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Dug wi’ a burst ba’ – 24 July 2016

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAIt was raining when we got up and it never stopped. Last week it was too much sun, this week it’s too little.

We sat and watched a boring Hungarian F1 GP. Most of the race was yawn-friendly, only becoming interesting in the closing stages. Best part was the after-race comment by Jenson Button about his team being ‘unfriendly’ towards him. I can’t blame him for this throw away comment after the ridiculous rule change that prevents the teams telling drivers about safety issues. F1 is becoming more regulated than the EU. Maybe Britain should opt out of it too.

I spent the rest of the afternoon ‘fiddling’ with a neat little program called Elementary OS. As the name implies, it’s not so much a program, more an Operating System. It’s based on Linux and like most Linux programs it’s free. Unlike most Linux operating systems it looks very neat an clean and almost Mac-like. After a few unsuccessful attempts to install it on my ancient HP netbook, I found that the laptop wouldn’t boot back into Windows. After dinner, I spent the rest of the evening trying to coax it back into life, unsuccessfully. It seemed like the hard disk was empty!! Oh dear.

Eventually I gave up and went out to get a PoD of raindrops on the nasturtiums at the front of the house. I did a bit of focus stacking to get the front and the back beads in focus and with the aid of Photoshop, it all came together as a whole.

After we went to bed, I couldn’t sleep. My mind was still worrying away at the netbook problem, like a “dug wi’ a burst ba’” (That’s a Scottish way of saying “a dog with a bone“). After another hour’s work using the excellent, free and dubiously sourced Hiren’s Boot Disk 15, I managed to get it going again with no loss of data. Now I could go back to sleep.

Looking for some dry weather (sun would be nice, but dry would do) tomorrow.

Kes – 23 July 2016

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23 July bOur visitors arrived much later last night than we expected, just before 11pm, in fact.  Drink was taken, tales were told, jokes were laughed at and much later than normal, we got to bed.

This morning they were up fairly early and we were up soon after although my head felt a bit thick.  That was when our other visitor dropped in.  Scamp said there was a bird sitting outside the front door, not a little bird, she thought it was a pigeon and it wasn’t looking too well.  Murd said two big black birds had ‘had a word with it’ and it perked up a bit after that.  He said he thought they must have been doctors 🙂

When I opened the front door I saw, not a dead pigeon as I expected, but an apparently live but unmoving kestrel.  It was a bit battered and its eyes were closed, so I feared the worst.  Then its head moved, so it was probably just dazed.  Maybe after hitting the bedroom window and falling on to the grass in the front garden.  I put on a pair of Scamp’s gardening gloves because that beak looked sharp, and gently lifted it up.  Some of the feathers on one wing were splayed out, but other than that it looked ok.  I pulled out a bit of dried grass from its wing feathers and smoothed the wing down. That was when it opened its eyes.  Wow!  Such beautiful, bright yellow eyes.  It looked at me, shook itself staggered a bit then flew off across the road and landed in a tree.  I think it must have been a young bird.  Lovely chestnut coloured plumage, and oh, those eyes.  A great start to the day, and my thick head had gone.

Scamp drove us in to Stirling today and we went for a curry in the usual restaurant, we both had our usual starters and mains too.  Creatures of habit.  Afterwards I went to the bookshop and was intrigued by the title of one book:
“The Genius of Birds” by Jennifer Ackerman.
I wonder why that one caught my eye.  Managed to download it when I got home and will add it to my Kindle booklist tonight.  We both wandered round BHS which was closing today, looking for bargains, but there were none, just junk nobody wanted.

After that we went to Waitrose and I got a big lump of ribeye which I cut into five steaks when I got home.  That should keep the carnivore in me occupied for the next few weeks.

Went out this evening to get some photos in the rain at St Mo’s, being careful to stick to the path.  Don’t want any more ticks.  Surprised to see that NLC have created an avenue of trees and reseeded the wild flower areas.  They must have cut out one of the councillors junkets to pay for that.  Light was terrible with ISOs in the thousands.  Last week I was struggling to keep the shutter speeds fast enough not to overexpose at ISO 100.  That’s the difference in being down south and up north.

More rain forecast tomorrow, so I doubt if we’ll be going far.

I can still see those yellow eyes.  Wish I’d thought to take a photo.

A more relaxing day – 22 July 2016

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22 July bToday was a day for relaxing after the last couple of driving days.

We were intending getting the bus in to Glasgow, but as the rain was pelting down (the garden needs it), we changed plans and drove in. For lunch we went to the Chinese restaurant on Sauchiehall Street (AKA Sausage Roll Street) where Scamp used to take her mum for lunch. We’d been there before. It always was in the “Cheap and Cheerful” category, but today it was only “Cheap”. The food left a lot to be desired. My Sweet and Sour Chicken was tasteless, apart from the sickly sauce. Scamp’s Chicken Pineapple was also tasteless. I don’t think we’ll be back. I think we might be spoilt by Cotton House.

After we came back, I went to get petrol because we’d used up all the Chessington petrol from yesterday. Then I went for a walk down the Luggie Water. Not a lot there to photograph apart from some early fruiting rasps. Drove over to Moodiesburn then over the back road and found some horses in a field. Took Harry the Horse’s photo, and drove home.

Jackie, Scamp’s sister and her husband referred to previously as Murd were on the way north from Southampton and I was going to give them a lift from Glasgow. That was before they got caught up in an almighty traffic jam just before Tebay services. They were due in Glasgow around 7.30pm. It’s now 10.30pm and they’re still not here. They told us they would get a taxi from Glasgow instead of tying up my night, which was very good of them.

A relaxing day for us, but maybe not for Jackie and Murd

Don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow. To quote Scamp “It depends on the weather”

Homeward Bound part 2 – 21 July 2016

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E7211012- flickr--203After yesterday’s journey into the epicurean dungeon that is Lancashire services I decided that we wouldn’t risk salmonella, dysentery or norovirus and would leave earlier than planned hoping to find a cleaner service station.

I woke around 5am and couldn’t get back to sleep, but I lay until almost 7am when Scamp, having been woken by me asked if I wanted to just have a cuppa and head off. I agreed with her suggestion and by 8am we were washed, dressed and on our way north again. As I expected, the traffic was much lighter today and we made good time. We stopped at Southwaite services. What a difference. Light, clean and with people who wanted to serve you. Apparently their dishwasher was working because they had proper cups, not made of cardboard. I don’t know what it is about cardboard cups I don’t like. I think it’s something to do with the feel of the cardboard against my lips. Picky? Not me. Anyway, having had a proper breakfast and a proper coffee, or peppermint tea in Scamp’s case, we journeyed on. Weather was much more Scottish as we crossed the border and we even manages a little bit of rain.  Not a lot, just enough to welcome us home.  It was much cooler too, around 19ºc most of the way.  We turned into our street just after 11am. Last week we were just getting on the road at that time.

The rest of the day was spent lazing around, backing up computer stuff, posting photos and generally winding down. I got ready to take my bike out later in the afternoon, that was when the rain came on, so I did nothing instead. A bit of a waste, that’s the way it is.

Tomorrow, the bus will take the strain.

PS
I mentioned yesterday about the poor WiFi in the Travel Lodge.  I didn’t manage to get the blog posted using it.  I imagine there were too many words for it to handle 😉
What I finally did was use my iPhone which was connecting with four bars of 3G.  I created a personal hotspot and used that to finally upload the blog post.  Isn’t technology wonderful when it works.

 

Homeward Bound – 20 July 2016

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20 JulyI’m going to keep this short and sweet.  The WiFi in this Travel Lodge is awful.  You would think in this day and age that they could afford broadband for their paying guests rather than dial up.  Unless it’s BT based, because they seem to be having problems today.  They were not the only ones.

We expected, and got delays on the M25, but then we went on to the M40 and there were delays there too caused by … well, nothing really.  I’d love to see the motorway system from the air to see these phantom problems that seem to hold up traffic for hours.  On to the M6 and that is where the big problems started.  Queue after queue.  Some caused by roadworks, some caused by breakdowns and some inevitably caused by rubber-neckers wanting a good view of accidents on the south-bound carriageway.  By the time we got to the Travel Lodge I was exhausted.  Booked in and had a shower and felt a lot better.  Went for dinner in the services.  Oh dearie me, what a depressing place.  When we drove down, we stopped at Birmingham services and had fish & chips and it was excellent.  Today we had cold chips and something that might have seen the sea quite a few years ago wrapped up in yellow plaster of paris, at least that is what it tasted like.  Before you ask, “yes” I have eaten plaster of paris.  The yellow dye didn’t improve the taste at all.  We decide not to risk the coffee and went down stairs to have Costa coffee.  Here is what I wrote in the Costa on-line complaint form:

“I’m sitting in an excuse for a Costa coffee shop drinking an excuse for an Americano from a cardboard cup because the dishwasher is broken.  Although there were lots of ceramic cups visible on the coffee makers we were not offered them, we HAD to have our coffee in a cardboard cup.  I assume this makes clearing up easier for the staff and to Hell with what the customer wants. I asked for hot milk on the side. That wasn’t available either. Probably for the same excuse that cups weren’t, but the girl operating the coffee maker offered to pour some milk into my already watery Americano from a plastic carton.  No thanks Costa.  I’ll stick to Cafe Nero in future.”

I expect I’ll get a standard reply from Costa with a standard Costa gift card which I will cut up and put in the bin.

So, it wasn’t just the plaster of paris fish and the cold chips, it was also “couldn’t care less” Costa too.  What do foreigners, French folk, German geezers, Spanish senoritas think when they visit one of these service stations?  Everything is overpriced and the food is inedible.  I remember the first time I travelled through France.  We stopped at a service station.  Everything was shiny and clean.  I had a jambon sandwich that had half a pig in it and tasted magnificent.  No plaster of paris there, even in France!  France, paris.  Well, I thought it was funny.

Today’s photos were of a pied wagtail taken earlier in the day.  The imposing but falling apart Grade 2 listed tower at the Lancaster services and sunset through the hotel window.  Not much of a view, but just look at those clouds!

This was meant to be short and sweet, but I rambled and ranted on again.

Heading to the cold country tomorrow!

The Hottest Day of the Year – 19 July 2016

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19 JulyYesterday was hot, but today, oh today was even hotter.  Over 33ºc in some places.  Heavens, even Scotland had over 25ºc.  What is the world coming to?

Scamp had decided that she was going to sit in the garden all day.  A sensible decision given that the sun was going mad.  We sat in the garden for a while watching movement in the pond.  We couldn’t decide whether it was frogs or newts.  We settled on ‘Frewts’ as the most likely suspects.

After lunch we went for a walk along past the golf course and had a couple of drinks at the clubhouse.  It doesn’t seem as if you have to be a member, just as long as you’ve got money.  We had money and I sampled another of these English IPAs which are very nice.

After we got back, Scamp went for more sunbathing in the garden while I went back to the wild woods to try to photograph some butterflies.  I managed to get a Small Heath and a Comma.  We don’t get Commas in Scotland, but apparently they are moving further north as a result of global warming.  I saw a deer, but it was too fast for me and was away into the tall grass before I could get the camera ready.  Also saw the pale blue dragonfly that I saw earlier in the week, but again, it wasn’t landing, just cruising, looking for a mate.

Canute and Delia came over for dinner which was an Indian take-away.  Very entertaining evening.  Just hope I can get to sleep in this really hot night.

Back North tomorrow.  Heavy rain forecast!

Hampton Court – 18 July 2016

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18 july bToday Scamp finally decided that we should go to Hampton Court.  A short walk and two buses took us there.  It’s a fascinating building, but far too much to take in on just the one visit.  We settled on the Kitchen and William & Mary’s rooms.  Walked for miles in the building and outside in the searing heat of the gardens.  The best bit was coming in to Kingston after the visit and having a well deserved beer in a bar next to the river.  Scamp of course had a Pimms.

It’s a short blog post tonight because I’m knackered and worse than that, my iPhone decided it didn’t want to count my steps so I can’t brag about how many miles I’ve covered.  Oh well, what does it matter anyway.

It’s supposed to be hotter tomorrow.  Is that even possible?

Open Heart Surgery – 17 July 2016

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17 JulyThe open-heart-surgery wasn’t on me, it was on my blog.  Or to be more exact, it was on my website architecture, but more of that later.

Not such a lazy start to the day, by which I mean that I was up and having breakfast just after 9am.  That’s early enough for me – on my holidays.  After that, Scamp and I went for a walk through the woodland path near the house.  Much better paths than back in Cumbersheugh.  The managed woodland is wedged between two halves of a golf course and is wild enough to feel as if you are miles from anywhere, but with the knowledge that you are only a mile at most from civilization.  I got a few photos, but on the way back, the battery on my ’10 packed in, so I swapped it out with the one in the ‘5 which is much more frugal with its energy.  When I got back to the house I found I’d lost the battery cover for the ‘5.  It’s the weakest part of the design of this camera and pivots on a flimsy plastic hinge, or doesn’t in this case.  I reckoned it was lying on the path somewhere and as it was black and the path was hard packed black dirt among trees, there was little chance of recovering it.  It was lost for good.  Duct tape would make a reasonable substitute when I got home, until then I need to be careful.

For ages, Hazy has been promising she’d help me organise my website to make it more simple to navigate.  Today we sat down and after backing everything up, we set about the open heart operation.  Actually, the backing up was the hardest part.  Once that was complete, the reorganising was pretty straight forward.  Straight forward, that is if you have someone who knows what they are doing sitting right next to you, not on the other end of a phone line, or worse still, someone who had been sitting in their room in California six months ago writing a blog post telling a numpty like me how to do it.  So, once again, thank you Hazy for not making a drama out of a crisis.  You are a gem, and you know it.

After that scary thing, Scamp and I drove out to Tolworth to get dinner.  This was another scary thing.  Here I was driving in London, well, in the outskirts of London, but driving with the rest of the lunatics.  My God, I thought I was impatient – I am impatient – but I have nothing on these folk that need to be everywhere, like, yesterday!  The only thing to do is to join them and be as mental as them.  Turn a rubber ear to all horns and turn your blind eye to the gesticulations.  Fire a few well chosen Scottish sweary words back at them.  They won’t understand the words, but they’ll get the gist.  I’d hate to drive through this every day going to and coming back from work.  I dare say you get used to it.

So, we reached M&S and got parked too.  Almost as soon as the engine had stopped a bloke came over and offered to wash my car for a fiver.  If I thought he could have removed the dried seagull crap from the back wing without steel wool, I’d have got him to do it!  I saved him the trouble by saying “Thanks, but it’s ok as it is.”  Had coffee after M&S to fire me up for the drive back, which incidentally was much more pleasant than the drive there.  Maybe I have joined the lunatic fringe.

Scamp had already stated her intention to go and sit in the sun in the garden for the remains of the afternoon, but that battery flap was still bugging me, so I set off to see what I could see.  I’d hardly walked for five minutes along the path when there it was!  By luck it had fallen with the chrome inside facing up and glinting in the sun, completely confounding the Centre of Gravity theory that states that bread always falls butter side down.  Too difficult to explain after a stressful day – Google it.  Happy now, my step was a lot lighter as I retraced my steps of this morning and walked the wild woodland again.  Saw a beautiful pale blue dragonfly, but it was too busy looking for another pale blue dragonfly to bother with the likes of me.

Dinner was Sea Bass en Papillote with new potatoes and broccoli.  Followed by Apple Crumble with cream.  Tonight’s film was the mystifying Now You See Me.  Third success from Hazy.

Tomorrow we may be going to Hampton Court … on the bus.  Enough driving excitement for me today.

London – 16 July 2016

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16 JulyTook the train into Waterloo and found ourselves on the South Bank soon after that.  We walked along and crossed over Waterloo bridge then walked through Somerset House, but unfortunately the fountains were switched off to make way for an open air concert.  Bummer.  Scamp swithered whether our not to have a drink on the balcony of Somerset House, but finally decided that it was just a little too posh.  I have to agree with her, but it was getting very hot and I would have welcomed a drink, posh or not.  We walked along what turned out to be The Strand (Red on the Monopoly board) and finally settled on a little Italian restaurant with the strangest painted (?) leather seats.  Service was slow, but the food was really good.  It was very busy when we went in with lots of theatre-goers, but they soon vamoosed when it got near the time for the matinee.

When we left there, we walked through Covent Garden and the associated galleries selling all sorts of tat.  We tried to get a seat in a few pubs, but they were all full, so we went to a Cafe Nero instead.  We sat and watched blokes on scooters doing ‘The Knowledge’ with their maps and notepads clipped to their windshields.  Walked on down The Strand and eventually Scamp chose the Golden Jubilee bridge as our crossing point back to the South Bank and from there we walked back to Waterloo Station (also on the Monopoly board) and home.

Not the best London visit.  It feels like we need a target or a theme.  After The Strand and Waterloo Station, maybe we should aim to visit a colour set next time.  That might be a challenge.

Scamp made dinner tonight (stir fry) and we watched another excellent Hazy movie pick – The Martian.  Both Hazy and I had read the book and the movie stuck quite accurately to the book until nearly the end.  Impressed.  That’s three good movie pics on three consecutive days.  That’s good work.

Tomorrow?  Tomorrow is a new day and a new beginning.

Kingston Town – 15 July 2016

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15 JulyToday, after a late start, we walked along Chessington Road to the bus stop and got the 71 to Kingston.  It was a bit of a dull day, but warm.

Wandered around Kingston looking for the market.  I was beginning to think they’d moved it just to annoy me when we heard a commotion in the street.  It turned out to be an amateur dramatics group acting out, er, something.  A something without real words.  Bits and pieces of singing and screaming, but no real dialogue.  What it did have was some superb acting and mime, plus loads of humour and a bit of pathos.  Really entertaining, live and free.  Worth putting a couple of quid in their bucket.  After that, we found the market with a little help from Mr Google.  We are so spoilt in Glasgow with streets in a grid pattern, making it almost impossible to get lost.  Kingston is one of those old fashioned places where they built the houses, churches and schools, then made the roads round them.  With the market found, lunch was now possible and it turned out to be Japanese and from one of the kiosks in the market of course.  I had Chicken Yaki Soba and Scamp had Chicken Curry.  Enormous portions, far too big really, but very tasty, so we ate the lot.

After lunch we had a walk along the river admiring the variety of boats and spotting a cygnet with the swans on the stream that runs into the Thames.  Mrs Swan was sitting on the eggs the last time we were there in May.  It looks like only one egg hatched.  Such a pity.  After that, we got the bus back to Chessington.  There’s a bus every 10 mins on average.  What a difference from one every half hour from Glasgow to Cumbersheugh.  People will only use public transport if the public transport actually exists and is economical to use.  That’s a lesson Scotland could learn from London.

Frying pan pizza for dinner and it tasted ok, given that I was using a new to me oven.  Just remembered that I forgot to make the bread from the remainder of the dough.  Must do it in the morning.

Tomorrow is a mystery.  Not a clue what we are doing.  Let’s go with Scamp’s usual maxim.  It depends on the weather.