Category: A Walk

Blinded by the light – 9 August 2016

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9 Aug bOff to Larky today to visit the optician. I had to have the inevitable drops in my eyes. I don’t think they serve any purpose other than to make my eyes supersensitive to light and also prevent me from focusing properly. After making me look (even more) like a psycho serial killer wearing those scary looking optician’s glasses, he decided that I didn’t need new glasses. That was before he saw the ones I was wearing. Both lenses scratched and scraped. £30 for two new lenses. A bargain at twice the price. Now I’ll be able to see again. Well, after Thursday I’ll be able to see again. Until then I’ll have to wear my groovy green ‘spare pair’ that I bought for £4 in Tiger in Glasgow. A complete bargain. Admired by all who see them!

After a cup of coffee and a scone in The Coalyard in Larky, I could see almost perfectly and drove home. It was nice to be back in Larky for a while, but although much of it is the same, a lot of it has changed a great deal. On the road down to the motorway one of the farmer’s fields was being perforated with about seven or eight machines taking test bores and a sign announced the imminent arrival of yet more new houses. I remember walking with my mum and dad along the right-of-way beside the railway past what my mum called “Daisy Cottage”. I don’t think I ever saw the cottage itself, but there were always a lot of Marguerites beside the path which I presume gave the cottage its name. I really should take my bike over to Larky some day and cycle again those paths before they are dug up and lost forever.

I went out to the Luggie path today to get some photos. The weather tried to keep me in, but I wasn’t having any of it. I keep a nylon rain jacket in the car for such an eventuality. I’m glad I did, because when the rain stopped, the sun came out for a few minutes and I grabbed some shots. The silhouette shot is a composite of an enormous green leaf, quite like a rhubarb leaf, sandwiched with an almost monochrome low viewpoint shot of cowparsley. The other one is genuine.

May go to Perth tomorrow. It depends on the weather.

A New Start – 8 August 2016

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8 augToday we returned to the gym after a couple of months lay off.  Hopefully it will be a return to fitness for us with our stated intention of having two days a week at the gym and pool.  Well, the weans will be back at school next week, so there should be fewer of them in the pool.  It was good to get back to a bit of exercise.

In the afternoon I went for a walk along the railway and got some good shots of a couple of Red Admiral butterflies as well as some abstract looking photos of translucent seed pods on the gorse bushes.  It was a lovely day when I was out, but half an hour earlier it had been heavy rain.  I wasn’t complaining, because the sun shone all the time I was out.

To complete our ‘new start’, Scamp started back at salsa class tonight and her shoulder held up with very little pain or awkwardness.  Tomorrow will be a better test to see how successful it was.

Off to Larkhall tomorrow for eye checks for us both.

Fish, Weeds, Hoverflies and Snails – 2 August 2016

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2 July bWent for a walk along the railway before dinner tonight and noticed that my plan to re-seed the banks of the burn with Himalayan Balsam last year had been successful.  The Himalayan Balsam was everywhere, as was the cowparsley and meadowsweet.  I so like the cowparsley.  It’s always a great place for insects, like the great big helicopter landing pad of the insect world.  Today I chased hoverflies of various stripes, and even some without stripes!  Thankfully I managed to catch one of them, even if it was from the rear.   However, it was the snails that were really the stars of the cowparsley.  You see, everyone wants in on the act with this versatile plant.  I’d plant some in the garden if Scamp would let me (fat chance there).

I don’t think tomorrow is spoken for yet, but Thursday and Friday are booked already.  How did I find the time to work, eh?

In the morning we drove to Linlithgow to get some fish at Oyster Oyster.  So it was sea bass for dinner tonight and probably herring in oatmeal for lunch tomorrow.  No fish fingers for dinner tomorrow though.  There’s plenty more fish in the sea and also in the freezer now too.

Flooers, Painting and Salsa – 1 August 2016

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1 AugYesterday you were subjected to a lengthy story about my problems with computer technology. Today I tackled another lengthy computer technology problem, but before you switch off, I’m just mentioning it for my record, because you will remember that this blog is as much for me as it is for you. With that in mind, all I’m going to say is that making a bootable USB drive is a minefield and I’m going to leave it at that. I may leave the USB drive at that too.

It was another lovely day and, I wasted some of it staying inside when I should have been out walking or cycling. I did get a painting started and it’s beginning to look ok. Maybe better than ok. I’ll know better when I finish it.

I got some more beastie pictures at St Mo’s. I also got some flower shots. I like what the ‘cooncil’ have done with the wild flower area. Maybe they will think about looking after it this time and not allowing it go to thistles and grass like they did with the other areas in the past few years. They’ve also pulled out the plug with an exceptional effort at producing an adventure playground that weans actually want to play in. It looks brilliant NLC. Pity you couldn’t have made a better job of grassing the hilly parts.

Salsa tonight was difficult. Two weeks off and I’d forgotten every move I’ve learned this year. The old moves, I can remember, the new ones are still ‘new’ every week. It’s the Goldfish Syndrome. I really must make a commitment to learning a new move every second week at least.

I was thinking about yesterday’s landscape shot. It was the way the lighting illuminated the textures and the way the highlights and shadows created a three dimensional feel of the hills that I liked. I saw it again tonight as I was driving home from Glasgow. The glancing rays from the setting sun created that 3D feel again. I didn’t have a camera, but I knew it wouldn’t last long enough for me to get off the motorway and grab a shot even if I’d had a camera. It was good enough just to see it.

Painting and cycling are on the agenda for tomorrow with a bit of luck.

Fanatics, Festivals and Food, always Food – 30 July 2016

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E7301117- flickr--212Today was the start of the Merchant City Festival and we usually try to visit at least once during the week or the weekend, depending on how long it runs. This year it’s for a whole week. What we didn’t know, well I didn’t know, because Scamp with her ear to everything that’s going on everywhere had already heard that there was a YES2 rally in George Square. Oh dear, I fear I may offend some people here, so if you have nationalist tendencies, it’s probably better that you go in to the kitchen now. I’ll call you back when I’ve finished denouncing Nick the Chick and all her deluded followers.

I don’t know who was selling the big saltire flags (probably made in China), but they were doing a roaring trade. The world and his wife seemed to have one. If you weren’t waving your flag, you had to wear it, like a cheapo Superman cape. We even saw a couple of dogs wearing them, but they didn’t look as excited as their owners. Most of the participants had at least some blue paint on their faces too, trying to look like William Wallace, the famous Mel Gibson look-a-like. E7301119- flickr--212There were even some English Scots.  I do not know what that was all about.  One incensed bloke was bawling into a microphone connected to a loudspeaker. I really should have told him that the purpose of the loudspeaker was to avoid him having a very sore throat the next day. The clue is in the first syllable of LOUDspeaker. He was saying “WE’RE NOT LIKE THE OTHER PARTY” Which other party was never made clear. “WE’RE HAPPY TO LET ANYONE SPEAK. ANYONE CAN COME HERE AND SPEAK” as he held on grimly to his microphone. Everyone else who had come to the rally, and there were hundreds of them, was pumped up with excitement and national fervour. You could easily tell the tourists. They were the ones wandering around, without flags, but with confused looks on their unpainted faces. As I walked through the throngs I was amazed by the amount of excitement and happiness. Give a boy and girl flags to wave on a sunny day and they’ll be happy. Give them their own country to run? Aye Right!

I enjoyed looking at the motorbikes, none of which were made in Scotland. Scamp just looked embarrassed.

Right you, you can come back out of the kitchen now. The bad bit’s finished.

Wandered down to the Merchant City to see what was happening. As usual there were crowds of people there. A few ‘maddies’ wandering around entertaining the punters, like the four blokes standing on one of the marble ‘pews’ in the pedestrian area. They were spray tanned, wearing plastic nappies and miming in harmony – think synchronised swimming on land … with nappies! Bands were playing their wee hearts out and food stalls were selling every kind of food imaginable. You could even challenge Andy Murray Live to return two of his serves. One man said “It’s no’ even the real wan! It’s jist a big TV screen.” Come on pal, what did you expect? The double winner of Wimbledon standing there trading shots and insults with the cream of Glasgow’s shell suit wearing tennis afficionados? I don’t think so.

E7301121- flickr--212Maybe it was the smell of the street food, but we both agreed it was lunch time and headed off towards the Italian Kitchen. Lovely lunch. It’s far too long since we last darkened its doors. Hopefully it won’t be long before we are back.  Scamp had Salmon with a pesto sauce fried potatoes and a side salad.  I had salsiccia and chilli pizza

On the bus back, one wee boy recognised me as his ex-teacher (I nearly slipped up there and said ‘old’ teacher). Scamp said “You see, somebody remembers you!” That kind of made my day a bit brighter.

Joke:

A Scotsman, and Englishman and an Irishman go in to a bar, but they couldn’t stay. They had to come out, because the Englishman didn’t like it.

The phone was there all the time – 27 July 2016

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27 JulyScamp phoned up about the replacement phone for the one with the broken seal. For once she got a Scottish voice. She started to explain the saga when the guy broke into the stream of consciousness and asked “Samsung?” When she agreed, it was a Samsung, he told her that it happens all the time. Allegedly Samsung do open the boxes to make sure that the Samsung phone in the box is up to scratch (and has no actual scratches). It’s their version of Quality Control. Why then don’t they seal the boxes back up? Dunno, neither did he. He did however assure her that the phone was legal and ok to use. Why couldn’t the other three duffers have told her so in the first place, causing her untold stress and a needless 48 hour wait before she got the phone working? Vodafone. I think that’s the answer. The company that doesn’t know its arse from its elbow. I’m going to take the assistant at Vodafone Glasgow’s advice and go with Tesco next time. In fact, I may take Fred P’s advice and buy a phone and just do Pay as You Go next time. For all the call time I use and the minimal amount of text I send, I could survive on PaYG, with a decent amount of download time.

That started the day off a lot better than yesterday. The sun came out too for a while, so we went to sunny Falkirk to get some fish for the tea. Seabass en Papillote, just like I made for us and Hazy last week. I hope I spelt it right, but I can’t be bothered looking it up!

Went on an expedition to St Mo’s later to get some photos. Found lots of hoverflies. Always like taking their photos. There are such a variety of them around at this time of year. Also lots of Soldier Beetles AKA Bonking Beetles for obvious reasons!

Finally I tried getting Annette’s Nexus 7 to work again using yet another hopeful sounding ‘solution’ from an ‘expert’ on the net. It didn’t work, but it did kill it completely this time. Now it won’t charge either. I think I may have eventually ‘bricked’ it. Good riddance.

Hopefully another dry day tomorrow when we can go out and I can get a couple of landscapes photographed if not painted. We’ll see, it’s all in the lap of the weather fairies.

A more relaxing day – 22 July 2016

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22 July bToday was a day for relaxing after the last couple of driving days.

We were intending getting the bus in to Glasgow, but as the rain was pelting down (the garden needs it), we changed plans and drove in. For lunch we went to the Chinese restaurant on Sauchiehall Street (AKA Sausage Roll Street) where Scamp used to take her mum for lunch. We’d been there before. It always was in the “Cheap and Cheerful” category, but today it was only “Cheap”. The food left a lot to be desired. My Sweet and Sour Chicken was tasteless, apart from the sickly sauce. Scamp’s Chicken Pineapple was also tasteless. I don’t think we’ll be back. I think we might be spoilt by Cotton House.

After we came back, I went to get petrol because we’d used up all the Chessington petrol from yesterday. Then I went for a walk down the Luggie Water. Not a lot there to photograph apart from some early fruiting rasps. Drove over to Moodiesburn then over the back road and found some horses in a field. Took Harry the Horse’s photo, and drove home.

Jackie, Scamp’s sister and her husband referred to previously as Murd were on the way north from Southampton and I was going to give them a lift from Glasgow. That was before they got caught up in an almighty traffic jam just before Tebay services. They were due in Glasgow around 7.30pm. It’s now 10.30pm and they’re still not here. They told us they would get a taxi from Glasgow instead of tying up my night, which was very good of them.

A relaxing day for us, but maybe not for Jackie and Murd

Don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow. To quote Scamp “It depends on the weather”

The Hottest Day of the Year – 19 July 2016

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19 JulyYesterday was hot, but today, oh today was even hotter.  Over 33ºc in some places.  Heavens, even Scotland had over 25ºc.  What is the world coming to?

Scamp had decided that she was going to sit in the garden all day.  A sensible decision given that the sun was going mad.  We sat in the garden for a while watching movement in the pond.  We couldn’t decide whether it was frogs or newts.  We settled on ‘Frewts’ as the most likely suspects.

After lunch we went for a walk along past the golf course and had a couple of drinks at the clubhouse.  It doesn’t seem as if you have to be a member, just as long as you’ve got money.  We had money and I sampled another of these English IPAs which are very nice.

After we got back, Scamp went for more sunbathing in the garden while I went back to the wild woods to try to photograph some butterflies.  I managed to get a Small Heath and a Comma.  We don’t get Commas in Scotland, but apparently they are moving further north as a result of global warming.  I saw a deer, but it was too fast for me and was away into the tall grass before I could get the camera ready.  Also saw the pale blue dragonfly that I saw earlier in the week, but again, it wasn’t landing, just cruising, looking for a mate.

Canute and Delia came over for dinner which was an Indian take-away.  Very entertaining evening.  Just hope I can get to sleep in this really hot night.

Back North tomorrow.  Heavy rain forecast!

Hampton Court – 18 July 2016

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18 july bToday Scamp finally decided that we should go to Hampton Court.  A short walk and two buses took us there.  It’s a fascinating building, but far too much to take in on just the one visit.  We settled on the Kitchen and William & Mary’s rooms.  Walked for miles in the building and outside in the searing heat of the gardens.  The best bit was coming in to Kingston after the visit and having a well deserved beer in a bar next to the river.  Scamp of course had a Pimms.

It’s a short blog post tonight because I’m knackered and worse than that, my iPhone decided it didn’t want to count my steps so I can’t brag about how many miles I’ve covered.  Oh well, what does it matter anyway.

It’s supposed to be hotter tomorrow.  Is that even possible?

Open Heart Surgery – 17 July 2016

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17 JulyThe open-heart-surgery wasn’t on me, it was on my blog.  Or to be more exact, it was on my website architecture, but more of that later.

Not such a lazy start to the day, by which I mean that I was up and having breakfast just after 9am.  That’s early enough for me – on my holidays.  After that, Scamp and I went for a walk through the woodland path near the house.  Much better paths than back in Cumbersheugh.  The managed woodland is wedged between two halves of a golf course and is wild enough to feel as if you are miles from anywhere, but with the knowledge that you are only a mile at most from civilization.  I got a few photos, but on the way back, the battery on my ’10 packed in, so I swapped it out with the one in the ‘5 which is much more frugal with its energy.  When I got back to the house I found I’d lost the battery cover for the ‘5.  It’s the weakest part of the design of this camera and pivots on a flimsy plastic hinge, or doesn’t in this case.  I reckoned it was lying on the path somewhere and as it was black and the path was hard packed black dirt among trees, there was little chance of recovering it.  It was lost for good.  Duct tape would make a reasonable substitute when I got home, until then I need to be careful.

For ages, Hazy has been promising she’d help me organise my website to make it more simple to navigate.  Today we sat down and after backing everything up, we set about the open heart operation.  Actually, the backing up was the hardest part.  Once that was complete, the reorganising was pretty straight forward.  Straight forward, that is if you have someone who knows what they are doing sitting right next to you, not on the other end of a phone line, or worse still, someone who had been sitting in their room in California six months ago writing a blog post telling a numpty like me how to do it.  So, once again, thank you Hazy for not making a drama out of a crisis.  You are a gem, and you know it.

After that scary thing, Scamp and I drove out to Tolworth to get dinner.  This was another scary thing.  Here I was driving in London, well, in the outskirts of London, but driving with the rest of the lunatics.  My God, I thought I was impatient – I am impatient – but I have nothing on these folk that need to be everywhere, like, yesterday!  The only thing to do is to join them and be as mental as them.  Turn a rubber ear to all horns and turn your blind eye to the gesticulations.  Fire a few well chosen Scottish sweary words back at them.  They won’t understand the words, but they’ll get the gist.  I’d hate to drive through this every day going to and coming back from work.  I dare say you get used to it.

So, we reached M&S and got parked too.  Almost as soon as the engine had stopped a bloke came over and offered to wash my car for a fiver.  If I thought he could have removed the dried seagull crap from the back wing without steel wool, I’d have got him to do it!  I saved him the trouble by saying “Thanks, but it’s ok as it is.”  Had coffee after M&S to fire me up for the drive back, which incidentally was much more pleasant than the drive there.  Maybe I have joined the lunatic fringe.

Scamp had already stated her intention to go and sit in the sun in the garden for the remains of the afternoon, but that battery flap was still bugging me, so I set off to see what I could see.  I’d hardly walked for five minutes along the path when there it was!  By luck it had fallen with the chrome inside facing up and glinting in the sun, completely confounding the Centre of Gravity theory that states that bread always falls butter side down.  Too difficult to explain after a stressful day – Google it.  Happy now, my step was a lot lighter as I retraced my steps of this morning and walked the wild woodland again.  Saw a beautiful pale blue dragonfly, but it was too busy looking for another pale blue dragonfly to bother with the likes of me.

Dinner was Sea Bass en Papillote with new potatoes and broccoli.  Followed by Apple Crumble with cream.  Tonight’s film was the mystifying Now You See Me.  Third success from Hazy.

Tomorrow we may be going to Hampton Court … on the bus.  Enough driving excitement for me today.