Category: A Walk

Hot! – 25 June 2020

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We were warned it was going to be hot today. They weren’t wrong.

First job was to get my hair cut. Number three all over followed by a number two to clean up the fluffy bits at the nape of my neck. I’m always amazed at the amount of hair that falls in clumps on the carpet as I’m cutting. A bit thank you to Scamp because she did quality control on the operation and was the one who used the number two cutter to achieve perfection on the neck line. It’s such a great feeling when you step out of the shower and dry your hair in about 20 seconds flat.

With the big job over, we walked down to the shops and bought a new set of coloured lights to go round the tree in the garden. It brightens up the place and although the last lot hardly lasted a month, it was worth the fiver. It wasn’t until we got home we found that someone had swiped the solar cell from the box. Not only that, they’d just ripped it off the cable, so it would be almost no use to them.

After lunch Scamp was going to see her sister, so she got her money back on the lights. While she was off to see big sis, I walked round St Mo’s and got today’s PoD of an Azure damselfly. I also saw three dragonflies doing circuits and bumps at the pond. I imagine one of them was the one I saw emerging yesterday. Walked over to the shops and bought some pineapple cakes sweets and ice-cream, The healthy option.

Dinner tonight was smoked salmon and broccoli quiche with a salad. Very nice indeed. Sat in the garden and listened to the bloke next door pontificating on a range of topics, but mainly The Eagles. We discussed Scamp’s idea for a storage unit for the paved area of the back garden, but mainly we just soaked up some rays. It seemed sensible because it doesn’t look as if there are going to be many sunny days for a while. Thunder and lightning forecast for tonight and tomorrow. Heavy rain too, which should mean we don’t have to water the garden.

Today’s painting was a watercolour of a plantain flower. Not the Caribbean green banana, but an insignificant little plant that produces a brown and white flower on a long stem. If you live in the UK you’ll have seen them on any patch of waste ground.  They are also known as Ribwort.

As usual, no plans for tomorrow. It definitely depends on the weather!

Another dull, wet one – 23 June 2020

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Much the same as yesterday. Woke to grey skies and wet ground.

Scamp was feeling much more like herself today and we went out for a walk in the afternoon. It was dry almost all the way down around the exercise trail behind Broadwood stadium, then just a little way round the side of the loch. That’s where we bumped into David, the bloke who used to own the garage I we got our cars serviced and MOT’d in. He ran a good business and I could tell he’d hated having to retire from it. It was him who suggested, four years ago, that it might be time for me to let go of the Renault Megane, because I’d guessed, but he knew it was going to cost me a lot more in time and money to keep it on the road than it was worth. We stood and talked for about twenty minutes, observing social distancing as just about everyone does these days. It was good to speak to him and find out what he was up to now and how they were coping with lockdown. When we left him and headed up the hill towards home, we both suspected there was just the hint of rain in the air and it did actually rain for the last hundred yards to the house, but just enough to dampen our hair, not actually get us wet.

I’d taken some photos in the garden earlier in the day and I took some more when the rain eased off. It was one of the early ones that got PoD.  It’s a Jenny Long Legs (Crane Fly) dangling on my pea netting. Poor wee thing. I quite liked a close-up shot of one of Scamp’s favourite roses, Remember Me. It didn’t quite make PoD, but it is on Flickr.

Scamp was chef today and Carrot & Lentil Curry was on the menu. Always a firm favourite in this house. I made the flatbread, but it turned out a bit salty. The curry was fine, but more fiery than Scamp had intended. Still worth going for seconds, because there was ice cream to cool our mouths afterwards. More curry in the fridge for tomorrow, but unfortunately no more ice cream!

Tonight’s painting was going to be a landscape, but it just didn’t work out right. It was overworked and you just can’t do that in watercolour. I gave it up and changed completely in the second painting of an anemone flower. I liked it, although there are a few errors I didn’t see until I photographed it. Still, it’s done and it is miles better than that landscape was going to be.

Tomorrow we may go out somewhere just to get one of the cars moving and to get ourselves out again.

Dull and damp – 22 June 2020

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That just about sums it up for today.

Scamp was feeling a bit a bit queasy in the morning and only had a very light lunch. She didn’t feel like going anywhere, but that wasn’t a problem because the morning weather was dull leaden skies and a fair smattering of showers.

We needed milk and bread, we also needed to get out of the house. A walk in the fresh air would do us the world of good, so we walked to the shops. Not surprisingly the rain had ensured that there weren’t any big queues with the possible exception of Home Bargains which always has at least a few folk queueing. I think people queue up outside it after the doors are shut and locked at 6pm. It just seems to be what you do outside this great retail experience. We weren’t going there. We just nipped into The Food Warehouse, or Iceland as you will know it and got the essentials. That means bread, milk and chocolate biscuits. Walked back home and although we’d been prepared for one of the showers that had bedevilled us all morning, we never saw a single raindrop.

Back home I decided I’d risk a walk to St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which is either a ‘toadlet’ or a ‘froglet’. I’ve yet to find a good way of telling these amphibians apart. Saw quite a few of them making heavy weather of their crossing from one side of the path to the other. Given that the stones they are navigating through, and over, are bigger than them, it must have been an exhausting journey. Most seemed to make it across safely.

Back home, Scamp was feeling a bit better. A gentle bit of retail therapy works wonders and if this Lockdown is teaching us anything, it’s that we need to take our time. Dinner was plain fare. Just spaghetti with a tomato sauce.

Today I made the decision to abandon the list and paint or draw something that interests me for a change. There are only a few days left in the list anyway and about fifty percent of these lists are just copied from the previous year, so I wasn’t missing much. Today I chose a walk we did on the bridlepaths around Baldock with JIC and Sim many years ago. It’s from a photo and dates from 2013. I remember that day well. I painted it in watercolour on watercolour paper that Scamp gave me for Christmas. This the first thing I’ve completed using it and it’s much nicer to paint on than the sketch book I’ve been using.

Don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow. It rather depends on the weather and how Scamp is feeling.

Demolition Man – 19 June 2020

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Yesterday I was a joiner. Today I was a demolition expert.

I have a certain expertise in destroying things, but mostly it’s an accidental destruction. Today it was planned. Scamp and I had discussed removing the old clothes pole from the corner of the garden. It isn’t used much and it makes access to that corner of the garden difficult. Today she suggested that we might need to reorganise the garden and with that in mind, it would be a good idea to remove the clothes pole. I’d been expecting this and really didn’t think I was up to breaking up the great block of concrete that’s been holding it (nearly) vertical for the last thirty odd years. It was different when I was working and had access to a sledge hammer. I didn’t think the claw hammer and mole grips would be up to the job. What I did have as a nearly new hacksaw and a pack of blades. What if we just simply cut the pole down at or near ground level? Sounded like a plan, so I set to it there and then before I got to the what if’s. Cut halfway through the pole which was hollow, of course and released a flood of water, some of which was about thirty years old! You could actually see it squinting as it emerged into the sunlight. The second half should be a lot easier, but I didn’t want to cut that last five millimetres and have to shout TIMBER! so I hammered a couple of staples into the fence and tied it off to them to stop it falling. Just as I predicted, the second half was much easier than the first and with a new blade in the say, we made short work of the pole which is now having a wee lie down in the garden until we can cart it off to the skips. That corner looks so different now! With the demolition done, it was time for lunch and I felt I’d earned it.

After lunch, Scamp went for a walk round Broadwood and I settled fairly comfortably in the back room, put my feet up and proceeded to draw them, because today’s prompt said Draw Your Feet (with or without socks). I chose naked feet and that rough sketch made SoD.

PoD was found in St Mo’s because once Scamp had returned from her walk, I went over to walk round the pond and grab some macro action. What I found was a Wolf Spider and that was PoD.

Dinner tonight was two of the best pizzas I’ve made in a long time. Tuna ’n’ Sweetcorn for Scamp and Anchovy ’n’ Olive for me. Both made with well proved pizza dough and marinara sauce. Very nice. Just for the record, 20 mins at gas mark 9 on the pizza stone covered with semolina.

Rained heavily tonight, so no need to water the garden. Thunder storms predicted for during the night. If we have a decent day tomorrow we may go somewhere in direct contravention of Nick the Chick’s five mile mandate.

Joiner – 18 June 2020

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Text this morning from Shona looking for a bit more security work in the flat.

It seems that Ben has been playing in the bathroom and splashing water everywhere, so much so that it was dripping through the ceiling of the flat below.  Could I fit a hasp or a bolt to stop him getting in?  Would it be possible to have some form of lock?I went to have a look and it was a fairly easy job to fit a slip bolt.  The other option was to put on a hasp and staple.  That would be more difficult, but would allow a padlock to be fitted to secure the door more effectively.  Drove up to B&Q and walked straight in.  Almost no queue.  Hooray, things must have calmed down.  Got what I wanted and joined the long queue to pay.  It was well policed and the queue went down quickly.  Walked out and saw that there was indeed a queue now.  In the twenty minutes or so I’d been in the store, the queue had grown from 0 to about 300m long.  It pays to shop early, it seems.  Back at the flat, I got the door secured in about fifteen minutes.  Back home in time for lunch.  My only fear now is that with Ben being almost a teenager, he’ll be strong enough to pull the hasp off the door and I’ll be back fitting a lock with big bolts holding it in place!

After lunch, despite parts 2 & 3 of my Amazon delivery arriving,  a black monkey appeared on my shoulder and I couldn’t shake it.  It might have been partly due to Nick the Chick’s latest pronouncements about entering phase 2 of The Release.  It appears that we are still expected to travel no further than 5 miles for leisure and exercise.  She also said that outdoor outdoor markets, playgrounds and sports facilities will reopen on 29th June, along with some visitor attractions such as zoos – although visitors should still not travel more than five miles from their homes to visit them!  Do the people who make the rules even talk to one another?  Does anyone know of a zoo that is within five miles of Cumbersheugh (Carbrain doesn’t count, because it is part of Cumbersheugh).

Scamp suggested a walk and that was probably what what managed to shift the black monkey.  It’s a long time since I’ve had one and I hope it’s a long time before one returns.  Spoke to Lynn D and her husband when we were out and we both bemoaned the missing overseas holidays this year.  We should have been off next week to the Mediterranean on a cruise ship and she should have been jetting off to the Canaries the week after.  Hopefully the weather will stay warm and sunny at home and we’ll get to go to Scotland this year (if we’re allowed to extend that five mile rule).  No photos taken on the walk, but it contributed a great deal to the 10,000 steps I’ve just recorded.

Sat with a beer in the garden when we came back and took a few shots of the flowers.  Favourite was the seeding Geum with it’s chaotic tendrils.  I made it PoD and called it Boris!  I don’t know why.  Second place went to a macro of a Lupin flower.  Both will be accessible on Flickr after I post this. Sketch today was Something Sweet.  I chose some Rowntrees Pastilles.  Much more difficult to draw than I thought.  The light was fading when I was sketching them, so I took a photo and sent it to my tablet, then drew it from the image on that.  Cheating slightly, but it worked for me.

Tomorrow we have no deliveries, so hopefully we can go out somewhere 4.99999miles away.

Brighter Later – 16 June 2020

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A dull start to the day with this week’s white cloud hanging over us.

Spent the morning spending money on Amazon. Nothing specific, but lots of little things that all mounted up, then there’s the inevitable delivery costs for the items that aren’t covered by the free delivery con. Eventually we agreed that it was worthwhile taking on another month or two of Prime. I just have to put a reminder in my calendar to make sure I cancel it when we’re finished spending!

After lunch I took the Oly E-M1 with the new lens and went for a walk in St Mo’s. Lovely warm weather much nicer than it had been in the morning because that white cloud had burned off. The new lens worked much better today with decent light. Still not that fast to focus, but the results are worth the small inconvenience. Lots of damselflies round the wee pond by the boardwalk. One dragonfly that was cruising round and round, either looking for a likely mate or for some tasty morsel for lunch. Saw a fairly large grasshopper sunning itself on the edge of the boardwalk and got a few closeup shots of it. One of those got PoD.

Back home we sat in the garden for a while before Scamp went in to start tonight’s dinner. We’d pulled some rhubarb earlier in the day and she was making a rhubarb pie for pudding. I’d asked for macaroni ’n’ cheese for dinner and that’s what we were having. It was delicious and served with tomato ketchup. Scamp of course had brown sauce. Rhubarb pie was just excellent. Her shortcrust pastry was just perfect.

The Lockdown Library topic for today was Something You Have Made. I’ve made a lot of things, mainly mischief, but one of the things I’m most proud of is my waistcoat. Complete with dummy pockets, lining, button holes and buttons. I made it all. It was a bit of a trial at times with a whole new language to learn. Interfacing, darts and basting, but it was worth the effort. The first ‘rough’ turned out really good and by comparison it’s better than the ‘finished’ sketch. That’s often the way, but I’d used it as an experiment to find out what medium worked best for the yellow check, and it wasn’t fit to be shown. The final painting is ok, but not much better than that.

Tomorrow we have no plans, but we’ve a Tesco delivery scheduled for between 5pm and 6pm. Chance of rain and thunderstorms during the night and again tomorrow afternoon. If the rain doesn’t come we might need to water the garden.

Another toy off another rack – 15 June 2020

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Parcel delivered first thing this morning. The lens looked perfect

Stuck the lens on the E-M1 and took a few experimental shots. It seemed to be fine, thank goodness. Unfortunately the day was very dull with hardly any shadows to give shape to potential subjects. However, I took it out to St Mo’s to see what was worth photographing. The place that had been overrun by dog walkers and families out exercising over the past few months was decidedly lacking in visitors. The reason soon became clear. A crowd of between twenty and thirty nutters who should really have been in school were roaring and shouting their collective heads off in the woods. Now, Nick the Chick had just been pontificating on TV, telling everyone that schools would be very different after August and how the pupils and parents would need be prepared for a “blended” approach involving face-to-face teaching and at-home learning. I don’t know how they are going to wean these teenage drunks off the booze long enough to get them in to the schools. However, that’s their problem, thankfully. Mine was just getting past them and on my way.

Walked on to the place where I found the Flag Irises the other day and gave the new lens a good try out. Results weren’t earth shattering, mainly because of the lack of directional light. I’ll give the new lens another test later in the week, hopefully. An abstract looking Iris got PoD.

Dinner tonight was Spaghetti with smoked salmon and lemon. It was deemed to be OK, but nothing exceptional.

Spoke to JIC later in the evening and heard how his studying was going and also his phased return to work. We are so lucky and thankful that we don’t have to go back to work. I realise it will be difficult for school pupils, but for workers too it will be a hard slog for the first few weeks, returning to try to pick up where they left off, especially with summer just round the corner.

Sketch today was a really rough representation of My Favourite Tool. I could have drawn many things for that, but decided to err on the side of safety and chose my Oly E-M1 camera. Sketch is on Instagram.

No real plans for tomorrow. May go out somewhere.

We went shopping – 13 June 2020

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We even travelled further than the statutory five miles, but don’t broadcast that.

It was a dull old morning with milk white skies the glowered over us. The hills were shrouded in the stuff, so the only thing to do was go out, and that’s what we did. But first the coffee machine had to be warmed up to dispense some Sumatran joy! A sudoku had to be started and some mind bending puzzles had to be completed on a new tablet. A big tablet with thousands of colours and big icons that deafened the eyes with their brightness. Scamp was getting used to her new toy. Me? I was wondering if I should get myself a new tablet too. My ‘new’ tablet is six years old now, stuffed to the gunwales with games and rubbish. I still use it because it has a lovely screen, but it’s getting slow, you can’t update the OS and, well, Scamp’s got a new tablet and it’s better than mine. Couldn’t quite square the ‘want’ with the ‘need’, so it ended up in abeyance … for now.

After coffee and puzzles, came lunch which was scrambled egg with smoked salmon on toast. Another cup of coffee for me and a white tea for Scamp then the decision – where to go. We settled on Kilsyth for a bottle of Hortus Gin from Lidl, some veg, some chicken breasts, pastries to go with another coffee, milk, chocolate raisins and beer, but mainly Hortus Gin! Scamp had wanted to go to the Kilsyth fish shop, but Lidl managed to supply enough fish to satisfy her. Dinner was discussed, but we settled on eating out of the freezer. Chicken Tikka curry with a starter of cauliflower pakora and fish pakora. Never made fish pakora before, but it turned out to be quite simple.

Before the dinner could be begun, there were photos to be taken. Walked over to St Mo’s then followed the path behind the school and found a great mound of Flag Irises growing there (I checked and Irises is the plural of Iris, just so you know). Managed to get a few shots of bees bums as they plundered the flowers, but the almost symmetrical yellow bloom got PoD.

Back home, dinner went well. I made the starter and Scamp did the main. Shared the washing up. The gin was just as good as I remembered it and just about the same price too. I commend it to you. Sketch today was “A Tree, A Branch or A Leaf”. I was late getting round to starting it and it ended up being a trio of of bramble leaves in autumn regalia. At least I think that’s what it will be. It’s still drying as I write this and won’t be posted until tomorrow, hopefully. In the intervening twelve hours or so the situation may change. Like the very wet watercolour, it’s a bit fluid!

Tomorrow we have no plans, but if it’s dry it may be a walk or it may be cycling. At present it’s still a mystery!

The Fish Supper – 6 June 2020

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Isn’t it funny that sometimes the most basic of food, like a fish supper from a chip shop is the best thing in the whole wide world?

I suppose it’s the old folk’s version of a McDonald’s. It’s comfort food. In these days of reduced choice when we are all having to cook our own food, it’s the basic food we crave. It’s the food that takes us back to our childhood. For me it was a treat on a Saturday night to have a fish supper. Preferably bought at the chip shop and eaten on the hoof on the way home. Just brilliant. Later it was pizza that caught our eyes, but a fish supper is hard to beat. Must have lashings of vinegar and salt and then, if you’re feeling flush, a couple of pickled onions. Or for the really adventurous, a jar of mussels. Unfortunately the latter are now off the menu for me. Such a pity

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The day started earlier when we woke around 9am leaving me a decadent hour in bed to read part of the first chapter of Spook Street by Mick Herron book four in a six part series/serial. Finally dragged myself out of bed and out of Millennium London about 10.30am for coffee and Sudoku in that order.

Scamp wanted to go for a walk today and the day seemed very promising with blue sky and white clouds. Just the occasional sprinkle of rain to hold us in check. Finally we went out to Condorrat to find out when the chip shop opened and if we needed to phone an order first. It turned out that there was no desperate need to phone an order, so with that knowledge, we headed for Broadwood and the ‘exercise path’. In other words, the walk past the exercise machines. It was indeed a beautiful day and no sign of the rain that had been threatening. Took a few photos on the way, but didn’t really rate any of them.

Back home, I got changed into cycling gear and took the Dewdrop out for a test run. It behaved very well. I think there’s a slight issue with the front disk break, it may not be seated perfectly, but it’s nothing to worry about. The virtually new wheel is perfect.

Came home and the sun was still shining, so opened a can of Guinness and sat with Scamp in the garden discussing what needed to be done now that the first flush of flowers is over. Planning over a glass of stout is the best way to do it. Actually putting it into practice is probably another story … for another day.

Got changed and walked over to Condorrat again, this time with cash in our pockets. This must be the first time I’ve used cash in over a month! The fish supper surpassed my expectations. You may think this is just hyperbole, but believe me, food cooked for you outside your own house is a luxury these days.

A close-up picture of a lupin made PoD and I accidentally, on purpose forgot to do the required sketch. I’ll play catch-up tomorrow.

Tomorrow is not to be as good as today, but we’ll take what we get and say ‘thank you’.

Domain disaster averted – 5 June 2020

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You’re lucky to be reading this!

It all started with an email this morning telling me that my domain name (the bit that starts ‘dhcampbell’) had expired and if I didn’t do something about it, i.e. pay them money, I’d lose the website. Well, that was a nice thing to read on a Saturday morning. I checked the address the email had come from and it was genuine, so I tried to contact my domain name provider, but couldn’t find an email address for them on their site. I did find a ‘chat’ box, but that timed out after a few minutes. After waiting for 20mins on the phone to them, I gave up on that too. Long story short, I eventually found that I could log a return call from them and did that. Had lunch and then Scamp and I went out for a walk. A very quiet walk on my part. Came home and checked for a reply, but there were none. Then I found a message to the effect that the message that started it all off was not about my domain at all, it was about a site they’d held for me “as a goodwill gesture”! It would have possibly have been an good idea to tell me that some time in the last year. I got the phone call from the help line exactly on time and the person on the other end confirmed what it said on the message. A message that had only been posted at 3.08pm today. I think I now know why. I’m guessing their switchboard was jammed with irate callers wanting to know what the hell they were doing. I may be looking for another domain name provider soon.

Our walk in the afternoon was round St Mo’s pond and then Scamp told me she was going to go to the butchers to get me a steak for dinner and I was to walk round the pond again and get some photos. There was nothing really worth photographing today, but I went anyway. It was only on the way home I found today’s PoD when a bee landed on the Marguerite flower I was photographing and made it much more interesting.

Scamp potted up her new rose today and it does look very elegant. Beautiful big pink flowers and what a perfume. I think she likes it!

Steak was very nice. Just on the over side of medium rare. Juicy and just what I needed to calm down.

Quick sketch today of two garlic bulbs. Couldn’t find anything I wanted to draw, so I reverted to another list. An old EDiM list this time. Looks much better than the 2020 list, although it was written at a time ago when we were free, there were shops, great metal birds flew in the sky and every year we were allowed to go on holiday. Seems like a long time ago, doesn’t it.

Tomorrow looks a bit warmer and calmer than today. It was a bit breezy!