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Irvine no more – 14 April 2018

Posted on by Zogman

Today we were going to visit Dorothy.

After a quick lunch we headed off to Ayrshire. Met up with Colin and spent just half an hour with Dorothy who was looking good, but was complaining of feeling dizzy so we agreed that a shorter visit was ideal this time. We’ll try to visit more often now, but not linger as long as we used to. It was good to talk to Colin too and find out how the rest of the family were getting on.

Instead of driving home afterwards, we took a wee diversion to Irvine. It’s a long time since we’ve been there. Twenty five years or so Scamp thinks! None of it looked familiar. We parked down near the ‘Innovation Bridge’ which looked less than innovative in its present dilapidated state. It originally had a moving centre span, but it looks like that has now been removed completely. That leaves the ‘Big Idea’ science centre isolated and quite dead. Such a shame after so much money was ploughed into it. PoD was the view through the security gate looking across the bridge (top pic).

Drove back via Waitrose in Newton Mearns at the posh end of Glasgow. Loaded the car up with more provisions than we’ll need in months and came home. Interesting run to Irvine, but not much to see once you get there. May visit in the summer to walk on the beach. Looks like a good coffee shop there, so that may be a bonus.

We’ve just looked at Hazy’s new back garden on Flickr and are very impressed with the work. It makes the back of the house so much bigger looking and much brighter too. Good decision, even if the frogs won’t agree!

Dinner tonight was courtesy of Bombay Dreams and I think my eye was bigger than my belly. Suffering a bit, but I’m sure I’ll sleep it off.

Tomorrow? Not sure. I think we’re dancing in the afternoon at a Social, other than that, maybe a walk.

Friday The Thirteenth. Ooh Scary – 13 April 2018

Posted on by Zogman

Today we took the train in to Glasgow.

Scamp offered to drive us to the station, partly because it was easy to park and partly because we are hoping to go to Kilmarnock tomorrow to visit an old friend and I will be driving. Parked, walked smartly to the station and the train drove in just as we reached the platform. That was nice.

We walked down through George Square and that’s where I saw the seagulls (aka Shitehawks) having a food fight. Too good an opportunity to miss, so I grabbed a few shots. The Teazer excels in low grey light, low contrast light. It’s not so good now in bright contrasty conditions. That’s because it’s always in my jacket pocket with all the lint and oos (Remember oos? It’s a gran word for dust and wool fibres. It’s got a hard ’S’ at the end not like ooze more like the ’S’ in keys.). Oos. Try to find some today and say the word. Remember the word. Some words shouldn’t be left to die. But I digress. The oos gets into the lens and causes flare in the photos. Today the Teazer had no problem with the soft, flat, grey light.

As we walked down the same streets as we walk on a Wednesday I realised that we hadn’t practised our ballroom steps as we should have. Must get some practise done at the weekend. I refuse to have another disaster Wednesday. Scamp was heading for M&S and we went in through the side door. I told her I’d go to Millers in Stockwell Street and meet her in ten minutes. When I went to leave by the front door, Wow! There were hundreds of people milling around on Argyle Street. No, not a hyperbole, there must have been at least 200 people there and they were walking en mass up Stockwell Street, something was up. Then I noticed that one building and a shop were being evacuated across the street. There were people with clipboards, people with coloured paddles organising other folk into manageable groups and checking off names. I went back in and phoned Scamp to tell her, just in case M&S were going to follow suit when all the folk started to walk back to the building they’d recently exited. No fire engine, no police cars or ambulances. No sirens. Either it was a false alarm or today, Friday 13th, had been chosen as a safety drill by someone with a sense of humour. By the time Scamp appeared, none of the two hundred odd folk were to be seen. Weird.

Went along to Paesano and had a pizza lunch. We both had the customised pizzas we’d discussed the last time we were in Paesano and both agreed the customising is the way to go in future.

While Scamp was in a shop in Bucky Street I grabbed the shot of the bloke on the phone, talking to his Boss!!

Walked through to Cass Art and on the way grabbed my PoD outside the GOMA.  I think looks quite smart in mono.

Back home I found a parcel waiting for me. This was the second of my birthday parcels from JIC. I won’t say what it is, just that it’s very personalised and really quite funny. Photo coming soon when I get a chance to take time over the capture.

Tomorrow we are hoping to visit an old friend we haven’t seen for a long time. Looking forward to it.

No Fish Today – 12 April 2018

Posted on by Zogman

A drive around Falkirk and Stirling was on the cards today.

<Technospeak>
In the morning, Scamp was having coffee with Isobel. I cleaned out a file on the new Linx. It’s named Windows.old and on the ‘new’ computer, it holds 12.5GB of data. That’s data that I’m not going to use again. That’s data that takes up almost 19% of the 64GB storage on the Linx. I did the sensible thing first, of course. I backed up the whole 64GB earlier in the week. I should say that I tried to just simply delete the folder last night, but I kept on hitting blocks where some files were locked and others needed approval by the ‘administrator’ i.e. me. It wasn’t just the simple fire-and-forget deletion that my Windows Explorer replacement, Directory Opus, can usually be relied upon to supply. However, after a bit of searching on the Interweb, I found an elegant solution that Microsoft actually supply. Admittedly it’s hidden deep in the pages within pages of the ‘system’. It does a good job though. 12GB of useless crap surgically removed. I may say this only once: Thank you Microsoft! Oh yes, and I did today’s Sudoku too.
</Technospeak>

When she got back, Scamp suggested we go to the fish shop in Linlithgow. We’d been planning to go for a couple of weeks now. Seemed like a plan, so off we went. Drove along the traffic jam and assault course that is a Main Street in Linlithgow only for Scamp to cry out that the shop was shut. I couldn’t look myself for the simple reason that I’d have driven into a bus or a tractor coming the other way or run one of the amazing amount of red lights on that street. You really have to have driven there to realise just what I’m talking about. I took her word for it and drove on out the other side. I could have turned at the roundabout at the end of the Main Street, but that would have meant running the gauntlet a second time and I wasn’t up for that. That took us the long road down past Grangemouth and from there along the M9 to Stirling. It gave me the opportunity to stock up on breakfast muesli and beer at Morrisons. Both essentials. It also gave Scamp a chance to buy up their entire stock of ‘cheap wine’ (her words, not mine). We also had a cheap lunch (my words). Bowl of chips (S), Roll ’n’ Sausage (me) and two cups of reasonable coffee for just over £6. That’s a good deal.

On the way home was a plant nursery Isobel had been telling Scamp about. How convenient. She got a Ladybird Poppy there and she’d also got a wee Acer in Morrisons, so she was a happy bunny. When we got home I found a confirmation email from the shop to confirm that just short of £100 would be in our account soon. I was a happy bunny.

Back home I put on my walking trousers. That’s the pair of cords with holes in the pockets and muck splattered all the way up the legs. Went for a walk round St Mo’s. Found two of the Orange 16 Spot Ladybirds I’ve been keeping tabs on since December. One looked as if it was laying eggs, but was in a really awkward place in the moss at the bottom of an ash tree, so it was difficult to be sure. PoD went to the Gorse flower. Lovely and bright.  Notice the yellow theme!

Tomorrow looks like it will be wet. Don’t know what we’ll do. Maybe go for lunch, that would be good. Not going for fish.

Two left feet again – 11 April 2018

Posted on by Zogman

Today it was waltz that was causing more problems than the jive, but really neither was perfect.

Drove in to a monochrome, cold Glasgow. There was nothing interesting to photograph. I tried some shots of the demolition of Queen Street Station, but it just looked like the bomb site it is. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do and you’ve just got to realise it.

Ok, let’s start with the waltz. I got really fed up with the teacher nit picking about not turning quickly enough, or my hand not being quite right on Scamp’s back. Yes, I know that you need to know these things, but constantly stopping us isn’t the right way to do it. Sometimes you just have to let people get through the bit they know they’re not doing right and allow them to attempt the next part. I know he’s the teacher, but so was I and I probably taught for longer than he has. It was really getting me angry and the angrier I got, the more mistakes I made. I was beginning to regret spending money on a tutorial weekend we’d booked for next January. I know I need practise, but I can only get that practise once a week, in this class and then I have it interrupted because I’m not turning while I’m walking backwards or some other minor detail. It doesn’t help that the room is too small, there’s a piano and speakers in the far end where we’re trying to learn to turn and the other couples just seem to wander across the line of dance when we’re dancing down it … badly in my case.

Jive. This was much better than last week. I think I mastered the basic leaders step and almost mastered the ‘Loop’. I think that’s its name. If I’m wrong, I’m sure Scamp will correct me. Actually enjoyed it. The more I think about it, the more I believe that it IS the hall that’s the problem as you’re not travelling in the jive. It, like salsa is done almost on the spot. Anyway, at least that was an improvement. Just at the end of the class, I got a phone call from the shop I took the laptop to, to tell me that the price had been set for it and it was more than I was expecting. Sale complete, money should be in the bank by the weekend!

Salsa was good fun. Relaxing and just plain enjoyable.

Today’s PoD turned out to be a Poinsettia leaf that’s still attached to the plant Scamp got from one of Gems early in December last year. The plant’s still growing although there are only a few leaves left now.

Scamp’s going for coffee with Isobel tomorrow morning, so I may paint.

Waving goodbye to an old work friend – 10 April 2018

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Today was one of those Scottish days. Dull, damp and dreary.

Slow to get started today, but I’d decided to reformat the old school laptop taking with it the last vestiges of me. Full deletion. This took a much shorter time than the last one, only about two hours which is reasonable for a 750GB drive and installation of the abominable Windows 10.

Scamp was out for coffee with a Witch friend, so I found the box for the laptop and took it up to the town centre to see what they’d give me for it. The shop was empty when I went in, but as soon as they sniffed fresh meat being delivered, all the Carbrain dead-heads were circling. Basically I handed over the machine. They confirmed the spec and told me I’d get an offer by phone or email, probably by Friday and gave me a receipt so they could do a ‘Three hour burn in test’. I didn’t want to tell them I’d done at least 30 hours of burn out test in the last week. Anyway, it’s gone and I’ll get something for it. How much I don’t know.

Next, when I came home I loaded more progs into the Linx and successfully secured the serial numbers for two of them. The rest were just Freeware – Real freeware I hasten to add. All legal and above board. Finally tonight I managed to get the email working. That was the worst struggle of all, but now it’s done.

You’ll notice I’ve said nothing about photos or food, which is unusual for me. I’d made a loaf last night and baked it today. It worked, but only just. It was a bit flat, so I let my sourdough starter go – down the pan. Somewhere the fishes are saying “What the F*** is that?” I’ll start a new batch tomorrow. Different recipe. Scamp made dinner. Mince ’n’ Tatties (with beetroot JIC!). Simply superb!

It wasn’t a day for photos. Today I just wanted to get the laptop off my hands, so today’s PoD is Hi Ho Silver. A funny weeman I treated myself to on Saturday. I quite liked him. Yes, I know the horse should be white and the rider should have a mask, but you get the idea!

Tomorrow is Dancing day. No time for anything else.

You’ve NOT got mail – 9 April 2018

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Wasted an hour today trying to get Windows 10 Mail to work with my blog account.

Mickysoft, here’s an idea: If it’s not broke, don’t fix it.

Windows 7 worked superbly. Still does on Scamp’s laptop. Microsoft fixed it with Windows 8.
Windows 8, the great white wonder was a great white disaster. People just went back to Windows 7, supported or not.
Windows 10 was the biggest con in technology. It was free, but you now no longer own or control your computer, Microsoft does. Big, buggy, bloatware.
Windows Live Writer was a great little piece of blogging software. Windows 10 killed it.
Windows Live Mail was an ok email program until the latest Windows 10 upgrade killed it.
Now we are stuck with Windows Mail. It’s an absolute bastard to work with. It simply does not work. It tells you you are connected and everything is ok, then it decides that your password is wrong. It’s not wrong, the software is wrong. Will they fix it? I doubt it. Going back to Gmail on the Linx. Windows Mail isn’t worth the effort.

Went out for a walk down the Luggie to clear my head after the technology overload. Found some toads making more toads in a pond besides the bridge and that’s what became PoD. It was a lovely day with warm sunshine and just a gentle breeze. Daffies are flowering and it feels like spring.

Salsa tonight was hard work. I don’t know why, it just was. It should have been fairly easy in the level 4 class, but the heat was building as it usually does in that small room and there was no fan tonight. Advanced class wasn’t just as bad as we were in the big hall with greater air flow. However, I still felt it was a drag. We discussed it on the way home and maybe Scamp is right that Jamie is trying too hard to come up with new moves every week. Maybe we should be going back to older, more polished moves that really work. Maybe too, he has too much going on in his life to devote all his time to salsa. Who knows. Glad we’ve got ballroom dancing to fall back on too. It’s new, but there seems to be a progression that works. One of the girls from the advanced class was in a ballroom competition and we were watching the video of her waltz and it looked very swish. That’s what we are aiming for. Aye Right!

Scamp is out tomorrow for coffee with one of her witches. I think I’ll try to do a final clean out of the Tosh laptop and take it up to the second hand shop and sell it. May even find time to go for a run on the Dewdrop!

Another day older – 8 April 2018

Posted on by Zogman

Hopefully not (too much) deeper in debt.

Yesterday I got to bed just before I became 68. Today I woke to the reality of it. We had intended going in to a food festival in Glasgow, but after due consideration and the fact that the rain had stopped, I decided to go out and cycle. Scamp decided to work in the garden. Very satisfactory decisions for both of us.

While I was getting dressed for cycling, Scamp had been giving the back garden the once over and she’d found an old clay flowerpot which was being used by about forty, yes FORTY (I did a rough count) slugs. Big fat Irish Yellow Slugs. I’d post the picture, but it would put you off your breakfast … lunch …. and dinner. We could have salted them, but the resulting slime is even more disgusting than the molluscs. The more humane option was to put the pot, complete with slugs in a poly bag and take it into the country and release them there. Now I’d heard that slugs are homing creatures and will easily find their way back to their home garden if it’s half a mile away. This lot were going five miles away and they went there in a poly bag in my back pack and they couldn’t see where we went. I released them after turning the bag round three or four times so they wouldn’t know which way was home. Also they’d have to cross three main roads to get back here. I think we’re safe. They’re gone.

Got some pics there the PoD was the monochrome shot of the brambles.

Had a lovely day. Thank you JIC, Sim, Hazy and Neil. Most of all, thank you Scamp for planning my day. You said you didn’t, but I know you did.

Saturday in the Toon – 7 April 2018

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Today Scamp had booked lunch for us in Chaophraya Thai restaurant.

Got the bus in to town and went for a wander up Sausage Roll Street. Stood gaping with the others at the demolition of the New City Palace restaurant, Greggs, The Works and who knows what else? They might even have to demolish Lauders! It will have a lot of smoke damage from the fire next door, but will any of the clientele notice? Probably not. It will just add to the ambience.

While Scamp looked for holiday stuff, I went to Waterstones. Found a book I was looking for, but didn’t buy it until I’d consulted Amazon. Glad I did. Waterstones price for the ‘real book’ £12.50. Amazon price for the kindle version £0.99! No contest. Did buy myself a ‘paintery and painterly’ book with some very interesting techniques in it. May try them out this week. Got a bargain of two posh rugby shirts for less than half price in M&S. Walked down the town looking for somewhere to get a drink. Found Drury Street Bar where Scamp had a G ’n’ T and I had a pint of draught Joker IPA, except it tasted exactly like the bottled version. Not real ale then. Quite a young person’s pub with everyone playing games :-/ Can’t imagine what the members of the UBI club would think about Dungeons & Dragons! Then it was time for lunch.

Pork Dumplings and then Thai Green Chicken Curry for me and Veg Tempura and Thai Red Prawn Curry for Scamp. Both served with Jasmine Rice. Starters and mains were the usual exceptional quality.  Only slight disappointment was Scamp’s Coconut Ice Cream and my Moroccan Mint Tea. Scamp’s complaint was that it was just ice cream with a bit of coconut – as she said, we’ve tasted the REAL stuff in Trinidad and in Tobago. My complaint was the MMT was advertised as Loose Tea and what I got was a tea bag in hot water. Not the same thing. Foodies, what can you do to satisfy them?

Bus home afterwards and although the weather had been warm and dry, just got in and  the rain came on and stayed on all evening.  Watched the qualifying for the F1 GP in Bahrain and then the final portrait of some american actress, Kim Cattrall, painted by the winner of Portrait Artist 2018. The portrait, to our eyes, was poor with only a passing resemblance to the actress. Having said that, she got what she deserved. She was so full of herself and her love for Liverpool (which she left when she was three months old according to Wikipedia). Who knew what she actually looked like.

Still plugging software into the new Linx. It’s still holding a good charge and joy of joys, Lightroom 6 on it reads the problematic Panasonic TZ70 raw files. You don’t need to know what that is. Just accept it that it’s a very good thing!

PoD, in fact almost the only picture of the day is of some bloke looking really lost and alone in Buchanan Street. Almost feel sorry to post it!

Tomorrow? Don’t know. May go to a food fair in Glasgow. Foodies? Us? May go cycling if the weather stays warm (9ºc just now at 11.30pm). Who knows. I get to decide, apparently.

Biting the bullet – 6 April 2018

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Today wasn’t as bright as yesterday. Maybe that was summer and we’re into autumn?

<Technospeak>
My old, not excessively old, maybe seven years old Toshiba laptop had been backing up my ‘Data’ partition overnight. I don’t know exactly how long it took, but when I woke this morning it was finished. I woke it, ejected the backup drive and, as someone on the net described it, pressed the ‘Kill button’. A couple of hours later the ‘quick reinstall’ had completed. The Data partition had been deleted and probably formatted. The C: drive had also been cleaned out and a new version of Windows had been installed. Everything seemed ok and everything seemed to move with the same sluggishness as before. Welcome to Windows 10 (this may take some time). I think that’s the full name of Windoze 10. I had a friend in Australia who always referred to Windows as Windoze. Then, ten or so years ago we didn’t know how lucky we were. Now we really have a Win Doze. The most sluggish OS in the galaxy.
</Technospeak>

We went out for a late lunch at the Torwood Garden Centre after my technology overload. I think it must have been Greyhairs’ Day today. We may have been the only ones with our own teeth. (Oops, sorry H!). After our repast, we went for a walk through the plants. Scamp bought me an early birthday prezzy of a Buddleia. It’s the plant you see flowering on spare ground and beside rail tracks. Unfortunately it doesn’t flower for me in the garden. I’ve been trying to grow them for years without success. Maybe this time will be different. Scamp also got some plants for herself and a couple of big pots to put them in. Packing them in to the car wasn’t a problem as I’d discovered the versatility of the boot which converts from a flat floor to a deep pit. Very smart. You have to see it, I’m not going to try to explain how it works. Believe me it does.

On the way home I bit the bullet and told Scamp I was going to but a Linx 12×64. I was going to buy it from the bastard Curry’s too, because they were the cheapest. Drove to Coatbridge to do the deed and as usual, went in and recited the name of the tablet. “No, we don’t have any.” was the reply. I told the bloke that they had them last week. He checked the system while telling me that “That was last week. Maybe we’ve sold it since then”, but he did it with a smile and was multitasking, so I knew he was an AI, not a Sales Droid. Turned out they had one and I grabbed it before they could tell me they’d need to set it up for me and that would cost another forty quid, but I’d get a setup USB stick. I also said no to the usual offer of an insurance money pit. To be fare to the Droid who’d taken over the selling of the device, he didn’t push it. Well, it was a Friday afternoon and his sights were on a Buckfast bottle chilling nicely for him in the fridge at home. A fridge not bought from Curry’s I’d guess.

Drove home and went out for a walk round St Mo’s while the laptop was charging up and downloading the 3Gb updates. 3Gb! That’s massive. Anyway, St Mo’s provided today’s PoD which is the pic of the seat with a view over the BMX track. Nice.

Long story short. The Linx 12×64 works well and those nice people at Adobe even allowed me to install Lightroom 6 on it for nothing. Legally too I hasten to add before you say ‘Hmm, all his software costs him nothing’. New leafs people, new leafs! Tomorrow I’ll probably find there’s another 3Gb download waiting for me! For today I’m a happy bunny who’s double formatting his old Tosh data drive one more time for luck. It goes on sale on Monday.

Tomorrow we’re going in to Glasgow not to look at laptops, but hopefully to have lunch in Chaophraya. Going in on the bus too because drink will be taken I think.

The day I met HAL 9000 and lived to tell the tale – 5 April 2018

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Today was a technology fest and more lies from Currys.

Scamp was out singing with Gems today, so I was off the leash! Started off in Glasgow at what was Val and my stamping ground at PC World in Finnieston. Oh dear, how this place has gone downhill. It used to be THE place for the PC aficionados. Now it sells washing machines and fridge-freezers and some PCs. I’d already checked before I left the house and the Linx 12×64 was in stock and on display. Despite all my checking I couldn’t see the little black plastic devil anywhere. Eventually one of the ‘assistants’ (AKA Sales Droids) asked if he could help. I told him I was looking for the elusive Linx and he seemed to know what I was talking about. He tried to check on one of the expensive laptops if they had them in stock, but couldn’t get the website to work. Warning bells were ringing. I told him I’d just have a wander around and see if I could locate one myself. He did eventually find that they had them in stock and even brought out the box, but agreed that there wasn’t one on display. I told him that’s not what the website said, but he had an answer for that. It’s a mistake on the website. I told him I wasn’t interested and went out.

I checked in Office Outlet next door. It used to be Staples – when it was a real shop. Now it’s a big partly empty barn with very little to recommend it. They had even fewer laptops than PCW. I couldn’t let it go. Back in to PCW, approached a group of Sales Droids and asked to speak to a manager. Every one of them turned in a different direction, then an assistant manager (apparently referred to as an AI or Programmer) said the manager was dealing with a customer (aren’t they always?) and could she help. I told her my story of the mistaken website and how the Sales Droid had found the box, but no displayed computer. She offered to get the Droid to open the box. Did he need the AI’s permission or did he need re-programming for this task. I told her she was missing the point, but the intense look in her eyes and the sweet smile didn’t falter and I was reminded of oh so many SF films. I just left before they started repeating “I’m sorry Dave I’m afraid I can’t do that …”. I was so glad when the automatic doors opened to allow me to exit.

Drove around for a while, but never saw a Linx 12×64 in any of the Curry’s PC World places I visited, but now I understand why the assistants are called Sales Droids. They’re pretty tame really. It’s the programmers that are the dangerous ones.

Today’s PoD is of the Campsie Fells under their snow covering. Not as dramatic as yesterday evening, but still quite pretty.

This is the sourdough loaf I made when I came back from my brush with HAL 9000. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start. The photo makes it look better than reality. It was a bit heavy in the middle. Still not got the proportions of Production to flour and water. It’s a start and I’m hoping it will get better.

Don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow. If it’s as lovely a day as today, we’ll go somewhere nice for a walk. We can only hope.