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Shopping in Stirling – 18 August 2021

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We were away for the messages.

Scamp had mentioned that she fancied going to Sainsbury’s for the messages this week. The nearest one, that didn’t run the risk of five miles of queues because of road works, was in Stirling. As far as we knew, there would be no problem with folk digging up the road there, so off we went. We drove through the Raploch, once the worst housing estate in Scotland, now very up-market and the worst place to drive through in Scotland. Every few yards the road surface changes from tarmac to concrete to granite tiles. Speed bumps everywhere, and in the tiled areas they are colour matched to the tiles which makes driving very tricky, but ensures you keep within the 20mph limit. We found Sainsbury’s without any problem and I discovered I’d a message from Jamie with some very good news.

Lots of interesting things to buy in Sainsburys. First supermarket I’ve been in where they sell watches! Whatever next. But it felt like we’d gone back in time a year and a bit, because a lot of the shelves were empty. Not enough delivery drivers we’re told. Well, some of you silly buggers voted for Brexit and swallowed every fairy tale you were told. It looks like reality is coming home to bite you now that there aren’t enough low paid foreign workers wanting to come to the UK to work.

We’d found an interesting historical artefact when we were checking out the road to Sainsbury’s. There’s a Beheading Stone on a hill near the supermarket. We’d half intended going for a look, but as far as we could tell, there were no beheadings scheduled for today. Maybe another day then.

Back home we potted up the echinacea we bought on Monday. We’d bought a clay pot for it and Scamp had had it soaking in the bird bath for a few days. You have to do that with clay pots because otherwise they will draw water away from the compost and allow it to evaporate into the air. After we’d potted the plant up we gave it a good drink of pure rain water we’d collected during the heavy rain last week. Then it got to sit in the sun for a while at the front of the house, while a rose that had sat there all summer went to the back garden to rest a while.

I finally chopped and sawed down the remaining trunk and branches of the tree that had been growing between Angela’s garden and ours. The loppers did most of the work on the branches, but I had to resort to a panel saw for the trunk. I’d been talking to Fred before that and he was telling me that he recycles all his tree branches with a shredder. I don’t think we have enough trees to warrant the purchase of a shredder, but it would have been useful today. However, it all went into the brown bin today and it gets lifted tomorrow.

Went for a walk in the woods of St Mo’s later and got today’s PoD. It’s a little ball of moss on a dead tree branch. I liked the way the sun was just catching the moss. Not everyone’s favourite, but I liked it which is the reason it got PoD.

A longer and calmer practise tonight trying to put together the ‘back end’ of the foxtrot routine. Sometimes if feels more like a ‘backside’ rather than a back end, but it’s coming together slowly.

Tomorrow we are intending to take Margie out for coffee somewhere.

An afternoon in the country – 17 August 2021

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The morning was work. The afternoon was photography.

Scamp was off to have coffee with Isobel in the morning and I was left to my own devices. First thing to do was to investigate the leaking shower cabinet. It turned out to be a leak in two corners. One tiny little drip and one a bit bigger. Both were being caused by mould growth in the sealant between the glass and the ceramic base of the shower. Half an hour of poking and prodding with a wee round pointed device whose original purpose was to score cardboard teased most of the gunge out and allowed me to start to dry the offending parts. Left them to dry out properly by themselves and started the second, and bigger, task.

The top of the chest of drawers in my room has not seen the light of day for about a year. Today I was set to remedy that. I had a big IKEA bag ready to hold the stuff that was going to the skips, that meant most of it. Some things I didn’t really want to chuck away, but I had to ask myself if I was ever likely to use it again and if I wasn’t, was I emotionally attached to it. If the answer to either of those questions was YES, then it got to stay for six months. If the answer to both question NO, then it was going to the skip, via the IKEA bag. Some things even got he heave after failing only one test. Sometimes you have to be ruthless. As the bag got fuller and fuller, the top of the chest of drawers magically appeared.

After Scamp came back and we had lunch, I took all the stuff in the car to the skips. Heavens, Jamie, you’re not going to believe this, but I even parted with a camera. A working camera! I won’t list all that went to landfill, but there was a a lot. With the boot of the car empty I could go to B&Q to get a tube of sealant for the shower, and have somewhere to put it. Next stop was Screwfix for a Hive plug socket. The number of times I’ve left the house and driven to the bottom of the road wondering if I’ve left the phone charger or some other piece of dodgy equipment switched on. Now I can check on my phone if it’s on and with a touch of the screen, turn it off. Hopefully it will be worth the money in peace of mind. Two things in the boot. Time for some photo opportunities.

Drove up to Fannyside Moor and found an old fencepost strapped to its new replacement with its great collection of mosses and lichen. It looked like a little garden, although one comment on Flickr likened it to a “micro rainforest”. I understand what he meant. It got PoD. Found a little wee ladybird with sixteen spots. Dark red wing covers and white spots. It’s a Cream-spot Ladybird (Calvia quattuordecimguttata) and it’s not very rare.

Back home, Scamp made Sea Bass with asparagus and home grown Potatoes. Absolutely brilliant. Later we had a quick practise of the final parts of the Foxtrot we’ve been learning. I say ’final’, but it’s likely the teachers will add another two or three little bits to the end of the routine.

No plans for tomorrow, although a trip out for ‘the messages’ is not out of the question.

Happy Birthday Jamie – 16 August 2021

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Hope it was just as good a day as you hoped it would be.

As for us, a man was coming go give us giant cotton buds to stick down our throats and up our noses. Always that way round, never the nose first! Once he’d taken the swabs back and asked us our twenty questions we were free to go.

Today we were off for a spin. We drove off in the general direction of Loch Lomond, basically following our route to our dance class on a Saturday. We reached and passed that turnoff and headed further north west past the end of the airport and were just about to take the slip road for the Erskine Bridge when we saw the queue and the warning about a breakdown on the bridge, so instead of turning off, we continued straight on through Port Glasgow, Greenock and parked for a few minutes at Gourock. We sat in the car, eating Dolly Mixtures and watching a Royal Navy ship and a yacht cruising around the estuary.

From there we drove down past Cloch lighthouse and stopped at the garden centre we’d both been heading for. Had a bite to eat there. Not a very posh lunch, think more School Dinners. Steak and Sausage Pie cut from bit tray for me and a couple of dollops of Macaroni Cheese for Scamp. Both served with chips, so yes, very reminiscent of School Dinners. Having said that, it was wasn’t expensive and my steak & sausage was lovely, just the puff pastry didn’t have enough puff left. Scamp’s was a bit congealed.

We walked round the plants and bought an Echinacea we both liked and a terracotta pot to put it in. Scamp bought herself a top in an Edinburgh Woollen Mill shop and I got some photos.

The photos came from across the road from the garden centre where there were views across the estuary to Dunoon on one side and on the other side the remains of the the pier at what had been Hunterston Power Station. Those were just the middle ground props for the star which was the sky with it’s great cloud patterns. Well, it was for me anyway. PoD was a picture looking from Cloch towards Dunoon.

When we’d walked across the pebbly beach and on round a headland, we headed back to the car and drove on to Inverkip, then took the road over the hill to bring us back to the motorway and home.

Spoke to Jamie in the evening and found out he was intending to test his baking skills on a Swiss Roll.

Not quite the day out we’d planned, but a breath of fresh salt air and a walk along beside the Clyde estuary. Loch Lomond will have to wait for another day.

Tomorrow, Scamp is out for coffee with Isobel and I may just put pastel to paper if the weather is inclement, as seems likely and if not then I may go for a walk to see some dragons.

Just another Sunday – 15 August 2021

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Sunday is a lazy day. That about summed it up.

In the morning, Scamp cut some of her sweet peas which have not been nearly as prolific as in previous years. If I was to hazard a guess at the reason, I’d say it was the container that was the problem. Scamp used to plant her sweet peas in an old orange box. That wasn’t the colour of the box (it was painted blue) it was previous use of the container. It was a wooden box that used to hold oranges. As you can imagine, it was fairly old, dating from a time before cardboard boxes. It was falling apart and she made up her mind last year to take it apart and replace it with a plastic trough. I think the sweet peas prefer the traditional orange box. I have no proof of this, it’s just my opinion, based on a life eating oranges.

While she was gathering the flowers I started making a loaf, just an ordinary loaf, nothing fancy. Left that to prove after messing up the proportions of water to flour. You’d think by this time I’d have a better idea of how much water to use, but my excuse is that I haven’t made a loaf for a long while.

After I’d tidied up the kitchen and Scamp had arranged the flowers in a vase with an extra bloom from her rose, Troika, I offered to photograph it. An old piece of crushed velvet became the backdrop and the whole thing sat on the draining board of the kitchen sink. One of the images became PoD. We went for a walk in St Mo’s in the afternoon and I collected a few more photos, but nothing as good as the flowers. I did get a dragon or two, but they weren’t really all that successful.

Back home I got busy preparing my dinner main course which was going to be Lamb Tagine, using two lamb neck fillets. Pan fried the lamb with spices, dates and a chopped onion. Added orange juice and water and transferred the lot to the slow cooker to chug away do its work for a couple of hours. Then it was time to get the bread ready for its second prove, which I did and then went for a second walk in St Mo’s looking for beasties this time. I found a grasshopper and a shield bug that was striding out along the kerb of the boardwalk. The grasshopper almost beat the flowers to first place, but I liked the colour combinations of the flowers.

Bread baked well and tasted fine. Tagine was great, but needed three hours slow cooking, not the two in the recipe. Scamp had a piece of trout and we shared calabrese and some of our potatoes. All were deemed good.

Tomorrow we may go out for a spin somewhere scenic!

Out early for a dance or five – 14 August 2021

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The new normal for a Saturday. Up and out by 10.15.

Drove to Johnstone, flying solo. I did have a radio operator, but didn’t have the backup of sat nav. You have to fly solo some time. You can’t always be relying on instruments to guide you, besides it was a fairly easy route to follow.

Started with a couple of sequence dances and finished with a line dance! Oh No! I’ll be buying a Stetson hat and a pair of cowboy boots soon! In between there were more additions to the Foxtrot to contend with and more detail in the Sweetheart Cha Cha. We managed it, but with a bit of difficulty for both of us.

Came home and had lunch then we lifted our second, and last “tattie bag” and got a fair amount to tatties for tomorrow’s dinner and a few more days besides. Then Scamp wanted to do some pruning and I went to the butchers to get sausages for tomorrow’s breakfast, stew for a steak pie and free range eggs. On the way home I stopped at St Mo’s and nabbed a little dragonfly, a Common Darter, for today’s PoD. Still shooting with the new A6000 which is so much lighter than the E7m2. Image quality is a bit lower than its big brother, but not so much that it is getting sent back. The kit lens is one of Sony’s failures, but I’ve enough lenses to go round without having to use that bit of plastic. It’s a keeper.

Dinner was from Golden Bowl and was our usual selection: Chicken Chop Suey for Scamp and Special Chow Mein for me. Both up to the usual high standard. Watched one of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise which was just mindless entertainment, no thinking required.

Tomorrow we may go for a drive somewhere scenic if the weather is as good as today.

Friday the 13th – 13 August 2021

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Not that I’m superstitious of course.

But first there was a funeral to attend. We’d driven the road yesterday and the sat nav had found the place. Today we were going to be brave and go sat nav free. I only made one wrong turning which was amazing in itself. After the service we drove through what used to be Burnbank to what used to be the Zambezi Hotel but is now the Villa Hotel for the traditional tea after a funeral. Apart from John, Marion and their offspring we knew nobody at the tea. We sat and talked to John and Marion for a while, then took our leave.

Drove home and changed before driving out again to get The Messages at Tesco. I needed to fill up the tank of the Blue Micra and then realised I couldn’t remember my pin. I tried two and was on my last attempt when I cancelled the transaction. Thankfully you have to input your pin before you fill up or I’d really have been in trouble. Of course Scamp could have paid with her card, but I just took my card and drove off, in a blazing huff. Back home, and after I’d cooled down, we drove to the BP garage and Scamp paid for the petrol. Then I drove back and requested a new pin from the bank feeling stupid. How could I forget my pin? I’d used it just last week to pay for the camera! I know I’ll remember it tomorrow morning.

In the afternoon we went for a walk in St Mo’s and that’s where today’s PoD came from. We’d been discussing the blue flower and trying to work out what it was. I though I’d just take a photo of it and find it on Google Images Search. Then I was photobombed by a hoverfly that just flew in and wandered over the flower. I got the photo, but I still didn’t find out what the flower was.

Back home it was a Tesco pizza for dinner and humble pie for me, forgetting my pin. Friday the Thirteenth? Indeed it was unlucky for me!

Hopefully dancing in the morning tomorrow, but no plans for the afternoon. It’ll be a surprise.

Driving, Walking and Raining – 12 August 2021

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With a few sunny spells too.

We’ve promised John and Marion that we’ll be at her dad’s funeral tomorrow in High Blantyre at 10am. We were up fairly early today, so we left the house at 9.30am to do a trial run to the crematorium to check out the traffic at about the time we’d leave tomorrow. We arrived almost at 10am, so our intended leaving time of 9.15 tomorrow looked ok.

Instead of coming straight home, Scamp suggested we go to Drumpellier for a walk round the loch. She hasn’t really been out of the house since Monday, so a walk in the park would do her some good, and do me some good too. This is the last week of the school holidays with teachers going back to work today and tomorrow and those lovely children (yes, that was sarcasm!) going back on Monday. There were quite a lot of children making the most of their last few days of freedom accompanied by mums, dads, grans and grandpas, all glad to see them going back to school. Add in the usual pensioners getting in their daily exercise and you can imagine, it was a busy place.

We walked the usual “travelator” circuit for a bit and then took one of the paths into the woods just to get out of the crowds. We walked through the Peace Garden which was looking a bit sorry for itself with long grass, weeds and overgrown bushes. Such a shame that the council doesn’t do more to keep these places tidy. Yes, I know they are strapped for cash, but it isn’t until you work for a council that you see the money that’s wasted every year. I guarantee there are ways the council could redirect some of that wasted money to make these places look better. However, in doing that, they’d be admitting that the money was wasted in the first place, so it’s never going to happen.

We left Drumpellier to the mums, dads, grans and grandpas, plus the weans, of course and headed for Morrisons at The Fort. Just messages today. No time for essentials like gin or whisky, so no fun either. From there it was back home.

After lunch I spoke to Fred on the phone for about an hour and heard his news.

Up until then it had been a fairly pleasant day although the clouds were gathering now. I was just putting my jacket on to go for a walk in St Mo’s when the rain started and it was heavy rain. The shower lasted about half an hour before it dwindled away to just the occasional spits and spots. I took that as a sign that I’d get a second walk of the day. I was walking over to St Mo’s when I saw a woman waking her dog on the footpath through the trees. Once I’d retrieved the Wee Dog from my rucksack and focused I had a chance to get three decent shots. In one of them the woman was standing in a patch of sunlight. That became PoD. A bit of ‘shopping’ to get it from the raw image to the one you see here.

Some recipes are fickle. You make one mistake and the whole thing turns to a tasteless mush, or a bitter inedible mess. Carrot and Lentil Curry isn’t like that. I used the wrong seeds. Should have been fennel and I used cumin. I used double the amount of lentils. I missed out the garlic that should have gone in. I even allowed it to burn dry. However, it turned out really alright! In fact it tasted better than alright and that wasn’t just my description, Scamp agreed. That’s a good standby recipe, one you can work with.

Quick dance practise tonight because I really need to concentrate a lot more on steps and frame and a hundred and one other things. Tina Tango was looking better after some help from dance maestro Scamp.

Tomorrow a funeral in the morning and then the rest of the day will, hopefully, be our own.

Out early again – 11 August 2021

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Another fairly early rise, but not for photography this time.

Scamp had had an uncomfortable night with what seemed like the beginnings of a urine infection. She phoned the surgery just after 8am and they referred her to the pharmacist. We drove up there after it opened and when she had discussed things with the pharmacist, they recommended a course of antibiotics. I’m sure the ten minute wait for them must have felt like ten hours. Back home she was feeling better by lunchtime and I made some soup for lunch, well, I opened the tin and heated the soup. That’s the same thing as making some soup! It must have been good soup because she looked and sounded better after that.

I had intended going out this morning to test run the new camera, but the foregoing put paid to that and now that the patient was on the mend, the rain started. The weather fairies suggested that it might go off around 4pm. It was fairly thumping down. Not quite a thunderstorm, but not just light rain. I had found some repair patches that would fix the tear in my raincoat, so I spent an hour or so cutting them to the right shape and ironing them on. Since I had the iron on anyway, I ironed the elbow patches on to my old ‘Dennis’ rugby shirt. I’ve been meaning to do it for ages and now it’s half done. I’ve just to stitch them on and I’ll be happy with the repair.

About 5pm the rain did turn off and after checking that the patient had everything she needed I went for that walk in St Mo’s. I think I must have been the only person to risk a walk today. There was very little activity out in the park, but I did see a little snail hanging upside down from some wild flowers, choosing the best ones to eat. That was done with the Big Dog and got PoD, but the Little Dog got a quite good shot of fallen leaves. That was a strong contender. Both are on Flickr.

Scamp seems a lot better tonight and she’s already gone to bed to catch up on the sleep she missed last night.

Tomorrow we will see how the land lies before deciding what we’re doing. It looks like another wet day.

One out, One in – 10 August 2021

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Hopefully moving forward in the process.

It was a lovely morning after all that rain yesterday. Scamp encouraged me to go out for a walk and I’m glad I did. She was feeling a lot better, but had things to do in the house. Also, we didn’t know when DPD were coming to pick up the GX80 camera I was selling to MPB, so someone had to stay in the house.

I was hoping that yesterday’s rain and today’s sun would have freshened up St Mo’s pond to the extent that there might be some dragonfly activity and that’s exactly what had happened. Not one, but two pairs of dragonflies doing circuits of the pond. One pair were blue and big and they never stopped to rest. They just kept flying round and round. The other pair were much smaller, probably Common Darters and they were much more relaxed, stopping to rest every few minutes on the kerb of the boardwalk or sometimes even on the boardwalk itself. I grabbed a few photos just incase they flew off and, like those big blue beasts, started flying circuits. I’d just found a little Leafhopper when a gang of chattering women came down the path from the woods. We said our “Good mornings” and then I recognised one of the last to pass. She was the librarian at the school and had retired the year before me. We asked each other if we were well and I found out that the ladies were in a walking group and did this walk every Tuesday morning. I replied as my mum would have said “Half kiddin’ and hale earnest” that I’d have to avoid coming this way on a Tuesday morning. We parted, both saying “Not missing It a bit”. The ‘It’ in question didn’t need to the explained.

I wandered on into the woods and tried to find the wasps nest from yesterday. There was still some activity there, but a lot less than yesterday. It looked like a lot of the hexagonal cells had been closed up since then and only a few wasps were still working. I’d read a bit about wasps and their nests and found the entrance and exit holes quite easily, but was amazed at the distance they were away from each other and from the excavation that had uncovered the nest. The triangle they formed would have fitted into a circle about a meter in diameter. That’ was a big nest that nobody had noticed until a badger got hungry one night. I took a few shots of rowan berries that are now colouring up nicely before I headed home to drive in to Glasgow to pick up a new Sony A6000. A compact little camera that would take the same lenses as the big A7m2.

I drove in to Glasgow and picked up a very small box which contained the camera. Surprisingly it has almost all the facilities its big brother has, only the sensor is not quite as big. It’s an APS-C sensor which, without getting the technospeak that at least one person hates, is only two thirds the size of the one in the ‘Big Dog’, so images are a little bit grittier than the ones from a full size sensor. Most of the cameras I’ve owned have had an APS-C sensor or smaller. It’s not such a big deal these days. One big deal is the weight. This camera tips the scales at about half the weight of the A7M2. It should be easier and lighter to carry around for day to day photos. I’m still testing it out, but in a quick shoot in the late afternoon it did not a bad job.

By the time I got home, the DPD man had come and gone with the parcel. Now I just have to wait to see if MPB agree with my evaluation of the camera and lens.

Dinner tonight was Katsu Curry from a ‘kit’ with the Wagamama name on it. We both agreed that the chicken done in panko breadcrumbs and even the rice were good, but the sauce. Oh, the sauce! It tasted bitter and a bit spicy, but that was the end of the taste test. It wasn’t a gravy, it wasn’t a curry sauce. It lacked body. Basically it added nothing to the taste of the meal. Scamp has had a Katsu Curry in Wagamama and says this brown liquid is nothing like the curry sauce you get in the restaurants. I don’t think we’ll bother with another ‘kit’ with Wagamama’s name on it.

PoD was taken with the new camera, but that’s not why it got that position.  PoD is awarded on merit, not on the hardware that is used.  That’s what I say, anyway.  The PoD is a couple of Dead Nettles (Lamium purpureum) which are not related to stinging nettles, but may have evolved to look like stinging nettles as a protection against being eaten by animals.  Y’see, every day is a school day (Sorry Neil D!)

Tomorrow we may go out for a drive in the rain.  I may even take the Little Dog.

 

The Rain – 9 August 2021

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But a snail before the rain.

I noticed the snail when I was loading the dishwasher this morning and thought it might look good in a photo. I just grabbed the camera and went out to take its photo. I think it had been having a quick drink out of the birdbath in the garden and I managed to get a couple of shots before it attempted to slope off into the pot that holds the young gooseberry bush. Now most of this you can read in the description on Flickr, but you don’t get the unexpurgated version which is what I tell you here!

The true story is that I did grab a few shots of the snail with the Sony and a macro lens. Macro lenses give great detail, however they do tend to decide for themselves what bits should be sharp and which should be softer. That’s why I always take three of four shots. Then I can take the best bits of one photo and bolt them on to the best bits of another photo. Sometimes it looks a bit more Monsterpiece than Masterpiece, but with care (and Photoshop) it can work. This is a case in point. I took the head of the snail from one photo and carefully stitched it onto the shell from another. I can’t see the join and I know where it is! That photo got PoD. The second confession is that in the Flickr story the snail wandered off “to look for breakfast.” Much though we like to accommodate snails, we don’t want them chewing through our young plants, so I carefully lifted this one and dumped it in a patch of wilting bluebells under the old blackcurrant bush. Slugs get a different treatment. You don’t want to know where they go!

With at least one photo in the bag I drove off to Tesco to get a loaf and some other essentials. It was looking like a decent sort of day and I was thinking we might go for a drive. It was when I was coming back that I saw the heavy clouds. Soon after that the rain came and it got heavier and heavier and we could now see how these flash floods appear. There must have been gallons of water pouring down the footpath at the front of the house. After a fair while the rain slowed to just normal rain and the sky brightened, but no for long. Soon it clouded over again and there was a flash of lightning and almost instantly a loud peal of thunder. Then the rain started again, just as heavy as before. This time, although it got lighter, it didn’t stop and it rained all afternoon. I think it might still be raining now at 11pm. I’m really happy now that I got that photo of the thirsty snail this morning.
According to the weather fairies it’s to be a better day tomorrow, but just for a day.

Scamp was feeling better today and has gone to bed early to catch up on the sleep she lost these last two nights.

Hopefully the man from DPD will come to take away my Panasonic GX80 tomorrow and it will travel down to Brighton so the man at MPB can give it to some lucky girl or boy as long as they’ve been good and have given him lots of money. Some of that money, the man will give to us. That’s called The Economy!

Also, hopefully, tomorrow a man called John Lewis will have a shiny new black Sony A6000 for me to collect in the afternoon! One out and One in.