Category: A Walk

A day in the toon – 10 January 2019

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Went for coffee with the boys and then decided to wander round Glasgow.

Finished off Colin’s calendar and with the ink barely dry, set off for the town centre. For once we were all there and the chat was good for an hour and a half until Jeanette arrived to drag Val away to do the shopping. That seemed to signal a breakup in the group and we all went our merry way.

I’d half intended going in to Glasgow for a walk and a bit of window shopping and as the day was still fairly light and almost dry, that’s what I did. Parked deliberately on level 5 of the multi so I could walk straight in to the ‘toyshop’ level of JL. However, there weren’t many toys at a price I was willing to consider, far less spend, but that was ok, because I was only window shopping. I think it’s true what the pundits on the news have been saying, there’s so many cut price weekends and end of season sales now, the January Sales haven’t the bargains they used to have. They’re just a means to ditching the Xmas tat they were selling full price a month ago. The great thing about them is the silence. No longer do we have to be assailed by xmas musak. Wizzard and Cliff Richard have now been put back in their box along with the mistletoe and wine.

Down Bucky Street and along Argyle Street looking for a PoD. I eventually got it in the form of the back of the St Enoch’s subway entrance. I joked with a couple of students who were also photographing it that it looked as if there was a queue forming to take the best shot. They agreed that it was an interesting building, but not as good as the old sandstone entrance to the station that’s now a Nero. I had to disagree with them when they said the cafe spoiled it. At least the cafe had changed the building only very slightly. It could have been a lot worse. We agreed to differ and went our separate ways.

That was about the extent of my Glasgow walk. I did buy myself a pair of bluetooth headphones just because they were cheap and looked better than the other ones I’d bought last week. I was right, they were fine. Got two songs out of them before the battery died.

Finally found out how to retrieve the call list on the Juke. If you delete the phone from the Juke’s system, then plug it in using a USB cable, it installs it again and the call list reappears fully loaded with its previous numbers. Why you need to connect it with a cable when it’s a Bluetooth system, only Nissan knows. Also, it’s only the iPhone that needs this connection.

There was a slight patter of tiny rodent feet tonight and there had been the same on Tuesday night. Certainly not as much as before, but it will be reported to the “Rat Man”when he returns tomorrow.

Because we need to wait for the “Rat Man” tomorrow we have no other plans. If he comes early, which we suspect he will, we may go out to lunch.

IKEA not Akea – 8 January 2019

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Today we wasted no time in getting on the road, the yellow brick road. Yes, we were off to IKEA.

It all went well, the drive to Braehead, parking anywhere we wanted because the car park was less than a quarter of its capacity. Found almost all the things we needed, some that we didn’t need, but thought were neat and lots more that we didn’t want or need, but that’s par for the course in IKEA. We even stopped for lunch in the cafe. Swedish meatballs for me and chips followed by apple pie for Scamp. Then it all went to pieces.

Got to the checkout and scanned all our 12 purchases. When we went to pay a message appeared to say that we had been selected for a random check. Ok, we weren’t in a rush. The woman came and counted all our 12 purchases checked the total against the screen total and signed us off as good and honest customers. Scamp did the paying part and when the till receipt came out I started to pack our 12 purchases into our bags. As we were walking away, the lady noticed that I’d missed one and told me she hadn’t counted it. I told her she had and she then told me I had to unload all the 12 purchases again for her to check. I tried to tell her that she had already done that and had checked the one I’d missed. She agreed it was on the receipt, then came up with the stunning “So if I counted that, what did I NOT count?” Thankfully, then she became distracted by a light flashing at another till or a bright sparkly thing or something else and we made our exit with me throwing the complement “Fuckin’ Arsehole” over my shoulder. Scamp wasn’t fazed by all this, but that woman’s attitude did get right up my nose.

Got home in time to get out for a walk along the Luggie Water in today’s bright sunshine, but although I got a lot of images, none were amazing and certainly not as good as the one I’d taken with my iPhone this morning before going out. That’s the one at the top of the page.

Tomorrow we may go out for a run somewhere, but not to IKEA.

Just another Manic Monday – 7 January 2019

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Back in the old routine.

Scamp had Gems coming today and we were off to Salsa in the evening. In between it was pasta for dinner. Looks like the festivities are over and it’s back to the old routine.

Since Gems were coming, I decided I’d make a sharp exit and go for a walk along the canal, then back along the railway path, but not before I could check Margie’s homework. Her attempt at two point perspective was very good indeed. I think she has a fairly good grasp of it now. She wanted to go back over one point and I did that with her, but also showed her three point perspective, which is the least intuitive, but easiest to learn if you stick to the rules. Margie, by the way is over 80, but a quick and patient learner.

After today’s drawing lesson I drove down to Auchinstarry and parked at the now closed Boat House restaurant. I don’t see anyone rushing to buy up this failed fine dining establishment, but when they do, I’m afraid I’ll lose my parking place for a walk along the canal.

Walked into the teeth of a westerly gale. It wasn’t pleasant and there were no ducks or geese to photograph all along its length. They were probably tucked up in the reeds somewhere waiting for it to blow over. The wind was blowing in squally showers and then the sun would come out and shine from a blue sky, but it was still cold.  Spoke to one man walking his dog and didn’t see anyone else until I came back to Auchinstarry again. Today’s PoD is of a Cladonia lichen growing from an old rotting fencepost. Apparently lichen are a sign of clean air. So says Margie’s son who is an arboriculturist. There’s a nice little link there!

Back home via Tesco to post the final lot of calendars to their recipients, and then home to make Spaghetti Carbonara, otherwise known as “White Spaghetti”. Then it was time to get ready for Salsa. When I opened the drawer to get my shirt, I marvelled at the neatly stacked shirts I’d folded and arranged in the morning. That bloody Japanese woman is infiltrating this house with her tidying techniques! I thought you were supposed to start with your sock drawer.

Very few men tonight, two girls to each man in the Rueda. Scamp and Irene danced as leaders to even out the numbers. No new moves, but going over recent moves like Akea, not to be confused with IKEA, and Setenta e Cinco Moderno. Good fun.

Tomorrow we are intending driving to IKEA, not to be confused with the salsa move Akea. We are looking for something that will help to tidy my sock drawer!!

A Foggy Day – 7 January 2019

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In Cumbersheugh.

Today we woke to thick fog. Sometimes a godsend in Cumbersheugh because it hides the drabness of the area. What it does mean is that it becomes even more of a challenge to get a decent photo for the 365. However, I had to go out to dump our last load of rubbish at the council tip and took my Olys with me. As I passed Arria on the M80, I knew that would be my PoD and it was. I like the statue, but don’t like walking through a cemetery to get to it and a cemetery on a foggy day like today is even less enticing, but we have to face these challenges for our art!

Before the photography, I went to B&Q to get a cheap version of No More Nails. Which I needed to stick up a piece of wood to block some holes in a cupboard. Then I needed the piece of wood. Thankfully B&Q have now been thoughtful enough to leave a ‘scratch & dent’ bin just past the tills where you can pick up some odd bits of wood for a ‘donation’. So much better than dumping them in landfill and generates a bit of cash for charity.

That was the extent of my outings for today. Printed off the few more calendars I needed and used the scanner in the printer for probably the second time in its life to copy these two images. They should give you a laugh. The photo booth shot is of Alex and I and the colour shot was taken in Newton Stewart about 1978!

Tomorrow we get back to normal. Gems in the afternoon and Salsa at night, hopefully.

New hair, Old friends

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We drove in to Glasgow today, just to get out of Cumbersheugh, but we came back.

My hair badly needed cut. If I did it myself it would just be cut badly. If we went to Glasgow, it would be cut properly. No contest. For a change we parked up at Cowcaddens and for the umpteenth time, we didn’t see even one cow. Why do they insist in giving places these confusing names. While Scamp wandered round the shops, I walked down to West Nile Street (which, it turned out, is not even near the Nile), sat down and had my locks cropped by a nice Polish lady. She did a very good job and I was happy to give her a tip. I told her not to visit Cowcaddens if she was at all interested in dairy farming.

Met Scamp back on Sauchiehall Street and we decided that lunch time was approaching so we headed down to Charcoals where I had Chicken Bhuna and Scamp had Aloo Saag. Mine was fine, but Scamp’s Aloo (potatoes) were nearly black. We didn’t pay that much for the lunch, so we couldn’t really complain. £20 for two starters, two mains, rice, a naan bread and two drinks is a very small price to pay.

Walked back up to Sauchiehall Street for Scamp to visit some more shops while I wandered round Waterstones. After that we went for a coffee in Costa where we met an old salsa friend. We sat and talked for an hour or so, just catching up. It was really good to see her again, I think it must be about three years since we’d last spoken to Elsie. We both felt she seemed quite lonely, having finally broken up with her once boyfriend George, and I think we both felt quite sorry for her.

Drove home and I built a new boot disk for the old Raspberry Pi that Val gave me more than four years ago. Booted it up and it ran just the same as ever! Not got a lot of use for it because it doesn’t have built-in WiFi or Bluetooth. It was just a wee challenge.

Watched the start of the new dance program on BBC. About ten minutes in, we both decided it was too dire to be bothered with and removed it from our recording schedule. Afterwards, we watched an episode of Marie Kondo’s series on Netflix (yes Hazy, I did watch it.) Interesting, but “Oh my God” <sic> that repetitive and superfluous phrase from the american woman became really annoying. I might watch another episode, but maybe with the sound turned down or preferably off.

PoD was from Sauchiehall Street. The woman was singing Tracy Chapman songs while accompanying herself on guitar and drum. Very entertaining and it brought a bit of sunshine into a very dull day.

Broke a cap on one of my front teeth tonight.  That’s what happens when you eat too many sticky caramels.  Luckily(?) I have an appointment with the dentist booked for a week on Monday.  Oh what fun!

Tomorrow? No plans as yet. Maybe taking Marie Kondo’s advice and tackling another cupboard.

Frosty (no snowman) – 2 January 2019

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I woke around 4am this morning and looked out. I thought it had been snowing, but I was mistaken.

Although we were both up and about fairly early, we couldn’t get our little ducks in a row properly so wasted a fair bit of time, although I did make some bread. My main task today was to get the calendars sorted and hopefully posted. I managed the former with the calendars punched, clipped and bagged, but when Scamp took a walk to Condorrat to post them, the A4 parcels wouldn’t fit in the post box. Obviously our post boxes are Eurosceptic Remainer boxes, not happy with these new fangled European metric sizes. So she had to bring them back and hopefully they’ll be posted tomorrow.

When she came back, it was my time to get out. I took a walk over to St Mo’s to see if the frosty stuff was still there. It was, and it was everywhere. My favourite shot and PoD is of a little twig frozen to the surface of a wee pond. To take it, I set the ISO to 200 manually focused at about the right distance and set the self timer. Then I could rest the Nikon on the ice and press the shutter release. It’s a good method if the ice is thick enough to hold the camera! I was holding the strap all the time just in case. This was the best of about four shots. I saw some other potential images, but would probably use the Oly for them if I get another day like today, because then I could see what the camera was seeing through the phone app. I’ll keep it in mind.  It was cold out there.  Temperature was allegedly -0.6ºc when I came in, but it felt a lot colder than that.  It’s now 1.6ºc, but still feels cold.

Scamp claimed dinner tonight. ‘Rats’ for her (no pun intended) and mince pie for me. Beans and potatoes for me and just potatoes for Scamp. Simply superb! Then it was more of the crumble for pudding and it had significantly improved since yesterday, but alas it is now gone.

Tomorrow I need to get up early to fix the kitchen light and after that we’re going out somewhere. Cabin fever is setting in.

The start of a new year – 1 January 2019

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It looked a bit frosty when we woke, so we decided to take the ‘getting up’ part in a relaxed manner, as befits the first day of the year.

Normally we go for a walk on New Year’s Day and today was no exception. However, a cup of coffee came first on the agenda along with the ceremonial completion of the first Sudoku puzzle of 2019. Then we got well wrapped up and I got my old boots out. Scamp wore her new, dressy boots, but with Goretex, so sensible too. We walked round St Mo’s pond under a clear blue sky, watched the Canada Geese and the greedy gulls. We also saw the cute little golden eyed Tufted Ducks and it was one of those that made the PoD. The first PoD of 2019.

We left St Mo’s and walked down to Broadwood Loch pasts the posh houses with their inflatable snowmen and indeterminate illuminated creatures. We took a short walk round part of the Loch just to say we’d been there and then we walked back home.

I struggled with, and swore at Microsoft Word for a while trying to mail merge some data from Excel into a word document. It just wouldn’t work. It took me a while to realise that when I asked Mr Google about it, that all the people with the same problem were working on Macs. Could that be the problem? Could it be so simple. The answer seemed to be a resounding YES! I tried to emulate the problem on Scamp’s PC laptop and it simply worked. I was using exactly the same files and exactly the same method and it worked. Another example of two systems just refusing to work with each other. Well, it’s done now and I’ll try to remember to use the PC the next time I’m mail merging.

Dinner was better tonight than Christmas dinner had been, even although Scamp’s salmon was dry and my steak was a bit tough. I liked the red cabbage and the roast potatoes, although Scamp says the cabbage is a ‘work in progress’. I think our demeanour was better tonight and the wine, Rosé D’ Anjou was very nice. Pudding was a quite tart apple and blackcurrant crumble with cream. Plenty left for tomorrow.

Watched the Greatest Showman which wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been.

Tomorrow we may go out somewhere for another walk, now that we’ve done our traditional New Year’s Day, Two Lochs Tour. A bit nippy tonight. It’s -0.5 as I write.

Right, that’s the first blog post of 2019 finished and posted in time.

If I was a carpenter – 31 December 2018

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Up, out and on the road for 10am. Unheard of.

The reason we were up early was to catch the “Rat Man” who, at 8am, was making a second visit to the house next door. I wanted to tell him personally that the droppings he’d seen in the loft were not ‘Historical’ as he supposed, but live and from an active rodent, probably one of the two I’d despatched after he left empty-handed. He wasn’t impressed and even less impressed when I asked him to come in and witness the demolition job some of the dead rodents friends had done on a bag of sultanas in one of the cupboards. Last night, they appeared to have removed a blanking piece, abseiled down from the void between the ceiling and the upstairs floor and scoffed about a quarter of the bag. He did offer some help and suggested that as well as blocking up the hole, we should first stuff it with steel wool which apparently does nasty things to the rodents teeth. He offered a few other suggestions and said he’d probably be seeing us again in a week’s time. I thanked him for his help, especially as he was covering two “Rat Men’s” positions while one is on paternity leave.

With his suggestions in mind we drove off to B&Q to get some MDF, screws and just to be sure, some expanding foam and some more poison. We had to drop in at Tesco on the way to stock up on food, because it will be closed ALL DAY tomorrow!!! Shock Horror! What will we do?? By midday I was ready for my lunch and the board was ready to screw into place. Some poison in place and steel wool carefully stuffed in to every crevice afterwards. After lunch the board was in place. I decided not to use the expanding foam after all as I was working overhead and the polyurethane foam is VERY sticky so the thought of it dripping onto my head didn’t appeal.

With my carpentry work done, I took my leave and went for a walk in St Mo’s hoping to grab some of the last good light of 2019. That’s where I got today’s PoD the last of this year’s 365. It’s the Bee Seat (my name for it). It’s a wooden seat designed and made by a local group for St Mo’s park and with a coloured engraving of a bee on one of the uprights. A great place to sit and watch the world go by, or as in today’s case, watch the Canada geese being shepherded by a vigilant swan.

Back home it was Kedgeree for dinner. A spicy kedgeree in fact. Still went down very nicely with a bottle of Spring Oak Leaf wine from Cairn o’Mohr. Very sweet dessert wine with just a hit of the tannin in the Oak. That was ‘hit’, not ‘hint’. You could definitely taste it.

After dinner I attempted the second of my pocket repairs with the sewing machine. This one was done using Scamp’s suggested method and I have to admit that it beats my method hands down. It’s a bit more extravagant on material, but if the final result is as good as it seems, it will be worth it.

I think we’ll be staying up for ‘The Bells’ tonight. Possibly we’ll need a little tincture or two to keep our eyes open after such an early rise and such an active day, but tradition must be served.

I’ve added these two pictures that came from Colin Brown (his dad and I were cousins) in Ayrshire.

Tomorrow, hopefully we will be later risers than today and hopefully not having to resort to any more morning carpentry work.

Hope 2019 is a good year to all my readers, wherever you are.  Safe flight home JIC and Sim.

Glasgow – 30 December 2018

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Today we took the train in to Glasgow

Scamp offered to drive us to the station to get the train in to Glasgow. The ‘leccy train. Very comfortable and much quieter than the diesels. Also the seven carriage train was almost full. Everybody must be getting out of Embra with all the preparations for New Year celebrations. Not so Glasgow. It was heaving with punters and tourists alike. I was looking for a new pair of Bluetooth headphones so we marched straight into HMV to grab a pair before the whole HMV empire came down about our ears. It went into receivership the day before yesterday, whatever day that was and was the cheapest place for the Skullcandy headphones I wanted. Got the last pair on the rack.

Wandered along Argyle Street after that, then headed for Nero in St Enoch’s shared a toastie and a cake for lunch. Outside I got today’s PoD of a man fixing a puncture on his rickshaw. There used to be loads of these things in Glasgow, admittedly that was in the warmer weather, but I’ve hardly seen any recently. Just a fad that faded out, perhaps.

Crossed the road to Waterstones where Scamp bought me a late Christmas present which was a Times Sudoku a Day desk calendar. I like the way it’s set out and the rhythm of the puzzles never changes throughout the year. It keeps me sane … just. Even better, the calendar was half price! Saw a book I had been looking for, but it was on sale in Waterstones for £17. Amazon have it on sale for £10. That’s why the high street shops are closing. I’ll miss HMV, but I can hardly remember the last time I bought something there (with the exception of today). Possibly we are cutting our own throats by our short sighted reliance on on-line stores, but a 40% markup is a bit excessive. However, I did get a chance to read a random page in the book, something an English tutor told us to do when I was at college, and it looked interesting enough. Even that I could have done easily on Amazon. The book is now on my Books Database in Notion, Hazy.

Caught the train back to Croy with just five minutes to spare. Scamp drove us home. Dinner tonight was my version of the Chicken & Chorizo with beans and tomatoes. It got a thumbs up. Even my attempt at garlic bread was a winner.

The rodents are going mad tonight. Maybe it’s because I blocked up the holes in the front and back steps and they are locked in. I had hoped that they were out when I did it and I was locking them out. Perhaps not. The “Rat Man” is coming to Angela next door tomorrow and she promised to send him round to us when he was finished. We’ll see.

The sound from the headphones was rubbish by the way.

Tomorrow is Hogmanay so we won’t be going far I think.

Out to Lunch – 29 December 2018

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So, should we got to Glasgow? Should we go to Stirling? Maybe neither.

Instead of these two destinations we chose Cumbersheugh. To be exact, we went to Milano and Scamp was driving. Scamp had a massive bowl of mussels well coated in tomato and garlic. I had a pizza with Italian sausage. With Scamp driving, I could even indulge myself with a glass of wine while Scamp had the soda water and lime. After a delicious lunch (no sarcasm for once) we drove to Tesco for milk and walked out with three bags of various provisions, and the milk.

Once we got parked again and deposited the food, I took a couple of cameras for a walk in St Mo’s because we still had sunshine and blue skies. I found an interesting shot of the hawthorn bush you see at the top of the page. For once it didn’t take a lot of work to get a decent image out of it.

When I came home from St Mo’s tonight I drilled a small hole in the plasterboard wall in the back bedroom and dropped some poison mixed with sugar into the cavity. Let’s hope a spoonful of sugar will help the medicine go down. Murdo’s suggestion. Apparently the sugar entices the rodents to take the poison. We’ll see. Later I spoke to the woman next door at 36 and she has the same problems as us. She has the “Rat Man” coming to visit on the 3rd January and will direct him to us when he is done. Val says he had the same problem years ago and the only way he got satisfaction was to get everyone on the block to keep at the council until the problem was solved. That’s what we’ll have to do to.

Tonight we had our ‘essential’ Churros from my Boxing Day walk. Despite being a little less crunchy than ‘real’ churros, they were very tasty. Now watching “Guys and Dolls” and drinking Black Rum ’n’ Cokes. One each.

No plans for tomorrow. We’ll take it as it comes.