Category: A Walk

Crossing Paths – 11 July 2019

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Today I was going for coffee with Fred and Val at 12.30. Colin was otherwise engaged.  Scamp was going for coffee with Annette at 1.30.  Inevitably our paths would cross.

Since we were both going to the same place at about the same time I offered Scamp a lift because her Wee Red Car needed two new back tyres.  That was also on the list of Things To Do today.  While she went off to window shop, I went to meet the boys.  As usual we had a wide ranging, free and frank discussion of topical matters.  That and a book exchange.  Found out from Val that John Walsh had died and his funeral had been yesterday.  Such a funny guy, John.  He gave me a lot of pointers when I was trying to be an author, away back in the late ’80s.  I never did sell anything, but it was good fun trying.

We were just getting ready to leave when Scamp and Annette arrived, so that put, as they say, ‘The tin lid on things’.  We left them to their toasted teacakes.  Val and Fred headed for home via Tesco and I went straight home to get Scamp’s car and drive down to the Village where I was lucky enough to arrive at a quiet time and got to be next in  the queue.  Took my camera away with me and went for a walk around Cumbernauld Old Church.  I really like this building and it has a very interesting history.  Just search for Cumbernauld Old Church on Google and be amazed at the history right on our doorstep.  I took some photos, but even the 14mm lens wasn’t wide enough to get it all in, so I had to resort to the tried and tested method of taking a bundle of shots and reassembling them in Lightroom.  Wandered back and found the mechanic just tightening up the wheel nuts on the Wee Red Car.  Parted with the £80 for the two tyres and was on my way after about 40 minutes from arriving.  Drove home and was walking down to  the house when Scamp appeared from round the corner.  “Inevitably our paths would cross”!

Switched cars and took the Red Juke out for a run up to Fannyside to look for dragonflies.  Didn’t find any, but it’s early days yet.  I just thought that the warm, clammy weather would have brought out the insects a bit earlier than normal, but that wasn’t the case.  Took a few landscape shots, but really wanted to do a time lapse of the passing clouds with the new camera.  I simply couldn’t find the setting.  I knew it was in the five menus and the eleven sub-menus.  Eventually drove to Tesco to buy today’s dinner which was Breaded Salmon on a Bed of Mash & Peas.  There was a fair bit of garlic in it too.  I hadn’t realised quite how much until Scamp opened the kitchen door a few minutes ago and the anti-vampire scent wafted through.  I’ll be amazed if you can’t actually smell the garlic from this blog post.  The dinner was really good by the way, although one of the ingredients looked a bit strange “A slice of crusty bread with the crust removed”.  Now, excuse my ignorance, but isn’t that just a slice of bread?

After dinner I fed the six frames of Cumbernauld Old Church into Lightroom and it made an almost perfect panoramic shot of the building and that became PoD.  I also found the setting for the time lapse.  Just in case you ever need it, it’s in menu 1, the last item on the list.

Tomorrow we may go visit the Riverside Museum in Glasgow.  Travelling on the bus.

 

Muggy – 10 July 2019

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Uncomfortably hot and clammy today.  Not something I usually complain about.

Gave myself a sore back again today marking out and cutting more linings.  I hate this shiny, slippery fabric.  That’s most of it done now.  Still got some cutting to do and then it’s on to the stiffening stuff that’s not so difficult to cut.  It’s the height of the table that’s the killer.  It’s not really a table.  It’s the frame of an old card table with the bedroom door laid on top.  That gives me a massive 2.5m x 1.2m area to lay things out on.  The trouble is the table is just too high to sit at comfortably and just to low to lean over to cut the fabric.  I need an adjustable height table.

After the Fabric & Fashion course and also after lunch we drove in to Glasgow for more back ache in the ballroom.  Anne Marie was taking the class because Michael has a sore arm, or so he says.  We covered Jive with a new move, the Cross Over and then the Sway into the Pendulum, in Quickstep, but didn’t get as far as completing the double lock chassis.  If this means nothing to you, I’m probably describing it wrong.  I’m also probably dancing it wrong too.  It was an ok session and we both felt we were getting somewhere with it.

Getting coffee in Nero afterwards I was talking to another old guy who was telling me that the English school holidays are based on the hop picking times, so that entire families could leave London to go the Kent to pick the hops.  It made me think that probably  the Scottish school holidays were based either around  the Glasgow Fair or the fruit picking around Dundee.  Just a short conversation, but I’ll probably look into the possibilities of the theory.

Back home I took the Oly 1 and a macro lens for a walk around St Mo’s.  Really, I had a good shot of a delivery biker doing a running repair on his tyre – seen in Merchant City in Glasgow.  What I really wanted to do was rattle off a few more frames to completely flatten the battery of the camera.  I managed it, or near enough after 150 shots.  That’s 381 shots in total from that battery.  Very good indeed as the Oly battery which costs about 5 times as much only does 300.  I did get the PoD in the process, it is the tiny little hover fly you see above.

Salsa tonight was in almost unbearable heat in the STUC building.  Two fairly busy classes, but only because there were a lot of us helpers doing our bit.  The actual class sizes were poor and the second class, Improvers, will not be continuing.  Unfortunately there is nowhere for them to go as there are no other improvers classes they can merge into.  That’s a problem for the manageress to deal with, not the teachers, but it doesn’t show good management.  Tomorrow I’ve got coffee with Fred and Val at 12.30 and Scamp has coffee with Annette at 1.30.  Seems like bad use of time, but I don’t think it would do to merge these two classes!!

So coffee for both of us tomorrow and I’ll maybe take Scamp’s car down to the Village to get two new rear tyres.  Heavens, tyres don’t last well these days, they’re only 9 years old and the side walls are cracking already! Thunderstorms on  the horizon as well.

 

The day the rain came back – 9 July 2019

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It had been away for a long time, but today the rain made its triumphant return.

In a way it was good to see the rain.  It was like an old friend you haven’t seen for some time.  It also meant we wouldn’t have to water the garden tonight.  It was a gentle soaking rain that seeped into the soil and made sure the roots of the plants got properly wet.

It took the opportunity to use it as an excuse to get started on cutting out the lining of the waistcoat.  The Not-Quite-Satin I was writing about yesterday was really slippery today after I’d tentatively ironed it with Scamp’s super-zoomer steam iron, but I persevered and got three pieces cut out. One for the outside of the back and one for each for the inside of the front pieces.  That leaves three to be cut out still.  One for the inside of the back and two that will make the belt up the back (No jokes please).  It really is so difficult to work with fabric that is so slippery.  Even the scissors didn’t seem to want to cut it properly, or maybe I’m just not doing it right.  I tried the wee Olfa rolly-cutter (technical term), but it didn’t want to touch it either.  I thought this bit was going to be easy.  Now I’m dreading the sewing up that comes next!  Hoping against hope for a good day tomorrow so I can go out and take photos instead of firing up the sewing machine.

After lunch I did take the plunge, grab my cameras and go for a walk in St Mo’s. In spite of the rain, I did enjoy  the walk, but came back with three photos.  Then I looked out the kitchen window and saw the hanging basket with fuchsias dripping with rainwater.  Surely there was a shot or two to be had there.  Actually there were 41 shots to be had there.  Most disappeared onto the cutting room floor after they went through my rigorous selection procedure, but a (very) few remained and from them, two went to Flickr and PoD became the little raindrop fish-eye lens you see here.  It’s a bit of a cliché, but even clichés have their place.  I’m just showing off now that I can do that acute over the ‘e’ like this é.  Right, that’s quite enough of that.

Scamp was making dinner tonight.  The rules of the game are that it has to be a new recipe and it has to come from the most recent food magazine.  Tonight it was Spicy Chickpeas with Sea Bass.  Except she mistook Haricot beans for the Chickpeas, but I thought it tasted great the way it was.  With a green chilli and a spoonful of chilli flakes it was fairly fiery.  I didn’t mind at all, because it was very tasty.  A choc ice afterwards went a long way to cooling down our overheated tongues!

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go dancing in the afternoon and at night, because next week with be Salsa free 🙁  Monday is a local holiday, so the STUC will be closed and Jamie G is off on his travels again on Wednesday, so we won’t be making the pilgrimage to Glasgow in the evening.

 

Sweet Peas, Cameras and Bonking Beetles – 8 July 2019

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A late night last night and a late rise this morning finds you chasing your tail all day.

Scamp decided that it was time to cut the first of her home grown sweet peas this morning.  They looked so lovely just sitting there, I couldn’t resist the temptation to take a few photos. I needed a background, so rather than use my usual sheet of cartridge paper, today I found a piece of burgundy crushed velvet.  Probably not real velvet, but cloth with a fair amount of man-made fibre in it that gave the appearance of velvet.  It fitted the bill perfectly.  After a few failed attempts at getting the exposure right, I finally found the setting on the Oly 1 that made the EVF (Electronic ViewFinder) give me the view that the exposure settings were actually producing, not the one optomised for viewing.  The Oly 1 is such a complicated beast with so many settings, it’s easy to forget how to achieve things.  You have to work on the assumption that someone, when they were designing this camera, had indeed thought of every single thing that a prospective user would need.  Then they built that facility into the camera and buried the switch that turned it on, deep in that labyrinth of a menu.  After about five years, I’m almost certain I can find everything I need in the Oly 5 and the Oly 10, but the Oly 1 has some of its settings in another dimension, discoverable only if you know the magic phrase1.

The result of my work with the Not-Quite-Velvet and the Oly 1 is the PoD seen above.

All this was done while Scamp was out ‘getting the messages’. When she returned and after we had lunch, she went to wash her car and I went to puzzle out  the next part of the jigsaw puzzle that may one day become a waistcoat.  I was just getting to grips with the logistics of cutting the lining pieces from a wrongly shaped piece of Not-Quite-Satin when my phone reminded me it was time to get my Blood Pressure checked at the Doc’s.  Nothing really wrong with it, it was just a precaution because part of my medication had been changed.  BP was deemed ok and I was set free to go for a walk down the Luggie.  Lots of Bonking Beetles (Soldier Beetles) doing what they do best, but not a lot of other beasties.  One dragonfly circled me a couple of times before deciding that I was probably too big to be his dinner and anyway I’d be too heavy to carry away.  Saw a couple of hover flies pretending to be white tailed bees, but they were too skittish and flew off as soon as the big man came near them.  Ended up hot, bothered and disillusioned.  Drove home through some sporadic rain showers.  I think the rain was just practising for the big rain event that the weather fairies tell us is coming in the next two or three days.

Made a chicken and potato thing for dinner that seemed OK, but had fried crispy capers in it.  I wasn’t impressed with them and neither was judge Scamp.  Her turn tomorrow.

No dancing tonight as Jamie G is off somewhere sciency.  Tomorrow we have no plans, but like I say, the weather doesn’t look good.

 

 

  1. It’s “Izzy Wizzy Let’s Get Bizzy”.  At least, that’s what Sooty told me. ↩

Dancing and New Shoes – 7 July 2019

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Not Dancing IN New Shoes. That would be torture.

It was another of those strange days we’ve been having for some time now.  In the morning the sky is clear and blue, but then before midday the clouds roll in and obscure the sun.  The afternoons are warm but sunless with those same milky white clouds covering all the blue sky.  In the early evening the sky starts clearing and by about 9pm it’s blue sky again.  It happens over and over.  But we shouldn’t complain because at least it’s dry and that in itself is unusual for a Scottish summer.  It looks as if it’s not going to stay that way all week, though.  Heavy rain and the potential for thunderstorms later in the week.  Ah! that’s more like a Scottish summer.

We were going dancing today.  First Sunday in the month is a Sunday Social day and for just now it’s in  the Record Factory in Glasgow and it’s big selling point is the wooden dance floor.  Not exactly a sprung dance floor, but wooden, which is much kinder on the feet and legs than concrete with tiles.  But before that there were photos to take.

I took a walk in St Mo’s in my new Merrell Moab 2 GTXs.  I hadn’t noticed the GTX when I bought them, but they’re alright even if they are cut a bit lower on  the heels to give that Gran Tourismo feel.  Actually, GTX stands for Gore Tex, or so the InterWeb tells me, and it’s never, well rarely, well actually quite often wrong.  Anyway, the decision was made this morning that the label gets cut off and the shoes are free to travel untrammeled across the length and breadth of the country, or at least over to St Mo’s.  Got some pics of beasties there.  Fifty Four photos to be exact, but acutally they were reduced to Nine by my swingeing cuts to the not-so-good ones.  Still, tonight the icon showed the first signs that the battery was starting to become depleted and would need refilling with electrons soon after taking over 130 shots.  That’s pretty good going for a non-OEM battery.  I’m impressed.  One of the final nine, a Large Red Damselfly became PoD.

Went dancing in The Record Factory and actually got asked to dance by three, yes, THREE ladies.  Now that might have been because there weren’t a lot of men around, but I think it because of my stylish moves and dashing good looks.  Believe that if you will!  It was a good night, although there weren’t many dancers of either sex strutting their stuff.

So tomorrow I’ve a doc’s appointment to check my new medication (Cheapo pills) are working and the rest of the day is our own to do with as we will.  Hoping to bag some sunshine while it lasts!

 

 

A Stitch in time – 4 July 2019

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Today was dull. No sunshine. A very short sprinkle of rain. Nothing for it but to get the needles and pins out.

After breakfast I took the scissors and cut out the front of the waistcoat complete with all those strange wee triangles that stick out of cut out patterns. After consulting with Scamp and also after watching a few YouTube videos I was prepared to mark the darts with needle and thread. I’d also seen a video that recommended using a chinagraph pencil to mark out the lines. What it failed to mention was that when you iron the darts flat, the heat melts the marks made by the chinagraph pencil and they disappear. Numpty. I forgot the three rules of watching YouTube videos:

  1. Don’t believe anything you see here.
  2. Don’t try this at home.
  3. If you must ignore Rule 1 and Rule 2, test it on a scrap piece first.

Luckily the iron wasn’t quite hot enough and I could see the marks faintly glowing on the dark material. Then I used tailor’s chalk to complete the marking.
Later in the morning, I fired up the sewing machine and after a bit of jiggery pokery with Thread Tension, Stitch Width and Sweary Words, I’d stitched the darts to my satisfaction. Later I made a Welt (No, I don’t know what it is either). Exhausted, that’s where I left it today.

The DPD man came to deliver my new batteries for the new toy. Hopefully they’ll be more successful than the other lot and I set them to charge while I took the old Oly 5 for a walk around the pond. Not many beasties about, but I did get a moody shot of an old apple tree growing all by itself in the park. After a bit of work in ON1, that became PoD.

Dinner tonight was a delicious piece of smoked haddock with chips. Watched the tennis, well it was on everywhere by the look of things, and eventually managed to get the TV to respond to the Red Button to allow us to watch Andy Murray and his partner win their doubles match. Doubles is so much more interesting than singles. No long tedious grunt punctuated rallies. Much faster and good fun wondering what they were whispering to each other between shots of banging the ball over the net. Probably just deciding who’s round it is in the bar after the game.

Hoping against hope for a nice sunny day tomorrow to brighten up the end of the week and for a chance to take the OM D E-M1 (Now renamed Oly 1) out for a few shots of somewhere nice.

You shall go to the ball. – 30 June 2019

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Some days centre around food. This one centred around dancing.

Today was the day of the Salsa Summer Ball. We missed it last year because we were on our way back from our cruise. This year we were determined to go. Before that there were photos to take.

Went for a walk in St Mo’s in the afternoon with the Oly 10 and a macro lens. Despite the sunshine and probably because of the gusty wind there weren’t many insects posing for their close-ups. I did grab a few shots of a hoverfly, Eupeodes corollae feeding on a cow parsley head. Tried a few shots with the on-camera flash with some success.

After the photos were in the computer, it was time to get ready for the dancin’. Drove down to the Record Factory in Byres Road and couldn’t find a space anywhere. Finally got one a couple of streets over. By the time we got to the place, the ball was in full swing. Danced all night from about 7pm until just after 10pm, almost non-stop. Great fun apart from Alex and Valeria’s show off LA Salsa routine which apparently was fantastic, but not being a fan, I didn’t think so. Worse was a Balkans (or was that Falklands) dance presented and taught by Samira. Not my favourite person either. It looked like all peasant dances, boring. Maybe you had to have come from the Balkans (or the Falklands) to appreciate what finer points there were in it.

Scamp and I did a bit of a tutorial of our own with a Polish(?) couple. The bloke was flummoxed by Dile Que No. After a few demonstrations and a bit of leading from Scamp, I think he got it.

Scamp really got into the swing of things by getting her arm painted. I did actually think of getting my face painted, but held off from that extravagance.

Arrived home around 11pm and watched an interesting Austrian GP were Verstappen managed to just steal a win from the new Ferrari wonder boy Leclerc. After that, totally exhausted we went to bed.

Tomorrow a lazy day with hopefully some dancing at night to ease the aches in our legs and backs.

Of course this is written as a catch-up!

Parking – 28 June 2019

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Without the encumbrance of a car.

Since it was set to be another beautiful day, Scamp suggested we take the bus in to Glasgow and go for a walk in a park, or two, and that’s what we did.

It’s still a good feeling to take the bus into town with no agenda, but to suit ourselves. It’s especially good when “The others are at work” and today being Friday, that was the case. After coffee we walked round to the Pavilion Theatre and got the bus there to Kelvingrove and walked up the road, intending to walk round the park. That was where we heard a crunch and then a squeal. A woman in a black car had seen a parking space at the side of the road and driven into it. What she didn’t see was the cyclist. Strangely, it wasn’t the cyclist who had squealed, it was the woman. The man on the bike, or off the bike now, seemed uninjured and even gave the woman a hug, because she seemed more upset than him. I suppose if you cycle a lot in Glasgow you get used to this sort of thing. Anyway, as we hadn’t actually seen the accident, only heard it, so couldn’t be witnesses, and nobody seemed to be hurt, we walked on.

We walked round the back of the Art Galleries and round to the main road, then walked round a different path that took us to the other side of the park. From there we could see the fountain, but when we sat down to watch the water and feel cooler because of it, the fountain stopped. Maybe we’d sat on a secret invisible switch that controlled the water. Sat for a while longer, but the water didn’t come back on, so we people-watched for a while and then walked back by yet another path beside the Kelvin and round the Art Galleries then on to Church Street where we wanted to check out the parking (sneaky link to the title) for the Summer Ball on Sunday.

Scamp had suggested Òran Mór for lunch so we headed up Byres Road to find that there was a wedding reception there today, but as the weather was so good, everyone was outside, which suited us. There were about four people inside the whole pub, so no problem getting a seat. We had Fish ’n’ Chips for two with a G&T for Scamp and a pint of IPA for me. It still feels strange to sit in a pub with a pint of beer in Scotland. I can feel that image of Nick the Chick looking over my shoulder and in John Knox’s stentorian tones say “Thou Shalt NOT!” No fears today, no car. Fish was excellent and the chips were too. Another G&T and a half pint of Guinness to finish off lunch then a walk across the road to the Botanic Gardens.

We’re not often visitors to the Botanics, but when we do go it’s usually in the winter. It’s really unusual for us to go there in the summer. Today there were folk spread out all over the grass, soaking up these uncharacteristic rays. We weren’t sunbathers today, we were here to see the practical gardens, the vegetable plots and the herb gardens. They all looked better than ours. I’m sure they have special defences against slugs and root destroying larvae. It was good to see the variety of plants and be able to read the plant labels to find out, or in Scamp’s case to confirm, plant identities. Had an ice cream cone outside the Botanics and then headed for the bus to Glasgow and then home.

Back home Scamp sat in the garden and I went for a walk in St Mo’s. It was a short walk because there were hunners of weans there celebrating the start of the holidays. Got a few photos and then went home.

PoD was a grab shot when we got off the bus at Kelvingrove. To sad looking dog looked as if it was saying “Are we there yet?”

Tomorrow looks hot and cloudy with the chance of rain later. Hmm, school’s finished so the weather takes a downturn. That’s normal!

24ºc in Scotland – 27 June 2019

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Out early to see a consultant at Monklands Hospital, then the day was our own.

Consultant took less than five minutes to sign me off as clear of any serious problems. That was a great start to the day.

From Airdrie we drove to Livingston because I was looking for a pair of decent trainers at the discount outlets there. Didn’t get any. What I did see were a pair of black shoes, the exact same model as the ones I was wearing. The shoes in the shop were black, like I said. Mine were a medium grey. Have they been bleached in the sun or washed in the rain. Probably a bit of both. Although I didn’t get trainers, Scamp got a new dress and we bought a new general purpose knife for the kitchen.

Drove home and the temperature from the car thermometer went up to 24ºc. Now that’s definitely “Taps Aff” weather, but I restrained myself an turned up the air con.

Back home Scamp got her sun cream on and then started cutting the front grass. I put my shorts on and drove down to Auchinstarry and walked along the canal, crossed over and back along the old railway. Got a host of photos of damselflies and hoverflies. The PoD was a shot of a damselfly having its lunch, a smaller fly caught in flight. The actual damselfly is about 40mm head to tail.

The temperature we noted in the car continued well into the afternoon and I regretted not putting some of Scamp’s sun cream on my exposed skin. It was a beautiful day and if the weather fairies are to be believed, we should have a similar, if not hotter day tomorrow. We even had our dinner tonight outside in the garden such a treat eating in the great outdoors … in Scotland … without our coats on!

Tomorrow we are hoping to get the bus in to Glasgow and go for a walk, somewhere scenic.

The Rubber Ear – 26 June 2019

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Went dancing today. Almost came home with a black monkey.

It was all going swimmingly to start with. We’d covered the Seven Deadly Spins, and the Timestep. We’d even almost completed the Clap Back. In fact, the Jive wasn’t giving us too many problems. Then came the Waltz which we thought we were doing quite well. Even when one of the other group stepped onto the dance floor, I managed to dance around them. We actually danced for a whole song without a stop and almost without missing a beat. Of course, Michael wasn’t watching us then. When he did decide to watch us we made a few mistakes that’s when he pounced. First he told me I wasn’t dragging my foot in the proper way the waltz. I told him I was. He ignored me. Next I was told that I wasn’t looking where I was going and needed to lift my head. I was getting angry now. I told him straight to his face that I was looking where I was going, that was how I saw I needed to take avoiding action in the last dance. He ignored me again. Michael is deaf in one ear, but I believe he uses that as an excuse when he doesn’t want to hear something. Next was Quickstep, but to be honest I knew he’d find fault in that too. I gave up and just agreed with everything he said then told Scamp I’d had enough.

I get annoyed when I make a mistake and someone sees it, most folk do. I get really angry when I get accused of doing something I know I didn’t do and then get ignored when I argue against it. Even Scamp was ignored when she defended me. In CassArt you can buy an eraser shaped like an ear. I’m going to buy one for Michael. Just in case his usual ‘Rubber Ear’ isn’t working. One thing he did let slip before I walked off was that we should enter his ‘Strictly’ competition with a rival teacher because after all the criticism, he said we are really good. Scamp reckons we are being groomed to be his star pupils for a competition. That might just be what all this serious nit picking is about. Unfortunately for him, it’s not going to happen.

As you can imagine, I came out blazing mad. Thankfully halfway up the hill to the car park we passed a couple about the same age as us. They were having an argument and at that moment I felt the wee black monkey I’d been carrying, leave me for another host! The sun shone even brighter and I felt much better.  Glad I’ve got that out of my system now!

The rest of the afternoon went much better. Went to Tesco to get the makings of a salad and then grabbed my camera and went for a walk in St Mo’s. Got a host of photos, most of which are destined for the bin, but a few ended up on Flickr. The best one of the day and PoD is the red rose Alec’s Red. My brother gave it to us as a wedding present, although I’d guess it was my mum who picked it as Alex would be about 11 when we got married. It’s grown in every garden we’ve had and it still flowers every year. The perfume is exquisite.

Sat in the garden with a beer after dinner soaking up the sun.

Tomorrow it’s a early rise and then out to go to the hospital for a routine check up for me. Hopefully it will be ok and the we will be able to enjoy another beautiful day.