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Checking out The Vineyard – 29 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

As has become traditional when we’re away from home, the write-up is more of a place marker than anything else. With bullet points to keep the memories fresh without taking up too much writing time.

  • We walked down to the church with the blue building beside it
  • That was a much easier way of finding the town centre
  • Scamp got a new pair of trainers
  • Just missed the bus to the vineyard
  • Had a coffee then got the next bus (only one an hour)
  • What a roundabout road. A long road for a short-cut
  • Scamp got tickets for a tour of the winery and a few glasses of wine
  • Interesting talk
  • I only liked the white wine. Scamp liked the red and the white
  • Rosé was the only poor one
  • Stayed for about two hours


– Walked back to the bus stop
– Didn’t have long to wait for the bus
– Got a bottle of Gordon’s gin and a mixer
– Scamp led the way to the road back to the hotel
– I kept a check with Google Maps
– Booked dinner at hotel
– Waited 45mins for our main course
– Lots of excuses
– Waiter let slip that a big order had come in and ours missed out!
– Lots more excuses
– Food was late but it was lovely
– Entertainment was two blokes. One played trumpet other played guitar. Playing jazz
– Disappointing dessert. Lychee & Raspberry Pavlova.
– Had a couple of G ’n’ Ts in the room.

Travelling 28 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

As has become traditional when we’re away from home, the write-up is more of a place marker than anything else. With bullet points to keep the memories fresh without taking up too much writing time.

  • Alarm played a merry tune at 6:15am
  • Walked over to terminal building and divulged the contents of our bags for all to see
  • Walked into Frankie & Benny’s and had breakfast
  • Too much chilli sauce for a morning
  • They didn’t even check to see if my bag fitted in the grid
  • Easy flight to Jersey
  • Saw a Spitfire on the grass of the airport
  • Taxi from the airport to the hotel
  • Very grand and our room was ready
  • Changed into something more fitting for summer
  • Got a free minibus ride into town, courtesy of the hotel.
  • Walked for miles, photographed everything
  • Got a weekly bus ticket.
  • Lunch in a wee Italian restaurant with a view of the town square
  • Saw an Amphibious Duckw
  • Saw and heard the Spitfire £3,500 for half an hour’s flight!!!
  • Got lost trying to find the hotel
  • It’s a long walk up that hill
  • Swam in the inside pool

Preparations – 27 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

One of those days when I couldn’t settle.

I knew we’d have to finish packing today, because we were going to be driving to the airport to park the car and then have a few hours sleep before we got the plane tomorrow morning. Had I packed this? Had I packed that? Did I really need all the stuff I’d packed? Would my rucksack fit into EasyJet’s shrinking metal boxes?

Scamp called a halt and suggested a lunch at Brodens in Condorrat. Great idea, even if I couldn’t have my traditional pint of Guinness because I was driving in the evening. Mac ’n’ Cheese for Scamp and Fish ’n’ Chips for me.

Bumped into George from the corner who had been forced to slum it in Brodens as a fire at his usual Weavers pub had been bad enough to force it to close, then vandals had found a way in and created more carnage. We stood and spoke for a while and then Scamp and I made our way down the road.

The hours slowly ticked away until it was time to pack up the car and drive to the airport. Parked, then took the cases to the drop-off place in the terminal building then we had a free drink in the bar of the airport hotel, free because Scamp had signed up to a club account which gave extra benefits as well as a cheap one night stay. PoD was the view over to Paisley from the room.

Hopefully sleep will come faster than the day did.

More good news – 26 August 2024

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Off to see the nurse this morning.

We drove up to the health centre where Scamp left to walk to the town centre to get some English notes at the bank, only to find that the bank was closed. Today was an English bank holiday, but not in Scotland according to NLC, but what do they know, they are only the council.

While Scamp was at the closed bank, I was getting some good news from the Nurse/Sister. I’ve been taken off another of my meds. The nurse took my BP both sitting and standing and was happy to take me off another pill I didn’t need. I’m still being monitored and have another appointment to attend in a month or so, but it’s another step in the right direction.

I drove up to the town centre to meet Scamp who had sent me a message about the bank and I had sent her a message to say I was on my way to meet her. Neither message reached its target. Maybe one of the masts was down or maybe it’s just Cumbersheugh. Anyway, when we got home the messages appeared and we had lunch.

Later in the afternoon, plans were made to lighten the loads I carry on my shoulder. Two cameras is just too much to carry with associated lenses. Just for a test I took only the A6500 with two light lenses and it was comfortable for a walk in St Mo’s. That’s actually lighter than one A7iii camera without a lens. I’m beginning to think I may have to reduce the load I’m carrying on my shoulder, although the quality of the final image will suffer. At present it’s just an idea, whether I can carry it through is another thing entirely

Today’s walk to St Mo’s got me a PoD I was happy with. It was a drone fly or maybe a large hover fly on a Scabious flower head. I quite liked it, I think because of the out of focus background. The weather wasn’t exactly warm, but it certainly wasn’t cold and thankfully it was dry. More rain forecast for tomorrow.

Tomorrow Scamp is intending getting her nails done and I’m still clearing up more stuff to go to the skips.

 

 

Rain – 25 August 2024

Posted on by Zogman

It rained today from early morning until late at night.

Actually it did stop around 6pm when, for an hour, the rain stopped, the sun shone and I managed to get a handful of photos of flowers in the garden. After that the rain returned as heavy as ever and I think it’s still raining. Usually I say that the gardens need it, but the gardens are fed up with it too and just want some late season warmth and sunshine. An Indian summer we used to call it.

In a way, the rain was a blessing. It forced us to start tidying things up. Making bundles and packing those bundles away for better days to come, but first there were some messages to get.

Normally Monday is the shopping day, but we’d meant to do it yesterday, then yesterday slipped from our grasp and it turned into today. We couldn’t let it go any further or else there would be no food in the house, so we braced ourselves and drove to Tesco to buy some much needed supplies. Just the essentials today. Fruit, veg, milk and some sausages. No wine, no beer, just the bare necessities.

Then just as quickly as we finished our lunch, and read a few chapters in our books and played the occasional game of Angry Birds or finished a jigsaw for some, it was almost dinner time.

Just before dinner was when I got the PoD. It’s a bunch of Japanese Anemones with a bit of bokeh in the background courtesy of a hand made steel Allium that holds the raindrops beautifully. Thanks again for that Hazy.

Also around that time we found a PDF of the Holiday Recipes had arrived in the WhatsApp mailbox. Thank you for that Neil. Very well presented. It’s now downloaded and will be printed off tomorrow.

Spoke to Jamie later and agreed that stripping paint is not the most pleasant of ways to use your weekend, but sometimes it just has to be done. If we could string a few dry days together here, I’d like to give the window sills a fresh coat of paint, but if present weather systems are anything to go by, it would need to very quick drying paint!

I have an appointment with the nurse tomorrow to review a possible change in my meds. Hope it’s not as wet as today.

Dancin’ – 24 August 2024

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Today we drove to Brookfield for the first dance class in about three weeks.

It started well, with a Mayfair Quickstep which isn’t a quickstep, but that’s splitting hairs. Two tracks to make sure we were well warmed up, because it’s summer in Brookfield and they don’t have heating on in the morning until winter.

The first ‘real’ dance was a new Cha-Cha, new to us, anyway, but made up from figures we already knew. They were put together in different patterns, though. I thought I’d filmed it on my phone, but when I got home and looked at it, I’d a photo of Jane, the teacher, but no video. I really need to learn how to use this phone. I expect that someone, somewhere has a video of the new routine, but it’s not me!

Next up was a Viennese waltz. You see folk dancing this in Strictly and it seems to be all about blokes in evening suits and ladies with sticky out dresses ( that’s a technical description, by the way), twirling around on the floor, but it’s much more complicated than that. Oh boy, is it more complicated, and fast too. We did the baby steps quite well to start with, even that was difficult, but when they started mixing up Half Natural Turns and Half Reverse Turns with Full Natural and Full Reverse my brain sort of gave up and went to sleep. I don’t suppose we’ll ever go to Vienna and neither of us speak Viennese, so what’s the use of learning their dances? Huh?

The next one was more down to our earth. It was the Tina Tango danced to Ed Sheehan’s Shivers. I believe Scamp could dance this blindfold. I also believe that Scamp think I DO dance it blindfold which would account for stubbed toes for both of us. Anyway it was much easier that the Viennese waltz.

The final dance of the day was the Vogue Waltz. I can just remember dancing this on a Perth weekend. Bits of it were stuck in my memory slots, but other bits of it were Vague rather than Vogue, but we struggled on until I was almost fluent in it. Then they sprung a curve ball. We would only dance one round of the steps, then move on to a new partner. Woah! Chaos reigned for the three or four minutes this new routine was being danced. I’m so used to Scamp calling out instructions quietly in my ear that I though all the ladies did it. They didn’t, but a few of them laughed!! It was actually fun.

We drove home from Brookfield with our heads spinning with new and half remembered dance routines. We may try them out some time in the living room, just not today.

Lunch was a sandwich for both of us and we’d agreed that dinner would be provided by Golden Bowl.

Today’s PoD was a vase of flowers that sits on the kitchen window sill. Every time I’ve passed it for the last couple of weeks I’ve told myself I was going to photograph it, and today I was true to my word. I just liked the composition.

Tomorrow we are maybe going shopping.

Today we went to Edinburgh – 23 August 2024

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See, sometimes I do give it its real name, not just Embra. We were going to get what my mum would have called “a wee minding” Just a wee something they could hang on their wall if they liked it, or keep it in a drawer if they didn’t. Either way, it was a gift for a Special Occasion.

Today was deemed a non-driving day. We walked down to the bus stop at the shops and got the wee red bus down to Croy Station. From there we managed to get two separate seats in First Class because the guard said there were no seats anywhere else and anyway he wasn’t going to fight his way through the crowded carriages to check any tickets. It was almost the end of the Edinburgh Festival and that was the reason for the crowded train. Our carriage was full, but next door in the other half of the carriage a party was going on. Scamp said there were at least five ‘ladies’ eating their way through some vile smelling food and screaming their heads off. I was pleased that there was a sliding door between them and us that kept almost all of the noise in their section.

As is traditional, we got off at Haymarket and walked up the hill to cross over Ladyfield to Caffè Nero. It was at Ladywell I got my PoD. It’s a mono shot of a man walking across a bridge that runs over one of the really busy roads in the city.

Once we’d had our coffee we walked down to Princes Street to pay for and pick up the gift we’d come for from one of Mhairi’s daughters who was minding the stall. I didn’t embarrass the girl by asking her is she was the one who was in the office chair or the one who was pushing it.

They used to come with their mum to our weekly salsa class in the ground floor of what had been a big old fashioned school. It also doubled as a Trades Union office during the day, but on a Monday night the two girls would take it in turns to ride down the sloping entrance ramp on an office chair with dodgy castors. Usually one or other of them would crash the chair and come crying to mum who wasn’t at all sympathetic. “They bounce” was her reply when someone asked if the girls were injured!

So having achieved our main goal, we walked through Princes Street Gardens. Always well tended gardens and today was no exception. We were just in time to hear the One o’clock Gun. Which was a lot louder that I remembered.

I was still looking for a new waterproof, breathable rain jacket and I tried on a few on Rose Street, but couldn’t find the Goldilocks jacket. Some were too short, some had only two pockets and some were just plain uncomfortable. I’m still looking.

I suggested Whighams and Scamp said that was where she was heading! Lunch was a bowl of mussels for Scamp with a glass of French white wine while I had a Goan vegetable curry and a pint of Tennent’s. Both meals were lovely. We walked back to Princes Street and after getting a couple of books in Waterstones, we wandered along and got separate seats again on the train to Croy. Got the wee red bus again which dropped us at the Shops and we walked the rest.

All in all, that was a really good day. It would have been better without all the crowds who had come to see the festival, but you can’t have everything. Weather was good. Sunny but with a gusty wind again.

Tomorrow we’re intending to go to the dance class in Brookfield.

Dancin’ – 22 August 2024

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Bright sunny day that developed the look of rain, which never appeared until evening.

We were going dancing today at Glenburn, but before that, Scamp went shopping for bread and milk, so that after lunch we could get changed into dancing clothes and go.

We didn’t dance as much as we’d thought we would because we were sitting with a couple from Largs. The lady struck up a conversation with Scamp while we men sat around and chipped in the occasional comment, as men do.

We did manage a fairly lengthy quickstep without making it too obvious that we were repeating a lot. I attempted Fishtails, but need a lot more practise on the actual strategy of fishtails before I can confidently insert them into full dance. There are lots of little steps like that we know and just need the confidence to add them to our short routine. Practise, that’s what we need the most. Anyway, it passed an afternoon that otherwise we’d have used up sitting around the house.

Drove home and had an M&S curry for dinner. For the first time I was distinctly unimpressed with the Chicken Tikka which was just bland with nothing to commend it in my opinion.

We watched episode 1 of a series called Vienna Blood, set in 1906 Vienna. I drew comparison immediately with The Turkish Detective which even with occasional subtitles was a much better series. Scamp took issue with the close-ups of staring eyes. Maybe episode 1 was a good place to stop.

The PoD was a robin that stopped for a quick splash in the birdbath in the afternoon. Another swimmer I saw today was a snail, complete with shell in an old mushroom tub sunk in the raised bed, I’d originally poured some no alcohol beer into it to see if the smell would attract slugs to drown in it, but they appeared uninterested in pretend beer. This snail, however wasn’t drowning in the now rainwater tub, it was actually swimming. I’ve once seen a big black slug paddling in puddles with its ‘head’ above water, but this snail seemed to be floating in the water. Maybe the shell holds enough air to make it buoyant. I must investigate that.

Tomorrow we may be going east in search of some sun.

Out on the town – 21 August 2024

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I was meeting Alex today for a photowalk round Glasgow.

Actually bumped into him on Buchanan Street after I got off my train. Scamp had given me a lift to the station and ten minutes later I was on the train to Glasgow.

Alex was testing a new lens, let me rephrase that, “Alex was testing out another new lens” This one was a Chinese 35mm f1.4 manual lens. By manual I mean there were no electrical or electronic connections in the lens, nothing. Sometimes that’s a good thing, sometimes it’s a hindrance. His lens was a nice size and weight. It balanced well on his S6600 body. I wished him well with it, but it wasn’t for me. I like to control the settings on my lens, but give them a bit of leeway to help me get the best out of the camera/lens combo. I’ve had manual lenses in the past and got on well with some of them, but now I like to know that they can think for themselves!

As usual, it was coffee first, then catch up on what we’ve been up to in the last few weeks. Next we made our plans for the day. Alex wanted to photograph some distorting mirrors in the GOMA and I wanted to visit a photographic exhibition on Argyle Street.

We walked to the GOMA and got our photos. I managed a picture of The Duke on his horse with a seagull perched on its tail.

Next stop was the art exhibition, except after walking as far as High Street, I discovered when I checked with my phone that it wasn’t in Argyle Street, but up at the top of High Street. Oh well, we were on High Street now, so we might as well continue and see what was on show. The exhibition was in a couple of old shops that had been knocked into one. Interesting prints roughly 10” x 8” mostly B&W but with a few colour too. Not at all busy, but it was worth the walk. Must keep an eye open for it next time we’re doing a photowalk.

We walked further on and found a gable end with a mural of St Mungo holding a robin. It was a pity that someone decided it would be a good idea to plonk what looked like a gas installation right next to it. I took some photos anyway, because a couple of trees framed the photo well.

We walked back to the city centre and from there to Paesano for lunch. Lots of interesting buildings and mural on the way there. Things you’d pass easily, not realising they were there.

After our usual Paesano pizza lunch (Alex’s turn to pay) we went back to the GOMA and got some more photos. I wasn’t impressed. Nothing much had changed since my last visit. From there we went down to Princes Square where Alex wanted to test out his new lens again, inside this time, in the dry. It had been raining all day. I watched fascinated as four ladies equally spaced went up on the escalator. I suggested to Alex that they looked exactly like the old shooting galleries in the fair. The ones where you had to shoot down the moving targets with an air rifle, back in the bad old days!

By that time we were getting thirsty, so we had a coffee in the cafe in Princes Square. Coffee was black and weak. Wouldn’t darken their door again.

At the bus station I managed to get on the X3 with literally minutes to spare.

47 Photos taken today and not one chucker among them! That must be a record.

I’d messaged Scamp to say I didn’t need any dinner, but she’d heated too much of last night’s tagine, so I did have a few fork fulls of it just to fill a wee space. We couldn’t decide whether to keep the remainder or put it in the bin. Since the main protein had been chicken, I felt it would be safer to put it in, and that’s what happened.

A good day, but a pity about the rain. Just over 11,000 steps which isn’t bad.

PoD was the escalators (without targets) in Princes Square.

Tomorrow we might be going dancing. High winds forecast.

A busy day – 20 August 2024

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Much of my work had been done yesterday. Today was Scamp’s day.

I took the easy way out and drove to Glasgow. I’d a shirt to exchange at Slaters which was easily accomplished and that left me enough time to get my hair cut and my beard trimmed . Much easier getting somebody who knows what he’s doing to do the work than trying to work with cutters and scissors while staring intently in the mirror. I also managed to find time to source some white chocolate for the topping of the cake Scamp was baking. Easy, especially if you’ve planned your route in advance.

Not so easy was getting to Glasgow in the first place and getting home again as the council had decided the roundabout at the bottom of the road needed a sprucing up, complete with 4-way traffic lights. There had been no notice this was happening, so it was a nice surprise!! Ratbags!

When I got home, after another 15 minute delay, stuck in the queue, I realised I’d forgotten to get olives. Rather than face the queue again, I walked down to the shops and got the olives, then got soaked walking home.

After a change of clothes I was given the job of finding, and clearing, the table in the living room where it lay hidden under a pile of magazines, cables, SSDs, a computer and assorted rubbish (all mine). Then finding a place to put said rubbish where I’d find it again when needed.

After that I helped out in the kitchen with the fiddly bits of dressing the Portobello mushrooms for the starter and re-heating the main course I’d made yesterday while Scamp made the pudding. All achieved just in time to welcome John & Marion.

Dinner was:
Starter: Portobello Mushrooms with Cheese, Spinach and Parma Ham
Main: Chicken Tagine
Dessert: Baked Apricot Brioche.

It was a good night. Lots to discuss. The new grandchild for J&M, Erin. John’s new car, (although he says it’s Marion’s), a Renault Clio and a hybrid to boot! Holidays were discussed and days away too. Much later than any of us intended we let them go and we started the clearing up.

Another glass of wine for Scamp and a small whisky for me and it was time for bed.

PoD was a view looking down Buchanan Street from the opposite side of the subway entrance.

Plans for tomorrow will start with whoever is making breakfast, switching on the dish washer. I’m intending meeting Alex for a photowalk in Glasgow.