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Summer starts here – 25 March 2018

Posted on by Zogman

The start of British Summer Time and Fred and I are off to get some art inspiration and perhaps even some art if the price is right.

The clocks had jumped forward by an hour this morning. Well some of them had, the new, hooked-up, on-line ones were up to date and time, but the rest had to be pushed on an hour by hand, or more likely by finger. With that done it was time to sit down and watch the first F1 GP of the year. Felt sorry for Hamilton as he was cheated out of first place by a clever bit of rule twisting by Vettel. I don’t like Hamilton, but I detest Vettel.

Got ready to go in to Glasgow with Fred. We were going to an artist’s sale in the WASP studio. Nothing to do with White or Anglo-Saxon or Protestant, thankfully. WASPS in Glasgow are Workshop & Artists Studio Provision, and that’s where we were heading this morning to an Artist’s Clear Out Sale. Lots of stuff for sale. Ceramics, Glass, Paintings and some fabric work. Most of the prices were realistic, but a few were imaginative to say the least. I bought three ceramic bowls, small, medium and large. Fred got a brooch for his granddaughter. On the way back we passed an old school and with the sun shining on it, it looked worth a few photos. That’s what you see above. PoD was the old schoolhouse in the frame on the right. I tried a sketch of it when we got home, from the photo. It may or may not see the light of day. In fact, I may wait for the light of day to finish the washes on it.

Dancing this evening was at La Rambla in Paisley. Really enjoyable, probably because it’s weeks since we’ve been out dancing in public. No tapas today because of the length of time it took on our last couple of visits for our food to arrive, and of course, today it had been much quicker. That may have been because of a new ordering procedure suggested by Shannon, or it could have been because of the fewer numbers who were ordering food. Only time will tell.  Beautiful sunset as we were driving home after a really sunny day.

Tomorrow is Monday. That means the likelihood of gym or swim. I’ll decide which tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, Birthday Girl – 24 March 2018

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Today is Scamp’s Birthday.

Because it was Scamp’s birthday it was my turn to make the breakfast. I also brought up the presents for her to open. After that, Hazy phoned, then we waited for the post to arrive with Hazy’s prezzy. An exciting morning.

Drove down to Troon for a walk along the beach before we went to lunch at Scott’s of Troon. On the way down, Scamp got a FaceTime call from Jaime and Madeleine from Trinidad! Most unexpected and so nice to see them again, although I didn’t contribute much to the conversation as I was driving.

Troon was busy because it was a lovely bright sunny day. Parked by the sea wall and walked along the esplanade to the sand dunes, then back along the beach to the car park. That’s where I saw the Micra driver who thought he/she was a motorcyclist. Would these people park in a disabled space? Probably not, but they think it’s fair game to park in a space for motorcycles. It would have been good if a hulking big Harley had parked right behind them, preferably with a hulking big Harley rider sitting in the saddle. That didn’t make PoD. The accolade went to THE best fig in Morrisons.

Lunch in the conservatory of Scotts was lovely, and went as follows:

Scamp:

  • Alex Vause Gin cocktail (Hic!)

  • Selection of breads (shared)

  • Smoked haddock, king prawn and pea risotto

  • Sticky Toffee Pudding Sundae

  • Coffee

Me:

  • Selection of breads (shared)

  • Roast breast of chicken with carrot puree, veg, fondant potatoes and black pudding & chorizo bon bons

  • Mini Eton Mess

  • Coffee

After that we poured ourselves into the car and drove home via Morrisons, still in the sunshine that someone had ordered for Scamp’s birthday. Whoever you were, thank you. It was worth every penny.

A lovely day with a lovely lady!

Tomorrow? Back to the real world. Hoping to go in to Glasgow with Fred to an art sale.

Feeling Refreshed – 23 March 2018

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Scamp was going out for coffee with Shona, so I had all morning to swear at the Toshiba or to do some painting.

I chose painting, but there was no gesso. Gesso is a thick, sometimes textured base coat you put on the card, canvas or wood you’re going to paint on with oils or acrylic. It can almost be replaced with acrylic paint or even emulsion paint these days. I chose acrylic and slapped a muddy brown layer on both sides of the card, then hung the card up to dry. That was about 10am. I think it’s still damp tonight at 11.25pm. So, it was back to swearing at the Tosh.

Actually there was very little swearing involved because I’d found an obscure website where one member claimed that it was possible to ‘refresh’ Windows 10 without losing any data or apps. Everyone else said it was impossible. I like a challenge, so I followed the blokes instructions, downloaded the ‘media creation tool’ from the Mickysoft site which took about an hour and a half, unpacked it and found I needed an 8gb memory stick. I didn’t have one that size that wasn’t being used so as it was lunchtime I called a halt to the computer nonsense and Scamp and I had lunch.

Set off to Sunny Coatbridge to see if I could get my hands on a Linx 12×64, because according to the Currys website, they had them in stock. I wandered round the lovely, selection of laptops. Some too big 17”. Some too small 10”. None just right 12”. So, feeling a bit like Goldilocks I went looking for an assistant who wasn’t checking his Facebook status to ask if they had the elusive Linx. The bloke I asked didn’t have a clue what I was talking about, but thankfully the youngster beside him who was just putting his phone away said he thought the had run out of them, but he’d check. He did and they had one left in the store, but it was in a box and he couldn’t open it. Bummer. But at least they had them. Maybe Stirling would have one, but that would be another day. Got a cheap memory stick and left.

Drove up to a dead end road at the back of Cumbersheugh Airport that cuts across the Antonine Wall and that’s where I got PoD. Looking North across Banknock, not to be confused with Bangkok. Sounds similar, different planet!

Came home via The Works to get some gesso, so over the weekend, I can paint, if not a masterpiece, at least something to take my mind of the failure of this wee drive to refresh my old PC laptop.

What a surprise! It took about five hours, but at the end of that I have a working Window’s 10 laptop. The ‘media creation tool’ and the memory stick did their work flawlessly. Not only that, the re-install did not touch any of my apps. Fantastic. Give that man on the obscure website a coconut. The laptop will still need to be reset properly and securely before I trade it in, but that was a ‘Wee Challenge’ that worked out well.

Speaking about coconuts, Scamp made Coconut and Fish Curry for dinner and it was really, really nice. Didn’t sound nice, I know, but it worked so well. The flavours blended beautifully.

Tomorrow we’re hoping for a sunny day for someone’s birthday and a trip down to Troon for lunch.

Fire! – 22 March 2018

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I decided to have some ‘me time’ today in Glasgow.

The plan was for me to take the bus in to Glasgow and then go to the West End on the subway for some sketching in the Botanic Gardens, then grab that shot from yesterday when I returned to the City Centre. It didn’t exactly work out that way.

On the way in there was an enormous pall of smoke on the horizon. A really mucky looking pall of smoke. Then I noticed Scamp had sent me a text to say that there was a big fire on Sauchiehall Street (AKA Sausage Roll Street). As we got near Glasgow I could see that it was indeed a big fire. Came out of the bus station and wandered round the side of the Concert Hall to see if there were any photos to be taken. There were, and hundreds of people were taking them with every conceivable photographic device, from old clunky SVGA point ’n’ shoot cameras to professional full-frame DSLRs and everything in between. And then there were the phones. This was a big incident. I took some right away with the Teazer.
First rule of photography: Take the shot, then think about it. You might not get another chance.

After that I started looking for a decent angle and a way to isolate some of the action. I took about 15 – 20 shots before the police came and ordered us across the road, behind a newly erected safety cordon. Really, it was like herding cats. Some folk moved away as directed while others, new on the scene said “Oh, what’s happening there?” and slipped under the cordon (because it wasn’t applicable to them, obviously) and calmly started shooting with their shiny new smartphones. I sometimes feel that the police can be a bit overpowering and heavy handed, but today they deserved medals, each and every one of them for not losing their cool and just huckling some of the numpties off to Stewart Street (polis station). By that time I had all the shots I wanted and walked down Bucky Street to get the subway to Kelvinbridge.

Walked up Great Western Road to the Botanics and after a walk round the Kibble Palace, I went back out and started sketching the Victorian glasshouse in all its wrought iron glory. Not the best sketch I’ve done, but it got the gist of the building. Also, although the temperature was almost 10ºc, it was still cool. Maybe too cool to be sitting on a park bench for the half hour it took for the sketch.

Back down Byres Road and got the subway back to Glasgow. Took it to St Enoch’s to the Nero for a spot of light and late lunch. Nice wee alliteration there! Walked up Bucky Street to the new even more extreme cordon, this time cutting off Jessops and the other Cafe Nero (glad I hadn’t banked on getting my lunch in there!) The polis had craftily blocked off one of the entrances to Buchanan Galleries and just extended the cordon across the road there. Everyone was behaving themselves now because the flames were almost out and there wasn’t much to see. Out through JL and was just crossing over to the road when I saw the shot on the right at the top. It looked like a film set. Now if that had been London or Birmingham or Manchester, the words on everyone’s lips would have been “Terrorist Incident”. In Glasgow it was “So is Lauders Bar open?” (Lauders is the pub on the corner next to the fire.)

PoD was the firefighters on the extended platform, top left. Whatever these blokes get paid, it’s not enough.

Don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow. Scamp’s meeting Shona for a catch-up. I might paint.

Wednesday is Dancing day – 21 March 2018

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I struggled with the Toshiba Windows 10 laptop for an hour or so in the morning, by which time it had loaded windows, but not so far that it would actually do anything. The desktop wallpaper had loaded and the ‘quick start’ icons were there, but the trackpad didn’t respond and neither did the keyboard. I eventually gave up and switched on the Mac. Ten seconds later I was in business. Same processor. Same memory. Different planet. I don’t actually use the laptop any more and am beginning to think that I’ll securely wipe the drive, reinstall Win10 and trade it in for a new Linx 12×64 to use as a holiday laptop. Windows 10 is a disaster for me.

After lunch we drove in to town for the first two dance classes. The first one was Waltz and we did quite well at it, which was especially satisfying because we hadn’t practised in the three weeks since our last lesson. Next class was Jive and although we were just reprising the routine we’ve been learning, it began to flow much more smoothly than it had. Heavens, we even managed the Boston Hitch … without a hitch. Cup of coffee and then home, but not before I grabbed my one shot of the day. Except, when I got it home and into the computer, I found that the camera had chosen a shutter speed of 1/8sec when it should really have been about 1/40th. Why it did that, I do not know, but I have now reset the camera to factory settings and then re-programmed all my previous settings. Unfortunately, by the time I did all that, it was dark outside, so I couldn’t test it to see if my drastic measure had cured the problem or not. It’s still under warranty, so worst case, I can send it for repair.

Dinner was the same as yesterday for both of us which was good because it was quick to prepare and of course Rats or Chilli always tastes better on the second day. Salsa was ok, but I could happily do without the Wednesday beginners classes. Yes, we’re helping the beginners, but we get very little out of it. I know Scamp likes to help, so for the time being I’m happy to go along.

Tomorrow I’m planning a sketching day in Glasgow if the rain stays away. If it rains I’ll still go in and hopefully get today’s aborted shot. Today’s PoD is tomatoes on the draining board!

Another Good Day – 20 March 2018

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And I quote:

“Tomorrow, if it works out as the weather man says, will be another good day with more sunshine, temperatures scraping under double digits and light winds again. Scamp wants to go into the garden. I might get my bike out.”

Well, it did turn out as the weather man said.
– It was another good day with sunshine.
– Temperatures in the sun were probably scraping the double digits.
– The winds were light
– Scamp did go into the garden
– I DID take my bike out

Scamp started clearing up the front garden in the morning, the back garden is still under permafrost. I cleared the snow off the back step, finding the mat in the process. I then attacked the ice with a spade, but gave up when I got to the stuff that was welded securely to the concrete and resorted to a chemical attack. Instead of Novichok, I used table salt which melted the ice really quickly. Meanwhile Scamp was trying to eradicate an influx of tiny white maggots from one of her containers. She eventually gave up, washed the offending plants and dumped the compost in the brown bin (garden waste). Then she tidied up the front of the window area to let the daffodils have some air and light. The garden looked so much better after that.

The coffee I’d ordered from the Bean Shop in Perth arrived just in time for lunch and after sampling some, I got dressed to go out on my bike. Glorious day if you were in the sun, quite cool in the shade. Cycled to the old tip and that’s where I got today’s PoD which is the Kirkintilloch Volcano. One day I will climb the Kirkintilloch Volcano and sit like this person did, just enjoying the view. There, that’s a challenge for this year.  I also got a photo of a newt.  Not great or crested, but a newt.  I’ve never seen one in St Mo’s and this is the first one I’ve seen for years.  Stood and watched the trains go by and listened to the silence, if you know what I mean.  It was simply wonderful to be out in the air without that cold wind dragging you down.  Maybe spring is just round the corner.  Glad I took advantage of today because the weatherwoman says it’s going to rain tomorrow. Worse still, Wunderground says it’s going to rain tomorrow and I trust Wunderground more than I trust the weatherwoman, Kawser Quamer.

Made chilli for dinner while Scamp had Rats which is her shorthand for Ratatouille.

Tomorrow is Dancing, Dancing, Dancing day we hope because we missed it last week.

Just a Monday – 19 March 2018

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Today was just a Monday.

After lunch Scamp went to collect some of the Gems ladies and reported that it was a lovely day.  I had been considering an afternoon at the gym, but it looked so good with blue skies, sunshine and light winds that I changed my mind and took the car out to Bishopbriggs to have a look at the Linx 12×64 2 ‘n’ 1 laptop.  Unfortunately in contradiction to their website, they didn’t have one.  Allegedly they had one in Coatbridge, but I wasn’t in the mood for a run out there and anyway, a walk would be much better, so that’s what I did.

I drove back to Cumbersheugh and parked down by the station then went for a walk along the Luggie Water which is where I got today’s PoD, a bunch of Snowdrops.  Thankfully most of the real show is going fast.  Warm breezes and some direct sunshine is doing the good work.  Got talking to a bloke walking an enormous Alsatian.  It started off with us complaining about  the state of the Luggie and the dearth of fish in it these days and finished with him telling me his life story.  Eventually I did manage to get away.  I felt kind of sorry for him because he just seemed to ramble on from one thing to another.  It was almost as if he had nobody to talk to and didn’t want to let you go.  Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but I had to get home to make the dinner before we went out dancing.

Dinner on a Monday is pasta.  At my mum’s it was always mince ‘n’ tatties on a Monday.  Here it’s pasta.  Today, for a change, I thought I’d make a version of one of Scamp’s favourites, Spaghetti dello Chef which is spaghetti with vegetables and cheese.  Mine was spaghetti with onions, mushroons, tomatoes, peppers and capers.  Finished with parmesan shavings, fresh ground pepper, salt and extra virgin olive oil.  It was a success.

Salsa tonight was the usual chaos in the first class with lots of old moves and a few new ones.  Second class was equally chaotic with a few old moves and a few new ones.  Can’t remember the names of them all, but today’s new move was Stormtrooper 2.  We also went over Stormtrooper 1 and the one that’s still called ‘The New One’.  Apparently the cost of a block is going up for the first time in 10 years, from £35 to £40.  Nobody objected.  It’s still good value.

Tomorrow, if it works out as the weather man says, will be another good day with more sunshine, temperatures scraping under double digits and light winds again.  Scamp wants to go into  the garden.  I might get my bike out.

Oh no! More snow – 18 March 2018

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Looked out this morning and the snow was still falling.

The snow continued all day, it may still be falling, I haven’t the heart to check. It did put a bit of a dampener on the day. Having said that, it did tail off for a while in the afternoon, and tomorrow is supposed to be a bit warmer.

On Friday night, or to be more exact, Saturday morning when we got back from Larky, the kitchen fluorescent light wouldn’t work, so we suspect it needed a new tube. This morning I got the steps out, took the bulb out, cleaned the contacts and plugged it back in and it worked. Either a dirty contact was the problem or, more likely, the spider who usually maintains the light was dead. Its poor wee desiccated carcass was lying on the diffuser. It had had a hard life, poor thing.

With the light sorted, I started restoring my Linx to a previous incarnation. After a few false starts, I finally got it done and it has screwed up Windows Update, because there’s not enough room on the C:\ drive for it to download the latest update. Two fingers up to you Mr Windows 10! Now I just have to remember the sequence of operations to fool Lightroom into believing that the TZ70 is actually a TZ60. Don’t worry Scamp and JIC, I’m not going into details, it would be gobbledegook to you, and Hazy only speaks IOS now.

After lunch Scamp and I had a discussion and decided to make a final decision about the Sunday Social later in the afternoon. I went out for a walk around St Mo’s to get some last pictures of the snow before it disappears until December (ever hopeful). There weren’t many animal tracks to be seen. I did see some frog spawn in the ponds, but no sign of their creators. I was reading last year’s blog (You can too, there’s a link from this page if you’re reading on a tablet or a computer. Can’t remember how to access it on a phone) and read that the larch trees were pushing out their little ‘shaving brush’ needles, but there were none in evidence today. I won’t be sure that the bad weather is past until I see the larch trees showing some green and the deciduous trees showing some leaf. Trees know more than you think they do. Read ‘The Hidden Life of Trees’ by Peter Wohlleben if you don’t believe me. This man knows a thing or two about trees.

When I came back, not exactly frozen because I had layer upon layer of clothes on, we made the decision to stay put today and leave the Sunday Social to the warmer weather that’s coming. You could see that neither of us really wanted to cancel, but it was the sensible thing to do and sometimes, just sometimes we are sensible.

Today’s PoD is the Cladonia shot on the right.

Hopefully everything will be better in the morning and the snow will be on its way to some other more deserving recipients. That will mean it will be a normal Monday with all that that entails.

A cold day in the toon – 17 March 2018

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Late getting up and moving this morning and there was just a hint of snow on the ground.

After last night, we decided to get the bus into Glasgow. Everybody else had decided that was the way to travel too. But the time we were coming out of Muirhead, the bus was full, especially full of weans. Scamp thought it was Dad Takes The Kids Out Day. I thought she was probably right.

Went to look for a holiday laptop in JL. Sorry JIC an Scamp, whizz on to the next paragraph.  Y’see the problem is I like using Lightroom 6 which will allow me to process the RAW files from all my cameras, but LR6 on a PC only works with Windows 64 bit. The little Linx tablet I use is great, but its version of Windows is 32 bit. For stress-free work, I need a small (11” ish) laptop that works in 64bit. I thought I’d found the ideal one in an HP Stream, but warning bells were ringing. I’d seen a lot of them for sale really cheap as refurbished models and although their spec mentioned that they used Windows 10 64bit, when I did some digging, I discovered that the big problem was that they only had 32GB of storage and now that Windows 10 automatically updates itself regularly, it fills up that 32GB really quickly with its update files. This slows the system down and even worse, the processor is a Celeron which is slow to begin with. Bah! Back to the start.

Ok, JIC and Scamp, you can take off the blindfold and the headphones and return to the blog.

After a coffee in Nero we walked down Bucky Street and along to Argyle Street. Scamp was going to M&S and I was going to Millers Art Shop I was looking for a new brush. Got one after paying more than I’d intended and Scamp added a few new holiday clothes to her Wishlist. We couldn’t decide were, or even if we were having lunch. It was so cold and there were flakes of snow blowing around and basically we had been out for an hour or so. The decision was made to just go home and order take-away tonight. Got to the bus station just as the bus started reversing, but the driver stopped and let us in. Thank you Mr Driver.

Back home we had a Golden Bowl dinner and watched TV before Scamp went to bed earlier than last night and I wrote up two days’ blog posts. PoD is called Behind Bars. It’s a shot of part of a panoramic painting on a building on Argyle Street through some scaffolding poles.

Tonight it’s snowing again. Hopefully it will be gone tomorrow afternoon and we’ll get to Sunday Social. If not we’ll stay at home.

To Darkest Larky – 16 March 2018

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Tonight we were going to Darkest Larky to take June and Ian to meet Crawford & Nancy.

It was a dull, dismal, cold day. We decided to go out for lunch, a light lunch as we would be well fed tonight. We finally settled on The Smiddy out near Doune. Got a table easily enough and Scamp ordered Tomato soup. I fancied the Parmesan, Pancetta and Olive Quiche. Unfortunately, after taking the order, the waitress returned to say that the last piece of that quiche had just gone. Would I like the Highland Blue, Spinach and Tomato Quiche? I felt like saying “No, I’d like the Parmesan …”, but I foolishly agreed to the replacement. When it came it was a disappointingly mass-produced looking version that sat on the plate amid the mixed lettuce leaves and the sun dried tomatoes. The sun dried tomatoes were good. The rest was just as disappointing as it looked. I think The Smiddy is becoming the victim of their success. Scamp said her soup had a slightly ‘meaty’ taste to it, almost like there was marmite or something in it. We may give The Smiddy a rest for a while.

June and Ian arrived at night and we headed of for Larky. Crawford and Nancy proudly showed off their new kitchen and sun-room. It really, and I mean really made us both green with envy. Such a lovely space, and so spacious too. I know Crawford put a lot of work into it and it showed. June and Ian were so wrapped up in each other, I don’t think they took much notice.

Food and drink was just as good as it usually is except for the driver who had to make do with a Coke, thankfully a Full-Fat one. Conversation and jokes rattled about among us and it was good to see that Ian gave as good as he got. The only thing missing was a big black labrador that used to come and plonk itself down at June’s feet. Unfortunately it had gone the way of all flesh. It was a docile big soul.

Never really noticed the time until Scamp said we should be going. It was 11.45.

By the time we’d dropped everyone off it was 12.30am when we found a parking space right outside the door and came home. That’s why this blog was written on Saturday.

PoD was a grab shot of croci in the garden.