Category: A Toy off the Rack

I’m getting fed up with dull days – 15 January 2022

Posted on by Zogman

There was little point in going out today, but we went anyway.

It started off a bit dull, then got darker. The lights went on around 2pm, because we kept bumping into things in the dark. It wasn’t quite as bad as that, but near enough. Eventually Scamp got her jacket on and declared that she was going to the shops to get some oranges. I suggested a pizza for dinner tonight and said I’d join her on the orange hunt just in case there were any pizzas in the shops. We ended up with more than oranges and pizzas, but I won’t bore you with the details.

As we do sometimes, we parted company on the way back home, Scamp to go back and unload her bag of goodies and me to walk once round St Mo’s pond. I spoke to the geese and the swans, but they seemed to be having as dull a day as we were. I don’t know if the young swans, too old to be cygnets, can fly yet, but I’m pretty sure that if they could, they’d be off winging their way to somewhere more interesting than St Mo’s pond on a dull, uninspiring day. Or maybe not. Maybe they like dull. If so they will have had their fill of it these last few weeks.

I found very little to inspire me and came home with a handful of disparate shots, none of which were likely to make a PoD. Instead, I watched a couple of interesting videos on YouTube. One on processing with Lightroom by the most boring presenter in the world, that master of the monotone, Mark Galer. A load of good useful information, but I could only watch it for about twenty minutes before my eyelids started to droop. Another one by a more animated presenter whose name escapes me. It was about simplifying the complex menus of the Sony A7iii. You don’t need to know any more, it’s not at all interesting to normal people, just photogs.

Maybe it was because it was the mirror of my gloomy mood or maybe it was because of the underlying and totally accidental composition, but after messing around with one of the shots I took after we’d been to the shops, this one made PoD. This pathway through the trees has produced more than its fair share of photo opportunities for me over many years.

Tomorrow we MUST go somewhere to be out of the house and hopefully out in the fresh air with blue skies and sunshine (the last two are optional, but would be appreciated). Just getting out somewhere will be an improvement on today.

Out for the messages – 14 January 2022

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Rather than just go up the road to Tesco, we drove to Waitrose in Stirling, just for fun.

As we here heading north east to Stirling, the sky got progressively lighter and we hoped that signalled a better day ahead. We wandered round Waitrose and bought half the shop. We could have bought more, but there is only so much we can cram into the blue car’s boot.

With the Waitrose staff wondering why the shelves looked so empty, we went for a walk through Stirling. The Thistle centre looked very unloved with lots of shops still boarded up. We split up Scamp was looking for clothes and I was looking for books and tech. I found neither, but did have a happy half hour looking at things in those two categories. We drove home and unloaded the car. I’m sure I heard the shock absorbers breathing a sigh of relief.

After lunch I parcelled up the calendars and then walked over to Condorrat to send them on their way, and yes, it does have the Where Was It Took page, Hazy. I stopped in at St Mo’s on the way back and grabbed some photos. Didn’t think any of them were good enough, but then I remembered The Alien. It’s a bouncy climbing thing in the Adventure Playground. I’d photographed it just over a year ago, but I though it deserved a go with the new whizzo camera. There result of that though is today’s PoD.

Tonight’s dinner was a Charlie Bigham Veg Lasagne. Really full of flavour and one of our favourite ‘ready meals’.

As far as tomorrow goes, no dancing class yet, but the signs are looking better, so we keep our fingers crossed. Maybe a walk somewhere scenic.

 

A walk in the park with a new toy – 13 January 2022

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Today Alex and I went for a walk in a park.

Drove to Motherwell to pick Alex up, then we drove to Hamilton and parked at the retail park. I’d hoped to get some photos of the mausoleum, but it was still covered in scaffolding, so we found our way to my second choice which was the Keith’s building. It’s a red sandstone five storey building in a state of severe disrepair. From street level it looks like an old boarded up shop, but if you see it from below in Cadzow Glen, it looks completely different. It’s grade A listed, so it can’t be demolished, but it really needs a lot of TLC to bring it back to some semblance of its former glory. We took a few photos of it from the glen, and even risked the dodgy looking stairs that lead to a high level balcony. Then we followed the Cadzow Burn up the glen to a waterfall and took another few photos there. You just can’t stop photogs taking photos of waterfalls.

Time was getting on and I knew there was a time limit for parking at the retail park, so we headed back through the maze of streets behind Cadzow Street and down to the car, stopping to photograph the ‘man with the rope’. Then we drove up to Chatelherault for a coffee and a seat. That’s when I sprung my surprise. I got a new camera yesterday. In case anyone is interested, it’s a Sony A7iii. It replaces the A7ii and is a far more complicated model than its older brother. Lots of bells and whistles, all explained in its 666 page manual. This was its first real outing taking photos instead of being tested. I was impressed. I think Alex was too.

Dropped him off at the house and came home. Lunch had been a scone with butter ’n’ jam, so I was ready for dinner which was a new version of Scamp’s Macaroni and Cheese. Just a few tweaks with the sauce and the bacon made it a totally new dish. I think I like the new version better than the old one. In fact I liked it so much I forgot to put some tomato or brown sauce on it! Maybe next time.

That was about it for today. I believe there are plans for shopping tomorrow.

 

Glasses – 19 November 2021

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Driving in Larky on a Friday. Not a task for the faint hearted.

I’ve often thought that the best place in the world to have a driving test area would be Larky. If you can drive there, you can drive anywhere.

At lunchtime today we got the phone call to say that the glasses had been found and were ready to pick up. I was expecting a delivery from Amazon and with their usual helpfulness they gave us a window of about eleven hours. Somewhere between 11am and 10pm. Why bother? With that in mind, Scamp volunteered to wait in for the parcels while I drove to Larky to pick up the glasses. I decided to park at the Co-op because I had a parcel to post and the Co-op houses a the post office for Larky. There were cars abandoned everywhere and although there is a sort of one way system in the car park, nobody paid any heed to it. Lorries, delivery vans and a multitude of little old ladies with steely eyes were determined to either get into their parking space or out onto the road again and they were giving no quarter, but expecting everyone to get out of their way.

There was a queue of ten people all waiting with their parcels and only one person serving. I gave up and went to pick up the glasses. Got them and as I was leaving I asked the assistant where I could post a letter. She told me the sorting office was across the road and I could drop it in there if it was open. It appeared that the sorting office had different opening hours for every day of the week, but luckily it would be open for another half hour. That gave me enough time to go back to the car and collect my parcel and get rid of it too. It was while I was walking back I noticed that nearly everyone seems to park on the wrong side of the road in Larky, some even double park on the wrong side. That’s considered normal in the town. I even saw someone trying to reverse park into a space on the wrong side of the road. Truly, Larky on a Friday afternoon is in a different world.

I drove home and handed over the glasses in their case. Scamp was delighted, they fitted, were comfortable and most importantly she could see with them. Not perfectly, some things like door frames are still a bit rounded, but much, much better than the glasses she had been suffering with for the last few days. That was a relief.

I’d taken my own advice today and gone out early to get a photo. I got more than one, but not a lot more. That meant I didn’t need to go looking for pictures on a dull afternoon. I did need to get tonight’s dinner, so I got ready to walk to the shops and just at that moment the Amazon man came to the door. I got the parcels after I’d read out my six digit code, Amazon’s new security system that might last as long as a week. The bloke seemed to breathe a sigh of relief when I read out he number. I imagine he’d seen a few blank faces this week already.

I left the opening of the parcels until I came back from the shops. The external SSD I bought is tiny and has a capacity of 1TB. Really fast too. It’s been play tested tonight.

PoD today was a little mushroom with a tiny beetle sheltering inside.

I’m hoping for a bit brighter day tomorrow. We really deserve some sunshine.

Tango and Rain – 2 October 2021

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Dancing the Living Room Tango in a hall.

Dance class in Bridge of Weir this morning. Drive to the hall was easy peasy. No real traffic to speak of apart from one numpty who tried to overtake me on the inside and got quite upset when he found I wasn’t going to let him, and he had to pull in behind. I don’t think he was a happy driver.

We started with easy stuff, just to get our feet tuned in again after a week’s lay off. Then we began the Tango we’d learned from the Zoom classes. We did really well and we both agreed about that, even the teachers made very few changes to the way we were dancing it. The strange thing about it was in Lockdown we danced half of it up the living room, then half back down again. Today the teachers sort of unfolded it so we danced it as it should be danced, in a straight line. Then we had a break for a sequence dance that Scamp and I can do, but which evaded us, and a few others, before it all came flooding back. Next was Waltz and we did make a few mistakes in it. Most of the mistakes were mine. Forgetting to do heel leads when going forward and losing “The Frame”. If you watch Strictly, you’ll hear that referred to all the time. Another sequence dance to finish and we were allowed to go home … in the rain. A rain that didn’t stop until about 5pm.

I spent most of the afternoon doing Sudoku and playing catchup with Flickr and the blog. Finally the sun came out and I prepared to go for a walk. I was spraying some beastie repellant on my boots and trousers when I must have turned the wrong way and got a sharp pain in my back. I thought the walk would help work it out, but for once it didn’t seem to help. A hot shower and a couple of paracetamol did and I felt better after that. But it returned later in the evening. I’m hoping a hot shower and another couple of paracetamol will help me get a decent night’s sleep. PoD was an Osteospermum from the front garden covered in little water drops.

Tomorrow looks like being much the same as today. I’m hoping for a little bit more sunshine.

Coffee at last – 30 September 2021

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We were taking Isobel with us to Costa

Picked up Isobel in the village and drove to Costa where I met Val. Surprise, Surprise, Costa had coffee. Real coffee, not instant and not filter, but barista made coffee. Conversation between Val and I ranged over the usual wide range of subjects, tech subjects and photography subjects admittedly, but what else would you expect from us?

During the discussions I must have missed the email that had arrived to tell me when DPD were delivering my parcel. We drove Isobel home, Val was meeting his wife at Tesco, and then Scamp and I went to Calders to get some snowdrop bulbs. Unluckily for us the HGV drivers hadn’t been to Calders and there were no snowdrop bulbs to be had. I think half of Cumbersheugh must have been panic buying them during the week. It was while we were at Calders that I found the email and the second one to say that they hadn’t been able to deliver it because there was nobody in! I wasn’t in the best mood after that, but we drove to Tesco to get food for tonight and tomorrow’s dinner.

Drove home and went in the huff for most of the afternoon. The only thing that brightened my afternoon and brought me out from under my black cloud was a phone call from Hazy. Found out about the goings on down Epsom way. Good to hear that Grannie is in much better spirits, and yes, I will try to get the recipe for the bread to you soon. By the way, I don’t know if I said Hazy, but I used a credit from Audible to download Entangled Life and am quite addicted to Mr Sheldrake’s soporific voice reading his book to me. Also it means I don’t have to try to work out how to pronounce those big sciency words! I like that it’s a Jamie and Hazy collaboration.

After we’d finished talking to Hazy I discovered that my phone had received a message to say that I could now collect my DPD parcel from Matalan at The Shops. Jacket on, because it had been raining on and off all day, made sure I had the QR code on my phone screen and that I had photo ID. I’m going to a shop. I have to wear a face mask in a shop. What good is photo ID? They can only really see my bloodshot eyes! Anyway, I picked up then parcel containing a Sony 50mm f2.8 macro lens that weighs about a third of the weight of the Sigma 105mm f2.8 macro lens I’ve already got. There was almost no useful light to test it with tonight, but the few photos I took look like it was worth the money … and the wait.

Scamp was busy all afternoon making ice cream and yet another Swiss Roll. The ice cream is now in the freezer and the Swiss Roll has its chocolate ganache coat on and is in the fridge.

Today’s PoD is one of Scamp’s Lisianthus cut flowers, not to be confused with Lissajous which is a figure I met on an oscilloscope many years ago and nothing like the flower.

Tomorrow we are having Crawford and Nancy for dinner, so lots of prep to be done, which probably explains the ice cream and Swiss Roll.

One out, One in – 10 August 2021

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Hopefully moving forward in the process.

It was a lovely morning after all that rain yesterday. Scamp encouraged me to go out for a walk and I’m glad I did. She was feeling a lot better, but had things to do in the house. Also, we didn’t know when DPD were coming to pick up the GX80 camera I was selling to MPB, so someone had to stay in the house.

I was hoping that yesterday’s rain and today’s sun would have freshened up St Mo’s pond to the extent that there might be some dragonfly activity and that’s exactly what had happened. Not one, but two pairs of dragonflies doing circuits of the pond. One pair were blue and big and they never stopped to rest. They just kept flying round and round. The other pair were much smaller, probably Common Darters and they were much more relaxed, stopping to rest every few minutes on the kerb of the boardwalk or sometimes even on the boardwalk itself. I grabbed a few photos just incase they flew off and, like those big blue beasts, started flying circuits. I’d just found a little Leafhopper when a gang of chattering women came down the path from the woods. We said our “Good mornings” and then I recognised one of the last to pass. She was the librarian at the school and had retired the year before me. We asked each other if we were well and I found out that the ladies were in a walking group and did this walk every Tuesday morning. I replied as my mum would have said “Half kiddin’ and hale earnest” that I’d have to avoid coming this way on a Tuesday morning. We parted, both saying “Not missing It a bit”. The ‘It’ in question didn’t need to the explained.

I wandered on into the woods and tried to find the wasps nest from yesterday. There was still some activity there, but a lot less than yesterday. It looked like a lot of the hexagonal cells had been closed up since then and only a few wasps were still working. I’d read a bit about wasps and their nests and found the entrance and exit holes quite easily, but was amazed at the distance they were away from each other and from the excavation that had uncovered the nest. The triangle they formed would have fitted into a circle about a meter in diameter. That’ was a big nest that nobody had noticed until a badger got hungry one night. I took a few shots of rowan berries that are now colouring up nicely before I headed home to drive in to Glasgow to pick up a new Sony A6000. A compact little camera that would take the same lenses as the big A7m2.

I drove in to Glasgow and picked up a very small box which contained the camera. Surprisingly it has almost all the facilities its big brother has, only the sensor is not quite as big. It’s an APS-C sensor which, without getting the technospeak that at least one person hates, is only two thirds the size of the one in the ‘Big Dog’, so images are a little bit grittier than the ones from a full size sensor. Most of the cameras I’ve owned have had an APS-C sensor or smaller. It’s not such a big deal these days. One big deal is the weight. This camera tips the scales at about half the weight of the A7M2. It should be easier and lighter to carry around for day to day photos. I’m still testing it out, but in a quick shoot in the late afternoon it did not a bad job.

By the time I got home, the DPD man had come and gone with the parcel. Now I just have to wait to see if MPB agree with my evaluation of the camera and lens.

Dinner tonight was Katsu Curry from a ‘kit’ with the Wagamama name on it. We both agreed that the chicken done in panko breadcrumbs and even the rice were good, but the sauce. Oh, the sauce! It tasted bitter and a bit spicy, but that was the end of the taste test. It wasn’t a gravy, it wasn’t a curry sauce. It lacked body. Basically it added nothing to the taste of the meal. Scamp has had a Katsu Curry in Wagamama and says this brown liquid is nothing like the curry sauce you get in the restaurants. I don’t think we’ll bother with another ‘kit’ with Wagamama’s name on it.

PoD was taken with the new camera, but that’s not why it got that position.  PoD is awarded on merit, not on the hardware that is used.  That’s what I say, anyway.  The PoD is a couple of Dead Nettles (Lamium purpureum) which are not related to stinging nettles, but may have evolved to look like stinging nettles as a protection against being eaten by animals.  Y’see, every day is a school day (Sorry Neil D!)

Tomorrow we may go out for a drive in the rain.  I may even take the Little Dog.

 

Just an ordinary Friday – 2 July 2021

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We went for the messages, Scamp did some housework, I went for a walk. That’s about it really!

While I’ll admit that Scamp did some housework, I had hoovered the kitchen before I’d even had my breakfast this morning. Granted, when I’d been making the breakfast I’d accidentally spilled half a box of bran flakes on the kitchen floor, but that’s a mere detail. I hoovered the kitchen.

We went for the messages. Scamp drove to Tesco and we collected the usual essentials but also bought some milk to put in between the wine bottles to stop them clinking.

I went for a walk in St Mo’s later in the afternoon and PoD was a Red Admiral butterfly, although a Lacewing was a close competitor, as was a little Ringlet butterfly. These words, Red Admiral, Lacewing, Ringlet and even Butterfly are ones we only use for three or four months a year in Scotland. After that the most common word is rain. Which neatly brings me to the next topic.

All the way through my walk I’d been watching the black clouds that were looming from the south. Just as I was getting to the house, I felt the first drops of rain. Scamp was just hanging out the clothes, fresh from the washing machine and was loathe to bring them in again, but resistance was futile. The rain just got heavier. She brought them in. Strangely, about a couple of hours later the rain stopped, the sun shone and it was a beautiful evening, but it was too late to risk putting the washing out again.

I used the new toy on my wrist to log my walk today and was surprised at just how accurate it was. Not only that, the amount of data it collected and sent to its masters in China will all be analysed by their top scientists to try to steal even more of my identity. I now know how many minutes and seconds it takes for me to walk a mile and how many Kcal I burn in the process (not enough says Scamp). Still it’s an amazing piece of tech. It even has a torch built in. That’s a godsend if you want to raid the drinks cupboard while Scamp is in her bed and I’m supposed to be writing the blog!

We watched poor Bandy Andy doing his best to play against his younger, fitter, but less bionic opponent.  However, it was all in vain.  Proving that old age and treachery won’t always beat youth and exuberance.

Tomorrow we have rain, hail, thunder and lightning forecast for our entertainment. I think the shorts and the tee shirts will be in the washing machine and I’ll be looking out my jeans and my rainy coat. No real plans.

Keeping Time – 30 June 2021

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You have to watch what you’re doing all the time these days.

Scamp thought she’d nicked her ankle on a thorn yesterday on our walk through the Drumpellier woods, but this morning it looked more like a bite. It didn’t prevent her from going for a walk with Veronica, but when she came back she was sure it was a bite and Veronica who’s a retired nurse agreed that she should have it looked at.

We drove up to Boots and the pharmacist agreed that she would be best with a course of penicillin, just in case. Because she was such a brave girl, she go to sit with her legs up in the sunshine in the garden while the waiter brought her a glass of her new Bramble & Raspberry Gin ’n’ Tonic.

I have been complaining loud and continuously about my Fitbit’s screen being unreadable in bright daylight, let alone sunlight. I’ve been looking for a smart watch for a few weeks and at the weekend I found what I was looking for. Checked it out in Which and read reviews. It’s a Huawei GT2e and yes, I realise it will send all my details to China. The spy satellites will be focusing on my every move. I bought it from Argos who also will have all my details and if they ever get a satellite, I’m sure it will be following me too. As will Currys and JL. I didn’t know I was so popular! Anyway, the watch looks as if it will do everything I want it to and then some. Best of all, it tells the time in bright sunlight!

I know it tells the time in bright light because I took it our for a play test in St Mo’s once I’d finally discovered how to pair it with my phone. My lens of choice was the kit lens for the Sony. I though it was excellent when I got the camera, but now I’m beginning to see why my brother favours prime lenses. Nothing to do with Amazon, a prime lens is a fixed focal length, or to put it another way, it’s not a zoom. Zoom lenses are a compromise. They are Jack of all focal lengths and master of none. Primes only have one focal length, but they usually are much better at that one. On my visit to Argos at The Fort, I took my 18mm ultra-wide prime lens and got a few shots (5 shots, all keepers). This afternoon I got fewer ‘keepers’ from more shots taken(10 shots taken, 4 keepers). Sometimes less is more. It was one of the shots taken with the 18mm lens that got PoD, Johnston Loch with the fishers just visible in their rowing boats.

A short but quite accurate dance practise tonight.  Just  the new Queen of Hearts Rumba (Where do they get these names?) and the Foxtrot routine.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go looking for flowers for one of Scamp’s elevated flower displays if her leg is up to walking.

 

A dull day – 21 May 2021

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It rained. Nice weather for ducks and also swans.

Spoke to Hazy in the morning and got a low down on weather in Epsom, which sounded exactly the same as it was here. Wild and wet. Found about their trip to Wales and pleased that Neil D is expecting to return to work on Monday. A nice rambling conversation that brightened our day.

We drove to Stirling after the phone call mainly to visit Lakeland, but also to get out of the house for a while. No point in attempting a walk the rain stopped that idea. We went to the mini shopping centre that holds Lakeland and Dobbies, one of the last Dobbies after the business was chopped up and sold off. It still holds the Dobbies name, but who knows which conglomerate owns it now. The big “D” was once a garden centre, but now it’s become more of a department store with various different enterprises under its roof. Strangely, it’s possible to walk through from Lakeland to Dobbies although they are separate businesses and don’t share the tills. Scamp wanted a new cling film dispenser in Lakeland and I wanted some proofing wax or cream for my new boots. We got both, but also an assortment of other useful things, plus tonight’s dinner and a couple of plants. I took some photos of the Wallace Monument while we were there. It was a bit distant, but it was sitting under a glowering, but interesting sky. It made PoD. We drove home with a pizza for lunch from Sainsburys and tonight’s dinner from Cook. All from under that same Dobbies umbrella.

When we got home and after lunch, Scamp started the ironing and, as the rain had stopped and the clouds had lifted a bit, I went for a walk in St Mo’s, sticking strictly to the paths. Not much to photograph or to challenge the Wallace Monument for PoD, although I did laugh at the two resident swans out swimming with their seven, yes, SEVEN cygnets. Initially Mrs Swan was trailing three of them and Mr Swan escorted the other four. Then after some unseen signal the two groups of cygnets merged and created a convoy with mum at the front and dad at the back. Then off they paddled to the nest on the island. A photo is on Flickr.

We had a curry from Cook for dinner. Scamp had Chickpea Curry and I had Chicken Jalfrezi. Scamp complained that her’s wasn’t spicy enough. I had to add some yogurt to mine to cool it down. Maybe we should have mixed them for a medium hot curry. Still, it was as good as an M&S curry, but with a bit more flavour. I think we’d try it again.

I bit the bullet today and signed up for the subscription deal with Adobe. So far it’s working really well. It runs faultlessly on both machines and although it’s more expensive than other photo processors, it’s the one I know best. Some of it is pretty useless to me, but that’s always going to be the case. I’ll check it for the fourteen days I’m allowed before I need to buy it and then I’ll decide.

No sketch done today. Too much nonsense to get cleared away. I’ll do a catch up tomorrow.

No real plans for Saturday, but we might go out somewhere for a walk. It’s forecast to be a brighter, but colder day than today.