Category: A Toy off the Rack

Testing the new toy – 18 February 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Before we got to that, there was the subject of some shearing to be done.

It didn’t take all that long to reduce my overgrown locks to a mess pile on the painting room floor.  I managed most of it myself, but had to rely on Scamp to do the tidying up at the back.  I remember one of my colleagues at work saying that his grandfather stood in front of a mirror with scissors in one hand and a small mirror in the other and cut his own hair.  His acceptance of this skill always bemused me.  He said, “Of course he was a blacksmith, so he was used to it.”  Used to what, I always asked myself.  Are all hairdressers failed blacksmiths or are all blacksmiths failed hairdressers?  Answers, as usual, on a postcard.  Anyway after the hair had been cut to my and Scamp’s satisfaction and the hair hoovered up, I started today’s Sudoku feeling much lighter.

It was a bit of a dull day.  Not really encouraging us to go out for our daily walk.  In fact it wasn’t until late in the afternoon that I took the new macro lens for a walk in St Mo’s.  I found yesterday’s orange ladybird hiding in a crevice in a tree and that made PoD.  Walked to the shops and bought some stuff for tonight’s dinner which was a rehash of Tuesday’s chilli.  Tonight’s was better, but not as hot as a chilli should be, despite the addition of more chilli paste.

Today’s prompt was “carrots”.  Being a generous person, I gave them three carrots.  Subjects for painting should always be in odd numbered batches.  Don’t know why, but odd numbers of items are always more interesting than even numbered ones.  I eventually moved away from the sketch book and painted on cheap Flying Tiger 300gsm watercolour block.  I was happy with the 3 carrots.

Tomorrow is Friday and we’ve no plans.  Hopefully not as dull a day as today.

The postman only knocked once – 6 November 2020

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But that was enough, at 8.15am, to get me out of bed.

He was just walking away as I opened the door, having left my parcel on the doorstep. He gave me a wave as he headed back to his van and was off before the door shut. It must be really hard for delivery men and women these days, working such long hours and with tight schedules to keep. The parcel contained a used tripod head I’d bought from WEX in Norfolk two days ago. It’s a bit scuffed in places, but is a solid piece of kit, better quality than the one I was going to buy in Glasgow. Best of all, it cost a fraction of its value when new.

I made our breakfast while I watched two blackbirds, one cock and one hen, having their early morning bath in the garden. Took the breakfast back to bed and we read for a while, waiting for the day to brighten up. I’m now on my second last Slough House book, having finished “To be taught if fortunate”. It got four stars Hazy because of the ending and because of the inclusion of 30 pages of her first “Wayfarers” novel. Thirty pages too much padding.

After our dragging ourselves out of bed and having a cup of coffee, Scamp went out to tidy up the garden and I took the Sony out for a walk in St Mo’s. There was blue sky for a while and even some sunshine, but I had the feeling the weather just wasn’t trying too hard today. Nothing really struck me as interesting enough to make a PoD.

No lunch today, because we were heading out later in the afternoon for a late lunch at The Cotton House in Longcroft. Since we were booked for 2.30 we were eating off the a la carte menu instead of the lunch menu. We didn’t mind, because we realise that the lunch menu is a sort of loss leader, but the a la carte is where they make their main profit. Also, there would be things in there we’d never had before! as it happened we didn’t end up being all that adventurous. Scamp had Thai Fish Cakes for starter followed by Chicken Chop Suey with Fried Rice. I had Gyoza Dumplings as starter and then Salt and Chilli Chicken with noodles. Once you throw in the Prawn Crackers, this was a fairly substantial lunch and one we both enjoyed.

Drove home into a beautiful sunset that would have made an excellent photo if only I had brought one of my multitude of cameras. Besides, we’d had a lovely afternoon and it would be a shame to waste it by boring Scamp to tears with me wandering around taking sunset shots.

I’d ordered an adapter to allow the tripod head I’d received this morning to fit onto my tripod. It hadn’t arrived when we got home and when I checked, it was due to be delivered about 5pm, just about the same time the Tesco order was due to come. You guessed it, they arrived at exactly the same time.

Just to test out the combination of tripod + adapter + tripod head + Sigma 105mm macro lens, today’s PoD is an Alstroemeria flower taken with a 4 second exposure at f8. It’s not brilliant, I know, but it shows the combination works and it’s a lot better than any of the shots I took this morning. That probably tells you just how bad they were.

No plans for tomorrow.

Just walkin’ in the rain – 20 October 2020

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Locked to the house again this sometimes sunny morning until yet another parcel arrived from Amazon.

After the wait and after lunch and after the sun had disappeared again we decided to go for a walk just to be out of the house. Of course it rained as soon as we closed the door, but we’d agreed we would just get wet. Drove to Auchinstarry and parked at the park. After we crossed the road the rain came down even heavier. Even so, walking through an archway of autumn coloured trees was very nice. I’d been dying to try out the new 18mm lens and this would have been a good place for it, but I’d the long lens on the camera and wasn’t going to change lenses in heavy rain. Got a few moody shots of wet weeds and a nice one of a thorny bramble stem, you can see it on Flickr.

I was keeping a weather eye on the time as I had an appointment at the makeshift clinic in the town hall at 4.30 for my flu jag. I thought we might manage to get along the old railway to Twechar and back along the canal towpath by about 4pm, but it didn’t happen. The pathway was blocked by by a fence and a council notice said no through road. Apparently they were rebuilding the pathways. Luckily we had the opportunity to cross over the plantation and back via the canal. That’s where I did manage to change lenses with only a single drip on the rear element of the new lens. It was quickly blotted off and we were in business. Took a few shots of the trees across the canal in their autumn garb and one of those became PoD. Then the rain came down again. I must go back soon on a dry day to get some quality shots of that avenue of trees.

Back home and just enough time to dump the photos before I went out to get my flu jag. Five booths operating and no waiting. In and out in a flash. Scamp made a veg stirfry for dinner and it was lovely.

Watched Bakeoff and sketched today’s prompt which was Coral. We’ve a few wee pieces of coral we picked up possibly in Tobago and possibly in Corralejo in Fuerteventura. Their source is immaterial, they were coral and that was good enough for me.

We’re hoping for a slightly drier day tomorrow and maybe the chance for a walk again.

Comings and goings – 19 October 2020

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A busy day and a wet one, very wet.

Scamp was out in the morning with Veronica for coffee @ Calders. I was left to my own devices. I’d great plans for what I’d to do. Heavens I even left myself some To-Do notes last night. They didn’t take long to achieve and then there was still an hour or so left. I was waiting for two DPD men, they’re always men here, so let’s not have any complaints on that score. Take it up with DPD if you really want. Two DPD personnel, one who would hopefully be bringing my coffee order and one who would be taking away my Nikon D7000 to MPB who have agreed to pay me a fraction of what I bought it for many years ago. But as they say, all things must pass. The third person I had to wait for was the Amazon person carrying an 18mm lens for the Sony A7ii. That’s ultra-wide, but not fisheye for those who understand such things, all three of you. I sat down to struggle through a sudoku that had been bugging me since last week. Then the DPD man delivered my coffee. Life’s too short to drink bad coffee, so I was saved that ignominy. Postman delivered the news that I am booked for a flu jag tomorrow afternoon. With some time to spare, I phoned Fred for a wee chat and discuss the situation with flu jags. He got a letter this morning at 11am telling him he had a flu jag at 11.35! We’d no sooner started setting the world to rights when Scamp phoned to say she was on the way home and did I need anything for lunch. Sorted lunch and got back to sorting the world with Fred.

After lunch the second DPD man came to take away the Nikon. I was brave, I didn’t shed a tear. Scamp suggested I wait for a dry spell and go out for a walk. That’s what I thought I was doing, but I was no sooner out the door when the rain started again. I was out now and I was wet. No point in going back. Just go and get properly wet and get some photos too. I did get wet. I thought I’d got some photos too, but when I got back it looked like I’d about ten sets of three photos. Like trios, all the same, then another set of trios, all the same, but different from the first if you get my drift. Worse than that, they were all crap. All except the one you see here which I resurrected. (It’s a Larch branch with the needles starting to change colour before they fall.) Thank goodness for decent software. Think Silk Purse – Sow’s Ear. It took a while to work out what had gone wrong, but I think I’ve got it sorted now. This is the most awkward camera to get a handle on. Nothing is easy.

It was almost 7.30pm when the Amazon man knocked on the door. What hours to these people work. It almost makes me ashamed to buy things from Amazon. Of course you could argue that I’m keeping these people in a job, but at what cost? Lens looks good and does what it advertises. Ultra-wide and with autofocus and auto exposure but without the fish-eye effect. Means nothing to anyone but me and three other undisclosed photogs.

Sketch tonight was a really rough doodle that followed on from yesterday’s doodle. Not impressed with it, but what else do you draw to complete a prompt like ‘Dizzy’?

Tomorrow we’re hoping for a few dry spells. There will probably be one between 4pm and 5pm when I’ll be in the Town Hall. If there’s a chance of a dry spell earlier in the day, hopefully we’ll be out making the most of it.

Off to see David – 18 October 2020

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He’s a hard man David. He stands there every day, wind, rain or shine.

We couldn’t agree what to do today. Scamp thought maybe we could walk round Glasgow Green. I wasn’t all that keen. Various other venues were discussed at length before we settled on a visit to Lakeland to get a flan dish for Scamp to make a flan in, strangely enough. That was it settled. We drove to Stirling and found the aforementioned flan dish and also found that Lakeland had fallen out with Dobbies which they used to be joined to. They had lowered the portcullis and were not receiving visitors from that shop. Dobbies had removed their outrageously expensive food shop and replaced it with a Sainsbury’s, which is probably why the portcullis was down. Otherwise the crafty Stirling folk would load their shopping basket at Sainsbury’s and waltz out through Lakeland without paying. I do hope Lakeland and Dobbies patch up their differences and exchange Christmas cards when the time is right. I hate seeing neighbours falling out.

With slightly more than the single flan dish in our bag (and paid for) we headed on to the motorway and up to see David Stirling. He was the man who invented the SAS and his statue is one of the most lifelike I’ve seen. It stands on a plinth with his greatcoat blowing in the wind and a pair of binoculars in his hand looking over to the hills he used for training his commandos in WW2. I had gone there because the view on a good day is tremendous. Today wasn’t a good day, but it gave me a chance to test and compare two camera lenses. None of the photos were going to win any prizes, but the difference in the shots was startling. Don’t worry, I’m not going to say any more on that score. Just let’s say the new camera is a STOATER!

Back home we needed potatoes for tonight’s dinner, so I volunteered to walk down to the shops and get them. On the way back I got today’s PoD which is simply two leaves stuck on a bush. You could almost say they were trapped on the bush and that would lead you neatly on to …

Today’s prompt was Trap and the sketch you see here is my answer to that request. There has been a bit of discussion going on at Inktober 2020 about the relevance of this year’s prompts, and some folk are saying they think it’s a good thing to have vague prompts. They make you move out of your comfort zone. I see where they are coming form with that argument but too many vague prompts make you think of simply giving up.

It was a sad day for me today. I packed up my old trusty D7000 ready to be uplifted by the man from DPD tomorrow to go to MPB to be sold to someone who would hopefully get the same amount of joy from it that I did. Look after the 7000 whoever you are and it will produce great pictures, just the same as it has done for me almost 23,000 times.

Tomorrow, it will be a day of comings and goings photography wise. Scamp is out in the morning with Veronica for coffee at Calders where I’m told not to go because they don’t serve what I would call coffee.

Oh yes, the Flan!! Wonderful. Worth the trip to Stirling to get the dish. Not any good for you Hazy, too many eggy weggies I think!

Dull’s sometimes all we have – 17 October 2020

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Not the brightest of days. I think you feel it worse after two really bright ones!

Didn’t do much today at all. Scamp walked down to the shops in the early afternoon and after that I took the new toy out for a walk around St Mo’s. This was about 4pm and you could feel that the light was disappearing fast. The best shot I got was of this tiny wee toadstool among the grass of the school football park and that made PoD. That was it. It felt so wrong after three days of good weather. Unfortunately it looks like it’s set to get even worse next week, or so the weather fairies say.

Prompt for today was Storm. Not the easiest thing to translate into a sketch. Of course I could have drawn wind blown yachts or crashing waves, but that’s what everyone else would be doing. Where ’s the fun in that?

Watched a tedious Strictly intro that lasted for hours, or so it seemed. I think they should give it a rest for a year or so.

Here endeth the musings of Zog for today.

Hopefully we’ll get out somewhere tomorrow, even if it is dull.

Up and out – 15 October 2020

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Today was a bit busy in places, so we had to take advantage of a couple of hours free time.

<Hazy-Warning>
Out just after 10am and pointed Blue to Fife. Oh dear, I think that may be outside “Our Area”, but there were no roadblocks. Not checking of licences plates. No NPR cameras flashing at us as we passed. All was well and arrived in Culross to a fairly calm Firth with the tide well out. We walked along the side of the old disused railway as far as Preston Island which isn’t an island any more since the Coal Board dumped the ash from Longannet power station there and reclaimed a fair acreage of land. Unfortunately Longannet is now in the stage of being decommissioned, so there will be no more landfilling at Preston Island. It’s lagoons will remain landlocked. It was a beautiful morning and we both thoroughly enjoyed the walk. By the time we got back to Culross the tide was almost fully in and that’s where I got today’s PoD. A view across the firth to Bo’ness. We passed a couple of folk busking beside the path on the way to the car. Woman playing fiddle and man playing guitar and singing. Older than the usual buskers, just a bit younger than us in fact. We had no money and they didn’t have a card machine, so we thanked them for the music and told them we’d enjoyed it. Maybe next time we’re out we’ll take some ready cash.
</Hazy-Warning>

I was expecting a delivery from DPD who always give you a one hour time slot for deliveries. I was buying a spare battery and charger for the Sony camera. It arrived dead on time as Scamp was raking the leaves from the front grass an giving it a good scratch too, to clear the moss. After that I went out for a walk with the Oly, just in case it felt a bit lonely sitting in the bag and not getting out to play. Got a few shots, but nothing to match the morning ones. While I was out, Scamp was off getting her flu jag. When I got back from the walk she was back home and none the worse for her ordeal. With the sun still shining I gave the car its first shampoo. It wasn’t as dirty as I thought, but it doesn’t do to let the bird crap sit on the paintwork. It’s quite acid and can cut through the gloss coat on the paint.

Job done, I started to make dinner and right in the middle of that, the Tesco order arrived. I told you it was a day that was busy in places. Now you know what I mean.

Today’s sketch was Outpost, which I presume is intended to be linked to the film of the same name. I don’t do films, so had to rely on Wikipedia for the information. I ignored it anyway and drew a sketch based on the folly on Kinnoull Hill just outside Perth.

Tomorrow we may go out for a walk if the weather is being sensible.

A day for getting things done – 14 October 2020

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The sewing machine came out for a while.

I’d misplaced one of the pleated masks I’d made for myself and it was the most comfortable one I had. The fitted masks are very neat, but they don’t feel that comfortable on, especially when you need to talk. Talking and yawning mean the mask has to stretch and because I’m making the masks from cotton fabric, which doesn’t stretch, so instead it rides up over my chin or pulls down exposing my nose to the cold. They may look elegant, but the pleated mask has enough stretch in the pleats to allow some jaw movement. Besides they are easier to make, once you work out how to stitch pleats. I should have said they are usually easier to make. Today the stitching fairies were having a day off. However, after an hour or so both Scamp and I have a new mask each. Scamp has stars on one side (to celebrate the fact that she’s just announced that she can see Mars tonight) and stripes on the other! Mine has Dr Who on one side and frogs on the other. Stylish!

After the swearing and the stitching I took the Sony 7 out for a walk in St Mo’s, but the light was low and results were disappointing. The brightest thing I saw was the PoD. It’s a Berberis bush that grows beside the path to St Mo’s. Beautiful orange and red leaves. So startling against the dark green foliage. Ticks the box every autumn. While I was out I saw a long skein of geese coming in from the north west and heading almost directly overhead. They were constantly separating into smaller groups and then rejoining. ‘Talking’ to each other all the time. Fascinating.

Fish and Chips for dinner tonight. What’s not to like and Scamp had baked a couple of cakes too!

Sketch topic was Armour. My take on modern armour is a motorcycle helmet, and that’s what you see here.

Tomorrow we may go for a run somewhere, although we need to be back for Scamp to get her flu jag. Let’s hope it doesn’t hurt.

An almost wasted day – 12 October 2020

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Today was wet.

Not thumping down torrential wet, more a smirr that strengthened to a drizzle, then returned to a smirr again. Almost turned itself off to catch the unwary before continuing again as a slightly heavier drizzle. Look, just give us a soaking and be done with it, but no it was lazy rain.

I was struggling with the Sony website today. I have never seen such a convoluted piece of badly written HTML. Ok, Hazy I hear you, nobody uses HTML any more, but the coding on that site is horrendous. Captchas, don’t talk to me about Captchas. Those infuriating “Prove you’re not a robot” nine picture grids where you have to identify ‘crosswalks’. I live in Scotland you moron, we don’t have crosswalks. We don’t even have happywalks these days. Eventually got through the maze of crosswalks, bicycles, school buses and traffic lights, only to be told “There’s been a problem”. No kidding, a problem eh? On this magnificent piece of artistic code, there’s been a problem. The only reason I was there was to download a shitty app that didn’t work because it needed another piece of code that it wanted me to download after I’d signed into another webpage. What, and go through all that Captcha nonsense again? I think not. Sony I know none of your grunts are reading this, but you really need to employ humans to do your coding. The monkeys you have just now are simply messing you about.

There, that’s got that out of my system. By the time I’d given up on Sony and had lunch the clouds were lifting, literally, the clouds outside the window were lifting. I went out to buy some milk and got today’s PoD on the way back as the sun came out. It’s pretty good, but it would have been better if I’d remembered to set the ISO back to a reasonably 400 rather than the 6400 I’d been using for practise earlier. Still, it shows the power of a full frame sensor. Every year I promise myself I won’t shoot the golden leaves we get in autumn. Every year I give in to the temptation, and so it was this year. Low, warm coloured sun just lights everything up and I’m lost in it.

Sketch prompt today was ’Slippery’. I almost gave up and did my own thing, because I’m beginning to hate these vague prompts. Too airy fairy for me. However for another day I stuck to the script and drew a frog. They don’t come much more slippery than a frog, unless they’re an MP. I think I prefer frogs. You know where you are with a frog.

That was about it for today. Tomorrow I hope we’ll go out somewhere for a walk in the autumn sun and I’ll forget about Captchas and the ISO will be set to something sensible, maybe even Auto, and we can enjoy the light. Before that, I’m booked for coffee with Val.

Your parcel has arrived – 10 October 2020

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The message appeared on my phone and about ten seconds later on the computer.

I was cool, and calm before I collected. Had my coffee first then drove in to JL to pick up the parcel. Back home fairly sharpish on a beautiful SATURDAY, yes today was Saturday, morning. Unpacked it and it was a bit heavier than the A7 and maybe just a little bit bigger too, but it had more magic stuff inside it, so it was bound to be both heavier and larger. It was a Sony A7ii. Inevitably there was no power in the battery and the only way to charge it was in-camera with the adaptor and the cable provided. The A7 I’d owned for a few days came with a charger, which confirms my belief that it wasn’t just a display model. Someone had been using it for a fair amount of time. Don’t ever believe what the sales people tell you.

With the camera sitting charging I had time for a couple of slices of toast and a read at the manual, not the paper manual which had instructions in about 27 languages and was about 5cm thick. Instead I downloaded the PDF version which I can put on my phone, my tablet and my computer. I’d plenty time to read it, the charging process was going to take about 150 minutes. I think I counted each one. Eventually it was done and I could ‘play’ with the new toy. More buttons than the last one and a better button layout too. It was still a beautiful autumn day outside, so Scamp and I went for a walk … with the camera of course. I got today’s PoD on the walk, a Black Darter, one of the late hatching dragonflies. After that, Scamp went for a walk to the shops and I did another circuit of St Mo’s pond. The treeline was plagued with wee neds and nedettes today. Scamp felt sorry for them with a whole week off school and nowhere to go. I’m afraid I disagreed, having seen the other side of these poor children. Any excuse for a ‘bevvy’. Parents aren’t allowed to meet in groups of more than two households, but school kids can walk around in what one Principal Teacher once described as “tribes”. He was shouted down by many at the meeting, but secretly we all agreed with him. It’s all tribal at that age.

Messed about taking photos in the house until Scamp returned from the shops. I know I was just pushing the limits of the camera, putting it in situations that were far removed from real photography, but impressed when it passed the tests, one after the other.

Dinner was from Sim’s menu book again, Spinach Stuffed Chicken. It was lovely, served with broccoli and potatoes. Watched the qualifying for tomorrow’s GP from a cold Germany.

Sketch prompt was “Hope”. After a few false starts I settled on today’s subject, an almost empty whisky bottle and a glass. The link to Hope is in the sketch. Rather an abstract prompt and I nearly, just nearly gave up on it, but I liked the finished article.

May go for a walk tomorrow if the weather holds.