Category: A Walk

The Weather Fairies Lied – 16 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

16-oct

They promised us sunshine.  I think they must have had their fingers crossed behind their backs.

It started off dull, but we were expecting that.  We knew it would brighten up around midday.  However, when the wee hand was at 12 and the big hand was also at 12, the weather was much the same.  It stayed that way with the occasional bright spell through the afternoon.  I risked a half hour walk later in the afternoon and got a fairly decent portrait of a swan and a shot of a ‘Black Panther’ salute from a bush before the rain put an end to play.

Drove in to Glasgow in bright sunshine, but the sun was low and distracting.  One of those days where you wish it was dull like in the morning.  It might be boring, but at least there’s nothing to blind you.  Salsa was very energetic and very, very enjoyable.  I think Scamp was wondering what was coming next a few times when I started to string two or even three half moves together in a sequence.  It must be really hard being a follower at times.

img_3449-flickrTonight’s Inktober sketch is of some Lisianthus flowers in a vase on the table.  I keep wanting to call them Lissajous which are a totally different kettle of fish.  As far as I can remember, they were produced on an oscilloscope when we were studying AC current at college, back last century some time.  Google it, that’s the best idea.  Anyway ‘flooers’ as I call them are sometimes a picture of last resort, but these ones were quite a challenge.  Pen was a blue Linc Saffron from the Pound Shop.  Quite high quality rollerball pen, made in India.  It has a tendency to smudge when wet, but dries to a water resisting finish, at least the black does.  I’ve been using them for years now.  If you see them on sale, buy a pack.  A pound well spent.  Paper was my favourite Pink Pig sketching book.

Not sure what to expect from the weather tomorrow, but hopefully it will be better than today.

Rain and Sunsets – 15 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

15-oct

The weather fairies were predicting a good day for tomorrow, with blue skies all around, but for today they were predicting blue as in the colour of water everywhere.  I don’t know about tomorrow, but they were dead right about today.  Scamp’s phone predicted that it would dry up around 4pm and it did.

Needless to say, there was very little chance of photos during the bulk of the day and no chance of any sketches, even with permanent markers.

We went to Stirling, because:

  1. It’s fairly near – This wasn’t a day for driving far.
  2. It’s cheap to park if you know where to go – £1.40 a day v £2 an hour in Glasgow.
  3. It’s still got a good curry shop.

Sorted then.  Had a curry in the Indian Cottage and a quick wander round the shops.  Coffee in Cafe Nero and then a browse through the gallery in Port Street then got tomorrow’s dinner in Waitrose on the way back to the car.  It wasn’t a brilliant day, but the curries were tasty and mine was super hot with loads of fresh green chillies.

Although the clouds were lifting and the rain was becoming more hit and miss, there still wasn’t a case for getting the sketchbook or the camera out of the bag.  It would have been a bit dangerous and maybe even illegal to do a sketch while I was driving anyway.  Just another of the restrictions being put in place by the Scottish government.  Can’t drink and drive and now you can’t draw and drive.  Whatever next?  They’ll be telling us we can’t use our phones while we’re driving!  Only joking, they’d never be able to police that, would they?

I started to get twitchy once we got home.  The rain was off, the clouds were lifting and there was a wee bit of light getting through, so I grabbed my jacket and ‘the big dog’, the Nikon and headed out.  I didn’t really want to go to St Mo’s because I knew the light direction wouldn’t make for a good sunset shot, so instead I took the longer walk to Broadwood Loch.  It’s not really a loch, it’s a big pond – manmade by ‘the cooncil’ who flooded a boggy chunk of land they couldn’t sell to house builders or to the industrial sector.  That’s all they did really.  They built a turf dam at one end and let the water level rise.  Initially there was talk of a sailing club and game fishing, but as usual, these ideas were shelved by ‘the cooncil’ as it would cost too much outside the limits of Motherwell, so we must consider ourselves lucky to have a path round the pond and some distance markers.  Compare and contrast with Strathclyde Loch with its Olympic rowing lanes, its sailing club, cycle track, multiple carparks … need I go on?  It couldn’t have anything to do with its close proximity to Motherwell, the centre of North Lanarkshire.  I digress – as usual.  I got a few decent sunset shots using the 10 – 20mm Sigma lens which is simply ideal for this type of shot.  I had something in the bag at last.

img_3445-flickrToday is ‘hump day’ for Inktober, 15 days in.  Pass this and you’re on the home stretch.  I chose one of my old shoes for today’s sketch and since a lot of people are photographing their pens with their sketches, I thought I’d do the same.  Today’s drawing was completed on 110gsm Fabriano Sketch using a 0.3 Micron.

Lets hope the weather fairies are as correct in their prediction for tomorrow as they were today.

Another day waiting for the aerial man – 12 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

12-oct

The bloke who was going to take down that bloody aerial failed to turn up today.  Different bloke from the last time, different day, same result.  Now he says he’ll be here tomorrow.  Do we believe him?

Went out early for some photos in the sunshine in St Mo’s.  Got one of Mr Grey preening.  Unless he’s lost a lot of weight, I don’t think this is the real Mr Grey, more likely it’s a body double.  The real Mr Grey has probably flown south for the winter and he’s arranged this substitute to make it look as if he’s still here.  The body double probably even collects the real Mr Grey’s Giro.  Yes, I know that we don’t do Giros any more, but unemployed bird still use them, because they don’t do internet banking.  Anyway, the green leaves were growing from a storm felled tree.  There must have been enough continuity between trunk and roots to keep the transfer of sugars and starches.  The landscape is from St Mo’s and is of clouds breaking over the Meikle Bin above and beyond Kilsyth.  The wee spider was climbing a tree and if you look closely at the Flickr version, you will notice that he’s got his safety rope securely fixed to a branch.  Even spiders have to be careful these days.

img_3438-flickrI’ve been following “The Constant Doodler” and today’s Inktober sketch is my first attempt at his signature One Line drawing where his pen never leaves the paper until the drawing is finished.  It’s much more difficult than it looks.  Try it sometime and you’ll discover just how much planning is required before you start.

Other than that, it was another dull day after the promise of the morning’s weather.  There was a bit of rain in the evening and more if forecast tomorrow.  Maybe that will give the aerial man another excuse to avoid the demolition of the bloody aerial.  But then you never know.  Maybe tomorrow we’ll be celebrating the removal of this piece of roof architecture.

Clingfilm – 11 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

11-oct-3

A strange title, but hopefully all will become clear – like the clingfilm 😉

Lazy start to the day, but that usually happens on a Tuesday after a busy Monday with two hours of dancing and an hour of driving, then preparing the photos, posting them and then blog writing.  I’m not moaning about, just explaining why we almost broke our self imposed rule of Up By Ten.  The light seemed to be improving in the morning and I grabbed a few shots of the Gazanias in the hanging basket with their covering of raindrops from the showers during the night.

What to do with the rest of the day?  We couldn’t decide where to go, because we had decided we’d go out.  Dinner was sorted and we needed nothing extra for that.  It was finally settled when Scamp said we didn’t have any cling film and that called for a visit to Lakeland.  Scamp also wanted to get some flowers to plant in my raised bed for some winter colour.  We could achieve both aims with a visit to Lakeland and Dobbies just outside Stirling.  What exciting lives we lead when our day revolves around Clingfilm and Pansies!

We came back from Stirling over the Tak ma Doon road.  Usually it’s a scenic road with plenty of opportunities for big-sky landscapes.  Today heavy clouds had rolled in and everywhere was dull.  Oh well, I still had the pics of the Gazanias to fall back on.  Just to make sure, I went out to bother the wildlife in St Mo’s when we got back.  Just missed Mr Grey, but he saw me and was off like as shot.  More snails up trees.  It seems that they favour Ash trees.  Disturbed a couple of deer and this time I got a shot I liked. One young doe ran when she saw me, then turned and watched to make sure I wasn’t following, giving me the chance I needed to take the shot.  I don’t know what kind of fly was on the tree in the other shot.  It looked a bit like a mosquito, but on closer examination, the head looks more like a Jenny Long Legs (Crane Fly).  Don’t know.

Today’s Inktober (Number 11) is of Monday’s Daily Sudoku which was completed yesterday (Monday) and was img_3436-flickrlying on the coffee table in front of me, so, like the hand yesterday, it wasn’t going to go anywhere.  Fred P can do quick portraits or caricatures of people sitting near him in Costa and they always look like the subject.  I just can’t draw fast enough to grab a likeness.  It’s all about confidence I think.  Anyway, I’m happy enough with today’s quick sketch.  Made some more fruit scones tonight.  I did think of sketching one of them, but they move off the plate too quickly.

Don’t know what’s happening tomorrow because we’ve got clingfilm now, so possibly no need to go out.  Jamie G our Salsa teacher is off on business tomorrow, and we don’t know who will be taking the class.  It’s not worth driving for an hour through Glasgow’s Wednesday evening traffic only to find it’s a, how shall I put this, less entertaining teacher.  Maybe we’ll stay in and watch a film instead!

Down The Green – 9 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

 

9-octIt being a lovely morning we got up and out fairly early and headed down Glasgow Green for a walk in the sunshine. Hunners of cyclists were also taking advantage of another unexpected sunny morning. Watched and listened in to some apprentice rowers getting loud and possibly expert instruction from the overhanging platform while their more proficient compatriots sailed gracefully past.  Thought we would go to the Wintergarden of the People’s Palace for our usual Sunday lunch, but it was closed for repair of the roof.  It’s been closed since July when a pane of glass crashed down from the roof.  Luckily nobody was hurt.  Unluckily Glasgow Council moved with their usual inefficiency and three months later, we seem to be no further forward.  No press release to inform the public about their progress.  A notice at the entrance says unhelpfully that the Wintergarden will be closed for the foreseeable future.  So much for the information age.

Today’s photos were taken around Glasgow Green, but don’t bother clicking on them as Flickr has decided that they aren’t photos at all and refused to load them.  It also tells me that the photos I uploaded yesterday aren’t photos either.  I don’t know what was happening in September with Flickr, because there wasn’t any outage that month.  I think every other month this year has seen at least one ‘down day’.  It usually happens at a weekend when there’s nobody available to fix it.  Yahoo, who own Flickr, don’t seem interested in maintaining it, but they still pester me to go to a Pro account.  I don’t think so.

Scamp and I planted allium bulbs today.  Two big pots of them.  It’ll be interesting to see how they fare.  One gigantic bulb in each pot, surrounded by five slightly smaller ones, surrounded by five even smaller ones.

Dinner tonight was Tuna steak for Scamp and Hogget for me.  Hogget was interesting.  A bit like lamb and also a bit like liver.  Tougher than I’d have expected, but that might just have been my cooking.

Another of those beautiful mornings that faded to cloudy skies in the afternoon.  Getting a lot colder too.  Scamp got some pictures of a squirrel this morning trying to steal some nuts from the bird feeder.  It sat for ages on top of one of  the high fence posts.  Quite comical.

Embra – 8 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

8-oct

Embra was the choice today.  Now I won’t go in to the semantic arguments, the place is called ‘Embra’ and that’s it.

The train was fairly busy, but not excessively so – there’s a reason for this sentence.  As usual we got off at Haymarket and walked up towards the tea shop.  It was shut!  I should have checked his website, it was there in black and white, or red and white actually.  Go there, you’ll understand.  At the top of the road was the Exhibition Centre and also an enormous queue of middle aged and older folk.  Behind us too was a long train of people of that same demographic, most of whom had filled the seats on the train.  When we got to the Exhibition Centre the explanation was plain.  It was a Tesco wine tasting.  The early arrivals were already getting pissed oops, sampling and this lot seemed to be waiting for the first lot to be poured out the door.  We moved on.  Coffee in Cafe Nero then a walk through the farmers’ market.  I got some hogget for dinner tomorrow.  I suppose this is where farmers’ markets win.  Hogget is a lamb between a year and two years old.  I’ll taste it tomorrow.

On the subject of food, we went to a wee French place on the Grassmarket for lunch.  We’d been there a few months ago, well February actually, I hadn’t realised it was that long ago.  French Onion Soup again for me – creature of habit and Toulouse Sausage with mustard sauce and mash.  Scamp had Crayfish in a Garlic butter, a very garlic butter followed by Chicken Supreme with six thrice cooked chips.  Foodies? Us?  Surely not!  Both meals were voted excellent and I’ll say it again, we’ll be back.

Walked round to John Lewis and went back to 1984.  Not the date, the book!  Apparently the St James Centre is being … refurbished … reimagined. Perhaps demolished is a better description.  All the shops are now closed and shuttered, except John Lewis.  They didn’t get that memo, it seems.  It appears that it will remain like that until 2020 when, overnight, a new great new ‘retail opportunity’ will rise phoenix-like from the ashes.  Whether it will include John Lewis we’ll have to wait four years to find out.  For now, it feels as hopeless as the novel 1984 did.

Got the train home and, if you remember back to the second paragraph, first sentence of this epistle, it was a fairly busy train in the morning.  The afternoon train to Glasgow was mobbed, by a much younger contingent, mainly young men dressed in tartan and with lion rampant flags tied round their necks.  Yes, Scotland were playing football in Glasgow.  It turned out they were playing Lithuania (I think it was a Lithuanian school team – a primary school team).  The fans all seemed excited and were guzzling Becks like there was no tomorrow.  It might have been to induce a coma that would prevent them from seeing the game which was due to start at about 7.30pm.  This was the 3.30pm train.  The game ended in a 1-1 draw.  It’s easy to become cynical about football fans, especially Scottish football fans.  Too easy.

One sketch done for Inktober.  I’m happy with it.  Done in public in Princes Street Gardens.  Another step forward.

Coffee Time – 7 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

Coffee with Val and Fred today. Fred was his usual self, but for once, I think I beat him in sketches done, just beat him, but it counts. Val was just Val.

Got some tips from Fred on sketching and gave him some tips on filling up a Kindle. As usual he had some CDs for me.

In the afternoon I went for a drive looking for photos. That’s where the landscape came from. Also, I got a sketch done. Previously, I’d started, then aborted a sketch of Auchinstarry Quarry. Then I started the drawing of the house. It was meant to be a preliminary sketch, but as I worked on it, it became firmer and more detailed and finally it was the sketch. Unfortunately, it was on the same page as the aborted sketch. That’s what the Tippex covers. In future I won’t skimp on paper. It’s the cheapest part of the sketching process and it is stupid to skimp. Learn by your mistakes I was told. That said, I remember reading that only fools learn by their own mistakes, wise men by the mistakes of others. Be wise.

Scamp’s out at a Witches Glam Night. No Halloween this year, it’s been brought forward and it’s a Glam Night instead. That leaves me with a half bottle of wine, three bottles of beer and an almost full bottle of whisky. That should do for tonight!

Heading somewhere that sells tea tomorrow. Long Leaf tea, not the floor sweepings I got last week.

Autumn – 5 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

Earlier in the week there was mist in the morning and today I noticed that the leaves were turning, but I stuck to my pledge not to photograph the sugar colours and I stuck to my self imposed ban. As you can see, it was flowers that took the brunt of my photography today. It was a nice bright day with good directional light in the afternoon.

Those photos accounted for an hour in the late afternoon the rest of the time was spent farting about on computers. There’s probably a perfectly good verb for wasting your precious time trying to get the electronics inside the CPU and its various siblings to to do your bidding, but ‘farting about’ is an adequate substitute in my opinion. The less said about the detail, the better.

<Rant1>
Drove through horrendous traffic in to Glasgow tonight to get to the STUC building in reasonable time. Nearly knocked a bloke off his bike.

  • Doesn’t he realise that I own the road?
  • Doesn’t he know that I’ve got right of way simply because I could knock him down and kill him with my tonne of pretty coloured steel?
  • Doesn’t he know that the person on the roundabout has right-of-way?
  • Does he want to have “But I’m a cyclist, give me room” chiseled on his tombstone?
    </Rant1>

 

<Rant2>

After losing my temper with the world, the cyclist and Scamp we made it in to the STUC building for salsa class in time, only to find almost the whole building was taken over by an LGBTI group. What the hell does the ‘I’ mean? Isnae sure? It looks like it’s like Countdown:
Consonant, consonant, consonant, consonant, oh, better have a vowel. Rearrange them into a well known phrase or saying. Failing that, decide on a use for the acronym.

</Rant2>

Now mentally knackered after navigating through the traffic and physically knackered after two hours of salsa I’m writing the blog at 11.15pm because the person who runs the salsa class decided undemocratically to make all the classes start half an hour later. Some people are great at business, but are just not people-people, if that makes sense. After you ask folk if a change is ok with them and they tell you that “No, it isn’t”, then that’s the time to have a rethink, not just carry on regardless. That was probably rant 3.

img_3426-flickrI did manage to get a quick sketch done for Inktober 2016. It was a bit of a crash at the last minute, but it was completed. A partly blind drawing, that is you don’t look at the paper when you’re drawing, you just concentrate on the subject. I did correct myself once or twice, but for the most part it was blind drawing. It probably looks like that, but Inktober is not about skill and ability, it’s about putting pen to paper, daily.

Looking for a relaxing day tomorrow. May let the train take the strain. Hoping for even more late sunshine.

A Brighter Day – 4 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

Not just brighter with sunshine, although it was a sunny day, but brighter on the computer front and in my general demeanour, as a result.

I stapled a prepped sheet of watercolour paper to my painting board, built up my easel and started getting a landscape out of my head and on to the paper through the medium of oils. It was partly successful in that, although the landscape wasn’t the best I’ve done, it was a refreshing experience working in oils again. I’m going to try the same landscape again soon in a different medium, perhaps pastel. It’s years since I last painted in pastel, probably not since I was doing my Higher Art about 25 years ago! I’ve dug the pastels out and found some pastel paper, so there’s no excuse not to get started.

Today’s photos come from a walk through St Mo’s today. The toadstool made me think of a poem by Elizabeth Fleming which might ring a few bells with two or three of my readers, although it was a long time ago, even further away than when I last used pastels! I was amazed at the detail that appeared in the little seedpods and of course the Blue Trumpets always look so unearthly. They always make me think of the moon landscape in the Clangers. Google it if you don’t know what I’m talking about. Oh yes, and there’s a shot of Mr Grey on Flickr too. The sketch is for Inktober – Google it.

Settled down to the fact that I’ve lost all the rules I made up in the Hazel app, and realised that most of them were redundant now. I’ve re-written the ones I use the most and will write more as I feel the need. I’ll also back the bloody things up this time. Lesson Learned!

That’s about it for today. A beautiful bright day, if a trifle cold. A cold trifle would be nice too!

I have seen the future and it works, sort of – 3 October 2016

Posted on by Zogman

3-oct

I couldn’t stay living in the past, I simply didn’t work for me.  After I’d tasted the future, the old fashioned way of working in Mountain Lion was passé.  I longed for all those little tweaks that could make life so much easier.  It had to be done.  I reinstalled El Cap via the Carbon Copier disk.  Hazel still didn’t work, but I found a strange workaround for the NAS.  If I access the drive as a ‘guest’, access is so much faster than if I login as me, with name and password.  Weird! The main thing is it works.  I’ll just have to rewrite the rules I use a lot with Hazel.  Sorry JIC, I should have explained yesterday that the Hazel I’m referring to is not a person, it’s an app.  A very clever app that files stuff away according to rules you write for the purpose.

While Carbon Copier was reinstalling the Capitan, I went for a walk to get some photos and to clear my head.  Saw at least four dragonflies down near the Luggie.  I also forgot to mention that summer is not over yet, because I’ve recently seen swallows still flying and feeding themselves up for the long journey south.  The last sighting was last week.  It’s easy to tell when you see the first swallow in spring, but it’s more difficult to record the last sighting.

I’m going to bed. I’ve had a long day and am knackered.  Tomorrow I intend to do a little computing, some painting and some photographing.  Kizomba was much better than the last mob.  I think we might stay with this pair.  Even if it took us an hour and fifteen minutes to do the 20 min journey into Glasgow tonight.  There must be a better way, after all, it’s the future!