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Will the rain never end? – 24 November 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Just another day of seemingly unremitting rain and wind.

I’m beginning to see a pattern forming from these incessant lows being driven across the Atlantic to dump their rain on us. They seem to come in three day bursts. Sometimes we almost have a dry morning. Sometimes almost a dry afternoon, but the ‘almost’ is always there. Then there are a couple of cold, dry, sunny days or sometimes only one of those before the next train of wets lands. Personally I blame Trump.

I’d downloaded a potential saviour for the old NAS hard disk, but unfortunately it didn’t live up to the hype, which was unusual because I’ve bought the same sort of software from this company before and it’s been faultless. Not today. I’m not going to rant on about this, so don’t skip ahead. All I’m going to say is I’ve found a workaround. Not an elegant one, but it does work and I’m now on the lookout for a replacement NAS.

Scamp went to Tesco today and got soaked just walking from house to car to shop and then the same coming back. You don’t have to be out in this wind driven rain for long to get soaked. After lunch I reckoned I’d get a half hour of light before darkness fell and I was just about right. I took a total of 9 photos and one of them, with Scamp’s cropping suggestion made PoD.

Today’s sketch was generated by the letter ‘D’ and it was Driver, as in Screwdriver. It could have been Dugs, Diamonds or Donald (selfie), but for some reason I chose screwDriver. I think it looks a bit bent, this screwdriver, but who has never used a screwdriver to open a paint can or two? Some say today’s choice is a con or a cop-out, but “C” was yesterday.

Dinner tonight was mince ‘n’ tatties for me and cabbage ‘n’ tatties for Scamp.  Not the most elegant food, but filling and very tasty.  I still had to have a great deal of assistance from Scamp to cook the mince, but my head was still trying to get round the problems of Linux and Unix.  If that means nothing to you, then you are lucky.

Tomorrow may be the first of two dry(ish) days. We must wait and see about that.

Another early(ish) rise – 23 November 2020

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Off to get some paint, not watercolour and not for me.

Shona is getting her living room painted and needed transport to get the half a dozen tins of paint from B&Q. I didn’t think it would be open, because away back in March it was closed for the first few weeks of Lockdown. It was open today but there was no queue. Found the paint after a hunt round the shelves. Organisation is not the watchword in this B&Q by the look of things. Drove back to her flat and carried the tins up the stair, dumped them and headed back to coffee in our house, our good deed done for the day.

<Technospeak>
I waited a while before I started interrogating the NAS drive again, but I was fairly sure it would work this time. It didn’t. I couldn’t get in through the control panel (called a Dashboard). I couldn’t get in through my homemade access app that’s worked for the last three years. I couldn’t get in through the low-level Network app in Utilities. I eventually succumbed to the inevitable and sourced a video that showed how to get into the case without the use of a claw hammer. That worked quite neatly. The upshot was the drive is undamaged, but it’s formatted to Linux and the partitions are Linux too. One person suggested booting into a Linux distro and using that to access the files. It works, but I can’t work out how to download them from there. More research needed.
</Tecnospeak>

By the time I’d gone through all these hoops, it was too late to get any photos, so after dinner I took the NAS hard drive and set up the tabletop you see here. If in doubt, use minifigs to set up something to laugh at. This one brightened my night. Well, that and the remains of yesterday’s wine.

Today’s sketch is brought to you by the letter ‘C’.  It could have been Citrus, Coconut or Camera, but I finally settled for two carrots.  Pencil sketch with a splash of watercolour.  I was fairly happy with the final result.  Managed to post it to Instagram from the computer, using Developer Tools in Chrome.  Nice little workaround.

That was about it for a really dull, depressing day. I’m sure my Italian Pal who understands Linux will have a solution to my problem. I’ll email him tomorrow. A wee challenge for him.

Tomorrow we have no plans. There may be dry spells in the rainstorms that are blowing in from the Atlantic. We might manage to catch one of those dry spells for a walk.

Rain showers and sun – 22 November 2020

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You have to be quick to get a walk in the dry bits.

We sat watching the rain pelt down and then dry up again. Both of us ready to go, but neither of us wanting to say to the other that it looked dry. Eventually we went for a walk down and round Broadwood Loch. Although I took the kit lens on the camera, I really wanted to try out the old Sigma ultra-wide 10 – 20mm lens with the new adapter. It worked almost perfectly. It focused, it recorded the aperture and shutter speed and I could change them. The only problem I discovered later when I was processing them in LR.

For the most part it was a pleasant walk. Thermometer said 7.4ºc and in when we were in the windy parts of the walk it certainly felt like that. In the shelter of the trees it was a lot warmer. Today’s PoD was taken with the new camera and the old glass. The images were a bit dark, but I can forgive that for the quality of the finished product.

The problem with the adapter is that it makes a blind stab at the maker of the lens. The focal range too is wildly wrong. It’s a pain to change, but I’m sure I can come up with a fix. The main thing is I don’t have to rely on manual focusing which is difficult to remember to do when you’re used to having the camera do it for you. Best of all, I get to keep my good old Nikon glass and use it easily.

We just managed to get back to the house before the rain came on. Just as we were passing the shops we could feel a drizzle, but it didn’t really pelt down until we were safely inside. Of course I had to try out the Hive while we were out by setting a 30min ‘boost’ in temperature to warm the house for us getting back. Just showing off really.

Spoke to JIC tonight and he explained in a rational way how the vaccine works without the hyperbole that the news people seem to want to attach to it. So now we know that those freezers that are needed to keep the vaccine at -80ºc are not as uncommon as (again) the news broadcasts tell us.

I think my NAS drive is dead. I wasted about three hours on it today and apart from one time it appeared to work, the rest of the time it was just an ornament. I think it’s had one kick in the head too many!

Today’s sketch is “B” for bottle. Just an old empty gin bottle that, like the NAS drive is just an ornament. We did drink some Harris Gin and it was very nice.

Tomorrow we’re taking Shona to collect paint form B&Q, six tins of it. Other than that, nothing planned.

In better tid today – 21 November 2020

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I learned the word ‘Tid’ when we were down in Newton Stewart. It sort of mean ‘state’ and I’ve only heard it in a positive setting.

So, today my head was in a better place, that’s what I was saying. Number one, I had a good sleep and a long one too. Woke fairly refreshed. Secondly, the problem with the NAS drive had resolved itself. Yesterday after the electrician plugged in the hub for the Hive, my NAS changed its IP address and nothing I did would get it back again. Today, I think, the OS had taken a long hard look and consulted its DNS spreadsheet and discovered the new address for the NAS (I apologise if that’s too many UPPER case abbreviations, JIC). Whatever happened, the NAS was online again.

A possible third reason was that our Hive controlled lightbulb arrived and we could play with it. Scamp was the first one to get it installed on her phone, but couldn’t quite remember how she did it. Then my phone registered it too. We had some fun switching it on and off, brightening it and dulling it, and then it was lunch time. Simple things and simple minds!

After lunch I chose to go out for a walk and a rainstorm was just waiting for me to walk about half a mile before dumping on me. I walked to the butchers and waited in the queue which went down quite quickly until some dimwit wanted a whole lamb rack French dressed, and then said she wanted them cut into individual chops. All the while she was chatting up the butcher. Eventually the women who work in the shop could see their wet customers considering leaving and decided they could allow two people in the shop as long as they were socially distant. When the dimwit entered the shop there were two of us waiting outside, when I left there were about nine wet, disgruntled shoppers. Some people just don’t care about others.

Came back home via St Mo’s and as the weather had brightened up considerably, I got some photos in the sunshine for a change. My favourite, and PoD was the tree.

I wasn’t long home when my parcel arrived from Amazon with its autofocus adapter to allow some of my old Nikon lenses to work seamlessly with the Sony A7. I was pleasantly surprised to find that two out of three worked completely. One didn’t quite cover all the bases, but enough to make it a worthwhile investment.

Nick the Chick (no, I wouldn’t risk calling her that to her face!) put a large swathe of Scotland into Level 4 on Friday, yesterday. Unluckily for me, I’m in Level 4 of the Scottish Covid prevention scheme. It’s not total lockdown, but it’s fairly close to it. With that in mind I decided I’d start sketching again. Initially it will be alphabetical subjects.
Today it starts with ‘A’ is for Apple.

Tomorrow may be a case of sunshine and showers, but we can survive that. We may go for a walk.

UFOs – 20 November 2020

Posted on by Zogman

An interesting day, but a long one.

It started around 7am and it’s still going. Well, I am, but not for long because I am totally knackered. Not that I’ve done much. I went for the messages after the gas fitter, the electrician and the builder had gone. A job we thought would take most of the day was over by 1pm. Leaving us the opportunity to work through the mysteries of the Hive controller. A totally amazing and mesmerising piece of technology. It’s been a day of learning about The Internet of Things.

Today’s PoD didn’t quite work out he way I intended, so this is a botched up, but texturally interesting experiment. It’s two street lights (the image is upside down!). They are the new uplighters that NLC has installed everywhere around here. Better than the old sodium ones, but sometimes sore on the eyes.

My eyes are sore from being up all day, doing nothing, so I hope you’ll excuse me because I’m going to bed. Problems to solve tomorrow with a recalcitrant NAS drive.

Tomorrow we have nothing to do and nowhere to go on the first full day of Lockdown 2.

A beautiful day – 19 November 2020

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If only we could decide what to do with it.

Neither of us could decide where to go on what would be our last free day before Lockdown 2 happened. Finally Scamp said “Take me to the Kelpies” so that’s what I did. We drove to Grangemouth on a cold, day with a temperature in single digits, low single digits.

The giant horse statues looked as magnificent as ever and even better because there were no people standing around them taking selfies or pouting at their phones. We walked round them, admired them and told them just how impressive they were. They already knew, but accepted our praise in dignified silence.

We found a new path that took us round the outskirts of the sewage treatment works that was producing the awful smell. I don’t know if it was the direction the wind was blowing that was causing it, or maybe they only switch on the machinery at night in the summer to cause less offence to visitors, but it was certainly working at full blast today. The path took us along the side of the River Carron. It wasn’t the most interesting walk and we gave up after a while to walk back and go along the canal this time. It was on this path that I got PoD. Looking down the canal towards the Ochil Hills with the sun lighting up the Kelpies. It was good to be in the right place at the right time for once. We were going to have a quick coffee at the information centre, but there were a few folk waiting to get in and it was too cold to hang around. We drove home and had some “Just Soup” instead.

In the afternoon we walked down to the shops for last minute essentials for dinner (veg chilli with one of our own chillies) on the way back, Scamp offered to go straight back which allowed me half an hour to grab some more shots in St Mo’s. The Samyang was carefully supervised and although it did miss focus a couple of times, most of the shots were on target. It didn’t affect the PoD, that remained with the Kelpies.

Tonight we cleared out the boiler cupboard and now there’s garden stuff all over the house. Boiler arrives tomorrow between 7am and 9am. Engineer arrives about 9am and it’s going to be pouring by the look of the weather fairies’ report. It might be a long day.

Because of the above, we have no plans for tomorrow.

Rain, rain, rain then sun – 18 November 2020

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It was one of those days when you just know it’s going to start raining and never stop.

Actually, the rain had started yesterday and continued unabated through the night. I felt it had rather overstayed its welcome when it was still with us this morning. We had planned to drive to The Fort today, but one look out the window convinced us that wouldn’t be happening. If we were desperate for something from that curve of shops, I might have made the effort, but as neither of us were all that bothered, we decided we’d maybe go another day. Scamp had a hair appointment in the afternoon and I was making soup for tonight’s dinner, so that would keep us busy.

Lunchtime came and went with the highlight being Scamp’s apple pie. Not our own apples, those are well gone, but a very tasty wholemeal pastry encasing some lovely Bramley apples. I’m worried that I’m beginning to sound a bit like Nigella here! It was a lovely pie, though. Just as Scamp was leaving for the hairdressers, the sky did seem to lighten a bit. A few minutes later, shadows were appearing outside and we didn’t need the room lights on. It was definitely brightening up.

Not one to pass on an invitation like that, I had my boots on and the bag on my shoulder before it would all fall apart. It didn’t fall apart, the sky was clearing nicely when I walked up the path that leads to St Mo’s. There was a torrent of water coming down that path and it was that torrent that became today’s PoD. One in the bag. There was a wild sky with a low sun when I walked round the pond, wild enough to be the subject of a photo, not just the background and I did take quite a few. Still not altogether happy with the focusing of the 18mm Samyang lens. I may still resort to sending it back to Amazon because they have foolishly extended the returns window to January 2021. Never look a gift horse … etc.

By the time I got home, so was Scamp, sporting her new hairstyle which she said was almost exactly what she’d asked for, but she didn’t like it. I didn’t want to say that the difference between a bad haircut and a good one is only about two weeks. I like it, it frames her face really well. Maybe tomorrow I’ll photograph her, just to prove to her that it works.

Dinner was indeed my version of Scamp’s “Just Soup”, served with crispy croutons, our new favourite. The pudding was another slice of Scamp’s apple pie with cream. Finishing touch was two little meringues each with more cream!

It’s raining again tonight, but the temperature is forecast to drop tomorrow with an overnight low of about 2ºc and remain dry all day then more rain on Friday. No plans for tomorrow, but if there’s anything we need in ‘non-essential shops’ we’d better get it or have to wait for three weeks.

Oh yes, one more thing.  I was just heading for bed last night when I heard a buzzing, but a doppler buzzing, you know what I mean a rise and fall in the pitch of the buzz.  An insect or something flying past me.  It was a big wasp, I don’t think it was a hornet, but it was a big wasp.  I didn’t want to kill it, but I didn’t want to wake up with a bit lump on my nose from a wasp sting either.  I managed to backhand it and trapped in on the carpet under a glass tumbler, eased a bit of cardboard under it and it was trapped.  I opened the bathroom window and helped it to fly away.  It wasn’t too happy about flying off and clung to the cardboard for a while, but I managed to convince it that going would be less painful than staying.  It’s now out there somewhere thinking “It’s a bit chilly for June!”

We were up early again – 17 November 2020

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That’s Friday sorted

Not to go out this time, but we both got up early because we had a phone call booked with British Gas to agree a suitable day to get the new boiler installed. The call would be some time between 9.30am and 1pm today, hence our decision to get up and face the day. Of course, we could have just lain in bed and taken the call there, but just in case those clever British Gas bods had a way of turning on the webcam that might be fitted to our landline phone and caught us lounging around, we decided it would be safer to get up and have breakfast downstairs.

The call came at just after 11am. The first available slot they could offer was Friday 20th November. Couldn’t they have come sooner? We didn’t ask that question, we just said “That will do nicely.” Boiler get delivered between 7 and 9am on the day and the fitter arrives at 9am. It will probably take most of the day. Now Thursday is to be a very cold day with wind from the north and scattered wintry showers that might just reach us. Let’s hope Friday is a balmy sun drenched day.

The other thing that happens on Friday is we go up to Level 4 of the Scottish government anti-covid restrictions. It starts at 6pm on Friday and lasts for three weeks. It shouldn’t make much difference to us, really. We probably won’t feel like travelling far if the cold weather continues. We’ll be legally restricted to the NL council area for that time. Legally, because the restrictions have now been written into law and can be enforced by the police. They’ll be installing smart cameras and have unmarked police cars on the motorway at Castlecary to trap any unwary travellers hoping to nip along to Falkirk on the fly. Three weeks of no fun and local walks I think.

It rained almost all day and with gusty winds too, it was a day for working inside. Before lunch I repaired two of my masks and produced a really neat job, even if I say so myself. If the rainy weather continues, I may make another one or two. Maybe even try a new design I saw somewhere.

It was a truly awful day today. After the good news about the boiler I grabbed a rucksack and walked down to the shops in the rain. Scamp was baking so she stayed in. The rucksack was a great idea for going to the shops. We go there to get stuff for the dinner and to stretch our legs, not our arms, and today’s lot was quite heavy. I may use that wee bag again.

I’d already taken what I was sure would be my PoD. It was two of my carrots. The birds pulled most of the first lot out then the snails finished almost all or the rest off. I eventually resorted to the blue slug pellets and that seemed to put an end to their raids. The two you see were all that was left to two rows of them in my raised bed. I’ve got a few growing in the ‘Tattie Bags’, but they’re not making much headway there at all. I think these two are my lot for this year. If I get a chance to grow them next year I’ll stretch some black thread across the bed like my mum did. It terrifies the sparrows and finches. The tiny wee carrots tasted lovely.

Hopefully we’re going to The Fort tomorrow I’m hoping to rebuild the camera box that sits in my black shoulder bag and am intending to use either Plastazote (Thick, strong foam plastic) or Foamboard (A sandwich of card outer layers and a middle layer of Styrofoam). Both of these thing I should be able to get in Hobbycraft at The Fort. Scamp’s going for something too, but as yet it is undisclosed.

Scamp’s booked to get her hair cut tomorrow afternoon, so we have to drive to the shops in the morning. Another early rise in store.

Leaves, Friends and Glenmorangie – 16 November 2020

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Too many of our days are spoilt by reading in bed.

Today the light was good, so after breakfast I got up, dressed and took my camera out for a walk. Yesterday, on the way back from our walk I saw a little clearing in the woods beside Broadwood Loch, covered with golden brown sycamore leaves. That was my target for today. When I got there the clouds had already rolled in and it didn’t look as if I was going to get a chance to take the photo. But I was there with a camera and I wasn’t going home until I had at least one shot in the bag, and this time it would be in focus. I got quite a few shots looking in both east and west directions. I walked round the boardwalk after that took a few shots of the padlocks rusting together on the square link fence. No great sky, no directional light. I don’t know if there would really have been any because at about 9.30am the sun wouldn’t have risen much and the area I was in would have been in shadow anyway. That was about it for photography. I really need to put that little battery powered light in my bag to give me some portable directional light.

Back home the shots looked ok. Not great, just ok. The main problem apart from a lack of shadows was the white sky behind the trees. Luminar 4 is a great bit of software for adding interesting skies to bland landscapes and it came to the rescue with today’s PoD.

Time to get ready for lunch. Today we were booked for lunch with Crawford and Nancy at The Cotton House in Longcroft. Lovely lunch and a great laugh with the other pair. My Salt and Chilli Chicken with noodles is fast becoming my go-to standard for Chinese / Thai food. Scamp has gone back to the old favourite of Chicken Chow Mein.

When we came out, Nancy had a Christmas parcel for Scamp (a bit early, but who’s counting) and Crawford presented me with a bottle of Glenmorangie as a belated birthday prezzy. I was flabbergasted. I totally hadn’t expected that. We did elbow bumps and left for our respective homes.

The weather was closing in as we neared Cumbersheugh so we waited a while before walking down to the shops for staples which this time included iced buns, chocolate and pancakes. Only the iced buns and the pancakes have been sampled, the chocolate is hiding in the fridge.

The golden leaves and the subtly added sky finished off the PoD and I was happy with it. Must try out PhotoPills on the iPhone to find out if I can indeed get light onto those trees on Thursday, because tomorrow and Wednesday are definitely out with heavy rain both days.

Doesn’t look like we’ll be going far tomorrow.

Just another Sunday – 15 November 2020

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It rained, it was dry, it rained, it was dry, … repeat.

We waited until after lunch before we committed ourselves to a walk. The sky was lightening, the clouds seemed a bit higher and it looked as if there was a decent chance of just a passing shower to spoil our walk. As it happened, our walk round Broadwood Loch was a dry one, by which I mean it didn’t rain. There was plenty of standing water to splash in if you were interested in that aspect of the walk, but Scamp doesn’t like to get her walking boots wet, or dirty. I, on the other hand was wearing my Clarks Super Slide-a-lot boots that keep your feet almost dry, but have virtually no grip. Stylish, but Pointless would be their marketing logo.

<Warning boring photography stuff inside>
There were loads of people out for a Sunday stroll in the fresh air and avoiding the rain showers that had dogged the morning. I got a few shots, but forgot that the Samyang 18mm has a mind of its own as far as focusing goes. I need to remember to check that it is actually locked on to focus before I press the button. Although the sky was lighter than the morning there were almost no clouds to give any texture. A milky white Scottish sky. Luckily I’d been experimenting with the old Sigma 105mm macro on the Sony earlier in the day and today’s PoD was already in the bag, a Jenny Long Legs or Crane Fly to give it a more general name. I hadn’t noticed the possibilities of the man feeding the birds until Scamp put me wise to it about half an hour ago. Maybe some of my technospeak is rubbing off on her.
<Photography stuff is gone now>

With constant tuition from Scamp I may one day be able to cook a decent stew. Today I tried a new method and it worked, still with tweaks from the chef. However I could never reach the heady heights of her apple crumble which was a pure delight! Bramley apples and cinnamon were the secrets, she said. My contribution was a loaf which looks quite good, but tomorrow will be the real test.

We practised a bit of Jive tonight, just to keep our hand in and our feet from tripping each other up.  Spoke to JIC later and he sounds better than he did last week. Discussed lockdown looking for hints and tips as it seems we may be heading that way by the end of the week. Lanarkshire, the pariahs of Scotland.

Hoping we’ll manage lunch tomorrow with C&N at The Cotton House.