Category: A Walk

Cauld day in the Toon – 13 January 2017

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We went in to Glasgow, drove into Glasgow.  The ring road was still being dug up and we weren’t sure the buses were running normally and besides, we didn’t want to be sitting in a bus whose heater was pumping out cold air for 45minutes.  That’s one of the reasons we bought a car.

I bought myself some interfacing for stiffening the cloth I’m going to make a bow tie with.  Got it in JL (didn’t get it delivered!) for £1.50!  The bowtie itself, the prototype, will be made from an old pillow case.  That’s the essentials bought.  This weekend I’ll try to put it into practice.

After JL we walked down Bucky Street and on to Argyle Street, then up Miller Street to Paesano.  For the first time ever, we had to wait for a table.  When we got one five minutes later the food was just as good as ever.

After being fed, we went for a coffee in Café Nero in St Enoch’s.  Scamp went to wander round the St Enoch’s Centre and I went to do a quick sketch of the suspension bridge over the Clyde.  It’s rough, but it’s done and it’s on time.

When we got home, Scamp realised that she had fogotten to post a card in town, so I volunteered to post it in Condorrat.  I took my camera of course and that’s where the sunset shot came from.  It’s more a gloaming shot really.  Gloaming means more than sunset.  It’s that golden hour before the sun sets and it’s also the afterglow from the set sun.

Gloaming.  Make it a word you use some time today, in its correct context.

Snow – 12 January 2017

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Today dawned with snow on the ground.  Within fifteen minutes, there was snow in  the air too, but no time to gaze admiringly at it.  We had to be showered, breakfasted and on our way to Wishaw General Hospital ASAP.

Tried driving the M73 on to the M74, but it was gridlocked, so change of plan Nº 1.  I’d come off at the M8 intersection and take the M73 back to Cumbersheugh and thence through Airdrie – a nightmare at this time of the morning with the school run in full swing, but at least the traffic would be moving.  Change of plan Nº 2.  The M8 looked clear and running well, so round the roundabout and on to it.  At the very least, we were heading east (the right direction).  The rest of the journey was without incident.

Arrived at the hospital to find that the computer hub was down and nobody could access patients’ notes.  However, we were seen within minutes and twenty minutes later Scamp was ‘under the knife’ so to speak.  After the procedure was complete, we drove home unfortunately squashing a fox on the way.  Poor thing had no chance, and I had no chance to avoid it.  Such a shame.

By the time we got home, the sky was blue once again and I managed a walk across to St Mo’s.  Not a lot of interest to photograph, but I liked the water drops on the cow parsley.  Where would I be without cow parsley?  The female mallard seemed to be paddling around in a dream and I got quite a few shots of it.  By the time I was coming home,  the blue sky was gone and the snow had started again.

Tonight there hasn’t been any more snow but it was freezing hard the last time I was out.  More snow and wind forecast for tomorrow.

Antiques – 11 January 2017

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It was a wild morning after a wild night with high winds and driving rain and the dogs next door were howling.  Decided that going out was better than staying in, so we drove out along to Larkhall and from there we went down to Garrion Bridge.  Scamp fancied a coffee in the antiques centre / garden centre there.  Apparently one of ‘Gems’ had recommended it, saying she goes there regularly.

It was a barn of a place.  It used to be a fruit farm years ago and I suppose the giant shed where  the antiques centre is housed was a storage barn and also a place for keeping the plants over the winter.  Today it housed mainly ‘grey hairs’ out for a couple of hours drive in the wind and rain and stopped off for a coffee and a bowl of soup.  For us it was a roll ’n’ sausage and a roll ’n’ scrambled egg.  You can sort out for yourselves who the recipients were!  When we were done we went for a walk around the different shops within the building.  It all seemed confused and confusing.  Just a jumble of tat, and the usual garden centre nonsense, mixed up with a handicrafts area with “DO NOT TOUCH” signs and clear plastic bags of wool everywhere, an ‘Art Gallery’ (‘nuf said) and lots of doggy and horsey things.  They even had a dog coat made in the style of a kilt!  I kid you not.  You can see I got a photo to prove it.

I’d never been in an antiques shop before, not a ‘real’ one anyway.  I’ve wandered round a few jumble sales and car-boot sales, but not an actual antiques shop.  If the first area could be defined as ‘tat’, this was old tat, dirty old tat in some cases.  The prices were not as high as I’d expected, but neither was the quality.  I kept thinking of things we’ve go up in the loft or in the spare room.  Some of those are now antiques.  Maybe we should sell them and get some cash.

As we were near Hamilton, I thought we should stop at Chatelherault on the way back and hopefully get more pics there.  It was cold with occasional glimpses of sun, but a gale blowing.  We found the cafe, had a cup of hot chocolate, took a few pics and came home.

Tonight was salsa with gridlock on the motorway first.  Managed to take the diversion along Royston Road and got there in time.  Took two classes, 6.30 beginners and 7.30 advanced.  Great fun in both.  Still windy when we drove home and with snow and sleet mixed in.

Hoping for less wind tomorrow and more sun.

Out To Lunch – 10 January 2017

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This morning, over a cup of coffee, we discussed what to do with the day.  We decided to go out for lunch because it was fairly bright.  The reason we gave was that we needed to get some compost to plant up the spider plants that have been languishing in water on the back window sill and we could get that at a garden centre and most garden centres have cafés now.  Devious, eh?   We had to drive through the roadworks going on all round the ring road.  Everywhere had closed signs and everywhere had diversion signs, sometime contradictory signs, but lots of them except where they’d be helpful.  Well, you’ve got to use the “Twenty seven 8×10 full colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one …”  (Alice’s Restaurant – Arlo Guthrie).  After we’d manoeuvred our way through the barriers, I thought we would drive to the garden centre out by Killearn, but the weather that way looked very rough.  Dark clouds and what looked like heavy rain.  The weather closer to home had deteriorated too, so we changed our plans and went to Dobbies at Bearsden instead.  As is usual in garden centres these days there are franchises and Dobbies now has an Edinburgh Woollen Mill within its shopping area.  I got another warm winter shirt – you can’t have too many shirts.  After lunch and after buying the compost, we drove home through brightening skies again.

By the time we got home the skies had cleared and blue sky was once again in charge.  While Scamp phoned her Cumbernauld sister, I took the chance to get some photos over at St Mo’s.  By the time I got over there, the sun was sinking, but the blue sky was still there.  Just a few shots in the bag, but enough for a PoD and then some backup.

I think we’re driving Scamp and her sister to Glasgow Airport on Thursday and it will be a fairly early rise.  It’s only her sister who is flying down to a funeral in Bristol, but Scamp’s going in to the airport with her to provide much needed moral support.  Hopefully I’ll have an hour or so in Glasgow to get this week’s sketch done.  Tomorrow, however, is free so far.  Weather looks wild.  Strong winds and the possibility of snow with more due on Thursday.  Oh what fun, but the combination might provide some interesting photo opportunities.

A Dull Day – 8 January 2017

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The dull day was probably what gave me the incentive to get the new sewing machine out and finally attempt to fix the pocket on a pair of jeans.

I’d ‘had a go’ at fixing it a week or so ago, but after researching the problem on the ‘net, I felt more confident that the method I’d seen would solve the problem.  Actually I’d seen two different methods, and I was going to attempt the easier and less complicated one.  That tutorial didn’t have that confidence destroying phrase “This is the tricky bit”.  I liked that.  After half an hour or so of sewing, re-threading the needle and more sewing, but without swearing, I now have a fair degree of confidence in the longevity of my repair, or Alteration as I described it recently in FB.  Hope you don’t read this Joyce.  I’d hate to disabuse you of the notion that I’ve taken up dressmaking in a professional capacity.  I’m hoping to fix a couple of pairs of jeans and also make myself a bow tie.  Little Black Dresses for Scamp may take a bit more time.  So, one down, another three to go!

I was going stir crazy, so in the afternoon I drove down to Auchinstarry and walked along the canal, through the plantation to the railway walk, then back along a different railway walk to the carpark again.  It really was a dull day.  I’d set my Nikon to a Manual exposure of 1/500th sec @ f9 and a floating ISO the other day.  That meant the D7000 calculated it would require an ISO of 25600 today.  That’s in the ‘WTF let’s have a go’ range.  You’ll get a picture, but you may not be able to see it in all the digital noise.  It produced the picture at the top and the one at the bottom right in the mosaic.  I’ve deliberately converted the top one to mono because it disguises the grain/digital-noise that the high ISO produces.  The other pic, my favourite and therefore PoD was at a much lower ISO of 4000 and taken with the Oly 5.  It was resting on the stonework of an old bridge and also had a much shorter lens, so could be relied upon to give a sharp image at a low shutter speed.  Sorry JIC, edging into technospeak again.  Sim will understand.

The bridge itself was interesting from another point of view.  All along the top edge are what I’d describe as lens shaped cuts which look like the shapes you’d get if you were sharpening a knife or a scythe.  Could that be what caused them?  I’ll photograph them the next time I’m crossing the bridge on a sunny day.  Also inscribed on the top of a stone near the middle of the bridge are the initials  ‘IW’.  They have been carved with care into the stone and both letters have serifs on them.  Often, old graffiti has these serifs and shows that care has been taken when carving them.  Intriguing.

First Sunday Social of 2017 today and I was really rusty.  Thank goodness classes start tomorrow.  We both need the exercise and the practise.

No idea what the weather is to be tomorrow.  Hopefully kinder to photographers than it’s been today.

It Rained – 6 January 2017

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All day it poured water from the sky. The only photo I got worth its name was the one above. I took it when I was heading over to Condorrat to post the calendars. So, to my readers, you should be receiving them in the next few days.

The five star Sudoku puzzle for Fridays are very, very difficult, Hazy, and to JIC and Sim, the hamper is going down, but going down nicely if you know what I mean. Red wine was lovely (so were the jelly beans!). White wine is in the fridge, chilling.

There being nothing more I can say about today other than we’re going out for dinner at Crawford & Nancy’s in Larky, and hoping for a drier day tomorrow, with maybe, just maybe a touch of sunshine, I’ll post this early for a change.

Frosty Morning – 5 January 2017

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Cold and frosty morning to be more precise.  I got up around half past eight and after making Scamp’s breakfast, I went out for an early morning photographic foray into St Mo’s.  The light wasn’t quite as good as I’d hoped, because the sun hadn’t risen above the pine trees and the frost wasn’t as thick as I’d have liked.  Probably not enough dampness in the air for a change.  However, I did get a few shots worth posting.  I was just taking my boots off when I got back and there was a knock at the door.  My sewing machine had arrived, delivered by Parcel Force.  Why couldn’t JL have told me they were delivering it?  Why must everything be a mystery with them?

After breakfast and a dive into today’s sudoku, I had a go at loading a bobbin with thread and doing a couple of trial runs.  It’s so smooth and quiet compared to Scamp’s old Jones machine.  You even get an instructional DVD with it, showing you the basics of threading it and starting the first few stitches.  Heavens, when we first got the Jones machine over 40 years ago, we didn’t have a TV far less a DVD player.  They were as unimaginable as the science fiction of 2001!

I needed to get this ‘pure affro’ of a hairstyle of mine cut, so we drove in to Glasgow to get it done.  Before that, Scamp bought herself a new Samsung tablet from, of all places, John Lewis!  The price was right and we weren’t getting it delivered so I forgave her.  After the haircut, lunch was in McPhee’s fish and chip shop and although it was a bit greasy which I knew I’d suffer for later, I enjoyed every mouthful.

That about summed up the day.  Cold but bright with the temperature not rising above zero until the late afternoon when cloud rolled in

The day the tree came down – 4 January 2017

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Today Scamp decided that the Christmas tree must come down along with all the rest of the decorations.  I left her to it. She’s so much better at putting the tree up and taking it down again.  I just load it back into the loft again once the boxes are packed and more parcel tape is applied to the Christmas tree box.  There is very little cardboard to be seen on the box now.  The entire box is almost encased in tape.

While she did that, I was joined in a verbal battle with a representative of John Lewis in the JL War.  It soon became a war of attrition with me doing all the clever verbal fencing and JL’s rep parrying my thrusts with clumsy “Sorry, but ..” and “I’m disappointed but …”.  Eventually it seems to have been escalated to a more senior fencer who I will skirmish with tomorrow.  It’s all playing out on FB.

In the afternoon I drove to Auchinstarry and got some interesting shots varying from landscapes to macros.  The macro shots of the moss was taken on top of a manhole cover.  It was only when I was crouched over the cover that I realised it was a sewer that was under it.  It was a wee bit smelly.  Just one of the sacrifices we make for our art.

Tomorrow morning looks like being cold so I might go out early to get some frosty shots … or I may just stay in bed.  I’m pretty sure the sewing machine will not come tomorrow.  I’m guessing the JL Embra crowd now know who’s been causing all the bother and will make sure it’s not delivered until the very last minute.  Well, that’s what I would do if I were them!!

First sketch of 2017 – 3 January 2017

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Ordered a sewing machine last week to progress my dressmaking skills. Ordered it from John Lewis in Emba because the Glasgow shop didn’t have it.  I thought it could be delivered to the Glasgow store and I could pick it up from there.  No, they couldn’t do that because the machine was in the Embra shop, not in a warehouse (?)  Maybe that’s a logical reason to JL, but it made no sense to me.  Anyway I wasn’t in a rush to get it and there was no way I was going to drive through Embra to pick it up.  I was told it would be delivered within five working days.  I phoned the Embra shop this morning to find out which day it would be delivered.  Here is a synopsis of the conversation after I’d explained that I wanted to know which day it would arrive:

“It will be delivered within five working days”
“Could you be more precise” I asked?
“Eh no.  We don’t actually deliver it.  Because it’s a small article, it will be delivered by a carrier.” *
“So will I get a phone call or an email to tell me which day it will be delivered?”
*“No, but it will be delivered either today, tomorrow or the next day”
Now surprising as it might seem, I can count to five and then add on the extra days for weekends and holidays.
“So you’re telling me that in a company as large as John Lewis, and in this day and age, you can’t tell me the DAY that my sewing machine will be delivered?”
”Yes, that’s correct.”
“Well, that wasn’t very helpful at all.”

Now, remind me.  This is the 21st century, isn’t it?  Imagine if I was working and had to take five days off my work on the off chance that my sewing machine was going to be delivered that day.  I’ve bought a lot of stuff from JL in  the past, but I’m afraid those days are now in the past.  I had thought of buying an iMac from them because they offer an extra year’s warranty, but as their delivery methods are so archaic, I think I’ll shop elsewhere.

Out at lunchtime for coffee with Fred.  No Val today as he was otherwise engaged.  Good natter with lots of laughter.

Walked over to St Mo’s when I came back and got the first sketch of 2017 completed in about 15 minutes.  I keep meaning to time my sketches.  Must do it with the next one.  Two wee boys were passing St Mo’s when I was sketching.  I heard them laughing and looked up to see one of them posing for me.  I laughed and so did they.  Just wee boys.  An old man passed behind me soon after and he seemed to be struggling along with a stick.  He seemed bemused and looked as if he was wondering what I’d found to draw in this urban landscape.  But that’s it.  It’s Urban Sketching.

I got some sunset shots with the Oly 5 and processed them according to Laura Shoe’s video  and was quite impressed with the effect.  I’ll use that method of combining basic adjustments with an overlay of graduated filter.

June came over for dinner tonight and she and Scamp had a good gossip about everything and anything.

Tomorrow?  Don’t know.  Haven’t seen the weather.

Troon – 2 January 2017

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Out before 10.30 this morning because although it was two degrees below zero, the sun was shining and the sky was fairly clear, so it would have been a shame to waste such a beautiful morning.

We pointed the car towards the west and drove down to Troon.  Probably Scamp’s favourite place in all the world or at least very nearly the favourite.  The drive down was great and I saw some beautiful photos just waiting to be taken.  Unfortunately, when you’re on a dual carriageway travelling at just under 70mph, you can’t just stop instantly, jump out and grab the shot then jump back in the car.  You have to give some consideration to other road users and the laws of physics.  What you can do is record them on your inner camera and remember the place, time and weather conditions, then hope you can replicate them when you have more time to stop and look.  If not, you’ve always got that inner record to look at in your mind’s eye.  The best thing about the inner image is, it’s perfect.  No intrusive grain, no camera shake, not photobombers.  Everything is just perfect.

When we got to Troon, I think we got the last space in the carpark.  Temperature was now on the positive side of zero, but not by much.  We took a walk along the front, heading south, wrapped up for the cold, but wearing sunglasses to avoid the bright sun. About halfway along we bumped into my old boss with his wife and son.  ‘Old’ as in the sense of ‘from some years ago’, because he is much younger than me.  Almost the same age as you JIC!  We talked for a while before his son wanted to be getting away on his scooter.  We had to scoot too, because it was cold just standing.  At the end of the path we walked onto the sand and continued out past where the kite surfers are usually to be found.  There were none today, I suppose because there wasn’t enough wind for them. After a while we turned round and although the sun was now at our backs, the wind was in our faces.  You can’t win sometimes.

We walked back into town and thought about going to the Lido for lunch, but it looked quite busy, so Scamp suggested we have a coffee in a wee cafe round the corner.  The Venice cafe was busy too, but we managed to grab a booth while another family were dithering about deciding if they was enough space for them.  He who hesitates is lost.  We won.  Lunch was a roll ’n’ scrambled egg for Scamp and a roll ’n’ flat sausage for me and two of the best coffees I’ve had outside of our house.  I’ve a good mind to get a business card from the Venice and hand it to the owner of the cafe in Callander and say “That’s how you make coffee mate!”

After that, it was back up the road with a stop to get tomorrow’s dinner from Morrison’s.

Tomorrow?  Scamp’s sister’s coming for dinner and before that it’s coffee with Fred for me.  Sorted.