Category: A Toy off the Rack

Inktober begins – 1 October 2017

Posted on by Zogman

Today is the 1st of October. For sketchers throughout the world, it’s the first of 31 days of inky fingers and that occasional sinking feeling in the pit of their stomach that tells them it’s 11pm and they haven’t done a sketch that day. On the other hand, as they reach day 31 with a complete folio, it’s a great feeling of achievement. Inktober was started by Jake Parker in 2009 as a challenge to improve his inking skills and develop positive drawing habits. It has since grown into a worldwide endeavour with thousands of artists taking on the challenge every year. In 2015 I signed up, but only managed five or six sketches. Last year, in 2016, I was more determined and completed all 31 sketches. I know Inktober isn’t for everyone, but the regime of a daily sketch helps keep the mind and the hand active. Some people have hosts of rules and a theme for each day of October. I try to keep it simple:

1) Make a drawing in ink (you can add a little watercolour if you want to).

2) Post it online

3) Hashtag it with #inktober and #inktober2017

4) Repeat next day

That’s enough of Inktober. What of the day? We were up and dressed early today, that is just after 8am to have breakfast watching the last ever Malaysian GP. It looked like shooty in for Hamilton starting from pole, and with Vettel starting from the back of the pack, but it wasn’t as simple as that. It rarely is. For the second time this season, it was an interesting race, even the parade lap after the chequered flag had its moments with Vettel crashing into Lance Stroll. What a numpty.

I had intended going out for a walk to clear my head after that, but I did my first Inktober sketch instead. It was a really dreadful day weatherwise. Rain, drizzle, smir, torrential. All words for rain and each of them had a place in our weather map today. You’ll notice sunshine wasn’t mentioned. It was there, but its presence was measured in seconds, not minutes and certainly not hours. A dull, dreich day.

The bright spot was Salsa at night. It should have been on in the afternoon, but after a double booking we were sidelined to Ad Lib which is actually a very nice venue. I’d go there again, mainly because I got a nice parking spot almost right outside. Well, I deserve it, having a nice new motor.

Swallow Watch:  This week I saw some swallows, on Monday I think, and this is week 40.

Tomorrow? It’s going to be windy and wet. I may go in to Glasgow to get fixative for the pastels and some watercolour half pans. If I’ve got time I might go swimming. Oh, and I need a sketch!

Untrained – 30 September 2017

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We had intended to take the train to Embra today. Scamp even drove us to the station in her car, but …

When we got there we found out that due to safety checks on the line between Haymarket and Waverley, trains (if they weren’t cancelled) were stopping at Linlithgow, about 20 miles from Embra, and it was up to you to get from Linlithgow to Embra. That’s Scotrail for you. Make it up as you go along. If the problem is between Haymarket and Waverley, both in Embra, why are they stopping the trains 20 miles away? That’s a pretty big safety zone.  Must be the wrong kind of leaves on the line again.

Anyway, we told the nice ticket man that we wouldn’t be travelling on his maybe-not-cancelled train today and drove home to change cars and drive (me driving this time) to Perf, not Embra. It was a pleasant drive up the A9 to the Fair City of Perth. Car performed perfectly and I finally got the hang of the new cruise control. I also tried out the speed limiter, but that’s not as much fun. Best of all, I tried out Sport mode which gives you a nice little whack of G-force as you accelerate! Only to be used sparingly as it does eat up your fuel consumption. All in all it’s a really nice car to drive. I’m very impressed.

Perf was busy as usual on a weekend. Far too many people around I much prefer going on a weekday. Got some coffee, some tea and some dried fruit to make my breakfast compote. Fruit for the compote, there’s no coffee or tea in it. Just thought I’d make that clear. While we were there and while Scamp was shopping in Marks, I wandered round the outside of St John’s Kirk, the big church in the middle of the town. I got a sketch done. It’s a bit ropey, but with a bit of tweaking from the photo I took, it should do. Tomorrow is the start of Inktober 2017 and I need to get myself back in harness to do a sketch a day. There’s a wee challenge for you Hazy. One sketch every day, posted on Flickr. You can add it to my group if you want. Only one real rule. The predominant medium must be ink, hence the name. You too, JIC. Get started sketching. Fifteen minutes in your lunch break is all you need!!
Today’s PoD is a wide angle shot from the walk round the church. I also liked the monkey gargoyle!

A couple of weeks ago Scamp came across an envelope from a school venture with a £10 note in it. It was surplus money from a school trip we went on twenty odd years ago. It wasn’t my money and the school doesn’t exist any more, so today it went into a charity tin in the Heart Foundation shop in Perf. They will be able to use it. I’d already checked with the bank and it was still legal tender.

Back home, dinner was a Scamp speciality, Prawn Stir fry. Spicy and hot, but very, very good.

I’d been reading a book about painting with pastels in an Oxfam bookshop in Perf.  I don’t think you draw with pastels, you paint with them.  I hadn’t really used pastels, except for messing around with them for a graphics topic for school.  Today I pinned a sheet of Ingres paper on an old drawing board and painted a landscape.  The same one I’d been tentatively poking paint at for the last week.  This one took maybe half an hour?  It’s rough, but I like it.  Maybe I’ll fix it and frame it.

Tomorrow looks wet. I think we’re going dancing at night because the usual Sunday Social venue is double booked and we lose. Should still be fun.

Flying Solo – 29 September 2017

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Today it was my turn to go for coffee.

Before I went I did the underpainting on my Rannoch Moor painting. It’s beginning to look better now I’ve got the proportions sorted out.

Just after midday, I met up with Val and Fred in Costa. I drove there in the Juke. I was flying solo for the first time. No Scamp as radio operator and navigator. Just me and the Juke. And I was fine. So was it. I even got a chance to use the windscreen wipers during one of the heavy rain showers we had.  I also managed to get parked almost straight and in the box at Tesco, thanks to the reversing camera.

It was when I was walking into the Antonine Centre that I realised I hadn’t taken my old satnav from the Megane. I know I won’t need it again, but I couldn’t get it out of my head.

After coffee and a discussion of the state of the world, I drove Val home and he too remarked on the different view you got from the Juke’s elevated seating. After that I went to fill the tank for the first time. The garage had given me half a tank to get me started, but I wanted to fill it to the brim. Surprisingly it cost me just £30! Then when I got back in the car I realised that the petrol tank was much smaller than the Megane. It only holds about 45 litres which is worth about 300miles. That’s just enough to get us to Skye. The Megane took about 60 litres. Oh well, I’ll just have to be more frugal in my driving style, I suppose.

Came home and decided to go out to St Mo’s in the rain to get some photos. I was surprised to find the dandelions still setting seeds. I liked the detail rendered, and that’s why it got PoD. Out behind the forest I saw a trio of Garden Cross spiders on their webs. One male and two female apparently. Troilism in spiders! Who knew?

Then the salesman from the garage phoned to ask how I was finding the car. That was my chance to ask him if the satnav was still in the Megane. He went and had a look and said it was there. He even offered to drop it off on his way home. I said no, that we’d come and pick it up during the week. He must have thought I was mad. Here I am with an up-to-date large screen satnav in the car and I want my old Navman back? It’s the principle of the thing though. It put my mind at rest.

Dinner was a Chicken, Mushroom and Kale pie. Quite delicious and totally gone now.

Maybe off to Embra tomorrow. Not driving though, train is less stressful.

J Day – 28 September 2017

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The overriding topic of the day was the Juke. Everything else paled into insignificance.

The day started with Scamp heading off to have coffee with her aunt. I struggled with an app on the Samsung. On the Mac it would have been easy and on the PC I had already solved the problem, but it was becoming a challenge to get it working on android. I finally solved it and got a grid of squares on a photo which I could then transfer on to a canvas. The squaring up was next to do and I then realised that it had been a mistake to paint the ground of the canvas brown when I was going to sketch on it with charcoal which is black. After a frustrating hour of programming and sketching, I gave up and painted over the brown ground with a creamy yellow. I left it to dry just as Scamp returned from her meeting with lunch in paper bags marked ‘Greggs’.

After lunch we took a deep breath and drove the Megane to Stirling. An hour or so later we returned with a shiny bright red Juke after signing my name about a dozen times. The drive was comfortable and smooth. The car felt solid and dependable, but only time will tell. Scamp was delighted with her bouquet of flowers from the dealership too.

After a cup of tea and a read through the manual we set off for another drive. This time I had a fair idea how to use cruise control and how to program the radio and the sat nav. We found our way to Kilsyth and parked at Lidl to buy some ‘messages’ and then took a more twisty, turny road home along beside the canal. There are still some mysteries to investigate in the next few days, but that’s the way it should be with anything new. One disappointment was discovering that Nissan want to charge around £150 for an SD card with the latest map data for the sat nav. I don’t think I’ll be going that path. I may look at a famous internet auction site when the time comes.

When we got home we celebrated the purchase with the bottle of prosecco which came from the dealership too.

Today’s PoD were a couple of cryptic views of the new car, of course. What else could I choose on this bright and sunny day. All shades of yesterday have gone.

Coffee with Fred and Val and then what? Perhaps a short spin? Yes, I think so.

Paperwork, paperwork – 25 September 2017

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Checked my mail this morning and the registration document for the car had arrived. That meant it was time to get the insurance arranged. Hard to believe, but in the two weeks since I last got a quote, it had gone up by £30 from both companies, Nissan and Tesco. After a bit of moaning and wheedling with Nissan I got it down by £20. Tesco, on the other hand, were as flexible as an iron bar. No way were they going to shift an inch on their extortionate quote. Such a shame as I’d been with them for three years and their quote for the Megane had been fairly good. After a bit more paperwork and emailing we were done. Looks like Thursday will be “J Day”.

After that I spent some time swearing at Windoze 10 Creature Edition. I don’t think it will be staying with us very long. Gone, now are the days when you could just access the BIOS with a couple of keys at startup. Oh no, that would be too easy. Now you have to delve into settings, restart the machine, do more configuration on the blue screen that load and then you can access the BIOS. And then you wonder why Macs are so popular? Added to all that, it runs like a slug with a hangover. I do so wish I could go back to the original Win 10 I upgraded Win 8 to. That was brilliant, well, not exactly brilliant, but sooooo much better than The Creature From The Black Lagoon I have now.

Went out for a walk later in the afternoon after I’d taken the Megane for a wash and brush up. By then the sun started poking its face through the clouds and I found it was a beautiful autumn afternoon out there, warm too. Got some photos, two of which are above. Also saw two potentials. Will keep them in mind for tomorrow, perhaps. Today’s PoD was the Brambles. Not Blackberries, that’s for the english. These are fierce, jaggy Scottish Brambles and proud of it. If you look at the Flickr version and click to magnify it there, you’ll see a wee spider waiting to catch unwary flies enticed in to sample some bramble juice. Didn’t see it when I was taking the photo, only when I got it into the computer. The other plant’s name evaded me for years, but now I know it’s a Butterbur of the genus Petasites. There, you’ve learned something today (I learned it yesterday, so I’m a day ahead of you).

Strange night tonight, not having Salsa on a Monday is quite unsettling. Hopefully Wednesday will arrive soon and we’ll get our Latin fix.

Weather seems favourable tomorrow. We may go out for a run. In the car of course!

Nnnn Nineteen – 11 September 2017

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Phone call this morning from the nurse to say that the podiatrist was off ill, so my appointment today was cancelled and I’d be given a new one. Five minutes later the nurse phoned back to say that another podiatrist had been contacted and my appointment was back if I was still available. I was.

Spent the morning putting the finishing touches to my painting. When I got to the point where as Whistler allegedly said “I can do no more to it”, I stopped and tore the A2 sheet from its spiral binding and hung it on the wall. Ostensibly to dry, but also to see if I would still like it when I walked past it occasionally. I did and it’s still drying. If I hadn’t it’d be in pieces in the bin by now.

After lunch I got ready and went to meet the podiatrist who signed me off as having a fit pair of feet, which was nice. Just what I’d expected.

Dinner tonight was exactly what I’d intended. A ragu made with the pulled meat from the dinosaur bone, served with some ribbon past I found in the back of the cupboard. It was very nice. Great way to use up the meat.

Salsa tonight was a bit frantic. One move in particular had me tied up in knots. It was called Balsero Dos and I hope Jamie G forgets about it next week, but I doubt if he will. We also did Disco(very), El Paraguas and Guanabo.

Found one of the limitations of the dashcam tonight. The detail in night driving is very poor. During the day it’s fine, but the contrast is so high at night and the frame rate and the shutter speed doesn’t allow for any detail to be recorded. This was pointed up when we were passed by a boy racer along Westfield Road. When I reviewed the footage, you could see it was a red car, and that was it. No detail. Useless as evidence in an accident.  Luckily we didn’t need it.

Today’s PoD is of a bunch of dragonflies I found sunning themselves up at Fannyside. There were an incredible nineteen of them all snoozing (I think) on an old rusted gate. One even let me get to within 30mm of her (I checked, it was a female Black Darter). All the photos were taken with the Teazer. Just shows what you can do with a point ’n’ shoot camera these days.

Early rise tomorrow when we’re off to the hospital in Glasgow for Scamp’s checkup.

A more down to earth day – 6 September 2017

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It seems like the last few days, in fact the last week have been a whirl of buying. Holidays, oops, forgot to mention that we are going on holiday! So apart from holidays, there were suites, hoovers dash cams and cars to look at, admire, assess investigate and purchase. Anyone would think we’d won the lottery. Now that would be unlikely because you have to buy a ticket before you can win and there is the downfall!

Today was more down to earth. A day to pick a drawer in a chest of drawers and clear it out into one of three piles using the KFC method:

  • Keep – It goes back in the drawer
  • File  – Find somewhere else to put it (where you can find it again)
  • Crap –  It goes into the bin. The more you can fit into this pile the better.

As usual, it’s really amazing the things you find in the back of a drawer. Things you’d forgotten about, things you knew you had but couldn’t find (previously filed!) and the things you find and haven’t a clue what they are, or why you were keeping them. After an hour of this I’d halved the contents of the drawer, filled two bags of rubbish and filed away numerous things, never to be found again. I just know that next week I’ll suddenly remember why I was keeping a 20mm long piece of dried clay in a zip top poly bag.

After lunch I started another painting. This one was of a real place it’s based loosely on a photograph of the Forth estuary at Torryburn in Fife. I’m quite happy with it at present, but I’ve a few bits and pieces to add and maybe, just maybe I’ll post it tomorrow, all being well.

I went for a walk along the canal in the late afternoon, just to get some fresh air in between the rain showers. It was too windy for any decent insect photos and the spider was the best I got. It was only when I was post-processing it I realised it was in the act of spinning its web. That’s my PoD.

Drove into salsa tonight and used the dashcam again. The video quality is really amazing. It even made a couple of ’emergency’ photos which it stores in a special ‘private’ folder. Impressed as I wasn’t actually braking hard, honest officer. Went to pay for parking at STUC and a prick was trying to talk to someone important on the phone that he had pressed between his shoulder and his skull whilst trying to feed about fifty 20p coins into the machine from a poly bag he was holding. It kept rejecting them then telling him to take his money, he kept on doing exactly the same thing again. After two iterations, I said to him that there’s a limit to the number of coins you can use in these machines. He looked at me as if to say go away old man. So I just said “Just trying to help and that’s what you get. WANKER.” I’m sure the person on the other end of the phone already knew he was a wanker, but I was said it loud enough to let them know that I knew too. I went across the road put in my £2.50 (no 20p coins were used) in another machine and came back as he was retrieving his ticket. It’s simple really. People who’s brain chip is an Intel Celeron single core shouldn’t try to do difficult things like parallel process. That’s only going end up in tears. Also, that’s what he gets for raiding one of his kid’s piggy banks to get his parking money. Just to annoy him more, I waited until he was back in his car and crossed the street again and photographed him. He’s sitting somewhere just now thinking “What’s he going to do with that photo?” No, probably he’s forgotten. Like my new dashcam, his brain chip will delete old data to make way for new stuff. You have to do that when you’ve only got 128k of RAM.

That last thought came from the tidy up today. I found a 128k memory module for a Sinclair QL (c1984). 128k what could you store on that now? A really small photo? About 8 seconds of music? Just shows how time and technology has moved on.

Salsa was great fun with the beginners starting to get adventurous with Exhibela and Exhibela Ronde. We even taught Jamie G a move we called Setenta Abaho. We’ll be teaching our own class soon!

And the winner is the Juke – 5 September 2017

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I made up my mind. The new car will be a Juke. A Flame Red one. That was Scamp’s part of the decision and I quite like red cars too.

Drove in to Stirling today to seal the deal and sign away all my indecision. Then Scamp suggested that since it was such a beautiful day, we should go to Perth to get tea and coffee and maybe a wee bit of lunch. Seemed like a plan, so that is what we did, with a bottle of prosecco in the boot courtesy of the dealership – you don’t get that with Arnold Clark!

Perth was almost empty today. If it wasn’t for some German tourists and a wedding party, it would have been completely deserted. You could tell they were tourists because they were all wearing tartan and rotating their street map to try to find where they were. Exactly the same as we do when we’re abroad. You could tell it was a wedding party because there was a lady with a white dress carrying a bouquet of flowers. Another clue was the group of ladies with what looked like giant black spiders on their heads. Bringing up the rear were the uncomfortable looking young men in kilts, fiddling with the tight collars of their starched white shirts. Oh what fun they were all having while the photog snapped photos for the overpriced wedding album. Cynic, that’s me.

Got my tea and coffee. Lunch was in the Breizh French restaurant. Food was interesting, but nothing great. A bit expensive. After reading a few reviews when we came home, it appears that it recently suffered from a change of ownership. That rarely means an improvement and that is what has happened here I think. May go back, but won’t rush.

Drove home and enjoyed an almost traffic free journey. I think we were just late enough to avoid the rush hour at the merging of the M80 and the M876. It’s usually a nightmare around 4pm and we were reaching it around 5pm.

Tried out the dash cam. Wasn’t too impressed with the quality of the recording until I tried it on my PC laptop with an i5 processor and everything improved greatly. It appears the Intel Core 2 Duo in the Mac just isn’t up to the job. Having said that, it will have to do the job generally for a year or so yet after today’s Flame Red investment!

Today’s PoD is of three folk attempting to emulate the statues in Perth High Street. Life Imitates Art.

Don’t have any plans for tomorrow. Just counting down the days to J-Day!

Back to School – 4 September 2017

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Today was a ‘Back to School’ day for Gems.

The day started with rain that gradually got heavier as the day wore on. Since Gems were coming back from their holidays, I had to find something to do or somewhere to go after lunch. Lunch was the second helping of Thai Green Chicken Curry. I’d made the paste on Saturday and we had the first helping for dinner yesterday. I’d intended this to be a smaller portion, to use up some chicken that was languishing in the fridge and also to use up the rest of the curry paste.

It was while I was deciding where to go and while I was listening to Scamp running through some songs with them that I began to wonder … Many years ago, before we were married Scamp was working in Glasgow libraries and she sang on a recording for an LP. Yes, and LP. This was long before CDs, far less digital downloads. I wondered if the album was lying somewhere in Spotify. As I typed in the title, the associated list became shorter and shorter until it disappeared. However, I pressed the search button and Lo and Behold, there it was. I promptly downloaded it and showed it to her. Not only is the album there, but Scamp gets a name check on her track! I’ll send you both the title so you can listen to it. Needless to say it is also available on iTunes and was promptly downloaded. Isn’t technology wonderful.
Some technology isn’t so good. Today I cancelled my Amazon Prime subscription. I wasn’t using Prime. Also Prime wasn’t available for more and more items, so it made sense to cancel it.

After my search through the musical archives, I had intended going to Stirling to make sure I was happy with the Juke, but one look at the weather and the queues on the M80 made me defer that until tomorrow. Instead, I went to get some glue to repair a painting. Imagine a techy teacher having to BUY glue! Unfortunately B&Q were reorganising their stock and today was the adhesive section’s chance to be revamped, so it was blocked off and I wasn’t going to get any glue today. I went in to Halfords and bought a dashcam instead. I think it will be a useful accessory after hearing about Sim’s accident. It’s busy charging as I write this. Hopefully it will go into the Megane tomorrow. After that I went to the boggin’ Antonine Centre and in The Works, I got a little bottle of PVA for £1. Bargain. I’d just spent around £100 on a dashcam, but felt really good at getting my glue for a quid!

After the heavy lunch, we didn’t feel like having dinner so it was just scrambled eggs on toast. Absolutely fine. Salsa tonight wasn’t as bad as last week. For one thing, I remembered how to do Caltec! Tonight’s moves were Caltec, Disco, Prado and Machucho.

Today’s PoD was a grab shot out the open back door during a little respite from the rain.  Watching blue tits and coal tits scrambling over the peanut feeder always makes me smile.

Oh yes, if you get a chance, search Spotify for The Streets of Glasgow.  The track you are looking for is ‘Bottling Songs‘.  Listen carefully and you should hear a familiar voice!

Tomorrow we may make that run to Stirling.

Almost Perfect – 3 September 2017

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It was sunny when we woke.

It seemed a shame to waste the (unexpected) good weather, so we drove down to Auchinstarry and walked along the railway, across the plantation and back along the canal. About half my usual canal – railway walk, but it was curtailed when the slight drizzle, less than a drizzle, more just spitting rain, became proper rain. Luckily the walk back was under trees for about three quarters of the way, so we were sheltered. Scamp being a rock-cake had decided against wearing a raincoat. I had my blue rainy coat with me like always. Its actually been welded to me since I bought it. I even took it with me on holiday. Temperatures of 35º but you never know when you’ll need a good Goretex™ rainy coat! Anyway, but the time we got out of the tree cover the rain had reduced again to spits and spots. By the time we got home the rain had gone off again. Managed to pick a few big fat brambles on the walk. Nowhere near as many as yesterday.

After lunch I went in search of photos. Just got in the car and the rain came back on. Drove round the now circuitous route to get to Coatbridge from Cumbersheugh. I was going to Parks garage to look at a Renault Clio. It was no good. Almost as low as the Megane. The salesman asked if I’d tried the Captur. I hadn’t, but it looked big and bulky in the showroom. However, he had one in the parking lot. Pre-registered with 0 miles on the clock. It looked a lot smaller when it was outside, but the seating was the right height. I almost said I’d take it there and then. Then I asked if it had a parking camera or just sensors. It didn’t have either. I’d have to go up to the next level of car to get parking sensors. Yes, I know I could get them fitted for around £200, but that’s not a factory fit and maybe wouldn’t be as reliable. We had both liked the parking camera on the Juke. So near, but maybe so far.

Today’s PoD is maybe the start of a series. I have a few ideas for the motorbike that featured in the first ‘Weeman’ photo back in 2009!

This is Loch Àiteigin  It doesn’t really exist.  I think Àiteigin is Gaelic for ‘Somewhere’.  It’s just a placemarker to make sure I’ve got an ink drawing/painting done after missing last week!