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A cancellation – 7 February 2023

Posted on by Zogman

The plans had changed.

Yesterday Isobel phoned to ask us both to come to the house. This morning she phoned to cancel because she was suffering from a bad cold. We know what that’s like, having suffered from it ourselves lately and postponing was the right thing to do.

Instead of visiting Isobel, we we went to Tesco. Scamp had accrued quite a few vouchers and I had a couple from our Covid surveys. I checked them this morning just to see that they were still valid and was relieved to find that they were. Our trolley was fairly full when we reached the checkout, with about half going to the Foodbank and half coming home with us. A fair split, we thought.

Lunch for Scamp was sourdough bread with cheese. Mine was sliced rolled lamb from Sunday followed by sourdough toast. I don’t really like sourdough bread in its raw state, but toasted it’s a whole new ball game. Delicious and light.

In the afternoon Scamp was doing ironing and I was going out to walk in the little bit of sunshine that had appeared. It actually stayed for almost an hour and PoD was a view across the wee pond with a threatening black sky and the dark waters of the pond sandwiching a glowing golden strip where the sun lit up the dead grass of the park. I liked it right away.

Dinner tonight was Cauliflower with Cheese Sauce served with Potato Wedges. I added the last of my lamb to it after frying it off in the pan. I think I used up most of the good stuff in that piece of meat. I’ll be on the lookout for more from the same source the next time we’re in Waitrose.

After dinner Scamp suggested a dance practise.  It’s amazing how much you forget in a fortnight.  Everything had gone from my head.  Baby Waltz, Quickstep and Foxtrot.  I could remember all the start moves, but after that was a blur.  Thankfully Scamp knew what went where and when and we did eventually manage to put a shortened version of the routine together.  Whether it will still be there tomorrow remains to be seen!

Today’s prompt was The Pink Panther. Some prompts require a lot of thinking and planning then you get a fairly easy one. This was an easy one. I couldn’t say I’d never seen this film, or the cartoon series. The films are classics and the cartoons are too. I chose the easiest route possible and went for the pink cartoon animal.

Tomorrow Alex and I are hoping to go to the Kelpies. He’s coming to Cumbersheugh on the train and I’m picking him up at the station, then we’ll drive to Grangemouth where the Kelpies live, but I’ve another idea that might just work out well to test his new long lens. It depends on the weather.

So, tomorrow Scamp is intending to meet the rest of the witches for lunch and Alex and I intend to go somewhere to take photos!

Preparing for Spring – 6 February 2023

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Scamp wanted seeds and seed compost. Spring is in the air.

We drove to Torwood at lunch time to get the seeds and seed compost. Scamp also wanted a one tonne bag of general purpose compost. Ok, it maybe didn’t weight a tonne, but it certainly felt it. It was probably full of water because it just kept twisting and turning when I tried to lift it. Why don’t they make bags with handles on them that you can at least get a grip on?

Anyway. We dumped the bag in the blue car’s boot and went for lunch. The place seemed to be full of old folk. I know I’m a member of that illustrious community, but these folk seemed a lot older than me. I ordered a Cajun Chicken Wrap and Scamp had a bowl of chips. I also got a mug of burnt water pretending to be coffee while Scamp went the sensible route and had peppermint tea. I really think, in retrospect, that I was served filter coffee ‘by mistake’. It was brown, had no crema and tasted of nothing. Two sachets of sugar and a fair dollop of milk made no difference to the taste. It was absorbed by the burnt water. I’ll follow Scamp next time and have what she’s having.

Drove home and yes, the sky did seem to be lightening, but only slightly. In the east, the area we were leaving, the sun was definitely breaking through. After I’d humphed the one tonne bag of compost through the house to the back garden, the clouds were closing in again and I knew if I was going to get any photos today I’d have to move soon. The PoD was a snowdrop, flowering in a pot of bare stem roses. To isolate it from its neighbours I used a sheet of matt black neoprene. Not real neoprene, but something that looks and feels like it. It’s great at creating a black backdrop for photographing flowers. Photos taken, PoD on the way.

While I was doing that, Scamp was busy at the kitchen sink, the draining board of which she’d covered with a plastic tablecloth. This gave her a neat worktop to use for taking cuttings of Geraniums. A sensible arrangement, because it was getting cold outside. She has also planted some Sweet Pea seeds. I didn’t get round to planting my kale seeds today, but I will soon. Honest!

Dinner tonight was a “What’s in the fridge that needs used” type of dinner. Basically it was half a tin on chopped tomatoes, a slice of bacon sliced fine, some capers that needed to be used and some penne. It all worked well, for a change.

What I did next was plan out my sketch to meet today’s prompt of The Fast and The Furious. I’ve never seen this film, one of many I’ve never seen, but for some reason an image came into my head of a Reliant Regal 3/30, a three-wheeler I had many moons ago. In fact it was my first car and I could legally drive it on a motorcycle license. It was a great car which carried us all round Scotland for years. Just for the fun factor, I gave the sketch a snail to speed past the Reliant. The driver of the Reliant was Furious to be passed by a super Fast snail.

Tomorrow, Isobel requests our company. No reasons given. It’ll be a surprise.

 

Another Scottish Day – 5 February 2023

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It was a bright start to the day, but then it faltered.

After lunch Scamp walked down to the shops to get some stuff for dinner. While she was out I started on my dinner which was to be Rolled Breast of Lamb. Actually it was already rolled. All I needed to do was preheat the oven to Gas 4 and sear the rolled lamb in a pot, then put the lamb into a pre-warmed roasting tin and deglaze the pot with some wine. Next I’d to pour the sticky wine over the lamb, wrap it in foil and bung it in to the oven for four hours. I was just finishing when Scamp arrived back.

She wanted to start cleaning out the greenhouse and after she’d laid the contents of our tiny wee plastic greenhouse, I was called upon to choose what I wanted to keep, which wasn’t much. With that done, I left her to it while I walked aimlessly around St Mo’s for an hour. There wasn’t much to photograph, especially as the morning sun had now long disappeared and was getting ready for bed if the amber light on the horizon was anything to go by. I did get a couple of photos of some gorse flowers which I’d say were flowering far too early, but they don’t listen to me, they just do as they like. One of them became PoD.

Today’s prompt was “National Velvet”, an ancient ‘horsy’ film with Elizabeth Taylor. I made no attempt to sketch Elizabeth Taylor. Instead I drew one of the ladies I saw at the Christmas Fair last December in Glasgow, enjoying a ride on the carousel horses, which don’t look anything like The Piebald in the film. Also, the woman I saw on the horse looked nothing like the person illustrated here. I hope that clarifies everything. I liked the painting of the horse, but the proportions were all wrong. Carol commented that the woman looked like Mickey Rooney. I said it was probably the lady’s five o’ clock shadow that gave that impression!

The roast lamb was, even if I say so myself, absolutely beautiful. The crunchy bits, especially so. I’ll look for that in Waitrose the next time we’re there. Scamp’s lightly smoked salmon could have been lighter still, she said. Foodies! What can you do with them?

Spoke to Jamie later and heard more of the details of Simonne’s trip to Kobe in Japan. Long way for a two day conference, but that’s the way the world turns these days.

I finished Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir today, a Christmas prezzy from Neil and Hazy.  A great story, well told. Ok, maybe a bit heavy on padding in places but really thought provoking and well researched. At 465pages it was a bit of a mammoth tome for me, but really worth reading.

Tomorrow I was hoping to get out with Alex to take some photos and to see his new Sony 70-350mm f4.5-6.3 G OSS lens, but I’ve heard nothing from him, so maybe not. In that event, Scamp wants a trip to a garden centre, probably Torwood to get some seeds and some fresh seed compost.

Nae Dancin’ – 4 February 2023

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It wasn’t us who called off today it was the teachers.

We were up, showered, dressed and ready to go when a WhatsApp message alerted us that the already depleted class had suffered another call off and that the teachers had decided the class wouldn’t go ahead today. A bit of a disappointment for me but a much greater one for Scamp. So we changed back into ordinary clothes from our spandex and lycra ’Strictly Suits’ and discussed what to do with the day.

Eventually we made the decision to go to Stirling for lunch. That meant Indian Cottage. For us it’s the only place to go for food in Stirling. We’d intended parking in the ‘council’ car park, but it’s now run from an app and I didn’t have the app. Also I’d heard bad things about ‘RingGo’ so we parked at Waitrose because we’d be shopping there later.

Indian Cottage was busy but there wasn’t a queue. We recognised most of the staff from the last time we’d been there. Later Scamp reminded me that we’d been less than complimentary about the food the last time we’d visited. This time it was all good. Good food, good servers and the naan bread we had was ‘well done’ as requested. Hopefully we’ll be back again soon.

We took a walk around the Thistle Centre. I was looking for a book, any book that interested me as I’m still eking out my last few pages of Project Hail Mary. Scamp was looking for tops and skirts in M&S. Both of us met again later empty-handed. However Scamp did manage to find something that suited her as we walked back to the car. I’m not saying what, but all will be revealed later in the month DV.

We did go to Waitrose to pay for our parking by buying some lamb for me and a couple of bottles of wine for Scamp, well, for both of us really. It’s just that she’s a much better chooser of wine than me. With that done we donated our parking space to a worthy driver who was tired of waiting and waiting for a space, and drove home.

I’d taken a couple of shots of a building in Stirling that I’ve meant to photograph for ages. When I go it home and added a better sky than nature provided today, it looked good and became PoD.

Today’s prompt was ‘A Good Year’. Just for fun, I found it on Prime Videos and we watched it tonight. I’d already planned to use a picture of a wine bottle for the prompt because the story is based in a vineyard, but then I saw the car Russell Crowe drives and knew it was a better subject for today. So a yellow Smart Car made the sketch of the day.

Tomorrow I must decide whether I’m having a lamb shoulder shank or a lamb rolled shoulder, or maybe neither and they’ll go in the freezer and Scamp will come up with something different. I’ll let you know!

 

A wet Friday – 3 February 2023

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Fridays used to be good days. Fridays used to be the gateway to the weekend. Now there is no weekend, just endless freedom and sometimes it’s no fun.

Scamp was out in the morning to go to her FitSteps class. That meant I had an hour and a half to do as I pleased. What pleased me today was clearing up the sofa in the back bedroom. There were six boxes of outdated flour and yeast from six months of baking kits I’d ordered by mistake. Only one of the recipes interested me, so I kept that set of instructions and chucked all the rest out. It was a heavy bag the went into the bin this morning, but I felt better with it gone and a clear space revealed on the sofa.

The next task was to find a suitable subject for today’s prompt, Strictly Ballroom. Scamp assures me I’ve seen this film, perhaps twice. She’s probably right (she usually is) but I don’t remember it. I may have been in the room when it was on, but my face was probably facing a computer screen and not the TV screen. Eventually I found a likely subject in a film poster, and I drew that. It wasn’t the best portrait I’ve ever done, but it bore a passing resemblance to the bloke in the picture. It was done.

When Scamp returned, we had lunch which was toast and beans for two. Simple and easy to make. Not posh food, just lunch. We needed some things to bolster the chilli I’d made yesterday, so we drove to Tesco to find them and of course a bottle of wine, just because. By the time we got back it was raining and the sky that had been lightening, was closing for the day. Another day for inside photos.

Two teaspoons of Old El Paso Taco Seasoning added to the chilli certainly helped it taste a bit better. I experimented with the slow cooker setting of the Instant Pot. It’s really neat and gently warmed the chilli through. Chilli for dinner then. It still wasn’t a patch on Scamp’s veggie chilli, but it was much easier to make.

I still hadn’t anything that would do for a PoD, so it was the poor cut flowers that bore the brunt of that. Actually it was quite a technical shot. Four frames taken at different focus settings, blended in Affinity Photo which is a cheap Photoshop look-alike. For this sort of thing (called Focus Stacking) it’s a lot better than Photoshop. I was quite pleased with the effect and it became PoD.

Tomorrow we’re booked for the dance class and the weather we’ve been promised by the weather fairies is blue skies for tomorrow and Sunday. High pressure is in charge, apparently. We’ll believe it when we see it.

Dull Day – 2 February 2023

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Phone call this morning to say that Andrew wasn’t well. Could we reschedule?

I think we were both looking forward to our discussion with Andrew today. We were also looking forward to seeing what shirt he was sporting and what jokes he’d slip into conversation. However he wasn’t well and there was no point in preventing him going home to his bed with a couple of paracetamol. We did reschedule.

That left a completely different day for us to deal with. In the end, the weather was the deciding factor. It was decidedly ‘not nice’. It was raining and the wind was blowing a hoolie, so we ended up staying at home. We did complete Wordle and today’s Spelling Bee. I checked yesterday’s Spelling Bee and it was ITEMIZING. Another win for american English.

After lunch I went for a walk in St Mo’s and got the PoD which is a collection of at least two different lichens and mosses. It was the only photo I took today that really deserved the name ‘photo’. I walked back via the shops and brought back a nice bottle of wine that we had with our dinner.

Dinner tonight was an experiment. It was to be veggie chilli, but it would be the first one to be made in the magic pot. I won’t say it was a great success, but it wasn’t a complete failure and it did prove that you can cook brown lentils in under 5 minutes, instead of 20. Impressive. We were missing a couple of ingredients, so that probably contributed to the lack of flavour and I’m hoping to put that right tomorrow.

Prompt for today was ‘You’ve Got Mail’. I’ve definitely not seen that film, but I produced a pencil and pen sketch that covered the idea of mail, which was good enough for me.

Tomorrow we’re hoping for a bit less wind and rain and a chance to go out for a walk.

A new month, a new challenge, an old friend – 1 February 2023

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Today is the first day of February. White Rabbits (x3), but the first of February also brings the EDIF (Every Day in February) challenge. Let the torture begin.

This month’s prompts are all films. Not such a good topic for me, but that’s what a challenge is all about. Today’s prompt is The Red Shoes. Now I have actually watched this film, or so I’m told by Scamp, so no excuses, I just drew a pair of ballet shoes. But before we get to that, here’s how the day started:

For once, both Scamp and I were bamboozled by today’s Spelling Bee. Wordle was fine and we got the hidden word, but Spelling Bee with its “american” dictionary was a nightmare. Eventually we gave up. If you want to try, here are the letters for today:

N I E Z M T G

The challenge is to rearrange them into a word with at least 7 letters. I put them into an anagram solver and it couldn’t do it. Can you?

I was picking Val up to take him for coffee and a blether today. He’s not been too steady on his feet recently, so we tried out the new Costa which has a drive through. We got parked right next to the front door but although there is a disabled parking and a paved path to the shop entrance, the only lowered pavement for wheelchairs and such can only be accessed from the road! The heavy door couldn’t be opened by someone in a wheelchair. This is a new build. Only about six months old. Don’t they think about disabled access?

Anyway, we had our coffee and a cake each and then it was the old Val I was talking to. We started talking tech! Me talking about running my iMac from a collection of external SSDs and Val talking about having a Raspberry Pi that works better and faster than his Mac Book Air. Two hours flew by. The only down side was the half gallon of full fat milk they put into each of our Flat Whites. Slight exaggeration there, but not much. I drove him home and we agreed to do it again in a month’s time.

The sun was still shining when I dropped him off at his door and I thought I could grab a few shots from up on Fannyside. Of all the photos I took, my favourite was an old fence post with a green mound of moss and its fruiting bodies standing proud against the sky. That was easily the PoD!

Dinner tonight was Fish ’n’ Chips, home made. Lovely bit of fish, although Scamp thought it was slightly overdone. I disagreed.

Back home and just after dinner I got a sketch done of a pair of ballet shoes. Splashed on some red paint, added some ink and that’s the first one done. The challenge has begun.

Tomorrow’s prompt is “You’ve Got Mail” I’ll have to bend the rules a bit to get that one done. Also tomorrow we’ve an appointment with Andrew in Falkirk. We’ll be interested to hear what he has to say.

Busy, busy, busy – 31 January 2023

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A lazy start, but that didn’t last.

After that lazy start and another chapter read in my book, we drove up to Tesco. Scamp wanted a gift bag and a card for a new baby in June’s extended family, no, not Shona, nor the other fella (heaven forbid). It was Ian’s daughter who had a 9lb 9oz baby boy at the weekend (do your own conversion you metric people!). We had bought a couple of baby things yesterday in Glasgow and apparently you then have to buy a gift bag and, of course you need a card. I gave the blue car a tank full of petrol, but thankfully I didn’t need to gift wrap it, or send it a card. I just filled the tank until it was full and it said “Thank you very much, I was thirsty.” We drove home because I needed a cup of coffee.

Next jaunt was to Calders garden centre, although it seems that at present they don’t have a garden as part of it is going to be a new restaurant and tea room. Scamp has always said that’s where the money is made these days. There were six of us crammed into a table that would comfortably have held four, but no more. Food was poor. Scamp’s soup had no taste of anything, she said and my baked potato was tepid and also had no taste or texture. The tea was ok! We were on a timer too, because Scamp had an appointment with the nurse at 2.30, so we had to leave earlier than we’d have liked. Bumped into Isobel who was having tea with her granddaughter and told her I was a “Cheeky So and So!” Who? Me? You must be thinking about someone else, Isobel!

Drove through pouring rain to get to the doc’s and waited while Scamp got an all clear for her chest infection. Next we were off to Tesco where we attempted to buy half the shop. Drove home and I just had enough time to grab a pair of boots and have a short walk in St Mo’s. Just one circuit of the pond and a short walk through the woods. It was in the woods that today’s PoD came from. Although I was focused on the larch pine cones, it was the sunset that held all the interest and the colour. Processed in three different apps. Lightroom, Photoshop, On1 and back into Lightroom. It was worth it, though, in my opinion.

Dinner tonight was Scrambled Egg on a slice of bread for Scamp and Mince with an egg poached in it, also served on a slice of buttered bread for me. A Larky favourite.

Tomorrow I’m intending to pick up Val and take him for coffee in Costa. Looking forward to some good technological conversation. Hopefully it will take his mind off his bad leg.

Happy Anniversary to us – 30 January 2023

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Not the legal anniversary, that’s still to come, all being well. This is the one that matters to us.

We were getting the bus in to Glasgow today. I like to have my earbuds with me when we go on the bus. It helps to pass the time and Scamp says she doesn’t mind, but I couldn’t find the little white pill case that holds the earbuds anywhere. I only spent about ten minutes searching for the case, but eventually we had to leave to walk to Condorrat to catch the bus.

Walked through JL and out into Buchanan Street and from there to coffee in Nero in St Enoch’s. Then we got the subway to Kelvinbridge and walked to La Lanterna in the West End. The place wasn’t busy to start with, then about half a dozen girls rolled in and the silence was shattered. Scamp had arancini as a starter and veg lasagne. I had bruschetta as a starter and meat lasagne. I wouldn’t say it was the best lunch I’ve ever had. The bruschetta was a slice of French bread, no garlic and cold. Basically it was a roll ’n’ chopped tomatoes. Scamp was happy with her arancini but wasn’t so complimentary about the lasagne, while mine was fine. Maybe not their finest offering and a relatively uninspired menu overall.

We walked up Great Western Road and had a drink in Oran Mor, then got the subway back to Buchanan Street. Scamp got some Rituals shower foam then we caught the bus home.

I’d taken some photos in Glasgow with the A6000 and my favourite was a grab shot taken through a window in Cafe Nero. That became PoD.

Remember that white pill case with the earbuds. It turned up, sitting on the duvet in our bedroom. I was sure I’d looked there and it wasn’t to be seen. The fairies must have brought it!

Tomorrow we have a table booked for lunch with Crawford & Nancy and June & Ian. I’ve been warned not to have the coffee as it makes Costa coffee look great. I’ll heed the warning.

A dull day – 29 January 2023

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I drove for about three minutes today. I must have driven about 200m. That’s as far as I wanted to go.

Last night I’d parked at the top of the road, because we didn’t get back from dancing until after 11pm. That meant almost all the parking spaces were gone. This morning a space appeared, so I walked up the road and drove the car down to a space outside the house. I locked it and went home. That was the sum total of my walks today. It was such a dull day I didn’t want to go anywhere. I knew the light would be poor wherever I went on the central belt. Today’s PoD was going to be another tabletop.

Lunch was the usual Sunday fry-up and dinner was, as predicted, yesterday’s curry reheated with some yoghurt added to thicken up the sauce and some Garam Masala for flavour and a pinch of hot chilli powder to give it a little kick. Still it needed something and we were both at a loss as to what that was. It filled a wee space. That’s about as good as it got.

Spoke to Jamie later in the day and heard about their plumbing problems. Glad to hear you got them fixed.

PoD was a tabletop. It’s the desiccated flowers from a Christmas flowering cactus. Pretty little things in their own right.

That’ about it for the day. Tomorrow we’re hoping to go out for lunch somewhere. More later, hopefully.