Category: A Walk

A Coot goes for a walk – 5 January 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Like most of  the days recently, Very little happened today.

We did get some snow, but although it lay for a while there wasn’t a great deal of it. Not even enough to make a tiny wee snowman.

Scamp had finished a complicated jigsaw with the strangest looking pieces made of thin plywood. They looked and smelled like they had been laser cut, but I think their laser must have been blunt because the gaps between the pieces were much wider than from an ordinary jigsaw.

I went for a walk in St Mo’s with the A6500 toting a 70-180mm lens. I got a few good few shots with the combination and most of them were of birds wandering about  on the frozen ice of St Mo’s pond.  PoD went to a Coot walking across the snow covered ice, looking like it was just about to fall into a hole in the ice.

Spoke to Jamie in the evening an heard about Simonne’s upcoming visit to warmer climes and the weather.

Tomorrow I’ve more ideas for fixing this poor maligned iMac.

I told you there wasn’t much happening!

Icy! – 4 January 2025

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The ice from yesterday had melted slightly during the night

However, early in the morning today it froze solid, leaving treacherous black ice on the pavements and on the roads. We weren’t intending going far, but we did need milk and something for tomorrow’s breakfast, so we would need to go out at some time today.

I spent a lot of time pruning down the catalog that almost worked yesterday in the hope that it would just work, but it didn’t, well not completely. I left where it was, not wanting to destroy about three year’s work and helped Scamp.

Today the tree and the decorations were coming down and being packed away. Technically it’s not twelfth night until tomorrow, but Scamp was ready to get started today. With two of us working on it, it didn’t take too long, about an hour all in including the time to record the number of cards we’d received. That was a bit of a cheat as neither of us had sent any cards this year. When it was done, the living room looked a wee bit bigger and a big bit emptier. It’s always the same every year.

Later in the afternoon we decided that there had been enough of a thaw and we’d walk down to the shops. As always, the estate paths and roads had not been salted and the paths were quite treacherous. But we made it there and back again without too much trouble and I even got a photo, a single photo of a wee weed growing from a gap in a low wall.

I fancied making Paella for dinner and coincidentally Scamp had the same idea. While I was waiting for the chicken to defrost I sat down at the disaster that is the iMac and completely removed all the photos I’d carefully placed yesterday and then started clean and it’s looking a lot better. Not perfect, but definitely much better.

We may get some white stuff tomorrow.

Winter is coming – 2 January 2025

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Well, that’s more or less what the weather fairies said.

It was frosty this morning when I was making the breakfast. The weather machine in the living room read -3.3ºc and it looked like that at the backdoor. Frosted grass and the blue tits taking turns to feed from the fat brick hanging from the rowan tree.

We decided it was time to lag the overflow pipe from the boiler. Scamp came up with the idea of using an old piece of expanded PVA foam to do the job and once I’d cut it to size and wrapped it round the pipe with cable ties holding it in place, it looked the part. I don’t expect it will get so far below zero, but it’s better to be ready, just in case.

My brain must have been working on the problem of getting last year’s catalog and photos out of the iMac and into my old external hard drive, because I came up with an inelegant solution that will do the job until I can figure out a better way or I am forced into buying a new computer. No point in explaining it here, but I’ve left myself a note explaining the procedure in case I have to do it all again next year DV. What amazed me was how much the hard drive slowed down the procedure. Old tech.

I went for a walk in the early afternoon, partly to get some photos and partly to clear my head of computer nonsense. I walked down past St Mo’s pond and got today’s PoD which was a bunch of grass leaves poking out of a frozen pond. As I said on Flickr *”Crouched down on the edge of a frozen pond in sub zero temperature, photographing grass. Is it any wonder Photogs get a bad name!”

From there I walked down behind St Mo’s school and on to the shops where I got some fruit for Scamp and a lovely soft Mothers Pride loaf which, with a couple of bananas fed us for lunch.

I think we’re all going soft. I have lost count of the number of weather warnings I’ve had on my phone for SNOW. It doesn’t seem that long ago, snow was expected every January and February. Now the news broadcasts make it sound as if it’s something unusual and something to be frightened of. It all seems a bit sensational. We live in Scotland we expect snow.

No definite plans for tomorrow, but I might have a look at getting a hot air blower to heat up my cold room, allso we will soon need a box of photo paper to make calendars. All that, if we don’t get trapped in a snow drift! 😉

The first day of a new year – 1 January 2025

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It’s always a pain in the backside for a variety of reasons.

You have to parcel up the previous years photos and catalogs and save them off somewhere safe before you build a new catalog and populate it with new photos. This year it was made even more difficult by Apple changing the rules again for third party apps. Which meant I wasn’t able to use my NTFS based storage drive to save the last month’s catalog and photos. I’ve got another way of doing it, but it takes up computer time and my patience. It’s half done, but that will have to be good enough for now.

The actual day was a wild mixture of torrential rain driven by strong winds in the morning, sleet in the afternoon and now everything is calm for a while now, but the temperature is below zero and that means ice to contend with tomorrow. However, I did get some photos over at St Mo’s and PoD was what are sometimes called Cleavers (Sticky Willies in Scotland) and are really irritating little balls covered in tiny hooks that attach to your clothes, especially woollen clothes.

Dinner tonight was vegetarian “Mince and Tatties” for Scamp and Steak and Kidney stew for me followed by Sponge with a Salted Caramel Sauce and Brandy Cream. I’m beginning to regret it now and may have to break out the Gaviscon before I go to bed.

I’m hoping for a walk on a clear day tomorrow, with no ice nor snow nor rain, but the chances of getting away with it are very unlikely.

Goodbye 2024 – 31 December 2024

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A bit wet and windy for the last day in 2024.

The morning was devoted to cleaning up the dining room table and it did look better for a while before I messed it up again, but I did get two of my three targets on my To Do list ticks off and another one partially ticked off. It’s an on going list of shortcuts to use in Lightroom.

It wasn’t a day for going out anywhere, even if it was the last day of 2024, but of course I managed an hour out in the park, because that’s what I do. Managed to get two half decent photos, one of which with a bit of jiggery pokery became PoD. It’s a view down that path I’m addicted to. This time it’s sepia toned with a couple of spots of colour to catch the eye.

I bumped into an old friend from school in the park and we walked around St Mo’s discussing the world and our various aches and pains. It’s been ages since I’ve seen her and I thought she was looking a lot older – she probably thought the same of me. We said our goodbyes as the light was failing, she headed back to the park to walk her dog and I plodded off home. Hope you get better soon Susan.

Dinner tonight was a pizza from M&S that was getting near its use by date, but a tin of anchovies on it cheered it up nicely.

I think that is as much as I’m going to do tonight. I might read another chapter of the book Hazy gave me. Really enjoying it H. You always pick such good books. Strange, but interesting too.

We might treat ourselves to a glass of something to see in the bells. I pity the poor folk in Edinburgh who have had their fireworks display cancelled at the last minute because of the high winds and torrential rain that’s predicted for tonight. Or the Australian couple we met on that ill fated train on Friday who were going to Edinburgh hoping to travel to Inverness for “The Bells”. Hope you managed to get there in all the snow, rain, thunder and gusty winds.

That’s about it for now. Hope all our lot and anyone else who reads my ramblings are well and have a Happy and Healthy New Year.

 

Blustery day – 29 December 2024

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A windy day with quite fierce gusts.

Scamp was feeling better today. I don’t know what it was that caused all the bother, but it did seem to take the feet from her. Hopefully she’s on the mend now.

We walked down to M&S in the afternoon. Scamp got some Kimchi and a tub of Kefir yoghurt, both of which seem to be good for gut health. On the way back I carried the bag halfway home and Scamp took it the rest while I went for a walk in the gusty wind over St Mo’s and got a photo of a little mushroom. That made PoD.

We watched a complicated and almost totally unbelievable first of two episodes of The Split, a series we’d watched for the last two years. This one however felt just a little bit fake. We may watch episode 2 tomorrow.

Spoke to Jamie in the evening and did our best to explain the chaos that was Friday. Hopefully we never have another day like that again. He agrees that we need to write a letter of complaint to LNER.

Another recovery day today, but snow forecast for Wednesday.

’Twas the night before Christmas – 24 December 2024

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And all through the house folk were doing things. Mainly cooking things because lots of prep was needed for the big day.

In the morning, Simonne and Jamie took Vixen to a Run Free field a few miles away where the dog could run through the mud and the bushes without fear of other dogs getting in the way. It sounds like great fun as long as you discount the cleaning up afterwards.

We stayed home to make sure nobody ran away with the house or the food that was being prepared for tomorrow. All was not sweetness and light, however. Scamp had picked up a nasty little sickness bug and had been up all night. She took the sensible approach and had lots to drink and nothing to eat for most of the day and was feeling a bit better as evening approached.

I was a bit like a knotless thread. My First Aid training didn’t really cover sickness and vomiting, but I was pretty sure I could make a decent hand bandage if anyone cut themselves. Thankfully they didn’t so I didn’t have to test those skills.

When the Run Free folk returned I did go for a walk while Scamp was resting. Just a short walk, across the road, up past the school and into one of those strange fields that just sort of blend into the road. No fences, no gates to open, just fields that become tarmac roads. I’d been watching the sun gradually sliding towards evening and wanted a few shots of a line of trees that I presume followed a real fence, dividing up two fields. One of the few that I took got PoD. I also took some shots of the house we were staying in looking quite resplendent with its new dormer windows and straighter roof. Not completely straight though, but just enough to make it practical without losing the 16th century look. A fine line to tread.

After dinner, Scamp was feeling a bit better and ready to face the day when Santa would come to all good boys and girls. I wasn’t holding out much hope for my chances of anything other than a lump of coal.

Things I’ll remember:

  • Being nurse for a day.
  • The relief when Scamp said she was feeling better.
  • Vixen energised after her free running at Run Free.
  • Jamie, practical as always – getting things done.
  • Being impressed by the new dormer windows. So much better that the strangely named ‘Catslide’ dormers.
  • That ‘nearly’ sunset

Tomorrow we’ll be looking out for Santa!

At the seaside – 23 December 2024

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Jamie had organised a walk on the beach, twice today.

Simonne was working today, but Jamie had a plan. He drove us to Southwold and we had a walk along the long promenade. We didn’t go on to the pier, but I got a few shots of the pier with some interesting clouds as a backdrop, while Jamie and Scamp walked on. We passed a long line of painted beach huts. Loads of photo opportunities, but eventually we came to the end and turned back, then we headed into the shopping area. No boarded up shops here and no Poundstretchers.

Jamie knew of a good ice cream shop. Ice cream on a day when the mercury was in the lower single figures. But, he was right. Lovely ice cream cones and coffee afterwards. We walked round the town, although it was more of a large village, A busy place though. Plenty of folk out getting last minute prezzies. It has a lighthouse in the middle of the town/village though which prompted another photoshoot.

That was the first part of the seaside visit. Jamie drove us in a bit semicircular path to Dunwich, another beach. This one was almost the complete opposite of Southwold. The beach was half sand and half shingle. Steep cliffs rising behind the beach. We passed one man fishing from a wee black tent with a beach caster rod. I haven’t seen a beach caster for years. I didn’t envy him because the wind was even colder here, but he did seem to be well sheltered.

We passed two couples on our walk along the beach, but decided it would be better to turn around after about a mile and headed for a pub next to the car park for lunch which was soup for Scamp and me and a ploughman’s platter for Jamie, but he kindly gave me a large slice of his sausage roll.

Jamie drove us home by a different route from the way we’d come and by the time we got back to the house it was quite dark.

In the evening, Jamie took us all to The Ship pub in Levington. The pub was fairly full and a bit noisy. Food was good and so was the drink, but not for Jamie because he was driving.

PoD was a beautiful cloud bank behind the pier at Southwold.

Went to bed fairly early after a very interesting and busy day. We may go for a walk tomorrow, all being well.

Things I’ll remember:

Southwold
– The model boat pond – no boats today!
– Beach huts in Southwold.
– Ice cream on a cold day.
– Black recycled coffee cups – might try to source them.
– Lovely wild sky.

Dunwich
– Beachcaster on the shore.
– Picking pretty stones from the shingle.
– Food and beer in the pub.
– Cold wind

The Ship Pub
– Noisy locals.
– ‘Terry’ just a bloke one of the locals fancied.
– Terry’s wee dog wanting to get out of the pub.
– Us being called back because the waitress had messed up the bill.

The Fort – 20 December 2024

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A lazy start to the day. It rained for most of the morning, but cleared away completely in the afternoon.

We drove to The Fort for some odds and ends and I finally got a shaver. Not the Braun I was looking for, but a Philips rotary shaver which seems to do what it’s meant to do and is much quieter than the Braun that’s going in the bin. The parking was fairly decent, although we did have to cruise around for a while before we found one.

While Scamp went off to find those odds and ends, I went for a browse in Waterstones and came out with another book. That makes it three in the same week and I’ve another one on the go just now that came from Fred. I was looking for something to photograph and saw the three “Easy Deer”. Easy, because they never run away. That’s probably due to them being cast in bronze. Got a view looking over their heads from behind, as you can see, as if they were watching the people rushing madly about. It wasn’t such a madhouse as Glasgow the other day, but I think everyone was in the new Primark.

When we were sure we had everything we came for, we drove home. A more pleasant drive that coming as the sun was now at our back. Some lovely landscape shots were passing beside the north facing side window, but as usual there were no places to stop and take a photo.

Dinner was a stir-fry made by Scamp an it was lovely. That was part of the ‘odds and ends’ Scamp was looking for at The Fort.

I watched a Kevin Bridges film in the evening: The Overdue Catch-Up. If you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favour and watch an hour and a half of Kevin. Just brilliant. After that, Scamp watched The Quartet. I think I’ve seen it before, but it was worth watching again.

Other than that, I tested the shaver and found it comfortable to use, no nicks! I think Scamp is now sorted for Christmas. We’ve had a glass of wine or two and we’ve watched the obligatory sickly sweet Nigella Lawson trying to pretend she has friends who come to her dinner parties. Aye right!

We’re hoping the promised incoming storm won’t be as bad as the weather fairies predict.

The gas man cometh – 18 December 2024

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Today we were waiting in for the boiler engineer to come and sign off our water boiler for another year.

Thankfully he didn’t arrive dead on 9am but knocked on the door an hour later when we were properly awake. He didn’t take long to clean out the boiler and certify it until next year, all being well.

That left Scamp me just enough time to run Scamp up to the town centre under a clearing sky to meet Isobel. While they were having coffee and a blether, I started putting everything back into the boiler cupboard. We’d decided that there were too many jackets hanging behind the cupboard door and we had to dispose of some and put others in long term storage, which is almost the same as disposing of them. I’d visited Tesco on my way home and brought home some essentials like milk and bread.

Scamp arrived not long after I’d finished and we had some lunch. I was about to dig out my boots and go for a walk but Hazy phoned and I wanted to speak to her, so delayed my walk. Scamp spent a while talking to her about her travels to Manchester and faulty buses. I asked her about the difficulties of moving Android data to iPhones. We were both glad that Neil is finally getting recognition for the work he does outside school hours.

There was just enough light left to take some photos over at St Mo’s pond and I’d brought some cabbage leaves to feed the waterfowl. Well, attempting to feed them. apparently they hadn’t had the memo about green leaf veg being good for them. They sailed past along to a bloke who was feeding them bread.You’ll regret this later waterfowl! A low level shot of the mixture of birds on the pond today made PoD.

It took me about an hour, probably more to copy the data from an almost full micro SD and paste it into a shiny new and much larger one Mr Bezos was kind enough to send us by Royal Mail, free of charge. Hopefully that’s the last of the computer work I’ll have to do for a while.

We watched the finale of the Portrait Artist of the Year and watched Brogan Bertie paint his version of Lorraine Kelly. It wasn’t the worst painting I’ve seen on this program, but it wasn’t great either. So different, it was from his work in the heats, I began to wonder if there was a ghost painter somewhere. Just thinking out loud. I must ask Fred for his opinion.

Tomorrow Scamp is OUT AGAIN. This time she’s intending meeting her pal Mags for lunch. I might go looking for a new shaver.