Category: A Walk

The man from Malta – 27 September 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Continuing on our theme of daily walks, today’s destination was Glasgow Green.

Scamp drove us down to Glasgow Green in the Red Micra. We parked in our usual place and after inspecting the chestnut trees to see if there were any chessies although you may know them as ‘conkers’, we continued past the now closed People’s Palace. No people allowed in today. Walked the length of the path, past the folk practising hurling. I thought it might have been shinty, but I just checked and the sticks are definitely the spoon shape of a ’Hurley’ rather than the murderous ’Caman’ of shinty. There, I’m sure you’re as glad as I am that we’ve got that sorted out.

Walked back by the side or the river observing the ‘Keep Left’ signs that ensure social distancing. Stood for a while on the suspension bridge, watching the rowers on the river looking very efficient and freezing. It was only 0.5º this morning when I got up and the temperature hadn’t risen much when we were out walking on The Green. No ice floes on the river though, so it can’t be winter yet. Because it was such a lovely morning we continued on and crossed the river to Richmond Park. It’s really in a sorry state these days. I’m sure the council will blame Covid and problems with maintaining a workforce in these days, but the neglect here is more than the six months we’ve been under the cloud of the virus. This is an out of the way park, half of which has been sold off to developers and the other half left to wrack and ruin, and don’t get me started on the demise of the Wintergarden of the People’s Palace.

However, there was life here. There were boats in the boating pond. Not rowing boats, but radio controlled model boats and it was here we met the man from Malta. We were sitting watching these detailed models sailing up and down controlled by their makers when this bloke came up and started telling us how he originally came from Malta, but moved to Glasgow when he was six. He told us how he’d seen the pond when he was coming home from school and thought it was the sea and how his dad gave him a severe telling off for being late home. He now has six or seven boats that he sails on the pond at weekends. He left saying that it was a great hobby and if I wanted to take it up I should join the club. I think I have enough roads for my money to go these days without building model boats. We walked round the rest of the park before retracing our steps to the car. Gone are the days for a roll ’n’ sausage and a cup of coffee for me or two slice of toast and tea for Scamp in the Wintergarden.

Back home, Scamp finished picking the remaining apples from the trees and we emptied the last ‘tattie bag’. We got lots of apples, but just enough tatties for tonight’s dinner. We also lifted one of the leeks and cut some kale for soup. I even lifted one of my carrots which also made it into the soup. I managed to burn today’s stew, but also managed to salvage enough for my dinner along with the potatoes we’d lifted.

PoD went to the boatbuilders at Richmond Park. The man from Malta is slightly right of centre with his back to the camera. I liked his story and the fact he took time to speak to us.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to have coffee and a gab with Val.

Another bright sunny day – 26 September 2020

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It looks like the end of September is a bit of an Indian summer. Certainly better than this year’s Scottish Summer.

It was too good a day to waste, so we got ourselves kitted out with boots and wet weather gear, just in case, and drove over to Chatelherault (I managed to spell it this time without resorting to Google! Am I not clever!?). There’s a fairly big carpark there and it was already full when we arrived, but I didn’t want to park there anyway. The potholes are decidedly deep an I didn’t want to damage Blue’s delicate substructure. Instead, I chose one of the little carparks and found there were only about five cars parked there. People are so blinkered. They see the main carpark and think it must be better because it’s so busy. It’s not.

Boots and jackets on and with a walking pole each, we strode off towards the Cadzow Oaks. John had introduced me to them a couple of weeks ago and although the biggest one was cordoned off while they do some health checks on it and decide how best to support it, the slightly smaller ones were still magnificent enough to demand I took their photos. Because they are so large and so close to you, it’s difficult to get them all in without using an ultra-wide lens and I hadn’t brought one, choosing instead to travel light. Instead I took about 20 shots and knew I could produce a decent patch together later in the computer. For some reason the camera was over exposing everything and I couldn’t work out why, but, again, I could deal with that later too.

We walked on past the oaks and found a path that was climbing steadily along the side of the ravine that sloped down to the Avon Water. Nobody we spoke too could definitely say where the path led and how long it would take to get back to the visitor centre if we followed it. We decided to go back the way we’d come. Rather than just returning to the centre and inevitably going home, we extended our walk to take in The Duke’s Monument. I’d been there before and found it a forbidding and eerie place. Even today on a sunny afternoon it felt cold and unwelcoming. Coupled with the overexposure of the camera, the shots I took weren’t what I’d intended. I sat down and puzzled it out. On the E-M1 there’s a little lever, near the eyepiece that allows you to meddle with far more settings than are good for you. It was sitting in the ‘Meddle’ position and I’d been twiddling the wheels that should be marked ‘Screw up your settings here’. It was the work of mere minutes to repair the damage, but that didn’t fix the thirty odd photos I’d taken. I set myself a reminder to switch the bloody thing off when I got home, and after we walked the mile or so back to the car and after driving home, that’s what I did. I took great care to turn off that switch. I think that’s what I like about the E-M1. It’s so easy to screw things up, but there’s usually a way to put them right again if you know where to look in the massive menu.

Back home, sitting in the warm living room with the sun shining through the blinds, I had a Guinness and Scamp had a Pimms to quench our thirst after a long walk. Not as long as the walk two Saturdays ago, but with almost as many hills.

PoD was one of the Cadzow Oaks, reputed to be over 800 years old. They were growing when the Crusaders set off on the Fourth Crusade and when Genghis Khan invaded China. If they could speak, what stories they could tell.

Tomorrow we’re hoping for another good sunny day. We may go for another walk.

A new camera, a dash cam – 25 September 2020

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Dashcam day.

I got to use my dash cam a couple of years ago and I wouldn’t be without one now. Today I went to Halfords to find out when they could fit one in Blue. Luckily, they had a space this afternoon, so confirmed the booking and drove home for a quick lunch before driving up to allow the nice man to fit a brand new dash cam for me. Yes, I could have saved a few quid by using the supplied cable and plug, but it looks untidy and a new car deserves a new neat fitting. Even more unlikely, I could have fitted it myself, but I knew that would have involved a lot of swearing and a fair bit of damage to the inside of Blue. The bloke from Halfords had made a really neat job of the fitting the last time and I trusted him to do the same again.

With him working away in the car, Scamp drove me off in her car to a nice little parking place beside the Forth & Clyde Canal where we could walk along under a fairly blue sky and some sunshine as far as the ill fated Underwood Lock House. It had originally been the lock keeper’s cottage and around 2000 was converted to a pub and restaurant, but after a fire in 2013 it remains a roofless ruin. It seemed a sensible place to turn and walk back. I grabbed a set of seven shots to form into a panorama when we returned.

Collected the car and paid for the dash cam and the fitting and drove home. I couldn’t see any evidence of how that man fitted the wiring, but he did just as clean a job as last time, if not better. Dash cams are a bit like insurance. It’s something you have to buy these days, but you hope you’ll never need them.

Dinner tonight was Veg Chilli and AGAIN I forgot to add the kidney beans. I did the same last week down at Little Musgrave, so you see JIC and Sim, it was nothing personal, it’s just a mental block I have with veg chilli!

PoD was that seven frame panorama. The other thing I did today was set up Inktober 2020 on Flickr. Hope I don’t have the same problems I had last year with nobody except me being able to find it on the website!

Tomorrow we may go for a walk.

Dining out – 23 September 2020

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Just an opportunity to go for lunch and put aside Covid fears for an hour or so.

Scamp had bought the original Itison (Scottish version of Groupon) voucher back in February with the intention that it would be a useful lunch treat in the spring or summer, then Covid arrived and we tumbled into lockdown. Recently, when restaurants opened again, the vouchers came back to life. Today’s was for “21”, an Italian restaurant in Hamilton.  We even got free parking in the town because all the meters were covered, presumably to avoid folk having to risk catching the disease when emptying the meters. A little bonus. We walked down to the restaurant in the sunshine and arrived right on time. Scamp had Cream of Veg soup to start, followed by Veg Risotto. I had Salami Bruschetta followed by Balmoral Chicken. Both were perfectly satisfactory, but I wished later I’d stuck with my original choice of Lasagne. Because we’d had a cheap starter and main we felt it would only be fair to had a dessert too. Scamp had Coppa Amarena (ice cream with cherries) and I had Tiramisu. The Coppa looked great and the one cherry I had was beautiful. The Tiramisu was dry and looked as if it had come from a wholesaler. Not great. All in all it was fine. Next time if we go back, I’ll be more sensible in my choices. What impressed me most was that the staff spoke Italian to each other. That’s the way it should be.

Back home and back to reality, Scamp cut the front grass and I volunteered to do the same to the back grass. Maybe that will be the last cut of the year. The light was still good when we were done, so while Scamp relaxed, I took the Oly over to St Mo’s and went for a walk in the woods. It was a bit cold out of the sun, but the low light created opportunities for some decent photos. PoD was a backlit shot of a spider wrapping up its dinner. It’s a Garden Spider (Araneus diadematus).

Tonight about 8pm I was taking the recycling out for collection tomorrow morning. A group of folk were standing outside the house next door. Their father and mother, whose house it is, were inside with their grandchildren, but the parents were outside talking. Some were standing, some were sitting in garden chairs. It was dark and the temperature was a chilly 9ºc. What they were doing was perfectly legal and in line with the new rules for Scotland, but why would anyone go to those lengths? Will they do the same in a couple of months when it’s snowing? Who knows.

Tomorrow we may drive in to Glasgow.

The Bin Man – 22 September 2020

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Finally, if I get this blog posted, I will be up to date.

Scamp was out this morning meeting Isobel. That gave me a bare two hours to organise my PoDs, export them and then import them to Flickr, write up the remaining blog posts and combine them with the images and post those online. I managed to get almost all of that done while Scamp was gabbing chatting with Isobel and had time for a cup of coffee too.

We’d decided to make good on yesterday’s promise and go to Falkirk looking for a duvet cover and a fancy new kitchen bin. We went, we looked, we came back empty handed. On the way home we dropped in at B&Q and found a bin there for much less than they were selling them for in Falkirk. I went looking for a new dash cam in Halfords while Scamp went looking elsewhere for a duvet cover, again we returned empty handed, at least we had a new bin. Unfortunately the bin didn’t fit into the space the old one had lived in, so there was a bit of rearranging of the kitchen, but everything is now in place and working.

Went out late in the afternoon to post a card and to have a walk round St Mo’s. By the time I was getting there the light was all but gone. Not just the good light either, all the light was gone, it was like twilight had come early, although twilight actually arrived about 2pm today. It was just one of those days. PoD became a picture of a late blooming dog rose rescued by using HDR (don’t ask what HDR is. JIC goes crazy when I start talking in Technospeak.) It’s not great, but it was the best of a bad lot today.

Remember yesterday I was being Bob the Builder? Tonight one of the real builders trundled up in a mini JCB to level off Scott’s garden. He did in about an hour what Scott had been trying to do in three weeks in his spare time. No barrowing needed today. Technology did the grunt work.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go to Hamilton for lunch. For an hour and a half we can pretend that Covid happened somewhere else.

On being Bob the Builder – 21 September 2020

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It just felt like a better day today for some reason.

Didn’t do that much apart from talk to Hazy in the morning and see life from her side for a change after hearing about it from JIC’s point of view. After that and after lunch I went out for a walk in St Mo’s. The road past St Mo’s was closed to allow a bit of asphalt laying near Condorrat and this allowed folk the whole width of the road to walk on. Nobody seemed all that bothered to do so, except the hoards from the school who spread themselves in social distancing groups right across what’s usually a busy road.

In St Mo’s I tried to avoid the usual dragonflies and managed instead to get some shots of a spider and some moody shots of dried thistle leaves. PoD, however went to a planned shot of leaves floating on the pond, near the outfall. I’d seen it yesterday and attempted a few shots, but wasn’t happy with them. Today I used the Samyang 7.5mm fisheye and got what I’d been looking for. It’s still not perfect, but it’s close.

When I came home, Scott who has been digging up his front garden had ‘acquired’ a load of whin dust to lay as part of the foundation for his newly planned astroturf front lawn. He and his neighbour, Wullie and Bobby from our block were taking it in turns to barrow it from the road to Scott’s garden. It seemed un-neighbourly to leave them to it, so I grabbed a pair of gardening gloves and went to lend a hand. It was good to have a laugh with three other folk who usually get a not and a word in passing. A bit like the “Auld Guys” having coffee before lock down. Just four guys having a laugh and some adult humour. I reckon I might have a sore back tomorrow from all that work, but it was fun.

We didn’t get to Falkirk today, so maybe tomorrow.

The steak was the highlight – 20 September 2020

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This was a dull Sunday.

Not dull as in no sunshine, because there was plenty of sunshine, especially late in the afternoon, but dull as in nothing to do and nowhere we wanted to go. News was depressing too with a rise in Covid cases again and the promise of even more restrictions on the way. All this and the feeling that autumn was just knocking at the door.

We went down to the shops just to get essentials, nothing more. After putting the messages away, I went for a walk in St Mo’s and found a host of black dragonflies. Small ones with a waisted body. I’m sure I’ve seen them last year, but certainly not this year. ID’d them as Black Darters and the name didn’t ring a bell, which might mean I didn’t see them last year. Still lots of Common Darters about too.

Highlight of the day was dinner and a juicy sirloin steak for me. Nice fat piece of salmon for Scamp.

Hoping for a better day tomorrow. May go to Falkirk to search out a new kitchen bin.

Not driving today – 19 September 2020

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Just a walk or two, but no alpacas, viaducts nor waterfalls.

We walked down round the Broadwood outdoor gym trail then back past the BMX track where I got told off for photographing the kids who were competing, without permission. Quite right too, but I’d never thought about it before. I’d always been covered by school permissions when I was photographing anyone in school. I should have known better and should probably have deleted the shots I took. None of them got past the first cull anyway.

Walked back past the shops and bought two curries for dinner tonight. As it turned out, they weren’t all that good. Maybe it was just going to be that kind of day.

Walked round St Mo’s later to try to get some photos and found a patient dragonfly that sat for me. There was very little else, although it was a lovely day.

Tomorrow we may go further afield.

Butterflies, Viaducts and Beer – 17 September 2020

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In that order!

The butterflies were feeding on ivy flowers on Frank’s Bridge in Kirkby Stephen. As far as I could tell they were all Red Admirals. They were taking a fair bashing from the honeybees whose territory they seemed to have invaded. The bees made their displeasure felt by apparently deliberately bumping them off the flowers. A strange behaviour I’ve never witnessed before.

Over the bridge, we were discussing which way to go, when a dog walker told us there was a great view from the hill beside the cricket ground. We thanked her and climbed the hill to the viewpoint at the top and she was correct. There was a great view all around from the top. Because the hill was fairly high, it was an uninterrupted view too. We met a couple from Durham who were also admiring the view. I took a few photos which turned into a 360º panorama which in turn would turn into a Tiny Planet. A bit of a cliché, but I haven’t done one in a long time, so that makes it ok. It became PoD, despite the fact that Scamp doesn’t like it.

Said goodbye to the Durham couple and walked down the other side of the hill and basically retraced our steps from Monday’s visit. Aha, but Scamp had other plans. After reaching the part where we would have turned right and walked back into town, we continued on using a wee lane to cut off a long corner on the road and almost reached a quarry entrance before we turned on to the old railway path. I like old railways, especially ones that have been turned into safe walkways that cut across country. It’s usually easy to imagine steam trains running along these arteries before Dr Beeching and his cuts destroyed the British rail network, back in the ‘60s. This one led immediately on to the Merrygill Viaduct over the Hartley Beck. We continued on to the Podgill Viaduct which crosses the Podgill Hole (!) which is another tributary of the River Eden.

There was a viewing gallery at the Podgill Viaduct, down 42 steps from the path. Fairly easy going down, but a killer coming back up. However it did give us a good view of the viaduct from below.

Climbed back up those 42 killer steps and walked back into the town. Got a seat quickly at the wee café Scamp had her eye on since Monday and had lunch there washed down with a half pint of Bitter & Twisted each, before heading back to the house. Well, we also had to stop for some bread and a cake each at the town bakers and some bulbs and another pot of marmalade from the deli.

Dinner tonight was a carry-out. Sim had phoned in an order for Chinese which JIC went to collect while I waited at Coast to Coast for three Fish & Chips. One door and a queue where you wait to place and pay for your order. Another where you queue to collect that order. One woman who shouts at you because you obviously don’t know how this works (she seems to be the only one who does) and one woman who for some reason treats you like a human. Good chips and excellent fish though.

More TV tonight and more pyrotechnics from the battlefield too.

Packing tonight, because it’s the long way home tomorrow.

Cautley Spout revisited – 15 September 2020

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Hoping for better weather

In the morning Scamp read at the house while I tried another sketch, a rough, from a different angle. As sometimes happens, the rough turned out better than I’d expected, and became a shaded pencil sketch. I may have to give up the 20mm long Palomino Blackwing and release it from its pencil extender. It’s worked hard since mid April!

In the afternoon the two hill walkers decided we should revisit Cautley Spout, but attack it from a different angle. It was a much better day than the last time, so we agreed to have a go. Parking was a lot tighter than at our previous visit, but after waiting in the Cross Keys carpark, we managed to grab a space. The Cross Keys is a Temperance Inn where no alcohol is sold, or allowed on the premises. I didn’t know such places still existed.

Today’s walk started in the same direction as the last one, but then made a change of direction, going left over a narrow bridge and on at an angle up the hill with a dry stane dyke on our left side as we climbed gently round the edge of the hill. Great views of the valley below and lots of rustling from beech trees as their leaves were turning more brown than green in the autumn sun.

No rainy coat today, in fact I’d to tie my jersey round my waist and continue on in my shirt sleeves, the weather was so calm and warm. I began to wish I’d changed to shorts instead of jeans. After an hour or so of tramping along a path that started off almost as a stream bed with water running down it. Then through a field of grazing sheep past deep pools of running water where Vixen demonstrated her love of swimming. Eventually though the path started to lose itself to a bog and we decided that after a tangerine each for sustenance, we should call it a day and walk back down.

Further down the path, Vixen had another swim in the bigger stream which is the run off from the waterfall. She was on a long lead and seemed totally at home in the water.

Scamp was cook tonight and Holy Cow Chicken Curry was hotter than we expected it to be. Nice Stone Oven naan bread to soak up the leftover sauce.

A good day. Glad we did the easier of the two walks, but the weather definitely helped.