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That TGS key again – 24 July 2015

Posted on July 24, 2015July 27, 2015 by Zogman

Started a painting, a watercolour on Fred’s watercolour paper. Wasn’t at all happy with the results, so gave it a coat of gesso and left it to dry. I’ll maybe try watercolour on the gesso next week when it’s dry. Gave up painting and started to pack away the easel in preparation for the visitors.

So, I forgot my notebook and the pencil, but I did get my TGS key back when we went to the gym. Tried to plug it in to the computer at the start of the session, but the screen showed MS Windows. Borked! Oh, oh. This doesn’t look good. Tried it in the first machine I came to and got the message “The Key is Empty”. Ok, time to go to speak to the liar assistant at reception.

Me – “When I put my key in any machine it says ‘key empty'”

Assistant – “Oh”

Me – “So what do I do?”

Assistant – “It says ‘key empty'”?

Me – “That’s what I said.”

Assistant – “Oh. Let me check with ****”

Assistant returns – “There was a note with your key that …..” It sort of fades out there.

Me – “So what do I do?”

Assistant – “It will say ‘key empty’ because you didn’t check in and you can’t check in because the computer’s not working”

Me – “How long has it been broken?”

Assistant – “Dunno. Quite a while.”

Me – “When will it be fixed?”

Assistant “Dunno.”

Do you get the impression that this is not the most interesting, intellectually stimulating, or productive of conversations? Do you also get the impression, as I did, that he doesn’t care? I left it there and went back to the gym, where Scamp had also not logged in but whose key was working properly in all the machines. It is all recorded and will be played back for the benefit of the manager of Q Hotels. The ‘Q’ is for Questionable Quality, I believe. Since the computer has a touch screen and a virtual keyboard, I was tempted to use these facilities to format the C:\ drive, but I didn’t. Not this time….

Had thought about going cycling, but the rain that had appeared put paid to that idea. Spent the rest of the afternoon completing the tidying up of the back bedroom for our visitors to be able to at least put the bed down. Then Scamp decided to pick the blackcurrants that are overburdening the bush. Managed to get about 700g of fruit which isn’t bad. The smell of the blackcurrants took me back to Kirkmuirhill and my aunt Jean’s small holding during the summer holidays. Isn’t it strange how smells transport us. Raspberries always take me to Ormiston and my Uncle Bob’s fruit garden.

Took some time out from tidying and fruit picking to photograph some peppers that were destined for the compost bin. The colour versions didn’t look that good, so I reduced them to mono and then sepia toned one. Quite impressed with the results.

Drove in to Glasgow Airport at night to pick up JIC and Sim. Lovely night after a very changeable day.

A trip to Decathlon and Small and Often – 23 July 2015

Posted on July 23, 2015July 23, 2015 by Zogman

A 365 is sometimes a pain and sometimes a pleasure. Sometimes it contrives to be both. I enjoy the regime of having to take a photo every day. Recently I’ve been reading a book

“Daily Painting: Small and Often …” by Carol Marine. Her idea is that you should try to paint a small painting every day – much like a 365. I don’t think I could tie myself to the one-a-day routine, but certainly one a week is do-able. and I’m happy to try it in the coming weeks. I used to find that on days when I couldn’t paint, I could write code – just BASIC mainly, but occasionally assembly language for the old Z80 chip. Similarly, on days when my coding became heavy, my painting improved. I think it’s to do with left and right sides of the brain. One side is supposed to control the analytical skills and the other the creative and artistic abilities. It seemed to work for me and now I’m beginning to think that way again. Photography is not Art. Let’s not kid ourselves, photography is 99% technology now. With programs like Lightroom, Aperture and Photoshop, there’s very little creativity. You only have to look at some of the crap on Flickr, 500px and similar image promoting websites – I’m not even going to suggest you look at Facebook or Instagram! – to see what I’m talking about. So… I’m going to try to produce one painting per week. It may appear here or it may not. It depend on whether I like it or if it is a Learning Experience.

Today I went to Decathlon at Braehead to spend the last of my gift voucher. It’s taken me a long time because there was a lot of money there and I didn’t want to squander it on just anything. I’m taking longer and longer to think about these things now. I intended to buy, amongst other things a saddle bag for my bike. The bag I chose was priced at £7.95. When I went to the checkout, the assistant told me it was £9.95. I told her it was priced at £7.95 on the rack. She got another assistant to check the price. He came back and checked it on a computer and confirmed that it was £9.95. When I asked him to show me where he got that price on the rack, he couldn’t. None of the codes on the prices matched with the item. I asked him how I could tell what price it was and he admitted I couldn’t tell. It had to be checked at the till or on computer. This seems a really stupid way to run a business. I can now understand why Decathlon at The Fort had to close. It also explains why people wander round this store looking bemused. I don’t think I’ll be back in the store, I’ll go somewhere sensible like Halfords or Evans, but think about this idea. Put prices on things. I know it takes away the mystery, but it makes buying things much easier.

Scamp had asked me to get some handmade chocolates on the way home as a present for a workmate’s 25th wedding anniversary. This means that I also have to buy Scamp some really good ice-cream and Edinburgh Rock for myself! On the way to the shop in Muirhead, I stopped to take a photo of these petrol pumps in a disused petrol station. I’ve passed them many times and always meant to take a photo. Today I got them, because if I didn’t, one day I’d pass and see the bulldozers flattening them and the photo would be gone. One of my mantras is :

Take the Photo then make adjustments.

Today I took the photo.

Later in the afternoon I was at the architecturally challenged Cumbernauld Town Centre also known as Castle Greyskull. It’s a dreary place that really needs to be torn down and started again, but all they seem to do is add bits to it and shore up the bits that are falling down. It makes a good subject for an HDR grunge photo.

Take the Photo

Pretentious Nosh – 22 July 2015

Posted on July 22, 2015July 22, 2015 by Zogman

One of my friends had waxed lyrical about the Tipsy Coo in Strathaven. It’s a cafe in a gallery. Us being foodies and me being interested in painting and photography, we decided to make it our Wednesday Jaunt this week. Getting parked in Strathaven (pronounced Stra’ven by the way) was a bit problematic to start with. The first place we parked was in the Common Green which is not Common (nothing is ‘Common’ in Strathaven darling!) and it’s not Green. It’s a wide street with parking in the middle. Got parked no bother then Scamp noticed we were only allowed 30minutes there, presumably that’s why we had no bother parking. From there we went to see where the cafe/restaurant was and found it without too much trouble. Couldn’t get parked anywhere near it as its carpark was full. Then we had to negotiate Strathaven’s warren of narrow, congested streets to get back to the Common Green where I now remembered there was a bigger carpark. Found it and parked.

Walked to the Tipsy Coo, and when we got there, it was nearly empty. I wonder where the occupants of all the cars had gone. It’s not exactly a thriving hub of activity, and as it was a Wednesday, everything seemed to close at 12.30. Oh well, the place looked decent, although I wouldn’t have called it a ‘gallery’. There were a couple of cartoon style paintings of highland cattle and some of foxes hanging at one end of the building and also a few photographs. One incongruously of Quiraing on Skye. Only about 250 miles from Strathaven. We ordered from the menu and waited in anticipation of a tasty and healthy lunch. I have to admit that we did get that. Mine was tasty, and I suppose it was healthy, in as much as big meals are unhealthy. Three slices of warm overdone bacon on some leaves mixed with maybe three very small pieces of avocado on a slab of toasted bread. The bread was spread with chilli jam – that was the tasty part. I couldn’t believe this had cost me £7.00 give or take 5p. Scamp faired no better. She said her quiche was lovely, but she had even fewer leaves than me (they call that a salad in Strathaven, by the way). I thought the days of ‘Nouvelle Cuisine’ were gone, but it seems they are just reaching Strathaven. We left feeling unfulfilled and disappointed. Even the paintings were rubbish.

We wandered round the town allowing our disappointment to dissipate and I got a couple of shots of the East Church which is a bit of a Strathaven icon. Camera started overexposing again. It did that while we were on holiday and I looked it up when we got home and found that a few people had had that problem too. No solution as yet, but I’ve changed the metering mode from my usual centre weighted to ESP which sounds very clever. I think it reads your mind and sees what you want the photo to look like and then compensates the exposure to suit. Maybe it will improve my photography too. We can but hope.

Talking about hope, I was hoping to drop in at Decathlon in The Fort at Easterhouse to spend the last of my Decathlon voucher, but when we got there, it had gone! Shutters down, sign gone, vanished without a trace. Now I’ll need to go to Braehead to get a saddle bag and a lock for the bike as my old angle bag won’t fit when I put the bike on the carrier. At least I don’t have to go to IKEA, that’s a little bonus.

Posh Nosh – 21 July 2015

Posted on July 21, 2015July 21, 2015 by Zogman

So, today started with a trip to the gym. My ‘key’ was being ‘reprocessed’ last week, but I was assured it would have been ready to pick up on Friday past. Not trusting them to be able to accomplish this swift turnaround, I gave them a few days grace and decided to pick it up today. After rustling some papers, rattling stuff in a drawer and looking confused, the attendant told me that “Ah! There was a bit of a problem with the monitor that they reprogram the keys on.” A blatant attempt to baffle an old person with all these new technology words. So it wasn’t that they’d lost the key or hadn’t bothered to reprogram it? No, it was the monitor that was at fault. An old person like me wouldn’t be expected to know that the monitor is an output device and generally you wouldn’t connect anything like the programmable key to it. It’s couldn’t be the fact that the software hasn’t been updated since 2004 but the keys have 2014 hardware which would cause a conflict? No, an old person wouldn’t know about ‘software’ and ‘hardware’ would they. Oh well, they said it will be ready tomorrow, which probably means that the problem with the monitor will be fixed today. I’ll try again on Thursday morning and act the ‘dumb kid’ again to see what explanation lie they come up with. Then I’ll write down the explanation lie, in pencil, in a little notebook (If I really want to over-egg the the pudding, I could even lick the end of the pencil first!) and accept the explanation lie. Then I’ll write a nasty email (old people can just manage to do email you know) explaining the problem and quoting the lies told, to the centre manager and copy in head office with a BCC (old people are devious).

Old age and treachery will always overcome youth and skill.

After the Gym/Swim, Scamp and I got the bus in to Glasgow for a posh lunch at the Rogano seafood restaurant. Of course, I can’t eat shellfish which the Rogano excels at, but that wasn’t going to stop me. Had a lovely lunch of Smoked Salmon Roulade followed by Lamb Burger with chunky chips. Scamp had Black pudding on a Portobello mushroom with a poached egg on top and pan fried sea bream for a main. A bottle of red helped to wash it down and a good time was had by both. Plans were made for the weekend, so beware JIC and Sim, plans are afoot – wet weather plans and dry weather plans. I know you read this, so be warned.

On the way in to Glasgow, as I said, we went in the bus, so I could enjoy the delights of a half bottle of red without having to worry about the draconian Scottish drink/drive laws which I’ve criticised at length before, so won’t go in to here. Anyway, this bloke got on the bus with his dog and sat down at the front, presumably so his dog could pretend to be the driver. It looked so comical, the dog sitting beside him on the front seat, I just had to take a photo. The dog seemed really interested in what was going on until we got to the motorway when it seemed to lose interest and started yawning and looking round at all these people on the bus. It really behaved like a little child, and was quite entertaining.

After lunch we wandered round Glasgow a bit just window shopping mainly, dropped in at Costa for a coffee and came home. While we were in Costa I saw this interesting window display in Dunnes Stores. Because I was with Scamp, I could not take advantage of this obviously once in a lifetime offer. I’d better be careful what I write, as she reads this too!

No entertaining dogs on the way home.

Cycling away from home – 20 July 2015

Posted on July 20, 2015July 20, 2015 by Zogman

Well, today was the big test day for the bike carrier and it passed with flying colours. More below. Not a long drive today, but enough to make sure the carrier carried! Drove to Auchinstarry and parked there and cycled along the Forth and Clyde canal to Kirkintilloch then back again via Dumbreck Marshes. On the way there, for the first time ever, I think, I saw the bascule bridge at Twechar working. It was raised to allow a longboat to pass through heading east. Three or four motorists were standing looking a bit bemused as I was. However, it was a good morning and a pleasant way to pass some time. The canal towpath was quite quiet this morning, with only a few dog walkers and the occasional cyclist to block my way. On the way back, I took the detour through Dumbreck Marshes and managed a shot of a soldier beetle. I know it’s not really sharp, but it’s the expression on it’s face I like. It’s like “Are you looking at me?”, but it’s hard to second guess a beetle as Christopher Robin will tell you.

Back to the carrier. It’s a Saris Solo and as you can imagine from the name, it’s for only one bike. Suits me fine as Scamp doesn’t cycle. The other novel feature of the Solo is that it’s made from plastic. Surprisingly, it’s really quite strong with lots of reinforcing fins inside the structure. Another innovation is that there are only four nylon bands that hold the rack on the car – two at the top and two at the bottom. They seem to hold it securely to the boot but it will need a little more testing to give it a longer test on a longer drive. So far, I’m impressed and willing to take it on that longer drive. I’ll keep you posted.

Burds – 19 July 2015

Posted on July 19, 2015July 19, 2015 by Zogman

Despite it being colder than normal last night, I was too hot and couldn’t sleep. So about 4.00am, I got up and had myself some cereal for a very early breakfast then went back to bed. Even at that early hour, the birds were singing.

Finally woke around 8.30am and made real breakfast (more cereal) for us both. While I was waiting for my tea to brew, I threw out a couple of stale slices of my lovely homemade bread, for the birds. This immediately attracted the corvidae population. These scavengers are really taking over this year with crows, ravens, jackdaws and the ubiquitous magpies which I detest. This is the first year I’ve seen so many of them. They seem to arrive in masses to roost on rooftops all around us and, of course, grab any food that’s going. I’m thinking of making a cage that will cover the bread scraps with a mesh big enough to allow the smaller birds through, but prevent these black rogues from stealing any. One of them sidled along the fence until it was within snatching distance, or so it thought. Thankfully, I only have to grab the door handle and they are off on a sortie around the houses before returning for another look. Actually, I don’t mind them as much as the pigeons. The crow family are at least wild. The pigeons live in a pigeon loft a couple of streets away and if left to it, can hoover up a whole loaf in no time. Big fat rats with wings. Not the brightest lights on the tree either. My brother used to shoot them with an air rifle and said it took two or three slugs before they noticed that they were dead!

After the pigeon and crow watch, I restarted my painting, this time with oils. I just painted on top of the acrylic (which was on top of a watercolour!) As far as I can remember, you can paint oil on top of acrylic, but not the other way round. If I get up tomorrow and find that the whole thing has slid down off the easel onto a pile on the floor, I’ll know I’ve got it wrong. Anyway, I think it looks better and it’s has a much more tactile painting with oils rather than painting with acrylic – it’s like painting with soft butter – a strange analogy, but that’s the way I see it.

Salsa in the Garage tonight and it was really good and very hot. We surely lost a kg or two at least. Lots of people from our class there as it is Fair Monday tomorrow and the STUC is closed. So no salsa classes this week unless we go to help with the beginners on Wednesday. We’ll see.

Hoping to try out the bike carrier tomorrow if the rain stays away.

The day after the day before – 18 July 2015

Posted on July 18, 2015July 18, 2015 by Zogman

Today, we had already planned would be different to Friday. We were going to relax today, and that is what we did.

Scamp had cut a rose “Remember Me” yesterday to prevent it being damaged with the heavy rain and high winds. Today it had opened out fully. Although there wasn’t much scent from the flower, the colour was exceptional.

We only drove as far as the railway station today and let the train take the strain for a change. We walked round Glasgow and had a light lunch in Patisserie Valerie. Food was excellent, but service left a lot to be desired. Why does it always happen to us, I thought? Then, when we went to pay, it turned out that everyone had the same complaint – slow, slow service. One man waiting to order his pastry had the perfect response when the girl asked him what he wanted. “Actually, I’ve forgot, I’ve been waiting so long to be served” was his reply. Nice to know we were not alone.

On Buchanan Street, I waited for ages (well, about 2 minutes) to take a photo of Mitchell Lane with its colourful lights, but stupid people just kept getting in the way. I don’t know what the secret is to getting them to move along. I think the best thing is to pretend that you’re taking photos of them. I think that might work. I’ll try it soon. This one started as a colour pic of course. After the usual levels and adjustments, I painted a desaturation over the whole pic, then simply erased the desaturation in the selected areas. So simple with only Lightroom tools.

Went to Halfords on the way home to uplift my new bike rack. Couldn’t believe how light it is. It hardly looks as if it is up to the job, but I’ll try it out tomorrow or Monday and give a review here.

A relaxing day after yesterday’s stress.

Another busy day – 17 July 2015

Posted on July 17, 2015July 18, 2015 by Zogman

Visitors from Larky today, so up and get started. I’d made the risotto for the arancini last night, so up and get started on the rest. Put the mixer on and made some bread dough. Froze half and set the rest to prove. Had breakfast than started to clear my junk from the living room before I was told to do it. After that it was time for the messy job of hand moulding the arancini from the cold stodgy risotto rice. It’s not nice stuff at this stage. Next you have to form a hole in the ball of rice and push some mozzarella cheese into it before plugging up the hole with more rice mixture. The next stage is to coat the balls in flour then egg, then breadcrumbs before putting them into the fridge to chill until it was time to deep fry them.

By now it was past lunchtime, so we stopped for lunch and I chose to take an hour out to start a painting. It wasn’t very successful. I may try again with oils. While I was struggling with the acrylics, Scamp was making the pudding (I was on starter and main). By the time I was finished with my artwork, she was finished in the kitchen and as the oven was still hot, it was time to bake the bread, then prep the veg – Sweet Potato with Chilli, Coriander and Mango Chutney. Next, deep fry the arancini so they could go into the oven to dry out and keep warm after the bread was done. The veg joined them a little later. Good planning and use of resources, eh? Scamp’s planning of course, not mine 🙁

There was a little hiatus at this point, so I managed to slip the leash for an hour and fled to the relative quiet of St Mo’s. There was very little of interest but in one or two of the sunny spells, I managed to get some pics of the wild flower and those tree climbing snails. No other wildlife to be seen apart from mini froglets that were too quick for the 70-300 I had with me today. I’m still not convinced about the Tamron. It just doesn’t seem as sharp and certainly not as quick to focus as it was. The sharpness might be due to a misalignment in the focus system. I’ll have a go at re-calibrating it soon.

Meanwhile back at the ranch, Scamp had the table set and we were good to go. Visitors arrived a little later and it was showtime. The arancini went down a storm. Got the sea bass cooked and the veg was fine. Scamp’s choux pastry, profiteroles were as light as a feather. After dinner, much drink was taken (too much perhaps), many stories were told and jokes were laughed at.

A busy day, but great fun.

Beer, the solution … 16 July 2015

Posted on July 16, 2015July 16, 2015 by Zogman

It’s been a busy day, a very busy day. Up at 7.30am. Quick breakfast of tea and toast then out to the gym. Gym was hard work, but the pool was at a lovely temperature. Not too hot and not too cold. Goldilocks temperature in fact. After that I had a quick visit to Halfords to see if they had a cycle rack that would fit my car. They did, a Thule rack that cost £95. Not what I was looking for. I asked one of the passing salesmen if they had anything else. He pointed to a Halfords model (surprisingly) and said “That one will fit it and it’s a lot cheaper. I’m 110% certain it will fit”. I went home and checked online. It didn’t fit. However I did find an even cheaper one and ordered it online. It will be in the Cumbernauld branch by Saturday afternoon. If I’d wanted it delivered to the Falkirk branch, it would take until Tuesday?! Falkirk is about 20minutes away!

After a quick lunch, it was off to Linlithgow to get some good fresh fish, mince and … a bottle of whisky. In Tesco at Linlithgow, apparently they keep their whisky bottles in the back store and only display their boxes on the shelves. It’s a good way of stopping shoplifters, if a bit old fashioned these days. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work, at least not at Tesco Linlithgow. When we got to the checkout, it took 15 minutes – the time it takes for three customers to pass through for someone to notice that we were waiting, take the box and go pick up the whisky. She admitted that she didn’t know where they kept the whisky. Thankfully she did find it and we returned shaking our heads. One of the customers who had been served while we waited said that it was probably a bit “too expensive for them”. It wasn’t that expensive. it wasn’t even a single malt! Maybe I should have bought some Buckfast instead.

Tonight, I spent the best part of an hour making a mushroom risotto to make arancini tomorrow. It’s been a full day, so now it’s time for a cheap french beer. All The Best!

Beer, the solution, now, what's the problem. This algorithm applies to a single beer. If more than two or three are required, then ... Beer is the problem. Now what's the solution. — Beer, the solution, now, what’s the problem. This algorithm applies to a single beer. If more than two or three are required, then …
Beer is the problem. Now what’s the solution.

Hamilton – 15 July 2015

Posted on July 15, 2015July 15, 2015 by Zogman

We had a few options on destinations today. I’d thought about Ayr and then Culross (sorry Hazy), maybe even Kirkcaldy. Eventually we went to none of these, but turned up in Hamilton – Capital city of South Lanarkshire. We parked in the retail park and walked along to the mausoleum. Isn’t it a pity that this monument to a man’s belief in his immortality is falling into disrepair. Yes, I know it is the Lanarkshire tower of Pisa and is subsiding due to mine workings. I can also understand that it would take the council a lot of money to repair the damage from wind and weather, not to mention the damage from vandalism. However, If this were a private building, that same council would be quick to take the owner to task for allowing a grade A listed building to get into this state without taking any precautions. It doesn’t look as if the council have done anything other than to put up four spotlights and a chain link fence. Is this the best that the Capital City of South Lanarkshire can do to protect the Duke of Hamilton’s heritage.

After walking around the mausoleum we wandered down the path under the M74 through to Strathclyde park where we were investigated by some geese that thought we had food for them. Unfortunately they were wrong, but maybe that’s what made us hungry ourselves, so we headed back to Hamilton City Centre for a coffee and panini. On our way back through the

M74 underpass, I grabbed a quick shot of a girl walking ahead of us just as she broke into the sunshine. I tried quite a few different versions of the shot, but finally settled on a high contrast version with deep blacks and bright whites and very little in the way of mid-range greys.

Back home we still managed an hour or so in on and off sunshine before it was time for me to make dinner. Best laugh of the day was a text from Hazy to say that she had finally got the card we sent from Venice. It was posted on the 17th of June and this is the 15th of July. Almost a month.