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Going Solo – 5 September 2020

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No co-pilot, no radio operator. Flying solo.

Scamp suggested I go out for a walk along the Luggie today while she went to Tesco. It was her turn to cook and we’d discussed her short list. It seemed like a plan.

Before we went our separate ways in separate cars, we emptied our ‘Tattie Bag’ which we’d planted with three carefully selected Jersey Royals or something that looked like them away back in early May. Not seed potatoes, just some ordinary potatoes that had been chitting on the window ledge in the toilet. We actually got better results than we’ve had with ‘real’ seed potatoes. A nice big bowl full of them. Only one scabby one. I’d consider that a success.

Scamp drove off and I followed suit a few minutes later. Found out a few more things about Blue, like where to find the ‘destinations’ I’d programmed into the satnav. Took a dozen or so photos of the railway bridge over the Luggie from one side and 42 photos of it from the other side. I was intending to create two panoramas from them in an old piece of software I’d found the other day. Surprisingly it handled both sets of images well, although it struggled with the larger of the two. Not surprisingly the finished article weighed in at just under 2GB. That’s a lot of GB. The larger one became PoD.

Scamp’s dinner was Tuna Pasta with Beans (and chilli flakes). Possibly a touch too much chilli flakes, but it tasted very good indeed. I think we were both thankful for the half price trifle she’d bought for dessert!

Apparently NLC in their wisdom have granted permission for an outdoor funfair in Cumbersheugh in these Covid-19 times. What else would you do when Lanarkshire is about to have sanctions imposed to control an increase in infections than encourage crowds of people to attend a funfair? I suppose the council will have been paid royally by the promoters.

Tomorrow we may go for a socially responsible walk down Glasgow Green.

DML – 4 September 2020

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As is traditional, Blue had to visit DML within the first week.

We drove the traditional route too, just to see if Blue (named by Scamp today) was big enough and strong enough for us. The route took us through blue-rinse Callander and up over the Duke’s Pass. It’s a road that has enough tight bends and sneaky climbs to test any car, but thankfully Blue passed with flying colours.

Parking was free today, presumably because of Covid restrictions, but the actual lodge was closed. The place has been called David Marshall Lodge for as long as I can remember, but recently it’s been rebadged “The Lodge”. Allegedly because nobody knew who David Marshall was. If that’s the case, build a statue to the man, place it in a prominent spot and put a plaque there explaining his significance. After all it was named in his honour after he pushed to have the lodge built. It’s in the Queen Elizabeth Forest Park, but I don’t see any of the pinheads deciding to rename that to “The Forest Park” because royalty are falling out of fashion (and falling out with each other). Wait until the slave stories start to come out, then there may be a change of heart.

Following the traditional route, we drove down through Aberfoyle and stopped at The Smiddy near Blair Drummond. I had a burnt burger and Scamp had Mac ’n’ Cheese, both of us had their excellent chips. Shame about the burnt burger. I don’t think that will catch on. Had a look at the lovely looking cuts of meat at the butchery counter and at the expensive groceries in the deli. Neither of us was tempted by anything there, but Scamp bought a carton of milk for more than twice the price Tesco were asking.

Drove home and again were amazed at the 60mpg we were achieving in this tidy little blue car. Not as smooth or as big as the Juke, but big enough for us and it had achieved a pass at the Dukes’s Pass.

PoD went to a view of the river that runs through the park with the waterfall in the background.

Tomorrow is Saturday and we have no plans.

The Red Juke is gone – 3 September 2020

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The Blue Micra is here.

After being fleeced of another bag of money by Nissan Insurance, the papers were emailed to me and we drove to Stirling with hope in our hearts. Said goodbye to Big Red Juke and signed a fist full of documents. Some of them were ‘real’ documents signed with a real pen. Some were ‘tronic documents signed by typing my name into a box on an iPad screen. Actually the whole procedure which took the best part of an hour was fairly painless. We were led out to admire the Blue Micra. I drove it home and then Scamp took it for a spin around Westfield. It’s amazing how technology has moved on in the three years since we got the Juke and utterly astounding the advances since Scamp bought her first car, a Nissan Micra, ten years ago.

We sat and admired it for a while then had lunch. Despite the high winds and the driving rain we just had to go somewhere, anywhere just to get the smell of a new car in our nostrils. We drove to Robroyston at Scamp’s suggestion to get some polishing cloths to clean the screen of the Micra that had been ‘sanitized’. Then we were intending to have a coffee in Costa, but the thought of queueing outside in the rain didn’t endear itself to us, so we just drove home. Still, we’d been out. In a new car.

I took a camera for a walk in St Mo’s just to see if there was anything worth photographing, but there wasn’t, so I came home and took a photo of the new car, well the roof of the car with a wee fly on it. I liked the way the light shining through the trees made patterns on the roof and the wee fly was well placed to be in the sweet spot.

It has been a stressful day and I’m glad it’s over. Tomorrow we can enjoy the car properly and go somewhere a bit more scenic than a queued out Costa at Robroyston. Perhaps, just perhaps, DML all being well. Well, it is a tradition.

Larky in the rain – 2 September 2020

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Just like anywhere else in the rain. Wet.

When we left the house this morning it had been raining and Scamp pointed out the Peace rose with raindrops on it. I took a couple of photos of it, just for the record. Now we’re not so sure it is actually Peace, because that rose has pink edges to the petals and ours doesn’t. We think there’s a possibility it could be At Peace which is a pure yellow rose.

We drove to Larky to pick up Scamp’s new lenses and her new glasses. Glasses are very swish. Bit lenses and patterned legs. She’s not quite settled to them yet, but they will take a little time to get used to. No point in trying to get photos in the dull weather, but at least I had one in the bag.

Back home and after lunch, Scamp went off to get some food for dinner and I started to clear out he car. Who knew we had accumulated so much stuff in three years. Bags full of bags, cups sunglasses, wooly hats and gloves. You name it, we had it. We even had two tripods in the boot as well as two walking poles and a big umbrella. It took three trips to collect it all. I even hoovered the boot top, that’s how tidy I was today.

After dinner which was house favourite Fish Fingers, Egg and Spaghetti, Scamp suggested I should print off the insurance documents just in case they were needed tomorrow. I’d printed of the first three pages and was just reading the actual certificate when I noticed the Reg was wrong. Instead of SG, it read XG. We’re both sure I read the reg out correctly to the insurance bloke on the phone, so whether it was a bad line, a misheard ’S’ for an ‘X’ or whether at his end it was a typo with ’S’ and ‘X’ being next to one another on the keyboard we’ll never know. It was too late to phone the insurers, so I’ll have to make the call in the morning to get things sorted or else we’ll have to put off picking up the new car until Friday. I don’t think that will happen, I’m sure mistakes like this occur every day.

So, I will make no suggestions about what we are doing tomorrow, but we do have a PoD and it’s the Yellow Rose of Cumbersheugh!

The day that never really got going – 1 September 2020

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You know the kind of thing. Promised a lot, but didn’t deliver.

Yesterday I signed off with “Off to Larky tomorrow with a bit of luck to get Scamp’s new contact lenses.” I never like to predict how things will go. It’s rather like tempting fate, I feel. That’s why ’with a bit of luck’ is there. Just to say “This is how I think things will work out. My plan. However, things may change.” I’d planned to take Scamp to Larky to pick up her contact lenses and her new glasses, then I would drive down to Millheugh, park and go for a quick walk across the Avon and take some slow shutter shots of the Powforth Burn. Two things prevented that. The first was that although the lenses were at the opticians, the glasses weren’t. The second was the weather. It was dull, really dull and the name of this blog is “It’s all about the Light” and it is. For a decent photograph you need the right light. Not necessarily bright sunlight, but at least a bit of directional light to give some shadow detail. There was none today, so rather than make two trips we decided to wait until tomorrow, then we might go to Larky DV (Deo Volente – God willing).

That left half a dull day. We eventually got ourselves sorted and went for a walk to Condorrat to buy some eggs. Lovely eggs with bright orange yolks. Worth the money and the walk. We intended walking down to the shops to get some odds and ends to make tonight’s dinner which was a low cal pasta carbonara. Just as we were walking down the road past St Mo’s park, the school was coming out and Scamp opted instead to take the eggs safely home rather than face the hordes of ignorant ’children-and-young-people’ who are happy to push you out of their way. I don’t like them either, but they’re like dogs in that they can sense fear. I know that the safe way past is to push back. Sharp elbows and the occasional “Sorry!” with an insincere smile as one of them stumbles, works wonders too!

Didn’t need the sharp elbows today, so I must have met these C&YP before. Queues at the shops are much less frequent these days. I don’t know if the shops are becoming more complacent or if the customers aren’t quite so frantic as they were. Masks are still the order of the day and we’re still warned to keep 2m distance, which nobody does. It’s totally impractical in passageways that are less than 2m wide. What they need is one long travelator like they have in Yo Sushi. You’d just stand on your little pad on the conveyer and be transported round the shop at a sedate pace allowing you to select your items as you pass. I think I’ll suggest it to M&S.

When I got back I went for a circuit of St Mo’s and got today’s PoD on the way back. I called it Dangleberries, because there are berries and they’re dangling. Not for any other reason, of course.

Dinner tonight was inspired (copied) from last night’s Tom Kerridge repeat series Lose Weight For Good. I don’t think it will make me lose weight, but the pasta carbonara (without eggs, Hazy!) was interesting and tasty. Scamp accidentally bought the book on Kindle today and I think it’s worth the money. A few worthwhile recipes to take us in a new direction or two will be fun. I’ve spent half the evening trying to copy it, unsuccessfully.

Watched the end of series 2 of Line of Duty. It’s now our duty to start series 3 ASAP.

To reiterate: Tomorrow we might go to Larky DV. However the walk and the photos may have to wait because apparently it will be tipping it down.

The end of August – 31 August 2020

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Autumn is just around the corner.

There, that’s cheered you up hasn’t it!

First things I noticed this morning were the bumps on the Habanero peppers I’ve been growing on the window ledges in the house. This looks as if it’s the first successful pollination of the habanero. I’ve tried everything to get them to fruit.
First I tried dumping them in the garden and hoping the bees would do the job for me (and sometimes forgetting to bring the plants in again at night). That didn’t seem to work
Next I tried shaking the plants vigorously to encourage to the pollen to drop from the stamen on to the stigma. Either I shook too hard and all the pollen got knocked off the flower completely or I shook too softly and the pollen stayed where it was. For whatever reason, it didn’t work.
I tried tickling the inside of the flower with a very fine paintbrush (that’s what Colin C told me to do) and although it made the flower giggle, it didn’t produce fruit.
My last attempt was to brush my finger across the ‘naughty parts’ of the flower to force fertilisation and that may finally have done the business.
It looks like the Habaneros, both of them have succeeded in producing fruit. I’d love to know which of the tricks worked its magic. Maybe it’s a combination.
So now I have two Cayennes peppers, two Jalapeños and two Habaneros. Let’s hope there’s more on the way.

We were just sitting in the living room when I heard a plane engine that sounded faintly familiar, but unusual too.  Checked on Flightradar and it was a Spitfire passing almost directly overhead and heading south.  Dived to the door but realised the trees would be in the way and by the time we got to where we might get a clear view the warplane cruising at around 200knots would be well gone.  An opportunity missed.  The sound was the engine note of a Merlin, the legendary Spitfire power unit.

After lunch we took a walk to the shops just to get the usual essentials (without the gin this time). After we got back I decided it was time to remove the wiring for the dash cam from the Red Juke. It looked so easy, but it was an absolute nightmare getting the cable out intact. Eventually I gave up and cut the cable because I knew I’d need a new one when I was ready to fit the camera in the Micra. When I’d finally removed the last bit of the cable and its “piggy back” fuse connector, I realised that the bit that was blocking the cable’s removal was actually the ferrite choke and if I’d read the instructions on fitting the cable in the first place I’d have noticed that it was possible to unclip it from the cable and then the rest would have been easily removed. Oh well, it’s done now. To contradict the usual Haynes manual statement, in this case “Removal is the reverse of assembly”. You’d be amazed at the amount of razor sharp steel there is hidden behind the facia panels of a modern car. My hands are testament to its cutting ability.

Scamp made an Apple & Bramble pie to be the pudding for tonight’s dinner of Veg Chilli (with Flatbread).  The chilli was better today, but oh, that pie was beautiful.  Our own windfall apples and a handful of brambles.  Superb!

Fairly satisfied with my work, I grabbed my camera which seems to have the 60mm macro lens welded to it these days and went for a walk in St Mo’s. Found a conducive dragonfly and a photogenic seed head, but the PoD went to a photo of two Shield Bugs making babies, or else playing Tug O’ War.

Off to Larky tomorrow with a bit of luck to get Scamp’s new contact lenses.

Out on the bike – 30 August 2020

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With a little fruit picking too.

One of those mornings when you wake early and can’t get back to sleep, so the best thing to do is get up and have breakfast. That’s what I intended to do, but instead I took breakfast back to bed and read for an hour. After that there were dishes to do (in the dishwasher) and washing to do (in the washing machine). With the machines doing all the grunt work, I settled down to read the news on my phone with a cup of coffee and a catch-up with Scamp still in University-city, St Andrews. Hung out he washing, although the complete absence of any sort of breeze meant it would take the clothes a long time to dry, despite the warm air temperature. Not to worry, I’d plenty of time.

I took the Dewdrop out for a run, but as well as my usual camera in the rucksack, I’d a couple of poly bags to collect some brambles. Now, you may know them as Blackberrys and argue that it’s the plant that’s the Bramble. If that’s the case, then you’re probably not Scottish and definitely not Central Scottish. Here it’s the economic language. Why have two names for what is essentially the same thing. The bushes AND the fruits are Brambles. That’s it settled. Those wee black berries (note the subtle difference that space makes) were in much shorter supply than I’d anticipated and it took me some time to find a good fruit bearing bush, but eventually I managed to pick just over 300g of black fruit.

While I was out I noticed a whole host of swallows congregating on the overhead lines and wondered if it’s almost time for them to make their annual migration to warmer climes.  I also wondered, as I have before, how they know it’s time and if they can sense the change of the seasons much more accurately than we mere humans can.

I’d only been home for about 10 minutes when Scamp arrived. We compared car journeys and weather, then it was time to make dinner. Tonight we were having Veg Chilli with just about everything that wasn’t bolted down going into the pot. After some delicate adjustments to the spicing and the condiments we settled down to a fairly tasty chilli. No recipe was needed or recorded. Sometimes that’s the best way, unless you want to make a second lot sometime in the future, then you’ve to try to rack your brains to remember what went into that great chilli you made ages ago. Maybe one of these days I’ll write it down, but I doubt it.

Watched the Ferraris having a terrible time at the Belgian GP with, maybe, a little snigger. Also watched George Russel escape unscathed from what could have been a very nasty accident when a wheel from another car came bounding towards him at a reported 125mph (how do they know what speed the wheel was travelling at?).
Other than that it was a dire day for Ferrari and a great day for Mercedes and Hamilton in particular.

That was about it apart from sampling another new bottle of gin with the addition of a grapefruit slice to spice things up. PoD was a picture of three cows in a field composed using rule of thirds and PoD because I liked it.

Tomorrow we have no real plans.

Up and out! – 29 August 2020

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Today Scamp was off early to her pal’s caravan in St Andy’s. Posh city. I was nominated driver

There are thing you can believe and trust in, and there’s satnavs. Ours took us through every small village in Fife and missed out none but added in a few small town to even up the score. How in the name of the wee man could this conceivably be the ‘Quickest Route’. An hour and a half to travel 60 miles? Surely that can’t be right. That would mean travelling at approximately 40mph. Any slower and we’d have needed a man (or woman) in front of us waving a red flag. All to go to the posh end of Fife. However, when we got there, the caravan park we were heading for wasn’t quite what I’d expected. This was indeed Posh City. Beautiful views across sandy beaches which, admittedly, did have temperatures just into double digits today. From the panoramic windows of the caravan they look beautiful though.

Stayed a while to see Scamp settled and took the obligatory group photos and then I headed north to Leuchers to see if there were any ‘airies’ to be seen. Leuchers is no longer an official RAF base, but as Lossiemouth is having its runway relaid, Leuchers is now a temporary base to RAF fighters and reconnaissance aircraft. Just as I neared the airfield the call had seemingly gone up and the crew or scanner holding photogs were racing along the side of a farmer’s field to find a space to photograph an aircraft landing. It was definitely military and it was big, which meant it wasn’t a fighter aircraft and therefore I wasn’t interested. Let them run about like ‘maddies’. I’d done my time at that sort of thing and now I’d grown up. At least that’s what I consoled myself with as I headed further north and over the Tay Road Bridge.

I skirted the city itself and stopped to grab a shot of the “Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay!” as McGonagall described it. It was indeed ’silvery’ today. Back on the road I stopped at Perth for coffee beans of the Cuban variety and also some of the Sumatran persuasion before pointing the Red Juke in the direction the satnav suggested which was back north. As it had actually found the caravan site, I trusted it knew where it was going and gave it its head. It did take me on to the south-bound motorway after a few circuitous routes. I can only hope that the Micra’s Tomtom satnav is more sensible in its choice of routes.

Back home I had a slice of pizza to stave off the hunger pangs before I walked down to the shops to buy tonight’s dinner (M&S Chicken Tikka Masala) and the makings of tomorrow’s dinner.  Walked back.  The brilliant blue skies of the morning had gone and were replaced by dirty white clouds.  However it was dry if not all that warm.

PoD was a shot I’d taken this morning before leaving of a Cranefly (Jenny Long Legs in Scotland), beating the Silvery Tay to second place.

Tomorrow I may go looking for brambles while Scamp heads home.

Saying goodbye over the internet – 28 August 2020

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Strange days.

The day started with a webinar with the man from Falkirk. For once he didn’t have a lot to say for himself and the topics discussed by the man from Puma were way above my head. All about inheritance tax and the avoidance thereof. I don’t think that will bother us.

After lunch we said goodbye to an good friend, not a very old friend, we’d only known her for a few years, but she meant a lot to both of us and opened our eyes to a whole new world, literally. Who would have thought when we met her and Jaime that we’d be watching a live feed of her funeral in a nearly empty church in Trinidad from our own home, 4000 miles distant. Strange days.

After the service we went out for a walk round St Mo’s. Twice round the pond in the sunshine. Took some photos of the lazy dragonflies checking each other out. PoD was two competing males.

Tomorrow is an early rise for a drive to St Andrews to see Annette’s caravan.

Problems solved – 27 August 2020

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Boxes ticked.

Last night after I posted the blog I’d one thing still to do. I needed to print off and sign a document to send to the garage to register my new car. The printer refused to connect. Aha, the printer, being a WiFi printer needs to be connected to the new modem. Easy, or so I thought. An hour later, much later than I intended, I climbed the stairs to my bed with the document unprinted and unsigned and a printer still refusing to connect to the modem. In that hour I’d deleted the printer driver, downloaded a fresh shiny new one from the Epson site and run the program to install the printer. I’d done it three times and each time it failed to gain access to the modem at the same point in the installation sequence. I finally resorted to connecting using the WPS button on the modem. I’d used this before on the old modem with limited success, in other words, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. Tonight it seemed to work until I tried to print, then was back to the start again. No Printer Found. Frustrated I climbed the wooden mountain. Tomorrow would be a better day, wouldn’t it?

Woke at 7am with that sinking feeling that I’d have to go through that bloody setup again. Later when we were both up and the day had started, Scamp said “Let me try.” I tried to explain that the connection had nothing to do with PCs or Macs, but had everything to do with that bloody new Virgin Media modem. I barely got started when I heard the printer give that ‘beep’ that heralds the output of a printed sheet. Yes, her HP, Windows 10 laptop printed no problem. I tried my iMac and it printed too, so did my old MacBook Pro. The connection had been made. What had happened during the night? I reckon the Good Fairy came in through the keyhole, waved her magic wand and said “You shall print again little Epson 2600.” Well, that’s as good an explanation as any I can provide. Box Ticked.

Printed the document, signed it, scanned it to a PDF and sent the resulting document off to the garage. Box Ticked.

Next task was to sort out the insurance for the new car. Tell me this. If I want to swap the insurance over from the Red Juke to the new car, why does it cost me more money? The insurance for the new car is considerably less than for the Juke. Shouldn’t they be giving me money? Silly question. It’s insurance. They take money, they don’t ever give you money back! Never mind, Box Ticked.

Three boxes ticked in 30 minutes. Time for a coffee.

We were off to Larky today. Scamp was going to get her eyes tested for new contact lenses and I was going to take some photos. It was bucketing down. Never mind, I’ve taken lots of photos in the rain and of the rain itself sometimes. Today would be fine. I dropped Scamp off and drove down to Millheugh which used to be a salmon fishing river on the banks of the Avon Water. My, my those old salmon fishers would have a hard time recognising Millheugh now, especially the river with its clumsy salmon ladder that had to be rebuilt because the old one got swept away. Today the Avon was high. I’ve seen it higher, but not for a long time. I spoke to a trio of hardy fishers who were hoping to net a salmon in the heavy spate, but without much success it seemed. They were complaining about the salmon ladder too because it had changed the entire flow of water in the river, denying them the deep pools where the big fish used to lie and extending sandbanks where there were none before. I left them to it and took some photos, about 70 of them. The one I liked best was the run off from the lade (mill race) and that became PoD.

Picked up Scamp and found that she may need a hospital visit for a second opinion on her eyes. Nothing serious, just checking. I think she’s been looking at things too much, especially gin bottles, two of which arrived today, much to our amazement after all the emails and Facebook posts. Their seals remain unbroken.

Another Line Of Duty tonight and we’re back in the “I don’t remember this one” territory. So many twists and turns.

Tomorrow we have business to attend to in the morning, but hopefully the afternoon will be dry and free for a wee run somewhere.