Category: A Walk

No fog, just clouds – 27 November 2020

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In a way I’d have preferred fog to the ubiquitous white clouds.

Today we were heading to Kilsyth to get some gin for me. Cheap gin, but I like the taste. With that in mind, we went via Lidl and picked up a fair bit more than a bottle of gin. Waited in the queue, but when we’d loaded our goods onto the belt the flake in front of us put a ‘dead’ card into the machine and screwed up the till. She said she’d kept her old cancelled card and that was what she’d used by mistake. Neither Scamp nor I believed it. It then took the assistant ages to put things right again. I have a feeling there was a scam being played out here. Who keeps their old cancelled bank card unless they’re trying to pull a scam?

Drove to Colzium House for a walk round the grounds and hopefully a couple of pics. I did get a PoD, but that was the good one with around 30 duff shots. After walking round the trees and the almost silted up curling pond, we walked through to have a look at the loch. Banton Loch is manmade and was built to feed the Forth & Clyde canal in the 18th century. I’m sure on a bright summer’s day it’s very photogenic, but today it was just a pool of dull grey water. We walked to the outfall dam and read about the battle of Kilsyth in the ’45 rebellion. Strangely there was a footnote on the commemoration cairn in French. There was nothing to see here and nothing to photograph either. That didn’t stop me taking photos that I just knew would be deleted later. We drove back home for lunch.

Walked to St Mo’s in the afternoon to try out the Sigma 105mm macro on the adapter for the Sony. It performed really well, but the weather and the light hadn’t improved since the morning and I had to give up. PoD went to the leaves we saw at Colzium. Today’s sketch nearly never happened. I just couldn’t find a ‘G’ subject until I saw a tin of beanz when I went to get some glasses from the cupboard. Set up a wee trio of groceries and sketched a thumbnail. As usually happens with these things, the thumbnail became the sketch and after I’d splashed on some paint it looked ok. Actually better than ok. I’m happy with it.

Hoping for some decent light tomorrow to get out and take some photos.

Fog – 26 November 2020

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Woke to fog. We’d been warned about it by the weather fairies, but you can never believe anything they say.

It took a fair time to clear and the house was cold, because the heating hadn’t come on, because I’d turned it off last night when I was trying in vain to program the lights to do something they didn’t want to do and forgotten to put them back on schedule. Quickly fixed once I discovered what had happened.

When I was making the breakfast, I plugged in the skeleton NAS drive and powered up the computer. Later when I’d showered and was ready to meet the monster I tried to access the NAS. At the second attempt I got connected, but when I tried to download a small PDF file the access stopped and the icon for the drive disappeared from the screen. The most success I’ve had with it has been from Windows 10 on Scamp’s computer. Apparently, NAS drives in general don’t like what Apple OS in any of its many flavours. No taste, you see! I’ve given up. Even with Scamp’s reliable laptop the downloads don’t actually complete. I think it’s time to “take the burst ba’ away from the dug”.

We kept waiting for the fog to lift but it took its own sweet time. Scamp made some soup, leek and potato and I thought it was lovely but she was more critical. She didn’t want to go for a walk, because she had tidying up to do. I didn’t ask what was being tidied, sometimes it’s better not to know.

Instead, I grabbed my old Clarks boots which, although they have little or no tread, at least keep my feet dry, and I went for a walk in St Mo’s hoping for some sunshine since the fog had lifted and the sky was clearing. It wasn’t to be. However, I did get a PoD which was the water drops left by the fog on some spiderwebs. It’s ok and the quality is good, but the lens just isn’t up to close-ups. We are supposed to get more fog tomorrow morning, so I may take the old macro lens and try again.

I redrew yesterday’s sketch of eggs an egg shells and laid on some better washes. I’m happier with this version. I also drew today’s sketch which is the wee fairy that sits on the shelf in the living room. At Christmas it gets to sit beside the Christmas tree. I think it enjoys the change of view, but prefers its higher viewpoint on the bookcase.

Tonight Scamp and I had a practise of The Christmas Pudding Rock which is a dance Stewart and Jane have invented for the virtual Christmas ball. It’s left me with two left feet Usually the man leads with his left foot, but in this dance he leads with his right! Most confusing, but I’ve almost got it. Another few practise sessions and I’ll be there or there about … I hope!

One last thing.  Today Hazy sent a photo of a postcard that had just dropped through her letterbox, sent by us from Fuerteventura A YEAR AGO!  Delivered by camelpost perhaps?

No plans made for tomorrow. It looks like it will be cold. If it’s cold and clear that will be fine, a walk might be on the cards. It it’s not we may practise that Christmas Pudding Rock again.

Out for a walk – 25 November 2020

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Lovely sunny morning. Too good to waste. Off to walk the canal

Drove to Auchinstarry and walked along the canal passing some folk and avoiding the cyclists. Beautiful light, but low lying cloud on the Campsies to the north. There was very little wind and so the reflections of the trees were almost mirror perfect. Took a fair amount of photos. Even found a bunch of Ragwort looking bright and cheerfully yellow beside the canal and a cow parsley plant still in bloom. Scamp found a wee bunch of white flowers whose name escapes me growing at the side of the path. I’m guessing the vegetation is well sheltered by Bar Hill and the trees that overgrow the canal itself. We had to walk back by the same path from Twechar because our alternative route back by the old railway is still being upgraded. Thankfully fewer cyclists on the way back and only a few joggers. The good light was disappearing too as the clouds merged together.

Back home and after lunch we spoke to Hazy for half an hour and caught up on what’s happening down south. Like JIC she agreed that it’s pretty much life as usual, just a bit duller. We discussed books and she and her mum discussed clothes. It was good to speak to her.

The sun had disappeared when we returned from our walk, but later it started to show its face again, so I put my boots on and went out to investigate the photo opportunities of St Mo’s. They were few and far between and then my camera ran out of film, digital film and I had no spare card, so I had to come home to find I’d missed a call from Val. Scamp was heading off to the shops and I spent a pleasant hour on the phone to Mr Rinaldi, my go-to guru for all things computer. I was intrigued to find that his WD Mycloud NAS had died recently too. I think that settles it. I won’t be throwing any more good money at Western Digital.

Dinner was a delicious plate of Fish Fingers, Egg and Spaghetti. An absolute favourite in the house. Just tasty welcoming food. I had intended to sketch the egg shells for today’s sketch, but it wasn’t happening and I needed to get the PoD into Flickr. A view of the canal from Auchinstarry achieved that little bit of fame. I also needed, still do, to get the blog written and posted. So if you’ll excuse me, I’ll end there and get that done.

If the weather is fine tomorrow we’re going out for a walk. If not we’re not.

Will the rain never end? – 24 November 2020

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Just another day of seemingly unremitting rain and wind.

I’m beginning to see a pattern forming from these incessant lows being driven across the Atlantic to dump their rain on us. They seem to come in three day bursts. Sometimes we almost have a dry morning. Sometimes almost a dry afternoon, but the ‘almost’ is always there. Then there are a couple of cold, dry, sunny days or sometimes only one of those before the next train of wets lands. Personally I blame Trump.

I’d downloaded a potential saviour for the old NAS hard disk, but unfortunately it didn’t live up to the hype, which was unusual because I’ve bought the same sort of software from this company before and it’s been faultless. Not today. I’m not going to rant on about this, so don’t skip ahead. All I’m going to say is I’ve found a workaround. Not an elegant one, but it does work and I’m now on the lookout for a replacement NAS.

Scamp went to Tesco today and got soaked just walking from house to car to shop and then the same coming back. You don’t have to be out in this wind driven rain for long to get soaked. After lunch I reckoned I’d get a half hour of light before darkness fell and I was just about right. I took a total of 9 photos and one of them, with Scamp’s cropping suggestion made PoD.

Today’s sketch was generated by the letter ‘D’ and it was Driver, as in Screwdriver. It could have been Dugs, Diamonds or Donald (selfie), but for some reason I chose screwDriver. I think it looks a bit bent, this screwdriver, but who has never used a screwdriver to open a paint can or two? Some say today’s choice is a con or a cop-out, but “C” was yesterday.

Dinner tonight was mince ‘n’ tatties for me and cabbage ‘n’ tatties for Scamp.  Not the most elegant food, but filling and very tasty.  I still had to have a great deal of assistance from Scamp to cook the mince, but my head was still trying to get round the problems of Linux and Unix.  If that means nothing to you, then you are lucky.

Tomorrow may be the first of two dry(ish) days. We must wait and see about that.

Rain showers and sun – 22 November 2020

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You have to be quick to get a walk in the dry bits.

We sat watching the rain pelt down and then dry up again. Both of us ready to go, but neither of us wanting to say to the other that it looked dry. Eventually we went for a walk down and round Broadwood Loch. Although I took the kit lens on the camera, I really wanted to try out the old Sigma ultra-wide 10 – 20mm lens with the new adapter. It worked almost perfectly. It focused, it recorded the aperture and shutter speed and I could change them. The only problem I discovered later when I was processing them in LR.

For the most part it was a pleasant walk. Thermometer said 7.4ºc and in when we were in the windy parts of the walk it certainly felt like that. In the shelter of the trees it was a lot warmer. Today’s PoD was taken with the new camera and the old glass. The images were a bit dark, but I can forgive that for the quality of the finished product.

The problem with the adapter is that it makes a blind stab at the maker of the lens. The focal range too is wildly wrong. It’s a pain to change, but I’m sure I can come up with a fix. The main thing is I don’t have to rely on manual focusing which is difficult to remember to do when you’re used to having the camera do it for you. Best of all, I get to keep my good old Nikon glass and use it easily.

We just managed to get back to the house before the rain came on. Just as we were passing the shops we could feel a drizzle, but it didn’t really pelt down until we were safely inside. Of course I had to try out the Hive while we were out by setting a 30min ‘boost’ in temperature to warm the house for us getting back. Just showing off really.

Spoke to JIC tonight and he explained in a rational way how the vaccine works without the hyperbole that the news people seem to want to attach to it. So now we know that those freezers that are needed to keep the vaccine at -80ºc are not as uncommon as (again) the news broadcasts tell us.

I think my NAS drive is dead. I wasted about three hours on it today and apart from one time it appeared to work, the rest of the time it was just an ornament. I think it’s had one kick in the head too many!

Today’s sketch is “B” for bottle. Just an old empty gin bottle that, like the NAS drive is just an ornament. We did drink some Harris Gin and it was very nice.

Tomorrow we’re taking Shona to collect paint form B&Q, six tins of it. Other than that, nothing planned.

In better tid today – 21 November 2020

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I learned the word ‘Tid’ when we were down in Newton Stewart. It sort of mean ‘state’ and I’ve only heard it in a positive setting.

So, today my head was in a better place, that’s what I was saying. Number one, I had a good sleep and a long one too. Woke fairly refreshed. Secondly, the problem with the NAS drive had resolved itself. Yesterday after the electrician plugged in the hub for the Hive, my NAS changed its IP address and nothing I did would get it back again. Today, I think, the OS had taken a long hard look and consulted its DNS spreadsheet and discovered the new address for the NAS (I apologise if that’s too many UPPER case abbreviations, JIC). Whatever happened, the NAS was online again.

A possible third reason was that our Hive controlled lightbulb arrived and we could play with it. Scamp was the first one to get it installed on her phone, but couldn’t quite remember how she did it. Then my phone registered it too. We had some fun switching it on and off, brightening it and dulling it, and then it was lunch time. Simple things and simple minds!

After lunch I chose to go out for a walk and a rainstorm was just waiting for me to walk about half a mile before dumping on me. I walked to the butchers and waited in the queue which went down quite quickly until some dimwit wanted a whole lamb rack French dressed, and then said she wanted them cut into individual chops. All the while she was chatting up the butcher. Eventually the women who work in the shop could see their wet customers considering leaving and decided they could allow two people in the shop as long as they were socially distant. When the dimwit entered the shop there were two of us waiting outside, when I left there were about nine wet, disgruntled shoppers. Some people just don’t care about others.

Came back home via St Mo’s and as the weather had brightened up considerably, I got some photos in the sunshine for a change. My favourite, and PoD was the tree.

I wasn’t long home when my parcel arrived from Amazon with its autofocus adapter to allow some of my old Nikon lenses to work seamlessly with the Sony A7. I was pleasantly surprised to find that two out of three worked completely. One didn’t quite cover all the bases, but enough to make it a worthwhile investment.

Nick the Chick (no, I wouldn’t risk calling her that to her face!) put a large swathe of Scotland into Level 4 on Friday, yesterday. Unluckily for me, I’m in Level 4 of the Scottish Covid prevention scheme. It’s not total lockdown, but it’s fairly close to it. With that in mind I decided I’d start sketching again. Initially it will be alphabetical subjects.
Today it starts with ‘A’ is for Apple.

Tomorrow may be a case of sunshine and showers, but we can survive that. We may go for a walk.

UFOs – 20 November 2020

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An interesting day, but a long one.

It started around 7am and it’s still going. Well, I am, but not for long because I am totally knackered. Not that I’ve done much. I went for the messages after the gas fitter, the electrician and the builder had gone. A job we thought would take most of the day was over by 1pm. Leaving us the opportunity to work through the mysteries of the Hive controller. A totally amazing and mesmerising piece of technology. It’s been a day of learning about The Internet of Things.

Today’s PoD didn’t quite work out he way I intended, so this is a botched up, but texturally interesting experiment. It’s two street lights (the image is upside down!). They are the new uplighters that NLC has installed everywhere around here. Better than the old sodium ones, but sometimes sore on the eyes.

My eyes are sore from being up all day, doing nothing, so I hope you’ll excuse me because I’m going to bed. Problems to solve tomorrow with a recalcitrant NAS drive.

Tomorrow we have nothing to do and nowhere to go on the first full day of Lockdown 2.

A beautiful day – 19 November 2020

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If only we could decide what to do with it.

Neither of us could decide where to go on what would be our last free day before Lockdown 2 happened. Finally Scamp said “Take me to the Kelpies” so that’s what I did. We drove to Grangemouth on a cold, day with a temperature in single digits, low single digits.

The giant horse statues looked as magnificent as ever and even better because there were no people standing around them taking selfies or pouting at their phones. We walked round them, admired them and told them just how impressive they were. They already knew, but accepted our praise in dignified silence.

We found a new path that took us round the outskirts of the sewage treatment works that was producing the awful smell. I don’t know if it was the direction the wind was blowing that was causing it, or maybe they only switch on the machinery at night in the summer to cause less offence to visitors, but it was certainly working at full blast today. The path took us along the side of the River Carron. It wasn’t the most interesting walk and we gave up after a while to walk back and go along the canal this time. It was on this path that I got PoD. Looking down the canal towards the Ochil Hills with the sun lighting up the Kelpies. It was good to be in the right place at the right time for once. We were going to have a quick coffee at the information centre, but there were a few folk waiting to get in and it was too cold to hang around. We drove home and had some “Just Soup” instead.

In the afternoon we walked down to the shops for last minute essentials for dinner (veg chilli with one of our own chillies) on the way back, Scamp offered to go straight back which allowed me half an hour to grab some more shots in St Mo’s. The Samyang was carefully supervised and although it did miss focus a couple of times, most of the shots were on target. It didn’t affect the PoD, that remained with the Kelpies.

Tonight we cleared out the boiler cupboard and now there’s garden stuff all over the house. Boiler arrives tomorrow between 7am and 9am. Engineer arrives about 9am and it’s going to be pouring by the look of the weather fairies’ report. It might be a long day.

Because of the above, we have no plans for tomorrow.

Rain, rain, rain then sun – 18 November 2020

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It was one of those days when you just know it’s going to start raining and never stop.

Actually, the rain had started yesterday and continued unabated through the night. I felt it had rather overstayed its welcome when it was still with us this morning. We had planned to drive to The Fort today, but one look out the window convinced us that wouldn’t be happening. If we were desperate for something from that curve of shops, I might have made the effort, but as neither of us were all that bothered, we decided we’d maybe go another day. Scamp had a hair appointment in the afternoon and I was making soup for tonight’s dinner, so that would keep us busy.

Lunchtime came and went with the highlight being Scamp’s apple pie. Not our own apples, those are well gone, but a very tasty wholemeal pastry encasing some lovely Bramley apples. I’m worried that I’m beginning to sound a bit like Nigella here! It was a lovely pie, though. Just as Scamp was leaving for the hairdressers, the sky did seem to lighten a bit. A few minutes later, shadows were appearing outside and we didn’t need the room lights on. It was definitely brightening up.

Not one to pass on an invitation like that, I had my boots on and the bag on my shoulder before it would all fall apart. It didn’t fall apart, the sky was clearing nicely when I walked up the path that leads to St Mo’s. There was a torrent of water coming down that path and it was that torrent that became today’s PoD. One in the bag. There was a wild sky with a low sun when I walked round the pond, wild enough to be the subject of a photo, not just the background and I did take quite a few. Still not altogether happy with the focusing of the 18mm Samyang lens. I may still resort to sending it back to Amazon because they have foolishly extended the returns window to January 2021. Never look a gift horse … etc.

By the time I got home, so was Scamp, sporting her new hairstyle which she said was almost exactly what she’d asked for, but she didn’t like it. I didn’t want to say that the difference between a bad haircut and a good one is only about two weeks. I like it, it frames her face really well. Maybe tomorrow I’ll photograph her, just to prove to her that it works.

Dinner was indeed my version of Scamp’s “Just Soup”, served with crispy croutons, our new favourite. The pudding was another slice of Scamp’s apple pie with cream. Finishing touch was two little meringues each with more cream!

It’s raining again tonight, but the temperature is forecast to drop tomorrow with an overnight low of about 2ºc and remain dry all day then more rain on Friday. No plans for tomorrow, but if there’s anything we need in ‘non-essential shops’ we’d better get it or have to wait for three weeks.

Oh yes, one more thing.  I was just heading for bed last night when I heard a buzzing, but a doppler buzzing, you know what I mean a rise and fall in the pitch of the buzz.  An insect or something flying past me.  It was a big wasp, I don’t think it was a hornet, but it was a big wasp.  I didn’t want to kill it, but I didn’t want to wake up with a bit lump on my nose from a wasp sting either.  I managed to backhand it and trapped in on the carpet under a glass tumbler, eased a bit of cardboard under it and it was trapped.  I opened the bathroom window and helped it to fly away.  It wasn’t too happy about flying off and clung to the cardboard for a while, but I managed to convince it that going would be less painful than staying.  It’s now out there somewhere thinking “It’s a bit chilly for June!”

Leaves, Friends and Glenmorangie – 16 November 2020

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Too many of our days are spoilt by reading in bed.

Today the light was good, so after breakfast I got up, dressed and took my camera out for a walk. Yesterday, on the way back from our walk I saw a little clearing in the woods beside Broadwood Loch, covered with golden brown sycamore leaves. That was my target for today. When I got there the clouds had already rolled in and it didn’t look as if I was going to get a chance to take the photo. But I was there with a camera and I wasn’t going home until I had at least one shot in the bag, and this time it would be in focus. I got quite a few shots looking in both east and west directions. I walked round the boardwalk after that took a few shots of the padlocks rusting together on the square link fence. No great sky, no directional light. I don’t know if there would really have been any because at about 9.30am the sun wouldn’t have risen much and the area I was in would have been in shadow anyway. That was about it for photography. I really need to put that little battery powered light in my bag to give me some portable directional light.

Back home the shots looked ok. Not great, just ok. The main problem apart from a lack of shadows was the white sky behind the trees. Luminar 4 is a great bit of software for adding interesting skies to bland landscapes and it came to the rescue with today’s PoD.

Time to get ready for lunch. Today we were booked for lunch with Crawford and Nancy at The Cotton House in Longcroft. Lovely lunch and a great laugh with the other pair. My Salt and Chilli Chicken with noodles is fast becoming my go-to standard for Chinese / Thai food. Scamp has gone back to the old favourite of Chicken Chow Mein.

When we came out, Nancy had a Christmas parcel for Scamp (a bit early, but who’s counting) and Crawford presented me with a bottle of Glenmorangie as a belated birthday prezzy. I was flabbergasted. I totally hadn’t expected that. We did elbow bumps and left for our respective homes.

The weather was closing in as we neared Cumbersheugh so we waited a while before walking down to the shops for staples which this time included iced buns, chocolate and pancakes. Only the iced buns and the pancakes have been sampled, the chocolate is hiding in the fridge.

The golden leaves and the subtly added sky finished off the PoD and I was happy with it. Must try out PhotoPills on the iPhone to find out if I can indeed get light onto those trees on Thursday, because tomorrow and Wednesday are definitely out with heavy rain both days.

Doesn’t look like we’ll be going far tomorrow.