Category: A Walk

Frosty – 22 November 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Our first sub-zero morning this winter. Yes, winter, because it feels like autumn has silently slid into that colder season.

The temperature this morning was -0.4ºc. There were no birds bathing this morning because the birdbath was frozen over. When I went out to break the ice I had to use a half brick to get through the top layer of ice. Still there were no takers for a quick splash. Can’t say I blame them.

It might be cold, but it was bright. Really too bright to take photos. I’d intended making some bread, but instead I made one last backup of Mojave on the iMac and then plunged headlong into installing Catalina. I’d rather have stayed with Mojave, but fewer and fewer apps would now run on that older version of the Mac OS. The consolation is that both the MBP and the iMac will now be running the same OS and should play nice with each other. They should, but like two siblings separated by a few years, I’m sure they will fight and throw the occasional hissy fit. The update didn’t take all that long and most things worked as before. My real regret was the loss of Excel. My version runs in 32bit mode and Catalina only supports 64bit, so I am now stuck with the vastly inferior Apple Numbers.

After lunch and when I was getting itchy feet, I took the Sony for a walk in St Mo’s. There wasn’t much to see although I did spook a deer in the woods. I got a photo of what looked like a family group of fungi all cambering over each other to get their foties took. That’s available for perusal on Flickr, but PoD went to a yellow leaf tangled in a tree. I used an updated version of Lightroom to pull it out of the gloaming gloom. Lightroom is becoming more and more sophisticated with each update. More and more useful too.

I think the highest temperature we reached today was about 5ºc. Not great, but above zero at least. We spoke to Jamie in the evening and found that even down south it had been cold today. House preparation seems to be going ahead apace. The electrician has been and said that the wiring is up to scratch but the sockets need to be replaced. Vixen has approved the house in general, but isn’t sure about those stairs.The carpets have been bought a will be laid soon. The removals company has been booked too. Lots of stuff is being sorted as you’d expect with two new, young house owners!

Tomorrow we may go out for a short walk if Scamp is fit enough and I have to pick someone’s brains about cataract surgery outside the NHS. Other than that, no plans.

 

A day at the gee gees – 21 November 2021

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It was a beautiful morning. Too good to sit in the house.

I enticed Scamp out, telling her we’d go for a walk. Well, were going for a walk, but we’d to drive to the Kelpies first. I felt sure they’d bring a smile to her face and they did. Helix Park, where the Kelpies live was busy and with half the car park cordoned off for resurfacing I wondered if we’d get parked, but we were there early enough for that not to be a problem. Paid our £2 for our right to park there all day if we wanted, then we went for that walk I’d promised.

One of the first things we saw apart from the gigantic horses heads was a bloke on a paddle board posing on the water and being photographed. He even did a headstand on the board. Poor bloke was wearing a wetsuit top, a life jacket and a pair of shorts. No leggings and no trainers. The temperature was around 7ºc, he must have been freezing. Luckily he didn’t fall in.

We walked round the massive statues and found new angles to view them from. Lots of other folk were doing the same. Some with their hands out pretending to feed the beasts, others just getting family groups set up to record the visit. We even saw a wedding photog taking the opportunity for an interesting backdrop for an Indian couple. The groom in a dark suit and the bride in the most glorious ivory coloured wedding dress I’ve ever seen. So much heavy brocade, it must have weighed a ton! They had a great day for it.

It was cold, but Scamp wanted to have a coffee outside where the view was better than in the cafe. Yes the view was good and the ‘millionaire’s shortbread’ was good too, but cappuccino really should have coffee in it, somewhere. I think I got hot milk. After a while we headed home. It really was getting a bit cool as the sun disappeared behind a big cloud, but we’d had a walk in the sun and visited the Kelpies again.

Back home and after lunch I declared the photos good enough to exempt me from a walk in the cold wintry air, so I started a backup of the iMac before I upgrade it to Catalina tomorrow, hopefully.

Dinner was Cauliflower Cheese with potatoes for Scamp and Mince ’n’ Tatties for me with a bit of the cauliflower cheese added in. Scamp had made a Bruschetta for a starter and it was very nice indeed. We had our first Tesco delivery of the autumn/winter season. The first since the late spring. It made sense with all that’s going on in the house to get someone to pick it and someone else to deliver it.

We watched the Quatar F1 GP and saw more of the politics rearing its ugly head in the sport. Too many egos in F1 now. But I’m just going over old ground the same old ground I ploughed through yesterday.

I had a great day today and I hope Scamp had a good time too, apart from the coffee. PoD was a backlit Kelpie throwing shapes on the walkway.

No plans for tomorrow. Weather looks not as good as today.

An improving picture – 20 November 2021

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A very dull start to the day, but the weather improved as the day went on.

Not the most interesting of days. A bit dull to start with, but that was before the rain came and dampened our spirits even more. I messed around with the new external SSD drive (which is bad English, because the ‘D’ in SSD actually stand for Drive, so what I’ve written in Solid State Drive drive which is nonsense and a wasteful use of the word ‘drive’. The pedant’s pedant, that’s me). I copied X-Plane to it and then ran it from there rather than from the computer’s hard disk. The difference in speed was appreciable. Loading took about a quarter the time. Clever little bit of kit, the SSD.

In the afternoon, once the sun had found a way to shine out through the cloud layer, I took the Sony out for a walk in St Mo’s. I found a little Garden Cross spider that now has a place on Flickr, but PoD was really the sky. As I came out of the woods on to the boardwalk, and I saw the sky, I knew that would be PoD. It took me quite a while to find the right spot, angle and lens for the photo. Even then I dithered for a while choosing from two different trees. I finally chose the fragile looking birch to be the focus. Hardly any post processing for once.

Back home we decided on Fish ’n’ Chips for dinner. I walked over to Condorrat about half past four and by the time I was coming back it was almost totally dark. I noticed the moon rising over the town centre and it looked like a full moon, but apparently that was last night. Still, it was glowing well over the Thunder Dome as John used to call it.

We watched the qualifying for the Quatar GP, but I’m growing tired with the politics and general bad feeling between the leaders. I’ll still watch it to see who wins, but Verstappen’s constant flouting of the rules and Hamilton’s aggression is putting me off. It’s come down to a two horse race and I wouldn’t back either of them.

Tomorrow looks better than today, so maybe we will get out for a walk. If not, a wee dance practise wouldn’t do any harm.

Not enough milk bottles – 18 November 2021

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We were waiting for the call to tell us that Scamp’s glasses were ready. It never came, and neither did they.

Scamp had been told that the glasses would be at the opticians today by around 1.30pm. When no phone call came, she left it a while, then phoned them. She was told that the glasses hadn’t been delivered, but she’d contact the supplier and find out what had gone wrong. Then she would phone us back. An hour later and still no phone call, she phoned the optician again and was told that they were being tracked. Who was doing the tracking, and where the glasses were, she wasn’t saying. We’re guessing that their top sleuths are on the case with specialised glasses sniffing dogs and a police helicopter is standing by in case it is needed. Then again, it might just be a case of not enough milk bottles. We’ll see what happens tomorrow and hopefully Scamp will see too!

With the excitement over and a disappointed Scamp, I gave her some space and went for the messages. It had been suggested that paella might be a good dinner tonight, so I was heading off to get some chicken. Of course I took a camera although the sun was setting and I went via St Mo’s, just in case. As I turned a corner and came out of some overhanging trees, I spooked a group of mallards in the pond. They started squawking their warning cry and I knew they were going to do their vertical take-off trick. I had the wrong lens on the camera and the wrong settings too, but I had no choice. I got three shots before they disappeared. One of those three got PoD.

We did a tiny little bit of dancing today. Just a quick run through of the New Vogue Waltz. Just to refresh my memory. If we have enough time tomorrow I’ll get Scamp to take me through it in more detail.

Autumn days are so short, especially on dull days. If you don’t go out early or when there is the slightest break in the clouds, you’re fighting to get enough light to get a decent photo. Must take my own advice and do that tomorrow.

Otherwise, I hope we are going to Larkhall, although my faith in Simpson Opticians is becoming very tarnished.

Coffee with Val – 17 November 2021

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Out with Val to hear his news and pick his brains.

First time for ages I’ve met Val for a coffee and a chat. Drinking Costa’s version of coffee and trying not to compare it with real coffee. We spent a good hour and a half comparing each other’s technology and being amazed at the advances in computing that have become par for the course these days. He showed me a photo of his latest microcomputer the size of a postage stamp and I discussed with him the challenges of upgrading an iMac with more memory and a 1TB SSD.  Did manage to get Val to give me his opinion on the SSD as a replacement for the HDD in the iMac.  That previous sentence wouldn’t have meant a thing to most people, because, like almost everything we said today, it was in the form of numbers or letters with only a smattering of words to leaven it. So you see, Jamie, you are not alone in being a technophobe.

Back home for lunch and then later in the afternoon I went for a walk in the woods of St Mo’s looking for Stag’s Horn fungi. Managed to find one I’d been unsuccessful in photographing on Monday. Today’s shot was better, but still not great. PoD is a Sycamore seed with a wing that looks almost like windsurfer sail. The seed is caught in the the fork of a tree, maybe a sycamore itself!

Dinner was disappointing ravioli from Waitrose. Quite tasteless. It didn’t help that dinner was interrupted when the kitchen tap started running and wouldn’t stop. After struggling with it for about fifteen minutes, it stopped by itself. I still don’t know what caused it or what made it stop. Maybe it just felt it wanted a bit more attention than I was giving it.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to pick up Scamp’s new glasses which should be ready in the afternoon. If they’re not ready, Scamp will be reading the riot act!

Goldfish bowl – 15 November 2021

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Today the lenses came out and the glasses went on and there was a long face.

Today was the day Scamp had chosen to remove her lenses for the four week preparation for her next visit to Hairmyres, when she would be measured for the lenses that might just improve her sight and remove the cataracts that have been growing. It was not a day without its tension and sufferance. However as everyone she’s met has told her, “It will be worth it in the long run.” Not much consolation when you’re looking at a world that has no straight lines. It must be what a goldfish sees from its bowl. I don’t think you’re really encouraged to put goldfish in bowls these days, but apparently you can do that to people, because It Will Be Worth It …

The rest of the day was quite dull and dreary. Just what you expect after coming down from the heights of a weekend filled with bright lights, music, glitz and some glamour. I think my dad got it right: Auld Claes and Purrich. Even the weather seemed to be dragging us down.

I did go out in the late afternoon when the sky brightened for a while. I walked part of the woods in St Mo’s looking for ‘beasties’ while Scamp watched TV from her goldfish bowl. I came back with a few shots of a spider on a tree and that got PoD.

It being Monday, pasta was on the menu. It was one of those,’ What’s in the fridge’, meals. Sometimes they work, sometimes they don’t. Today’s worked. Finely chopped veg cooked with some finely chopped pancetta, then passata added to make the sauce. Served with penne. A Monday dinner.

Watched an interesting Brazilian GP. Some good driving with some very clever tactics. F1 is becoming more and more a statisticians race, where the outcome is carefully calculated on a constantly changing spreadsheet. Some of the fun has gone out of it.

We had a surprise invitation from Jamie to a video call from their new house. They got their keys today and they both looked delighted. They took us round the garden, through the downstairs rooms and then up those notorious stairs to upper floor and that ridiculously small door. It looks like it was a pair of cave explorers who lived in it before, not a couple who are older than us! Beautiful house all the same. Oh, and that garden!!

Hoping the weather fairies have got it wrong and it’s going to be a lovely day tomorrow.

The last dance – 14 November 2021

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One more breakfast of champions, One more morning walk through Perth, One more tea dance. Then home.

Breakfast was a bit quieter than yesterday with a lot more empty tables, but the same selection of fruit and fries. Not all the tables were fully stocked with cups, cutlery and napkins. Just another little niggle that showed this was indeed a three star hotel. I’ll bet Bonnie Prince Charlie didn’t have to go and nick his cutlery from another table!

Fed and watered, we went for a walk along Perth’s riverside. It was a bit colder than yesterday and a lot duller too. Neither of these inconveniences stopped us walking through the park for half an hour and neither did it stop me from getting a photo or five, more like twenty five though. The one that eventually, after some post processing, made PoD was a slow shutter speed shot (alliteration of ’S’) of the upstream bridge over the Tay with the smooth water that only comes with shutter speeds of 1/8th of a second or longer. I knew you’d want to know that Jamie!

Walked back and we were ready for the final dance of the weekend. First we all observed the Minute’s Silence, then the dance began. I was expecting a couple of dozen folk to be there, but there must have been around fifty. All still raring to go. It was only an hour long session, but it finished off the weekend perfectly. Said goodbye to the folk we knew.  After that we handed back our key and got a QR code to scan into the parking ticket machine which gave us a 50% reduction on our parking costs, once we worked out the sequence of scans to do it.

Drove home via M&S in Dunblane to get tonight’s dinner, because apparently we have to make our own dinner, and breakfast here in Cumbersheugh!

It was an interesting and exhausting three days. Now it’s back to “auld claes and purrich” as my dad would say. Tomorrow we’re hoping to have a more relaxing day.

Like being on holiday – 13 November 2021

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Back to our regular Saturday class, in a different venue.

Breakfast in the restaurant of the hotel. Just like being on holiday in Lanzarote or Fuerteventura, but just a tad cooler. Not self service either, but the same food choices. Tinned fruit cocktail for each of us, then a choice of eggs, sausage (veg and pork) hash browns, beans, tomatoes and bacon. I suppose you could have had all of the above if you wanted, but we restricted ourselves to what we felt was appropriate. Restaurant was busy, but we got the chance to share a table, strangely enough with two of the folk who had been at our table last night.

After breakfast, Scamp and I went for a walk through the town that was just waking up. Strange to see Perth at this early hour. We walked down to ‘The Ship’ which is really the viewing platform. A curved platform that cantilevers out over the river and gives you the feeling that you are indeed on a ship. Walked back to the hotel ready to start the class.

The lesson today was the Vogue Waltz. As usual, it looked impossible when the teachers danced it through. Then we had the step by step walk through and it began to look possible. Danced the whole thing and the individual figures began to fit together. The problem, as always would be when we tried to dance it again after an hour or so.

Afternoon was free time. We went for a coffee in Nero then walked over the middle bridge of the three over the river to the gardens on the other side. Bright sunny autumn day. Beautiful colours in the trees and we found a couple of ponds with great reflections of the church. Walked down as far as the railway bridge and then walked back through the gardens to the upstream bridge. Watched two punters, one in a kayak and the other on a paddle board making light work of the rapids below the bridge. Got some coffee, tea and a replacement plunger for my Aeropress at the Bean Shop. By then we decided it was lunch time and I suggested a pizza in Pizza Express. I had a pizza, Scamp had a chicken salad. Both filled a wee space! Time to go back and get ready.

Posh frock and suit for dinner. It was meant to be a black tie event. I had a black tie, but no black suit, so my dark grey one would have to do. Dinner was much the same as the yesterday’s. Service was even slower than usual. Waiter seemed to stomp of in the huff when a bloke at our table complained of a draught from the door into the kitchen. He didn’t seem to want to serve the coffee after the meal. Eventually Scamp had to ask for coffee and he did serve it, if reluctantly. You just can’t get the staff these days. We were a full complement at the table tonight with a couple from Dundee taking the last two seats. Bloke as a bit of a pain, complaining that they shouldn’t have same sex couples on Strictly and that they needed a man and a woman as presenters, not two women. His wife was extremely condescending and just wanted to talk about herself and her family. Nice dancers, nasty people. Glad when they had to leave early.

We danced all night, completing another two salsa routines with Peter and Gillian. Was that ‘completing’ or ‘competing’? I’m not too sure! It was fun whatever slant you take.

Dragged ourselves off to bed just after midnight.

Today’s PoD was that reflection of the church I mentioned.

Just an hour’s ‘tea dance without the tea’ tomorrow. Then it’s the long road home.

A day in the Toon – 11 November 2021

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The first for a long while.

We got parked on level 4 of Buchanan Galleries, which a couple of years ago would have been impossible. Today there were lots of spaces on level 4, and I even missed a few on level 3.

First stop was Paesano for a lunchtime pizza. Even Paesano was quiet today. Maybe something to do with COP26 or maybe something to do with the ongoing pandemic. Whatever it is, it’s not a good sign. Pizzas were lovely. My number 3 (anchovy and olive) had a few more slices of garlic than normal and I liked that. Scamp had her new normal number 1 (tomato sugo, no cheese, extra rocket and mushrooms) was perfect for her. Her usual complaint was that the base was too thin.

While I went for a walk in the sunshine down to a charity shop in the merchant city to look for an old manual lenses and then on to Cass Art to see what was going cheap, Scamp was going clothes shopping. We agreed to meet later in Buchanan Galleries.

Only one lens in the charity shop and it was an M42 thread teleconverter. Something that goes between the camera and the lens to increase the focal length. Makes the lens into a telephoto, in other words. Not what I was looking for. Maybe next time.

Cass Art had a sale on with 20% off across the board. Not an ‘up to’ 20% reduction, just an honest 20% off everything. I bought two ‘concertina’ A5 sketch books and a bright red bag to carry then in.

Walking back to meet Scamp, I found today’s PoD, a queue of punters waiting at a bus stop outside Queen Street station with a sign above that read “Now is the time to come”. We’ve all stood at a bus stop willing the bus to come! Scamp hadn’t found any clothes that she was happy to spend money on, but she did find some pretty coloured and smelling shower gel.

Met Scamp and remembered that I needed a black belt for the weekend. Not the most exciting thing, but I found what I was looking for in JL. We went home. The clouds were gathering by then and I think we had had the best of the day.

Later in the afternoon I went for a walk to the shops and it started raining. It’s definitely raining now. Just what the weather fairies predicted.

Tomorrow morning I’m off for my ‘annual’ checkup with the nurse. The first in almost two years.

Back on track, and off road – 10 November 2021

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A bright November day, although not as good as yesterday.

Scamp was out early to get prepared for our version of Strictly. I may get shaved later in the week if I can be bothered, that will be the sum total of my preparation. While she was out I did do some catch-up and got the blog posted. At 11.45pm last night I realised I hadn’t posted the photos on Flickr, nor had I written the blog. The blog takes well over half an hour to write and post on a good day, when the server, somewhere in deepest America, is running at about half speed. On bad days it’s on a go-slow and that half hour is how long it takes to send to exchange its starting handshake. I wasn’t going to risk it. I’d write it in the morning when most of America is in sleepy bye byes. I posted the photos on Flickr, then closed the Mac down. I hate having to write and post yesterday’s blog the next day, but I also hate dragging myself to bed at 1am. That’s my excuse, take it or leave it.

With the blog posted and the date changed to protect the innocent, I checked to see when my coffee grinder would arrive. Helpfully, Amazon tell you now roughly when it will arrive. Very roughly. It was 11am when I checked and the news was that it would be delivered today by 10pm. Somewhere in that 11 hours the Amazon person would leave it on our doorstep. I really think they could be a bit more accurate in their estimates.

When Scamp came back I was measuring out some coffee beans into the De’Longhi grinder that came with the coffee machine. It’s a bit rudimentary, but it works and even gives you a sort of idea how fine the grind is. Not as good as the ‘today by 10pm’ Krups grinder, but good enough for a cup of strong espresso.

Scamp phoned to see when her glasses would be ready, only to find, after a few more phone calls that they may not be ready until next Wednesday. Eventually we agreed that it wouldn’t be the disaster it appears, because from Sunday she won’t be wearing her contacts anyway. Also, today I went up into the loft to get a newer pair of emergency specs from the holiday case. They won’t be as up to date as the ones we’re waiting for, but they will hopefully be better than the old pair she found and will allow her to walk around the house.

I held on for a few hours after lunch before deciding that I’d take a couple of cameras out for a walk. Just as I was leaving the man from Amazon was photographing the coffee grinder sitting on the doorstep. Thanked him and unpacked it. It looks just like the old one. Let’s hope it works as well and as hard as that one did.

I took a walk round the pond and then went into the woods that run parallel to the motorway. The trees there aren’t quite so closely crammed together, plus they are mainly deciduous and have lost most of their leaves now, so there was a bit more light. I did get a photo of a wee black fly with red eyes. It was sitting in the sunshine on a tree trunk and moved round with the sun. Not much time left for sunbathing now little fly. That didn’t get PoD. The award went to a view from the grassy area between the houses and St Mo’s. Lovely light and a beautiful yellow tree.

When I was coming home I slipped on a stone and fell into a muddy bit of a burn. Almost managing to stop the camera falling into it. Almost. When I got home and told Scamp, she asked me if I was alright. I said “Och that doesn’t matter, but I think I got some grit in the lens.” The expression on her face said it all. “We are not amused!” Yes, I was fine, and so it seems was the camera and lens combination.

Tomorrow I hoping to pick up my new walking trousers in Glasgow, which will be useful after today’s little incident!