Category: A Walk

Problems solved – 27 August 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Boxes ticked.

Last night after I posted the blog I’d one thing still to do. I needed to print off and sign a document to send to the garage to register my new car. The printer refused to connect. Aha, the printer, being a WiFi printer needs to be connected to the new modem. Easy, or so I thought. An hour later, much later than I intended, I climbed the stairs to my bed with the document unprinted and unsigned and a printer still refusing to connect to the modem. In that hour I’d deleted the printer driver, downloaded a fresh shiny new one from the Epson site and run the program to install the printer. I’d done it three times and each time it failed to gain access to the modem at the same point in the installation sequence. I finally resorted to connecting using the WPS button on the modem. I’d used this before on the old modem with limited success, in other words, sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. Tonight it seemed to work until I tried to print, then was back to the start again. No Printer Found. Frustrated I climbed the wooden mountain. Tomorrow would be a better day, wouldn’t it?

Woke at 7am with that sinking feeling that I’d have to go through that bloody setup again. Later when we were both up and the day had started, Scamp said “Let me try.” I tried to explain that the connection had nothing to do with PCs or Macs, but had everything to do with that bloody new Virgin Media modem. I barely got started when I heard the printer give that ‘beep’ that heralds the output of a printed sheet. Yes, her HP, Windows 10 laptop printed no problem. I tried my iMac and it printed too, so did my old MacBook Pro. The connection had been made. What had happened during the night? I reckon the Good Fairy came in through the keyhole, waved her magic wand and said “You shall print again little Epson 2600.” Well, that’s as good an explanation as any I can provide. Box Ticked.

Printed the document, signed it, scanned it to a PDF and sent the resulting document off to the garage. Box Ticked.

Next task was to sort out the insurance for the new car. Tell me this. If I want to swap the insurance over from the Red Juke to the new car, why does it cost me more money? The insurance for the new car is considerably less than for the Juke. Shouldn’t they be giving me money? Silly question. It’s insurance. They take money, they don’t ever give you money back! Never mind, Box Ticked.

Three boxes ticked in 30 minutes. Time for a coffee.

We were off to Larky today. Scamp was going to get her eyes tested for new contact lenses and I was going to take some photos. It was bucketing down. Never mind, I’ve taken lots of photos in the rain and of the rain itself sometimes. Today would be fine. I dropped Scamp off and drove down to Millheugh which used to be a salmon fishing river on the banks of the Avon Water. My, my those old salmon fishers would have a hard time recognising Millheugh now, especially the river with its clumsy salmon ladder that had to be rebuilt because the old one got swept away. Today the Avon was high. I’ve seen it higher, but not for a long time. I spoke to a trio of hardy fishers who were hoping to net a salmon in the heavy spate, but without much success it seemed. They were complaining about the salmon ladder too because it had changed the entire flow of water in the river, denying them the deep pools where the big fish used to lie and extending sandbanks where there were none before. I left them to it and took some photos, about 70 of them. The one I liked best was the run off from the lade (mill race) and that became PoD.

Picked up Scamp and found that she may need a hospital visit for a second opinion on her eyes. Nothing serious, just checking. I think she’s been looking at things too much, especially gin bottles, two of which arrived today, much to our amazement after all the emails and Facebook posts. Their seals remain unbroken.

Another Line Of Duty tonight and we’re back in the “I don’t remember this one” territory. So many twists and turns.

Tomorrow we have business to attend to in the morning, but hopefully the afternoon will be dry and free for a wee run somewhere.

The calm after the storm – 26 August 2020

Posted on by Zogman

After another windy and wet night, today dawned (well, 9am is nearly dawn) calm if a little wet.

Yesterday Val had given me a wee sample of Cuban coffee. Just Cuban, not the Cuba Taraquin that I usually buy in Perth. I tried his coffee this morning and it was more bitter than mine and a bit thinner too. Still, really good of him to make the effort. Just what I’d expect from a good friend like Val.

After coffee and a first try at today’s Sudoku Scamp went for a walk down to the shops for the essentials which for once will not include gin. Speaking of gin is not a good thing to talk about in this house. Scamp had ordered gin from the Isle of Barra Distillers. She ordered it about 23 days ago with a promised delivery time of 7 to 10 days, and it’s still not found its way to Cumbersheugh. So this is just a warning. If you’re thinking of ordering some Isle of Barra gin for Christmas, you’re probably too late already. You should have ordered it in February … 2019.

While she fumed, I went upstairs and added the ink lines to the architectural painting I’ve been working on and then added the first of the washes. It looks ok. I won’t go any further than ok at present, but it’s better than I thought it might be.

With some better light appearing I took the Oly out for a walk in St Mo’s. Lots of dragonflies out and all of them skittish. Landing for a few seconds then off again, constantly circling the wee pond then landing on the boardwalk kerbs, probably to warm up from the reflected sunlight before their next sortie.  PoD was a close-up of a wolf spider.  It is a spider, but at first glance it looks more like an octopus!

After dinner we watched another episode of Line of Duty (soon to be abbreviated to LoD) and I’m sure we hadn’t seen that one before. Then I watched Blood of the Clans which is a fairly interesting dramatisation of Scottish history presented by Neil Oliver as he tosses his hair in the wind and walks off camera stage right. I don’t really like him, but some of his one-liners in this show are worth watching it for. Interesting to see how what we think of as modern political machinations are just variations on a theme that’s been running for centuries. Double dealing and backing both sided didn’t start in the 1980s after all.

 

More rain predicted for tomorrow. We’re intending to drive to Larky because Scamp needs her eyes tested. I might go for a walk down the glen.

Take the time to take a walk – 23 August 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Even in the rain.

We were denied our walk yesterday because of the crowds at Coatbridge, but today we were on home turf and we were determined to get out for a walk. We set out to walk around our Broadwood route, then the rain came on and we thought we might have to revert to a walk as far as the shops, but we held fast and continued the walk. It did rain a lot, light at first and then heavier, but we got round the route with only damp jackets, not soaked to the skin. Dropped in at M&S for a chicken, and some veg for tonight’s dinner. Walked back up the road to have lunch.

After lunch I stitched up two masks, one for Scamp and one for Shona. Shona’s was fairly easy to make and was based on the one Lucy made for Scamp and me. Scamp’s one was the basic one from a pattern Hazy gave me and was a nightmare to stitch today. Elastic slipped out of the stitches, thread broke in the middle of stitching a straight part and pleats slipped out when I was stitching them, but now they are done and I’m relatively happy with them.

Later I took a camera for a walk in St Mo’s because I’d got nothing on this morning’s walk. I managed to slide down a steep muddy bank on my hands and knees. Thankfully nobody was there to see me and I managed to clean my hands and remove most of the muck from my jeans with some wet grass. How are the mighty fallen! I did get two photos that were worth the walk, and the indignity. PoD went to a low level shot of a buttercup on the boardwalk. It was a close thing, because the next best was a tiny hoverfly sheltering beneath a grass stem.

Dinner tonight was the chicken we got in the morning, served with roasted veg. Then Scamp suggested she’d make a fruit crumble with some of the frozen fruit I’m putting into my porridge in the morning. I had to tell her that I’d planned on making that for tomorrow’s pudding. Annoyed, but Scamp’s version would always trump mine for taste, texture and just about everything else.

The rain continued on and off all evening but there was a lovely golden sunset after all that wet stuff.

Tomorrow Scamp is intending going for coffee with Isobel and whoever else turns up!

Nothing to do, Nowhere to go – 22 August 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Just one of those days.

Would we go out? Would we stay in? If we’re going out, then where? Eventually Scamp suggested we go to Drumpellier for a walk. We tried, but the car park was full again and there were folk everywhere. Not exactly what we were looking for. Instead of a walk, we turned around and drove through Easterhouse to The Fort. A lot had changed in Easterhouse since the last time we’d been there. Lots more housed, but still some vacant lots. Lots of new schools too. Still the same mentality though. One woman driving her Merc on the wrong side of the road, just to get into a parking space before me. I’d no intention of parking there, but still she looked ready to fight for that space. You couldn’t have got a Smart car in that space, let alone a Mercedes. The mentality definitely hadn’t changed.

The Fort was almost as busy as Drumpellier, but we did eventually find a space. I joined the queue for Hobbycraft and bought a roll of Craft Paper which we used to call Brown Paper or Wrapping Paper, 50 A2 sheets of cartridge paper and a bag of chocolate buttons. There’s probably a reason why they sell chocolate buttons in a craft shop, but I can’t quite put my finger on it at this moment. We drove home.

Back home, I grabbed two cameras and went for a walk in St Mo’s. Got a few photos using the really old E-PL5 and a fisheye lens. One of them got PoD. Quite liked the ultra wide angle effect.

Dinner was fried potatoes and tomatoes with fish fingers for Scamp and a beef burger for me. Both washed down with a glass of wine. Speaking of wine, we got our £24 box of wine from Naked Wine today. A box of six bottles for £24 is not to be sniffed at. We’ll maybe try the first bottle tomorrow, all things being equal. I don’t expect the next six bottles will be quite so inexpensive, but we’ll see what the quality is like.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go for a walk somewhere more interesting than The Fort, and also more interesting than a jam packed Drumpellier.

The Explorer – 20 August 2020

Posted on by Zogman

It’s all about the Views and the Faves and the Comments.

Hazy phoned this morning and if she hadn’t I’d have struggled on with Angry Birds until the phone’s battery died. Caught up with everything that was going on down London way and picked up directions to what sounds like an interesting restaurant in Kingston. Hope the rest of your plans don’t get washed away in Friday’s rain Hazy. Enjoyed the chat and I’ll put the Utopia Avenue back on my ‘possibles’ list.

Do you remember Tuesday’s PoD? I won’t be disappointed if you’ve to rack your brains and then can’t find anything remarkable about it. It was a six frame panorama of Broadwood Loch, which in itself is a totally forgettable manmade loch. Just a big pond really, bounded on one side by a ring road and on the other side by the march of power line pylons. It’s got a ‘business park on its east end, although it looks like business isn’t really booming and on it’s west end is a car park. The least said about it the better. However, if you choose your viewpoint well to disguise the ring road, have the business park behind you and limit your view to avoid the car park and the pylons, it appear that you can take a decent landscape photo that wins a remarkable number of view and faves (favourites) with the bonus of the occasional comment. Today I woke to find that overnight I’d amassed just over 5,000 views, around 250 faves and 8 comments on Flickr. This is almost unheard of for me. On a good day I get about 50 views, half a dozen faves and the occasional comment. The reason for this interest is because some time over the last 24 hours the picture was featured in Explore which is Flickr’s much sought after ‘gold award’. Why it won this accolade and who awarded it is a secret, only known to those in the high echelons of Flickr. Whoever you are, I thank you.

After that, the rest of the day was bound to be a let down, wasn’t it? Well, not all of it. The weather that had been trying to make up its mind whether to rain or shine, settled on Shine. I’ve two old tablets that I occasionally use one, the Nexus 7 is ready to be sent to a place where old tablets go. It was groundbreaking in 2012, but now it’s just ready for breaking. The other is still running. It’s a Samsung Note 10.1 and in 2014 it was an expensive but decent machine. Now it’s sloooow. Too slow to do anything other than draw with. It has its own dedicated pen and the processor is fast enough to keep it working, but the OS is slowing it down. I could downgrade it, but that’s a pain. For less than half what I paid for it back then, I can get a faster, lighter tablet with twice the memory. That’s what I did this afternoon. Drove to Sunny Coatbridge to get a new 10.1, unfortunately without the pen. It’s a lot faster than the 2014 model and the screen is just as detailed.

With it charging, I went for a walk to St Mo’s and got almost nothing. The one shot I liked was of a mummy Coot feeding one of the baby coots. This must be the second brood she’s had because the first lot arrived around the same time as Covid-19 did, not that I’m blaming the coots for that.

Dinner was a new version of Spaghetti a la Carbonara, made without cream. Using cheddar cheese instead of parmesan and with peas. Our peas. The second flush of peas and they tasted ok. Jury is still out on the Carbonara. Scamp thought it was good, I wasn’t so sure. Like yesterday’s curry, it’s worth trying again.

The final count as I write this blog is   6,620 views  276 faves  8 comments.

Looks like wind and rain for all of us tomorrow, so it’s definitely a ‘wait and see’ day.

Bits and pieces – 19 August 2020

Posted on by Zogman

A day of bits.

Lots of bits, all bolted, glued and welded together to form a cohesive day. It all went wrong when I made a list of all the things I wanted to do today. I did actually do all those things, but the idea was that I’d sacrifice the morning to those tasks and that would leave the afternoon free to paint or draw. Burns got it right again “The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley”

First, get my thoughts down in Goodreads about “Flowers for Algernon”. Did you notice the link there? Algernon is a mouse and the Burns quote above was from “To A Mouse.” See, there’s a lot of thought goes into this. Anyway, the write up took minutes and that was a tick in one box. Next on the list was find the big thick graphic stick I needed to add texture and shadows to the sketch I was going to do. I’d looked everywhere last night and hoped I’d just put my hand on it today in the light. Gave up eventually and ordered a new one from Amazon. Five minutes later I found the graphic stick. It was in a box in the bedroom. Don’t you hate when that happens. Next was to solve today’s sudoku. It was impossible. I gave up after half an hour. Went in to the garden to prune my buddleia bush. Then Scamp and I proceeded to chop down the original buddleia bush that had only flowered once or twice and then in the autumn once all the butterflies that it’s supposed to attract had gone. It was a tough bush. It needed the combined efforts of a hacksaw, an axe and finally a full size panel saw, but it did come out of its pot eventually.

I should have been painting after lunch, but instead I took myself, my camera bag and my Benbo tripod off to walk along the Luggie Water. I’d forgotten to add ‘Take a photo’ to my morning list of things to do and it would only take a few minutes. The minutes somehow joined together to make an hour and a half, but I got the photo. The PoD is the railway bridge over the Luggie. Not a flower and not a beastie, but a landscape and an architectural picture for a change.

Back home I had a look a the the resulting photos and after some work, posted two on Flickr and found that it was now dinner time. Scamp made a really interesting veg curry and had baked a cake with chunks of pear in it. Quite heavy and moist, but beautiful cinnamon flavour. She’d also found time to cut the front grass. Makes me look like the lazy person I am. The painting never got done, nor did the sketch. Maybe tomorrow, or maybe I’ll get Scamp to do them. That way they’ll get done.

Tomorrow is to be wild with heavy rain and strong winds, and more of the same on Friday. Well, it is summer and it is Scotland

Making the jump to Lightspeed – 18 August 2020

Posted on by Zogman

New modem today. A little prezzy from Mr Branson

It was a lady from Yodel who handed Scamp the box just before lunch. Over lunch I digested the instructions as well as bacon and an egg. It seemed too easy. Switch off and disconnect the old modem. Connect, plug in and switch on the new one. They even supplied a plastic spanner for the disconnection/connection. Then we waited as little coloured lights flashed across the front of the new black box. Finally they settled down to a plain white (on light) and a couple of green lights. After that and after typing in the long password we were in!

Before the switch over the stats were:

Latency 24ms. Download speed 66.4Mbps. Upload speed 9.8Mbps

After the switch over:

Latency 30ms. Download speed 104.6Mbps. Upload speed 9.6Mbps

Yes, it’s all gobbledegook to me too, but the download speed was over what we’d been promised, so a 6ms lag in response was forgivable … for now.

With everything ticking along smoothly and both our phones now connected to the new black box we went out for a walk. Just to be on the safe side we both packed a light wet weather jacket, because heavy rain was forecast for the later afternoon. We needn’t have bothered, the rain kindly waited until we’d walked round the boardwalk at Broadwood Loch, walked over the dam, continued down and round the exercise machine circuit (no, we didn’t use any of the machines) and on up to the shops to get some fruit, then home. It was after all that, that the rain came. Lightly at first, then heavier until it was good wetting rain. Scamp had decided not to risk cutting the grass when we got home and I’m sure she knows it was the right thing to do. It means she’ll be out there tomorrow testing the grass to see if it’s dry enough for a short cut.

We spent the evening introducing the various electronic devices in the house to the new black box in the corner. Still got some to do, but it’s all a lot easier than when I brought a little bit of circuit board home one Sunday afternoon long ago, plugged it into the back of my home built PC and found the Internet.

PoD was a panorama of Broadwood Loch made in Lightroom from six frames and with a more interesting sky than nature provided today. That’s what software is for. Ansel Adams reputedly said that “Making a photograph only starts with the camera.” A wise man.

Tomorrow Scamp may be grass cutting. I’m thinking I may be painting. All that may change, of course. It will depend on the weather.

Silencing the alarms – 17 August 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp was out for coffee this afternoon with the core of ‘Gems’. The ‘old guard’ so to speak, although I’d never call them that to their faces.

In the morning we watched and waited for the sun to break through the clouds, but we knew in our heart of hearts that it was never going to happen, but that didn’t stop us watching and waiting some more. We finally gave up and had lunch.

After lunch, Scamp drove off to collect Margie for their coffee afternoon with June. I had great plans to watch and listen to a bit of my new tutorial course on architectural sketching, but first I had to find out what type of battery our CO2 and smoke detectors used. They had been cheeping once or twice a day for about a week, but now they were becoming insistent, beep every hour. Then I’d to wrap up the belated birthday parcel for JIC and post it. The alarms were starting to grate on my nerves, so they were the first to deal with. The smoke alarm was the easiest. It took two AAA batteries and was fixed in a couple of minutes. The CO2 detector took a different battery of course, the only one of the common batteries we didn’t have, the 9v one. I’d get one after I posted the parcel. So, next I dealt with the parcel. With it safely addressed and sealed I walked out into what was now a dreary drizzle, stuck my big clumsy bluetooth headphones and was serenaded all the way to the post office. The architectural sketching would have to wait.

Got the parcel posted and was heading to the Spar shop to get the battery when I saw the little green island in the pavement. Here was my PoD. I called it ‘Island in the Sun’ as it wasn’t an island really and there wasn’t any sun, but at first glance it looked to me like a green tropical island in a rather murky sea. Maybe it was wishful thinking. Got the battery and walked home in a downpour, still being serenaded by Spotify’s Discover Weekly. When I got back, Scamp had returned from her coffee afternoon and seemed to have enjoyed it as much as my visit wit Val, last week. Fixed the CO2 detector and it’s now quietly flashing away every hour or so. Silent at last.

Watched the final episode of series 1 of Line of Duty and I still haven’t watched and listened to the sketching video. Maybe tomorrow.

Tomorrow we may get a new modem delivered. Otherwise no real plans.

Happy Birthday JIC – 16 August 2020

Posted on by Zogman

I’m glad you got more sunshine than we did for your birthday.

This Sunday started dull, as so many other days have started recently. We had high hopes around midday when there was a fair glimmer of sunshine, but it didn’t last.

After lunch I made some bread. Unusually for me I made the dough by hand. Usually I bung everything into the mixer bowl and get the ‘Chef’ to do the hard work, all I do is adjust the water or flour proportions until it looks right. Today I did all the work and I really enjoyed it. Next on the food theme was a couple of burgers. I mixed 250g of steak mince with half an onion blitzed in the mini food processor, a small handful of breadcrumbs and half an egg to bind the lot together. Split the resulting mixture into two and made patties out of them. One went in the fridge to firm up, the other went in the freezer for a rainy day.

Hazy sent me a message to say that Amazon had reduced the price of all the books in the Slough House series by Mick Herron. I’d read and enjoyed the first four books, so here was a chance to get the last two for a quid each. Thank you very much Hazy! Two more books in the Kindle ready to read.

We finally gave up hope of a sunny afternoon around 3pm and went for a walk round St Mo’s pond with our rain coats on, just incase the wet stuff descended on us. It didn’t which made the walk a little more pleasant.

My friendly dragonfly posed for me on the boardwalk at St Mo’s. He didn’t make PoD because I guess everyone is fed up with so many macros of dragonflies and damselflies. Instead I chose a still life type shot of a little yellow leaf hanging on a grass stem. Very zen.

Dinner was new potatoes and roasted tomatoes with our choice of protein. Mine being beef burger, Scamp’s being salmon. Both were deemed fine. Washed down with the remains of yesterday’s white wine.

Spoke to JIC later on his birthday and promised him that the card is in the post and a small prezzy will be winging its way to him when I get myself in gear.

That’s about it for now. Scamp is booked for coffee tomorrow with Gems and I might start to watch a painting video I got yesterday.

Took the bike out – 15 August 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Went for a walk in the afternoon, hoping against hope for some sun.

It worked! The sun arrived and blue sky reigned for a while, then the wind got a bit more fierce and blew all the warmth away. It was lovely to look out at, but not so nice to be in it. We went for a walk before the wind arrived. A long walk, to post a card that won’t be picked up until Monday and will probably be delivered before the end of the week, for a birthday that’s tomorrow. Just all at sixes and sevens these days. Normal for me, but a bit unusual for Scamp. Sorry JIC!

With the card safely in the big round red box, we walked down to the shops to get what was needed for today’s dinner. Back home I couldn’t decide what to do with the rest of the day and finally got the track pump out and inflated the Dewdrop’s tyres, dressed appropriately and took it out for a spin. Not a long run, just enough to blow away the cobwebs from me and the bike. Got today’s PoD which is a bunch of early brambles. Only one of them is ripe, but it’s early days yet. We need lots more sun and a little drop more rain. We’ll probably get those two necessities, except the quantities will be reversed. It was pleasantly warm as long as you were out of the wind. Otherwise it was a bit chilly for August.

Tonight’s dinner was Cod and Prawns with Fennel and White Wine. Sounds very posh, but it’s really easy to make. Well within my capabilities.

That’s about it for today. Tomorrow is still a mystery. No plans.