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Another dreich day to begin with – 13 October 2024

Posted on by Zogman

I think the temperature was around 3ºc when I was making breakfast, but that was from reading the temperature directly from the sensor at the outside of the back door.

Something had gone awry with the wireless connection between the sensor and the display. The sensor hangs on the door jamb at the back of the house and the display lives in the nice warm house itself. The sensor seemed to be reading, but the display wasn’t receiving. The repair is simple. It’s just a case of removing the old batteries and replacing them with new ones. The calibration isn’t so easy, although we’ve done it many times since we bought this usually trustworthy bit of kit about 30 years ago(?). A long time ago, anyway. After reading the instructions carefully, it all came flooding back and, as we watched the temperature drop outside the back door, the internal display followed it. Success!

Shocked to hear that Alex Salmond had died yesterday. Sixty nine is no age at all these days. I never really liked him, but he did seem to have the best interests of the nation at his heart. Such a shame.

I was staring into space after fixing the temperature gauge when I noticed the sun had crept round to light up the sunflowers Scamp had arranged in a vase. They really glowed in the sunlight, so I grabbed the A7 and took half a dozen, ok, nearer a dozen photos. One of them made PoD. Nice to see a bit of sunshine to brighten our day.

After an elegant lunch of fried cloutie dumpling, fried bacon and a fried egg I girded my loins and put on my boots, fleece and gloves and marched into the garden to do battle with the Teasels and Buddleia, then chopped them into easily transportable chunks that I could bag ready to go into the skips tomorrow. It really was cold and the spines in the teasels would have ripped my hands to pieces were it not for the gloves.

Jackie phoned Scamp just as I was debating a walk in St Mo’s just in case the sunflower photos wouldn’t quite cut the mustard once they’d been processed. I was halfway round St Mo’s when I realised I didn’t have my phone. It’s so strange and disconcerting when you realise you don’t have your phone with you. I just feel so disconnected from everything just because my lump of plastic, glass and some ’tronics isn’t in my pocket. I walked back and heard all about the goings on with the “Gorgeous wee baby” up in Skye.

Dinner tonight was Burrata and Tomatoes with Basil as a starter, followed by leftover Chicken breast and Spinach made into a pie with Potatoes on the side. Dessert was Apple slices in pastry. I thought it was lovely. Scamp wasn’t impressed with her work. Never satisfied!

Spoke to Jamie later and heard his planned holidays climbing mountains in Arran and later in 2025 a wedding in the highlands. We’d been planning holidays too. Some time in the new year hopefully, a week or so in the Canaries would be nice.

PoD was indeed,  the sunflower in the sun. Today’s prompt for Inktober was another uninspiring “Horizon”. What is the horizon, but a curved line that the human eye sees as a straight line. I gave a simplistic answer to a simple prompt, as you see here. The prompts this year are tedious.

I think I may be taking some garden refuse over to the skips tomorrow if the weather is good.

 

Going nowhere – 12 October 2024

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Heavy rain showers and a temperature hovering around 11ºc marked the day. We wouldn’t be going far today.

We did drive to Tesco to get a load of veg and some essentials. Real essentials today, like toilet rolls and milk and more things of that ilk. I bumped into Fred there and stood talking for about fifteen minutes before Scamp spotted us and I had to go to be a trolley pusher.

Back home it was tea and toast for my lunch, but one slice of the toast had a scraping of ‘fishy jam’ on it to brighten the day. We needed something to cheer up the day. It was a day of short spells of sunshine interspersed with heavy rain showers and a clump of thunder, thankfully only one.

I toyed with the idea of going for a walk in St Mo’s, but those heavy showers put me off. Instead, PoD was a photo taken from the back bedroom of the Campsie Fells with the Meikle Bin behind them. Did you know that the Meikle Bin is not part of the Campsie Fells, but stands about two miles north of them and its name means “Big Hill”. Very imaginative!

Scamp had bought a chicken when we were in Tesco and that was the focus of dinner, along with a few potatoes and some corn on the cob that needed consuming. Dessert was an apple and bramble crumble made with the last of our own apples and some brambles I’d picked over at St Mo’s a few weeks ago and had been in the freezer.

Today’s prompt was “Remote”. I didn’t draw the landscape that Fred suggested, but the Amazon remote controller for the tv. First attempt was poor, but the second one was better.

Hoping now for some decent weather tomorrow to get out somewhere.

What a difference a day makes – 11 October 2024

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Yesterday it was blue skies all day long with an aurora later to put the cherry on the cake. Today it was sun, then cloud followed by rain and that was just the morning.

Scamp went out to FitSteps and I stayed home to sketch today’s prompt which was “Snacks”. I chose a double decker sandwich, mainly because I’d drawn it last year, or was it the year before? A lot of the time they just repeat. The sketching was a bit ropey, but with a splash of W&N watercolour it brightened up. By the time I was finished, Scamp was back home.

After lunch Scamp did a bit of reading and made some veggy mince to go with tonight’s ‘tatties’. Meanwhile I walked over to St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which was the leaf of a Lady’s Mantle plant spattered with that morning rain. The great thing about Flickr is it encourages you to find out what these plants are called. As usual, the photo is an amalgam of two different but not too dissimilar views of the same leaf, joined together seamlessly in Photoshop, then Lightroom.

On the way home I visited the butchers in Condorrat and bought 500g of real mince. Back home I separated it into two halves. One went into the freezer and the other half was cooked for my dinner. I’d also got a bag of Cyprus potatoes. I didn’t know you could still get them, but there they were, all the way from Cyprus.

Once the two mince lookalikes were cooked and plated they looked surprisingly similar. Mine was minced meat and Scamp’s was made from barley and brown lentils. Both plates of ‘mince’ had carrot, turnip and onion in them and, of course, the ‘tatties’. The taste of Scamp’s was impressively, very like my ‘real’ mince.

That was about it for the day. The blue sky never returned, but the rain did. We can’t make up our minds on a destination for tomorrow. It looks like it will be dry, but cold. Sub-zero temperatures forecast even down to our elevation of 150m.

 

Cold but clear sky – 10 October 2024

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A clear, cold day 3.1ºc in the morning. Not a cloud in the sky when we woke. That was the incentive to get up and go!

Scamp filled the flask with boiling water and then filled a bag with some biscuits and crisps so we’d have something to eat when we arrived at Cramond. It’s a village in the north west of Edinburgh and sits on the River Almond where it meets the Firth of Forth. There’s very little to do there, except go for a walk. We chose not to walk out to Cramond Island, which is only an island when the tide is out. When the tide comes in, it returns to its island status. There’s even less to see on the island, but there are the remains of some WW2 gun emplacements and, of course, the submarine blocking concrete structures we always called the “Toblerone’s” because they looked just like those chocolate triangles.

We walked up the hill and went through the grounds of Cramond Kirk, a place I never knew existed. I didn’t take any photos. I’ve got this thing about cemeteries and churchyards. Instead we walked through the churchyard and out the other side to a big park with the ruins of a Roman fort laid out in the grass. We didn’t know then, but we do now that a building which looked like an office was actually a cafe and we could have had something to eat in it. Maybe next time. Instead we walked through some woods, down to the promenade.

We walked east along the promenade for a mile or two and then decided we should turn back. So far the breeze had been on our backs and I just knew it was going to feel colder when we were walking into it. Even with my gloves on, my pinkie fingers were freezing in the wind and I was glad to get back to the car for coffee, biscuits and a heat! I was also glad I’d decided to wear my big lined Berghaus jacket today.

Drove home and did some shopping on the way. The weather was still bright and cold. Scamp had bought some fancy timed lights that come on for six hours, then go off for eighteen. Battery operated, so not so delicate as solar powered lights. We put them up on the Rowan tree in the back garden and lit them about 6pm. I’m not sure I’m going to wait up until midnight to find out if they are working like they should!

I got a cryptic message from Alex tonight about 10pm. It just said “Look up in the East”. I did and once my eyes became accustomed to the light, there it was, a pink light in the sky, then it became two lights, side by side. The Aurora Borealis. I remember Fred saying that the best thing to do is photograph it with your phone camera because it’s more sensitive than the human eye. That’s what I did and this is what appeared.

PoD was a group of trees that I really like on the Cramond Promenade. I’d have liked the people to be nearer, but took what I got and we walked on. It was too cold to linger

The prompt today was “Nomadic” and I drew the sketch you see here of my idea of a nomad with his camel. I think the camel looks better than the nomad, even if it doesn’t seem to have any legs. It was probably on the Buckfast last night and that’s why it’s ‘legless’.

With that bad joke, I’ll leave you to go and look for your own aurora. Scamp’s intending to go to FitSteps tomorrow. I may do some more sketches.

 

Welcome Grian Murdo Macdonald – 9 October 2024

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Allan & Jaki’s wee boy was born last night, 8-10-2024 at 11.21pm, weighing in at 8lb 9oz. Those of a non-imperial persuasion can do their own calculations.

I was meeting Alex for another day in town. Weather could have been kinder to us, but it was dry for most of the day, but it was cold.Scamp kindly gave me a run to the station and I just missed the train! Not to worry, I was early and so was he for once. After coffee in Nero we went for a walk down Buchanan Street and took in this week’s artworks on the Clyde Walkway. From there we walked downstream and continued taking photos on the walkway and The Squiggly Bridge. Official name ‘The Tradeston Bridge’ but real name The Squiggly Bridge.

From there we crossed the river and walked through the mountainous office buildings on the ‘South Side’ before recrossing the Clyde by the King George V bridge. From there we made a series of zig zags until we followed our noses to Paesano for lunch. One Number 5 for Alex with less cheese and one Number 3 as it comes for me. Only non alcoholic drinks for both of us because Alex doesn’t drink and I was driving tonight.

The cold was starting to bite when we came out of Paesano and crossed the road to George Square looking for subjects, but there were very few. Eventually we gave up and went to Costa for a coffee and a heat. Cost I hear you say? Surely Nero? No, it was Alex who was buying and he wanted to go to Costa. Actually the flat white was just like real coffee. I was impressed.

After a heat, we headed back to the bus station, agreed to meet again in two weeks, then went to our respective sides of the bus station where, for the second time today I was just in time to see the X3 disappear round the corner.

Got back home to a plate of ‘Just Soup’ which went down nicely. Then it was time to get ready for tonight’s dance class. This Foxtrot we’re learning is quite tedious. It’s got that ‘manufactured’ feel to it, as if they are trying to cram in a load of different figures into a dance that wasn’t made for them. I can’t really explain it any better, other than to say that when Kirsty is demonstrating each of the two halves that make up the full dance, she demonstrates on the diagonal of the square dance floor. However when we’re dancing it, it’s on the shorter orthogonal, so it’s a bit of a cheat. Also, when we dance round the edge of the floor, everyone can follow the leader, but if we tried to use the diagonal, we’d crash into each other. A bit of mathematical spacial awareness, there. Just believe me, she’s cheating!
Anyway, we did get to do the individual sections and occasionally managed to join them together into a complete dance. Who said dancing is easy?

PoD today was a couple sitting at the ‘Graffiti Gallery’ on the Clyde Walkway with the ‘Blue Man’ keeping his eye on them!

Today’s prompt was ‘Sun’. The old,ancient Derwent Linemaker 0.5 pen came good again and produced the ink linework for this sketch of a man walking into the sunset. It was later augmented with some watercolour, but I think I might have been better leaving it as pure ink. Too late now.

Tomorrow, for once this week, we have no plans!

Another day, another appointment – 8 October 2024

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This time it was an appointment at Monklands hospital, but don’t panic, it was just for a checkup. Scamp came with me to keep me company.

The sister at the health centre had been a bit concerned by my low BP a month or two ago and when I said I’d had a couple of dizzy spells, I think she decided to get it looked at. So she sent me for an ‘echo’. I’ve had one before a long, long time ago and the result was that everything was ok. Thankfully after I’d been rolled on to my side today and had an ultra-sound taken of my heart, the technician said she had “no concerns”. She also said that “everything was pumping well”. That was a relief. All we needed to do now was to find the car and also find a way out of the housing estate I’d parked in.

Back home I could enjoy my lunch, a roll ’n’ cold meat. Scamp had a roll ’n’ scrambled egg which she managed to keep on the roll. Yesterday she managed to drop her fried egg on the kitchen carpet! Don’t tell her I told you.

Yesterday I washed and polished the bathroom. Today I was hanging up a new hook for her body polisher. We bought the hook at the weekend and it’s exactly the same as the one I got when we got the new bathroom, ten years ago, and it’s still stuck to the wall. Very clever wee thing.

Today’s prompt was “Hike”. It was drawn a week or so ago when I was getting organised for Inktober. It’s always good to have some of these drawings done early so they only need to be posted in Flickr as needed. I quite liked this sketch, it was so much more lively than yesterday’s.

I’d gone over to St Mo’s in the late afternoon to find a PoD. It’s getting harder and harder to find something interesting to post every day, but thanks to Scamp I had one already done. It’s a trio of roses that she cut in the garden and brought in. Beautiful blooms. Really deserved PoD.

We had Salmon Balls for dinner. I do believe you were sniggering about them when we were discussing them on Sunday, Jamie, but they were actually very good. We had them with potatoes and tender stem broccoli. So much better than yesterday’s disaster.

Tomorrow I’m expecting to meet Alex in Glasgow to go for a walk, take some photos, exchange news and have a pizza.

 

 

Broadwood – 7 October 2024

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Out to the docs to get my BP checked.

Just the last of the checks to confirm that my BP had stabilised. Not just one nurse, but two. The sister and a student nurse checked my BP an gave me the all clear. All done in a 15 minute visit and I don’t have to come back until my annual review.

On the way home, I drove up to Tesco and got milk and rolls, just the real essentials today, then back home for lunch and a debrief with Scamp before we booted up and went for a walk around Broadwood Loch.

The weather wasn’t warm, but neither was it cold. Just a hoodie today for both of us, no need for a raincoat. As usual and against the flow of walkers, but with the flow of joggers, we walked round the loch clockwise. Because it had rained during the night, we didn’t risk the forest section. I know it’s been been cleared and drained, but I didn’t fancy going all the way round it only to find out there was a great long section that would be up over our boots in mucky water. Safer to stick to the path. I got some long lens shots of a cormorant stretching its wings out to dry and thought that would make PoD, but it was the first shot I took today looking along the loch to Blackwood and then The Campsies in the far distance that got the accolade of PoD.

I attempted a recipe for Linguine with Smoked Salmon and Spinach, except we didn’t have any Linguine because Scamp doesn’t like it and we didn’t have any Spinach either. There was a requirement for double cream and we had none of that or a hundred other things, but we did have the smoked salmon. The inevitable result was that it tasted awful and went in the bin.
Note to self: Before you start, read the recipe and check the ingredients!

We had pizza for dinner and it was lovely.

Today’s prompt asked for a Passport. I’ve now seen a few variations on Pass the Port with a glass of wine being passed from hand to hand. I tried a version of the British passport, and now that I look at it, it isn’t all that bad. But what I settled on was a pastiche of a passport. A Scottish passport with a bottle of Buckfast, two crossed thistles and an advert for Greggs. I’m sure Alex would approve.

I’m off to the docs again tomorrow. Just getting my money’s worth from the NHS before all their money disappears.

 

What a grey day – 6 October 2024

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One of those days that just never get properly started.

The only thing we did today that’s worth mention is to go looking for new lights for the rowan tree. So let’s start there.

We drove to Calder’s Garden Centre first, but after struggling through the congested aisles of the main shop the area where the lighting is displayed was now home to a half full size family of polar bears and other assorted Xmas junk and there was a cloying scent of cinnamon, the Christmas scent. Still on display among the menagerie were a few boxes of lights, but not the kind that Scamp was looking for. So we drove further onward.

Next stop was Torwood, another of Scamp’s favourite garden centres. They had a larger array of lights and thankfully no polar bears or cinnamon. However, although there were many boxes of the lights and they were the ones we were looking for, most of the boxes had previously been opened and rejected. We rejected them too. We drove home empty handed.

It fell to Mr Bezos to fulfil our need for lights. Ordered in the late afternoon and they will be delivered tomorrow or the next day. What would we do without Amazon.

Spoke to Jamie later and were glad that he had had a fairly relaxed day. I must admit I’m intrigued by the wild boar meat he bought and would like a report on it once it’s been cooked and consumed!

I struggled with a sketch for today’s prompt, “Trek”. In fact, most of the prompts this year highlight to the author’s interest in walking and climbing. Ten of the thirty prompts have that theme. I changed it a bit and it became Star Trek and from that I drew today’s iconic badge.

I also had a hard time getting a photo. The day was so dull and wet, I thought I was going to miss out on a photo, but a walk around the garden in the late afternoon brought today’s PoD which is the Rozanne geranium.

I’m hoping to speak to the man in the garage tomorrow about some work needing done to the blue car.

 

 

 

Off to Spain – 5 October 2024

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Now don’t get excited, we were just outside Paisley, but we were dancing Paso La Paz like Spaniards!

Well, Scamp was dancing it like a Spaniard, I was plodding along in her wake, more like a Spaniel than a Spaniard. It’s the fast and furious Spanish bullfighter’s dance that we started last week. It’s really too fast for me and my old dance shoes. They are struggling to keep up with Rumba One (in joke), far less do the heel stomps and the toe taps and the arm across the chest. I struggled with this last week and this week I think I was worse. Heaven knows how I’ll get on with the full strength Paso Doble the teachers are talking about!

The Paso La Paz was actually the last routine we did. The first one was the Queen of Hearts rumba which was our warm up. It too was a mystery until the second track when muscle memory took over and pushed me in the right direction. It’s been years since we originally learned this sequence dance and that’s my excuse for getting it wrong through most of the first track.

The second dance was the Viennese Waltz. It looks fairly easy when you’re watching it on Strictly, but don’t be fooled there are fast passages in this too. Natural Turns (clockwise) and Reverse Turns (anti-clockwise) plus Half Natural and Half Reverse. By the time we got to the end of the second track I couldn’t remember if I was coming or going.

Next was the Paso La Paz, but you’ve heard all about that already, so I won’t go into it again. We finished off with two tracks of a Midnight Jive which is a simple sequence dance that is extremely exhausting. I think Stewart just chose it out of badness!

We drove home and had a restful afternoon lunch. Couldn’t decide what we were going to have for dinner and eventually settled on a microwaveable curry from M&S washed down with half a bottle of Barossa Ink.

Later we watched tonight’s Strictly and wondered what Toyah Willcox was doing on this show, apart from a bit of self promotion. I don’t know how much she paid to be on the show, but it’s definitely not enough.

Today’s PoD was a branch of Berberis we passed on the way to the shops. Beautiful bright red and orange leaves.

Today’s prompt was Binoculars which is what I drew. These are a pair of Nikon binoculars I got for a song in John Lewis a couple of years ago. Light, bright and with a good magnification they are almost always in my case when we go on holiday.

Tomorrow we may go looking for tree lights to brighten up the Rowan tree in the back garden.

Service Charge – 4 October 2024

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We were both out early this morning.

Scamp had to catch the bus to get to FitSteps and I was driving to Glasgow at the same time to drop the blue car off for its annual service.

I left the car at the garage almost exactly at 10am and was told that it would be ready by 5pm. That’s seven hours for a three hour service! This appears to be normal practise for Macklin Motors, but not anywhere else I’ve ever used. When I asked the service technician why it would take that long, he said I should have been told that it was an “Open Booking” and would be worked on as soon as was possible, but there were two people off ill today. That sounded a bit familiar, because when I booked the same car in at the same garage a month ago for its MOT it did in fact take seven hours before I got to take it home and the reason was … there was only one MOT tester available that day. Sounds suspicious! I agreed and signed away my afternoon then went for a walk round the city. First port of call was Nero for a coffee and a chance to plan the rest of the day. Foolishly I took the option of their new blend Honduras and it was pretty awful. So a bad start to the day.

When I texted Scamp to tell her the news, she asked if I wanted her to come in to town, but I told her not to bother and that I’d phone the garage about two to see what progress had been made.

I walked down to St Enoch Square and got a couple of photos there, one of which became the PoD, but there was very little directional light and the milky white sky didn’t help. I know he looks as if he’s talking to his hand, but he’s posing with his new phone, I think. I took some more photos of new graffiti being sprayed on the wall of the Clyde Walkway and admired the vision of these guys being able to visualise their finished artwork. Haven’t seen any girl graffiti artists, but I’m sure there are some.

I got another message from Scamp saying she was now free to come in to Glasgow for lunch. That sounded a good idea. I met her in the bus station about an hour later and we went to an Italian place we’d looked at last Friday. Just as we were heading there I got the call from the garage to say the car was ready. The time was almost exactly 2pm. For once they were right on time. I said I’d be along to pick up the car as soon as possible.

The food in the restaurant was good, but my Spaghetti a la Polpette wasn’t very hot and the meatballs had the feel of ‘Ping’ (microwaved) about them. Scamp said her Risotto was fine. So we decided to give them another chance. A bit like Macklin Motors!

On the way back to the garage I got a new book by Chris Brookmyre. I’d heard about it in the Great Scottish Book Club and it sounded interesting. The book is The Cracked Mirror. It should have been £18, but I had a tenner in my Waterstones card, so I got it for £8! I’m almost finished a Peter May book Lockdown which started so well, but has descended into farce in the final 150 pages.

I got another surprise when I went to pick up the car. There were two advisories. Thankfully nothing needing done immediately, but just another expense that will need to be looked at early in the new year. I’m talking about New Year already and it’s not even Halloween yet!


Prompt for today was Exotic and my sketch was of a Bird of Paradise flower which fitted the bill perfectly.

Tomorrow we are expecting to be dancing Paso la Paz, It’s all about stamping our little feet and wiping the blood from our shoes. If you don’t understand, re-read the blog from 28th September.