Category: A Walk

Where did the sun go again! – 23 May 2023

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Yesterday we sat in the garden in the sunshine.

To risk that today would have been foolhardy in extreme. Cold wind from the west, although Scamp said it was just cool, not cold. The furthest we got today was the Tuesday shopping run to Tesco.

In the morning I finished Jimi Hendrix Live In Lviv. I put a review of it in Goodreads and just in case you were thinking or reading it, I’ll warn you that my review has spoilers. Rated it at 3.5/5

Later in the afternoon I took the A7iii for a walk in St Mo’s and captured a photo of three snails climbing a dried up weed by the edge of the path. After a fair bit of post processing I came up with a mono version of it that looked better than the original colour one.

Dinner was my version of Amatriciana, perhaps with too much chilli flakes.

The prompt today asked for The Contents of a Drawer.
You don’t really want to see the contents of my drawers, do you? You certainly don’t want me to sketch them, because that could take until next week to accomplish. What I have given you instead is a sample of the contents of my acrylic paint drawer in my useful IKEA cabinet. I don’t know if the contents of any of these tubes is still liquid, because the last time I painted with acrylic must be pre-covid, maybe even pre-historic! Anyway, it fulfils the brief.

No plans for tomorrow.

Recovery – 22 May 2023

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Today was a day of recovery. No dancing, no red hot feet!

Scamp was out meeting Isobel for coffee while I ran the computer red hot, rather than my feet. I wrote up three days of blog, if you can call yesterday’s a blog. Saturday’s epistle made up for it though.

When she got back, Scamp started on the garden. There were flowers to plant and seeds to sow and tidying up of pots to do. There were snails to capture and put in a bag for later disposal. Our lupins have been covered in snail slime for weeks now but before we went to Perth, Scamp dusted the pot with lots of slug pellets. It wasn’t slugs that were doing the dirty on the lupins, it was snails. How they managed to haul their big fat bodies and their shells up those fine stems I will never know, in fact I don’t want to know. They have nearly all been dealt with. Hopefully the remainder will go for a walk with me tomorrow to St Mo’s. It’s said that snails have a homing instinct. Well, good luck to them crossing the road from St Mo’s!

After lunch I took the A7iii out for a walk in the woods and that’s where I got today’s PoD. It’s a pair of Lousewort flowers (Pedicularis sylvatica). Tiny little things. There wasn’t much else on offer today. I was hoping the warm weather would bring out some damselflies, but none were to be found. I did find a couple of Wolf Spiders squaring up to each other with their little pedipalps raised like a couple of prize fighters wearing boxing gloves. They were a bit quick for me, I’m out of practise at catching spiders on the hop.

By the time I got back, Scamp was sitting in the garden reading with a glass of wine in her hand and I chose to keep her company with my glass and a book. The book is Jimi Hendrix Live In Lviv. It is very, very strange. Based in Ukraine around 2011 and translated from Russian!

Dinner tonight was yesterday’s leftover risotto made into arancini (deep fried rice balls dusted with breadcrumbs) and they were really quite filling. We both scoffed them.

The prompt today asked for Vegetables.
The basket full of vegetables I have for you today, carrots, onion, leek and mushrooms, would make a good pot of soup, perhaps ‘Just Soup’, given some water and a stock cube or two.

No plans for tomorrow as yet. Something will turn up, I’m sure.

 

Dancing, Dancing, Dancing – 20 May 2023

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Dancing lesson in the morning, practice session if you’re up to it in the afternoon and the gala ball in the evening.

Breakfast first and, of course, we had too much of a good thing. The breakfasts are very good in this place. Self service and a bit like a works canteen, but the actual food is good, especially the fruit. After that a short rest and we were in to the practise session with a surprise in store.

Jane announced a change to the joyless Joy’s Waltz. She had rejigged it and replaced the Overturned Spin Turn with a Half Natural and an Open Impetus which probably means the same to you as it does to me. The main thing is the replacement is much more doable than the previous overcomplicated manoeuvre. I won’t say I was overjoyed, but I was relieved because:

a) She had been listening and watching us all dancing and saw the problem.
And
b) She had found something that looked similar but was danceable by all.

Later she (Jane) may try to fit in the OST again, but if not, we have a substitute.

There were a group who’d come down from Aberdeen to join us in Perth and they demonstrated their Strictly Fun Dance. It did look like so many of the sequence dances we do, but it did look much more fun than most. We might learn it.

Lesson over we had the rest of the day to ourselves. First things first, Scamp wanted to return the dress she’d bought yesterday. Next we were looking for lunch. We looked at the menu of a posh(ish) French café, called Briezh. We looked, but decided it was a bit expensive for what we were looking for. Instead we went round the corner to a Wetherspoons and had Fish ’n’ Chips with a Gin ’n’ Tonic for Scamp and an American burger with a pint of Broadside for the price of a main course in Briezh.
Next was a visit to an art exhibition we’d seen yesterday. Some lovely paintings, in fact, I was tempted to buy one but chose not to. Some pretentious dire efforts too. Beautiful building which doubled as a church and a community hub. In the exhibition we bumped into a couple of the dancers who seemed to have invaded Perth. It turned out they came from Airdrie and gave us a fair bit of information about tea dances and such around Lanarkshire and beyond.

I bought some coffee and tea from the Bean Shop and we walked around a much more prestigious and even more pretentious gallery outside Perth museum before we dumped the coffee in the boot of the car and then walked along the railway bridge that crosses the Tay then walked down the opposite side of the river and back to the hotel.

Dinner tonight was at our table in the ballroom and was much better fare than yesterday’s. Two of the couples at our table were from East Lothian and I recognised the East Coast accents. It turned out that they were from Pencaitland which was just a mile from Ormiston where my Aunt Sarah and Uncle Bob lived and also where we went for our summer holidays every year when I was wee. The other couple were Barry and Cath who we know well from Salsa and tea dances. Lots of good natured banter with them.

The usual professional dancers were giving two demonstrations tonight and then mixed with the rest of us answering questions and just mixing with people. No airs and graces from them.

We danced with the Aberdonians and learned a bit of the Strictly Fun Dance. We might manage to get the finer points of it later, but it’s unlikely we’ll get to dance it with Stewart & Jane. The teachers seem to have an unwritten law about ‘poaching’ each other’s dances.

We finished the night with the Last Waltz finally waltzing off the floor just about five minutes to midnight while others finished the night with It’s Later Than You Think!

PoD today was a couple of wee models we saw today. They’re based on a poem by William Soutar the Scottish poet. I just think they brighten up the south bank of the River Tay.

Today’s Prompt asked for a Garden Tool. This is a garden trowel made with a mild steel blade and a rolled steel handle the two parts are riveted together. It’s used to teach pupils a variety of metalworking skills. These tools last for years if they are looked after, and even if they aren’t.

Tomorrow it’s usually a sad wee dance class in the morning. Only half the dancers are there, the sensible ones having left early.

A Busy Morning – 19 May 2023

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Bags to pack, Cards to post, Sketches to do and Photos to take

Strangely for me, all the above were achieved in a morning!

This afternoon we drove up to Perth to the old dilapidated Salutation Hotel which started taking paying guests in the year 1699 and is still taking guests to this day. Inside it’s an overheated maze with a wheezy old lift that struggles to carry folk up to the third floor and that’s where we were going. We had a corner room, not open, airy outside corner room, but a tight oddly shaped internal corner with a view into a compactor where the day’s rubbish and all sorts was compressed in a skip. Delightful. I won’t mention the shower which wasn’t so much a shower as a warm drizzle. There, I said I wasn’t going to mention it, but I did. I will not speak of it again.

We had plenty of time for a walk round Perth which was looking at its best today. An almost totally calm and still River Tay gave perfect reflections and one of them became PoD. We walked through the park beside the river on a beautiful spring day. On the way back Scamp went browsing in M&S and found what might have been a new dress, only to discover when we returned to the room that it was the wrong size and would need to go back tomorrow.

Dinner tonight was served in the breakfast room. Last November it had been a slightly shambolic buffet in the ballroom. Today’s was a better arrangement and the food was ok, just ok. Dancing started around 7.30pm and continued until midnight, but we had had enough by 11.30. One of the good things about having the dance in an old hotel is that the walls and floor seem to be a lot thicker and sound deadening than in newer establishments. In our room there was not a whisper coming from Stewart’s sound system, or maybe we were just so tired by then that we didn’t notice.

The prompt today asked for Sports Equipment.
I’m not really a sporting person these days. Maybe a couple of days cycling a year but nothing more energetic. There was a time I liked a game of badminton, but that was many years ago. I almost reached the point of the owner of this racket, but not quite.

More dancing, much more dancing planned for tomorrow night, plus the dreaded Joy’s Waltz with its Overturned Spin Turn.

A day in Japan – 17 May 2023

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Scamp was out early this morning to get her hair cut.

When she came back I was just finishing hanging out the washing. It was a lovely morning again and we discussing where to go when Scamp said she fancied going to the Japanese Garden near Dollar. I tidied up the things I was messing about with on the computer and off we went.

Scamp had bought the tickets online before we left, so we knew we’d get in, but we had to squeeze into one of the last three spaces in the overflow carpark. Then it was just a case of picking up a map and walking round the pond. We’d been before back in October last year and had seen the place in its autumn colours. We were hoping to see it in its spring regalia, but we were disappointed. A few of the azaleas were flowering in bright yellows and one or two rhododendrons were also flowering but everything else was green. It seems like it’s not just us who are running about a month late this year.

On the map we’d been given there was a mysterious number that would apparently unlock a gate. We looked where we thought the gate should be, but it wasn’t there. Finally we found it at the other end of the garden. There was a keypad on the gatepost and when we punched in the mysterious number the gate opened to allow us into the woodland walk. For the most part the walk was through woods, as you’d expect, but we could see a children’s adventure playground at the top of a hill, but ignored it and walked on. That’s where we found the ‘village’.

The noticeboard explained that last year’s storm ‘Arwen’ had felled or damaged a lot of the trees in the garden but that even the damage led to new beginnings. It was scamp who say the first tree stump with a heavy rope wrapped around the top and a variety of mosses and little trees growing in it. Then she saw the houses. Taller stumps topped off with roofs and with windows and doors added. Loads of these tree houses making something new from Arwen’s destruction a nice bit of creative thinking.

We wanted to have a coffee and a bite to eat, but the cafe was understaffed and there was a half hour wait before they’d be taking orders, so we left.

Scamp suggested we go to The Bothy for lunch instead. It was a great idea, but everyone of the townships we drove through had 20mph signs on entry. Why? There was no-one on the streets? We reached the cafe and after a bit of a wait we did get lunch with a cafetière of good coffee for me and peppermint tea for Scamp. Happy, we drove home.

Neither of us fancied dinner tonight and just to finish off the day I washed the car. I know it will be covered in seagull crap tomorrow, but I washed it today.

PoD was a view through one bridge to another in the Japanese Garden.

The prompt for today was A Pencil Case. This is my go-everywhere pencil case. Unfortunately, today it has no pencil in it, but the prompt only asked for the case! So I fulfilled the brief. The case does contain a pencil sharpener just in the unlikely event that a pencil jumps into the case and needs sharpening. This is the slimmed down version of the real pencil case which holds so many odds and ends that I have difficulty zipping it up.

No plans for tomorrow. It all depends on the weather.

Out to lunch – 15 May 2023

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We got the text just after 9am. Ben went to school!

That meant we were on track to take Ben’s mum, Shona to lunch. Picked her up just before midday and drove by the backroads to The Stables because it was such a lovely day. Shona was adamant that this was her treat. In fact this was her contribution to our Golden Wedding anniversary. When she told us that, how could we refuse. Scamp and Shona had a Fish Finger Sandwich each. Big chunks of fish in batter in a panini, with a cup of chips each. I had the meat eater’s version which was a slice of fillet steak cooked rare and also served on a panini and also with a cup of chips. Both lunch meals were delicious.

After lunch we went for a walk along the towpath of the Forth & Clyde canal which runs past the front of the restaurant. We walked for about a mile in the general direction of Glasgow before we turned back. Loads to see today. Butterflies all along the path, Peacock, Orange Tip and Cabbage Whites, mainly. Bluebells growing under the trees and a big Aquilegia growing wild in the hedgerow. Loads of people out on bikes making the most of an unexpectedly good day. There was even a canal boat chugging sedately heading for Glasgow, probably. It was the Yarrow Seagull and it got PoD with Scamp and Shona getting in on the photo too.

We dropped Shona off at her house and we drove home via Tesco. Back home, Scamp swithered, whether to cut the front grass or not. Eventually she decide she would and I was enlisted to lift the flower pots out of the way of the mower and replace them when she was finished.

Some of the roses needed a last trim before the flower buds appear and that was my job. I also pruned the Forsythia now that the flowers had gone over and before the leaves come fully out. My final job was to tie back the pink fluffy plant in the back garden. I can never remember its name. I know there are two of them, slightly different from each other but both are planted beside each other. The one I was working with today is really tall and although I’m sure it can stand up for itself, a bamboo stake and a couple of fairly loose cable ties wouldn’t do any harm to give it a little more support in today’s gusty breeze.

Today’s prompt asked for “Artwork you love”. Scamp and I both love the massive Kelpies. The 30m (100ft) high artwork was created by Scottish sculptor Andy Scott. They stand in Helix Park in Falkirk at the eastern end of the Forth & Clyde canal. They are made from steel and each one weighs over 300 tonnes. They were modelled on real Clydesdale horses Duke and Baron.

We’d ordered a pair of slipper shoes for Scamp at a fair discount last Friday. They were supposed to be delivered today, but the postcode was wrong. A mix up at the ordering stage. My fault for not checking properly. However when we got home the parcel was there waiting for us. One of the benefits of having the same postman all the time is that they get to know the names and addresses and don’t rely too much on postcodes.  And while I’m on the subject of shoes.  A big thank you to Scamp for sneakily getting my favourite black and white dance shoes soled and heeled for me.  I’ve been meaning to do it myself, I even bought Evostick glue to do it, but just never got round to doing it.  Sometimes you have to get the expert to do it properly, so thank you again, Scamp.

Tomorrow, unbelievably we’re hoping to go out for lunch again with Crawford & Nancy.

 

Panic! – 11 May 2023

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How helpless are we without a phone.

The day started well, sun shining in the window and the garden looking good. The Shooting Stars were enjoying the sun and I thought I might just catch a few shots of them before we headed off to Paisley. A quick lunch and we were off to Glenburn for the first tea dance in was seemed like months.

This was a displaced tea dance. It should have been last week, but for various reasons it had to be moved to this week. Whether because the change of date didn’t work for some folk or because everyone was confused, there weren’t many of the regulars there. We did get up for a few dances, even struggled through a Quickstep. Almost managed to make the Foxtrot work for us too. It wasn’t the same though with too few folk on the floor.

This extra dance was also a celebration of the Coronation and Stewart & Jane had put up bunting, had hot sausage rolls and extra cakes at tea time and generally put a fair bit of effort into making it a success.

We left a bit later than our usual 3pm because there were a couple of sequence dances Scamp wanted to walk through, then we were on our way home by the long way along the M74. Longer in miles, but much quicker in the long run. Also no stop go going over the Kingston Bridge.

When we got home I thought it might be a good idea to go over to St Mo’s to get something to add to the shooting stars I’d taken in the morning. The sun was still shining and everything looked fine, but apart from startling two deer in the woods, there was little to interest me and I walked home. I heard a strange engine note from a plane as I was walking back and checking with Flight Radar I found it was a Pilatus PC 12, a turbo prop which would explain the high pitched note.

Back home I had a seat in the garden with a beer while Scamp put the finishing touches to the dinner which was chicken with new potatoes, tomatoes and peppers. She was disappointed because the chicken was a bit dry. I did think we might have had our dinner outside, but it was getting cool by then, so we ate inside.

I was just getting ready to start the sketch for today’s prompt when I realised I hadn’t seen my phone. It wasn’t in my pocket, nor was it anywhere in the house as far as I could see. I decided to retrace my steps and see if I could find it before it got dark. I walked over to St Mo’s going by the paths I’d taken. I knew that the last time I’d used the phone was when I was checking the PC12 and I knew exactly where I’d stood to do that, and that was where I found the phone, lying face up in the grass with a little slug giving it the once over. Black phone in a black case in the gathering gloom. It could have gone completely unnoticed. Oh lucky man! I phoned Scamp and told her the hunt was over.

The prompt asked for a Lighthouse today.
After rifling through my photos for an interesting subject I came upon a photo I’d taken back in 2008 of Neist Point Lighthouse on the Isle of Skye. It’s not the typical shape for a lighthouse, but it was interesting enough to draw. A bit squint perhaps, but that’s ok.

Tomorrow we may be going to Hamilton for a lunchtime curry.

On a Boat – 10 May 2023

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Or maybe it was a ship, I’m not sure.

Waited half an hour for a bus that didn’t come. Apparently the previous one hadn’t come either. Thankfully Scamp gave me a lift to the train station and I got in to Glasgow almost on time to meet Alex. Today we were heading for the Riverside Museum out in the west end, but first coffee and a quick catch-up.

According to the First Bus app, we could catch the 100 bus at George Square and it would take us right to the museum. It didn’t, because it didn’t come either. We walked back to the bus station and got the 77 which did arrive on time and a helpful driver told us were to get off and also the quickest way to get from Partick to the museum. We followed his directions and found the strange looking museum building. Inside was disappointing. Racks of cars reaching up about five storeys with no chance to see inside them and not even a viewing gallery to get a better view. Also, everything was dusty and just manky looking. Interesting building, but not very practical. Thankfully the window wall that faces the Clyde made a brilliant mirror and we used it to our advantage. That’s where the PoD came from. The great cloud and its reflection looked like a gigantic bird. Even the red crane in the background looked good.

We walked round the big sailing ship, The Glenlee, that’s permanently moored next to the museum and is free to enter. I couldn’t imagine sailing on a three masted ship like that. Equally scary was reading the captain’s log. Written in 1919, it was testament to the abilities and courage of the sailors of the time.

As we left the museum, I thought “I won’t come back until they find a better way to display the contents.” Too much crammed in to a small space. There were two high points. Lunch, which was great and that window wall. Almost everything else need spruced up and some of the items removed to storage.

We walked back to Dumbarton Road and got the bus back to the bus station. Said cheerio and went to catch our buses home. Good company, some good photos taken and the lunch was worth paying for. The final problem was that the bus I was waiting for disappeared from the display with no explanation. Three different buses from three different companies and none of them arrived! As Alex’s wife said, “You could walk from the City Centre to Partick”. We could have and probably should have!

Today’s prompt asked for Cutlery.
A knife a fork and a spoon, what could be difficult in that? Metal, that’s the answer, shiny metal objects are incredibly difficult to draw. Knives aren’t too bad, but forks and especially spoons are the very devil to render. There is a whole book waiting to be written on rendering shiny metal objects, but it can be summed up in one word.
DON’T!

Tomorrow we may go dancing!

A mixed up day – 9 May 2023

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One of those days when one thing changed everything.

We were supposed to be going to lunch with Shona, but after a flurry of emails between her and us about a problem getting Ben to go to school meant that we had to reschedule to next week. It was disappointing for all of us, but I think it was the best thing to do in the circumstances. We’ll hope that Ben is more amenable next week.

That left us with a day to fill. I’d called off a photo walk with Alex on Wednesday because I’d planned to go into Glasgow to look for a suit. Maybe if we went to Glasgow today instead, I could speak nice to Alex and we could get that photo walk on Wednesday after all.

So that’s what we did. Scamp confirmed a date with Shona for lunch next week, I sent Alex a text explaining that a slot had opened on Wednesday for a walk and a blether. I’d one more call to make and that was to the electrician who fixed our dodgy wiring a couple of months ago and got him to give me a call with a suitable date to come and fit a new distribution board. All done we headed over to Glasgow.

We went to Slaters, as more than half of Glasgow do when they need a new suit. Service was as smart as ever and we left a few quid lighter but with a suit, a shirt and two ties. Scamp had her eye on something in M&S and while she went there, I walked up to leave the suit bag in the car at Buchanan Galleries carpark. As I was walking across the JL bridge I looked out over Glasgow as I usually do and the rain was bucketing down, but the sky was brightening, highlighting the rain against the dark of Queen Street Station. That made a PoD photo, for sure.

If you read yesterday’s blog you might remember that I found a cut in the tread of my boots and I said “I wouldn’t think it’s repairable, although someone on YouTube will know different”. Well, someone did and I’ve possibly found a solution. It’s a tube of repair glue stuff that might stop the leak for a while. Thankfully Tiso on Buchanan Street had it in stock, so I bought a tube. Now I need a wee drop of Isopropyl alcohol to clean the tear. I bought a bottle of Surgical Spirit today that might do the job, but now that I think about it, I’m sure the liquid I use to clean the camera sensor it indeed Isopropyl alcohol. I’ll check tomorrow.

Just as I was leaving Tiso, Scamp phoned to ask where I was, we met up and went to Paesano for lunch. We were served by a grumpy looking waitress who was maybe just having as bad a day as Shona.

Scamp had bought rather a pretty dress in M&S for a lot less than my outfit cost. But in my defence, it must be nearly nine years since I bought a suit.

The photo of ‘Raintown’ did indeed make PoD and it was also my 10,000th photo on Flickr!

Today’s prompt was for “A Rock or A Stone”.
I thought long and hard about this prompt considering and rejecting an actual rock (boring), Edinburgh Rock (porous soft multicoloured sweets), Edinburgh Castle Rock (the rock the actual castle stands on) and the Bass Rock which is a gannet sanctuary in the Firth of Forth. I finally settled on a stick (or a stalk) of seaside rock.
Probably a British tradition, it’s a hard, slightly porous candy stick with letters formed into it that run all the way along its length. Traditionally white with pink writing inside a shiny pink shell. Delicious and deadly for teeth!

Tomorrow with the agreement made that we intend going for a photo walk, I’m hoping to meet Alex in Glasgow.

 

The gardens needed it – 8 May 2023

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Today was wet. It went from drizzle to full on downpour, but it was wet all day!

We weren’t going far today anyway. I might have gone in to Glasgow to get myself a new suit, a dark suit, both my other suits are light grey and a dark one would be a change. Also, only one of my suits actually fits me, the other one fits like a sugar bag. Not a good look. Anyway, that decision was taken away from me with one look at the weather. The furthest we were going today was Tesco.

Just a normal Monday shopping trip. Nothing exciting unless you class short dated tomatoes, carrots and onions as exciting. Three bags full it was today, all bundled into the boot and drove home.

What we did do was give our plants a bit of a soaking in the rainwater. My two chilli plants seemed to come to no harm in it and Scamp’s Cerinthe seedlings seemed to grow even taller after being in the downpours.

After lunch I gave in, put on my boots and my walking trousers and went out looking for a photo that would become PoD. It was really wet wherever I went and after about half an hour I was sure I could feel that squidgy sensation that you only get when you’ve got a leaky boot. But I was out in the middle of the park when it made itself known and I still hadn’t got that magic PoD. Then it appeared. It was a water droplet hanging from a larch needle. I took my time and eventually shot half a dozen frames of it. One of which I deemed sharp enough to become the PoD for today. Then, and only then, I squidged my way home. The sock on my right foot told the tale. There was a leak and it looks like there is a crack in the tread of my boot and that’s where the water is getting in. It might be a cut, not a crack, but the result is the same. I wouldn’t think it’s repairable, although someone on YouTube will know different, I’m sure. I might need to shell out for a new pair of boots now.

Today’s EDiM asked for An Ant. I originally thought of drawing a couple of Leaf Cutter Ants, but couldn’t find a clear enough photo to draw them from. I finally settled for a Flying Ant. There were a lot of these scary looking beasties flying around last year, I seem to remember. Apparently there is an actual Flying Ant Day. In the UK it seems to be around the 17th July. It all depends on the temperature and windspeed. There, I bet you didn’t know that!

Tomorrow we’re booked for lunch with Shona. Not sure yet where we’ll be going. Like the Flying Ants, it depends on the weather!