being amazed that they did actually taste like pineapples! They smell like them too. As they are low growing, it’s probably best to just smell them rather than eat them as you don’t know what has been ‘watering’ them!

Dinner tonight was a Chicken Milanese we got from the butchers a week or so ago. Scamp was not impressed and I have to agree her version is better. Dessert was Apricot and Brioche Pudding. A bit like Bread and Butter Pudding, but posher!

Spoke to Jamie tonight and heard about his posh dinner on Friday. Sounded lovely. We must go look for The Unruly Pig. That’s the name of the restaurant, by the way.  We think our garden is growing well until we hear about their garden and then ours pales a bit in comparison.  However, ours is easier to maintain.

No real plans for tomorrow. It depends on the weather.

Dancin’ again – 19 August 2023

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We were off to Brookfield again today for a dance class.

Unbelievably, less than a month after the months long roadworks on the M8, today they were back again. This time slightly further down the road. Can these numpties not get their ducks in a row and just do all the roadworks at the same time, instead of this Forth Bridge comparison (once it’s finished, start again). Harrumph!

The first of two tracks in the warm-up today was Shivers by Ed Sheeran, much to the delight of Scamp. Two tracks as normal, but the second one was immaterial, it was Ed Sheeran’s that counted. Then it was in to the main event of the day which was a Cha-Cha which started out as a fairly easy amalgamation of moves we already knew, but is gradually building and being refined by the teachers, but really just Jane I think, into a mammoth dancing extravaganza. Today’s addition was a Cross Basic. It was definitely cross (at least Scamp was) but it was never Basic. I think we might need some living room practise for this one.

Next up was Joy’s Waltz which is starting to gel in my head. It’s only taken since May, on and off, for it to stick, but I think I’m getting there at last. I only hope they keep it as it is and don’t go adding any more steps to a dance that is quite doable as it is.

Actually the drive home via the Clyde Tunnel was quite relaxing compared with the drive out, but the warning signs were out predicting another month’s driving misery.

After lunch we went for a walk down to the Broadwood Boardwalk and back via M&S for tonight’s dinner. The PoD came from the boardwalk and it’s Bittersweet Nightshade. Perhaps not as deadly as its better known relative, but I wasn’t risking it and neither were the birds, it seemed.

There had been some rain overnight and more is predicted for tomorrow, although the winds might have calmed down a bit. If we get a dry spell, we may get out for a walk.