Category: A Walk

A little visitor – 8 November 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Just nibbling away at our recyclable food bags.

Scamp was off in the morning to meet Isobel for coffee. While she was out I was about to replace the food bin bag when I noticed the confetti of scraps of the bags in the cupboard. As I took the roll of bags out of the rack they almost fell apart in my hands. Aha! I think we have a little mouse trying to take the Mickey. Strangely, only the food bags had been chewed. What could have attracted them, I don’t know. I emptied the cupboard and couldn’t find a hole big enough for a mouse to squeeze through, but just in case I’ve set a trap tonight with some peanut butter as an attraction. I hope we don’t hear a clunk in the night. I feel so sorry for the wee rodents, but it’s a health problem that has to be dealt with.

The rest of the morning I spent reading when I should have been out enjoying the unexpected bright sunshine. But I did manage to warm up the remainder of yesterday’s pizza dough to make a lunchtime pizza, baked in the oven as all good pizzas should be. It wasn’t as good as yesterday’s prize winner, but was deemed good enough to satisfy our lunchtime appetites.

I did go out late in the afternoon, but by then the light had disappeared and it was a cold looking sky. There wasn’t much to see by then and I had to be satisfied with some shots of silhouetted Alder catkins agains the sky. Not very interesting and to be honest, not a very good photo. Must do better!

Wednesday is midweek dance night and tonight we were covering the technical second half of the quickstep routine and to start with I was a bit flummoxed. However after watching others making light of the steps, I managed to put most of the bits into the right place and finish were I was meant to be. How I actually got there was a question waiting to be answered. I think I cheated more than once. Still now I have twelve videos of the different parts and surely I’ll be able to work out which foot goes where after I’ve viewed them a few times. To finish up, Kirsty put us through our Tango paces and again there were a few missteps, but most of it worked. After three or four tracks I was back in the swing of it again.

Tomorrow I’m off to get my annual retinopathy check and I’m hoping against hope that I don’t need drops because I’m meeting Alex for lunch and we will probably be taking photos as well. Scamp is booked to get her hair cut at the same time.

Busy doing nothing – 7 November 2023

Posted on by Zogman

That sort of sums up the day, at least for me.

I spent most of the morning poring over ‘standard’ lenses for the A6500. I like the camera, but don’t have a decent lens in the 18-70mm range. Of course it would be better to have one that was just a bit shorter at the short end and slightly longer at the long end, but with each added millimetre it seems the price goes up by around £100! When you think of it in those terms, it looks like the extravagance that it is. I thought I had two better priced lenses pinned down, but after reading reviews from people who have been ‘on the money’ before, I have to reluctantly agree that I’d be throwing good money after bad. So, although it wasn’t exactly a wasted morning, it wasn’t a very constructive one either, and the search goes on.

After lunch, Scamp suggested a walk to the shops just to get some tangerines, but really it was to get me out of the house. Her ruse worked too. We walked down to the shops, bought the tangerines and not much else, then walked home. On purpose I’d worn my trainers for the walk, so that I couldn’t really be comfortable walking round St Mo’s. That meant I had to come home to change into my boots and then go out again to get today’s PoD. I can play that game too!

On the second walk of the afternoon, the real walk, I had my A7 with me and thought I’d got a PoD as I crossed the path through the avenue of trees beside the road, because in the distance I could see two folk at the end of the path. A long way away, but not for the 85mm lens I had on the A7. Three shots taken and in the bag. The walk round St Mo’s pond delivered nothing, but gave me a chance to hang up a coconut shell filled with fat and raisins to feed the birds. I’ll check it in a few days to find out if they’ve found it.

On the way home I had a seat on a bench and reviewed what I had taken. It turned out the shots down the avenue weren’t that good, because the folk I’d been ‘shooting’ had disappeared into the grass at the edge of the path, presumably picking up the crap their wee dog had deposited. That wouldn’t make a decent photo, but at that point a woman passed me heading down that same path. I gave her a chance to get halfway down before I took the photos and this time I checked them on the spot and felt sure these ones would work.

Dinner tonight was a joint project. Scamp was making soup in the afternoon and she suggested I make a pizza which we could share. So that’s what we did. Carefully measured amounts of flour, yeast, salt, oil and water. Then let the mixer do the hard work of kneading the dough. I think my yeast must be going off, because in a warm living room it should have risen quickly and it didn’t. However it did rise enough to bake in time for dinner and was one of the better ones recently.

Heavy rain predicted overnight tonight, but a better day with a bit of sunshine tomorrow afternoon. At least that’s what the weather fairies say.

No fillings today mum – 6 November 2023

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But a filling is needed in December. Appointment has been made and prepaid. Only myself to blame. I shouldn’t go poking my fingers into my mouth. Other than that, I got off lightly. The dentist kindly lied and told me the rest of my teeth and gums were fine and to keep up my ‘oral regime’. What oral regime is that? Brush your teeth on the morning you go to see the dentist? That’s my regime!

I found a tick today. Again, only myself to blame. Forgetting that the ticks are still active. It’s only when the sub zero temperatures come that they stop biting for a while. I think it got me when I was climbing a hill yesterday to photograph the panorama. Scamp did the surgical removal very cleanly, because I couldn’t quite reach round to do it myself. Thank you Scamp. I promise I’ll be more careful in future.

Scamp had been making noises about a new pair of dance shoes, so we drove to Rutherglen after lunch, and we came home with two pair of ladies dance shoes. We stopped in at Tesco in Rutherglen and got another packet of Bran Flakes because they were deemed to be the correct ones. On the way home we stopped at B&Q to get a tube of contact adhesive to fix my black & white dance shoes. Because the heel is coming adrift. I suppose I could have bought myself a new pair while we were in the shop, but I like the black & whites and it’s a fairly easy repair, if such a thing exists!

I had already grabbed a shot that I was sure would make PoD. It’s a plant pot with a Christmas Cactus growing in it. I think it was Jackie who bought us it years ago and originally it had a spider plant in it, but the Christmas Cactus looks better in it now that it’s spreading out a bit.

Monday is usually pasta night, but just for a change we had Tortellini which needed to be used up this week. To bulk it up, Scamp suggested frying some mushrooms and some baby tomatoes. That’s what we did and they did go we’ll together. Must remember that for the future.

It looks like I may be going out for lunch with Alex this week. Not sure when, yet, but I’ve got a retinopathy appointment this week too and I bet that will be the day he wants to go. If I get drops in my eyes as usual, I won’t be able to see for a couple of hours. Maybe that will improve my photos!!

No plans for tomorrow, other than shoe repairs.

Remember, Remember – 5 November 2023

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Remember, remember, the fifth of November, but was the day memorable? No, not really. Here’s what I remember about it.

In the late morning we drove up to Tesco at the town centre rather than the one at Craigmarloch. For some reason, Craigmarloch don’t sell Tesco Bran Flakes any more. Yes, they sell Fruit and Fibre Bran Flakes and also Kellogg Bran Flakes, but not their own brand. I wondered if the main Tesco in the town was hogging all the BFs, and so it was that we drove up to the heady heights of the Town Centre with the sole purpose of sourcing those cardboard look-alike breakfast cereals.

After wandering round putting loads of stuff in the trolley, we entered the cereal aisle and there they were! Three boxes of Tesco Bran Flakes, so we bought them all. Now we didn’t! Of course we only bought one, just on the off chance that they wouldn’t be as good as Scamp remembered them. Maybe they would have some secret additives, or be made from a different type of cardboard. Anyway, we guarded them with our lives until we got them home safely. I’m sure a taste test will be conducted tomorrow.

Back home and after lunch I chopped up a couple of lamb neck fillets and fried them with onions, dates, orange juice, five different spices (but not five spice) and tipped the lot into the slow cooker and set it to cook slowly for three hours. That would be my dinner tonight, Lamb Tagine. Scamp was having salmon and we’d share rice.

I took the A7 out for a walk later in the afternoon and, although there was very little of note to photograph, I did get some landscape shots of the Campsie Fells and some late afternoon sun shots around St Mo’s. One group of the Campsie shots went into the Lightroom mincer and came out as a reasonable panorama which made PoD.

The meat in the tagine cooked perfectly, but the dates were overpoweringly sweet, so note to self – use half the quantity in future. Other than that, it was lovely. It was a bit oily, but you must expect that with the cheaper cuts of lamb. Scamp’s salmon fillet was a bit smaller than she expected, but still made a decent meal with her fancy rice cooked with peas, peppers and mushrooms. I had the boring white rice this time, but I’ll maybe make the fancy stuff next time.
Dessert was Apple and Blackcurrant crumble topped with ice cream and it was our own apples and blackcurrants, too so that made it taste extra special.

Spoke to Jamie in the evening and heard that while the roof repairs are going well, there are new problems that have been revealed. More consultations and more form filling, no doubt. But at least he seems to be enjoying the new job, even if he missed a day because they were marooned on their own little island after the torrential rain flooded all the roads!

Tomorrow morning I have a visit to the dentist to look forward to. We may go out later if the weather is kind to us.

 

 

 

 

Dancin’ again – 4 November 2023

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Out at our usual Saturday morning time for our usual Saturday morning class in our usual Saturday morning destination.

Sometimes our lives are so predictable.

We drove over to Brookfield to find the hall still full of tiny dancers, although at least one of them was riding a three wheeled scooter across the floor, instead of dancing. They were 15 minutes late in leaving the dance floor and there were hundreds of the small creatures. I don’t think Jane was impressed with the lack of consideration of the parents or the dance teachers, the weans were just being posh weans. I think words will be said at the next committee meeting.

Once the posh brats had left the building … with their weans in tow, we got down to dancing. Real dancing. We started with a nearly forgotten Mambo Marina. I thought it was only me, but I was wrong. There were quite a few puzzled faces. Once that was ironed out, we danced a gradually improving version of it for two tracks. Then it was into the Cha-Cha we’ve been learning for a month or so and it was working quite well. Both Stewart and Jane gave pointers throughout the dance, but of course I ignored them and concentrated on getting round the floor without tramping on Scamp’s toes while trying to fit the correct module into the correct space. Not always easy, especially when the teacher says you can do them in any order, but queries your choice of order!

Next was Ria Bachata, the bachata that was never a bachata with music that was never bachata music. Other than that, it was fine and we managed the ‘tricky steps’. Step tap, step tap, 1,2,3 together. Then 1,2,3 together on the other foot. Simples. Done to a bachata beat with bachata timing it works, but with a fast track with no audible bachata beat it’s just a recipe for disaster. Since this is a bit of fun that nobody is expected to remember, that’s probably the desired result.

Next was a Mayfair Quickstep to allow our brains to cool down followed by a Catherine Waltz, parts of which I remembered and parts of which returned to my consciousness as we danced it. Eventually, it worked and we managed a fairly decent flow of waltz steps. Usually by this time I’ve reached the “My brain is full” stage, but today I was ready for the next one which was a fairly easy Midnight Jive. So much crammed into an hour and a half or an hour and a quarter if you take into account the ‘brat time’ at the start. Still, I enjoyed it. A strange thing for me to say on a Saturday night.

We drove home, had a cup of coffee and headed back out again to have lunch at Mango in Longcroft. It does Italian and Indian, but we both had Indian today. Food was good, but the chopped up naan bread was a disappointment. I much prefer the big slab of scorched dough we get in Hamilton. This was daintily set out in a bowl, but was almost warm and dry. We’re used to naan dripping with ghee. This wasn’t at all like that. Curry was good, and so was the pakora starter, but next time no naan.

I needed a photo and drove down to the canal at Haggs. Unfortunately the sun had disappeared by the time we got to the canal and I inadvertently set the ISO to 40,000 which is a tad higher than the 1,600 I’d meant to set. Some of the photos looked like I’d dusted them with sand when I took them! Still, a slow shutter shot of water breaking over the Forth & Canal lock gates saved the day and got PoD.

When we got home I found that Jamie and Sim had sent videos of the transformation of their house into a gigantic Christmas parcel, complete with Halloween scary mummy!  Fascinating to see the 16th century method of hand crafting a roof, but I’m sure they will feel so much warmer and more secure with the 21st century  tech replacing it.

Later  we watched another contestant reaching his limit on Strictly. He might have a nice smile, but I feel he has, as we used to say at school, “plateaued”. I may be wrong, but the two armchair judges here say his time is up.

Tomorrow is Sunday and I’m hoping for a lazy day.

 

Talking to the Ombudsman – 3 November 2023

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Or to be more precise, the Ombudsman’s lady accomplice.

It was all quite down to earth. She, Amy, asked a few questions for confirmation and Scamp gave her the gist of the problem and what our expected outcome would be. Amy agreed to take on the case on our behalf and would expect to take two weeks to investigate the case and speak to British Gas then if there is no resolution it might take another four weeks, just in time for Christmas! She did seem quite confident of finding a solution. All done in about fifteen minutes. That left Scamp enough time to get to her FitSteps class and for me to get out into today’s sunshine to grab some photos.

Actually I already had a few photos. We were parked up at the car park at the top of the hill and I offered to bring the car down to our usual spot. When I got out I spotted movement on the roof of the car and found a tiny wee spider, not 3mm long wandering around. It was an agile wee thing, running around and then stopping and standing up on its long spindly legs. I’m guessing this was defence tactic “Don’t mess with ME. I’m big and strong”. Spider version of squaring up to a foe. I finally had to wave “goodbye”, because I was freezing, standing there in the cold east wind.

Once Scamp had gone to FitSteps, I bundled up and put my boots on for a walk in St Mo’s. I was hoping to get some photos of the big chestnut tree in the woods, or failing that, some chestnuts lying on the ground, but no leaves left on the tree and no chestnuts to be seen. BUT, I got the lovely PoD a few yards away in a splash of sunlight. Hard to believe that just over the fence there is a two lane motorway.

When Scamp returned we decided to walk over to Brodens for lunch. It’s the restaurant part of what was The Masonic Arms in Condorrat. Steak pie for me with a glass of Guinness and Mac ’n’ Cheese with a glass of wine for Scamp. Food was lovely, as was my Guinness. When we got home we booked lunch tomorrow at Mango in Longcroft. It saves wear and tear on the dishwasher is our argument!

The spider and the PoD feature in today’s Flickr submission.

We’re intending to drive to Brookfield tomorrow to get the last class before Perth.

Now that’s Dancin’! – 2 November 2023

Posted on by Zogman

A more successful day on the dance floor.

We spoke to Hazy in the morning and heard about Neil’s return to school and his new inhaler that makes a noise. A simple idea that sounds (no pun intended) like it will work! It was good to hear that they hadn’t suffered any damage from the gale force winds they’d had recently. Also good to know that Hazy and Simonne are willing to compare and contrast some holiday homes for next year. Hopefully they will find a good one!

Later I started the ‘new’ computer and after entering my password only about ten times, I think I’ve ticked all the required boxes at last. Touch wood, it seems to be settled down now, still the same operating system and version as it was before the crash, and it’s unlikely that I’ll try installing the update again. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s because I’ve used the external SSDs to drive the computer that causes a conflict with the software the update is trying to inject into the system. If I want an update, I’ll have to do it the long way which takes about four hours. It’s not worth it. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it!

We drove to Glenburn Community Centre for today’s tea dance. Quite a small group to start with, then more and more folk joined in. We managed two tracks of Waltz Nioli and although they weren’t faultless, they were pretty good. We even did a couple of Joy’s Walz later in the afternoon and it was looking good too. Best of all, we managed two tracks of Quickstep! Something I’d never have thought I’d do. That was all down to a combination of Scamp’s and Kirsty’s teaching. Thank you both. These successes were won at the loss of the sequence dances. I just couldn’t get into the rhythm of them. Similarly, the Salsa we danced was pathetic. We used to be so much better than what we danced today. Still, progress was made on some hard stuff!

Back home I went for a walk, even although it was almost dark. I did get a couple of photos which were just presentable and no more. One heavily edited one made PoD. Along with it on Flickr are a couple of photos from Fannyside from last week. They’re much better.

Scamp and I are hoping to speak on the phone tomorrow to someone about the complaint we’ve made to the Ombudsman. It looks as if things are moving there.

Other than the above, not much planned for Friday. Scamp may find time in her busy schedule to meet June, Ian, Shona and Isobel for coffee after FitSteps.

 

October’s almost over – 31 October 2023

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Another bright morning and a cold day to follow it.

I think we just sat in the warm living room and looked out at the world outside for a while. We also stood at the back window and watched the antics of a couple of magpies struggling to find a way to get at the fat in half a coconut shell that’s hanging on the rowan tree.  It’s a cheap bird feeder I bought intending it for the bluetits to feed on.  However one of the wily magpies found a way to hook the string that holds the coconut with its claw and pull it close, meaning it could plunder the contents in comfort.  The others were still flying up, taking a peck and falling back down.  I think they expended more energy than they gained from the fat.

Scamp wrote a letter to the Gas Ombudsman, complaining about the terrible wait we’ve had to get a gas bill.  Nobody seems to know why we’ve not had a bill and any correspondence we get for British Gas is basically a photocopy with the date changed from the last one.  The smart meter is working for the electricity bill, but not for the gas!  Maybe we need someone to come out and read the meter! We’ll see what the Ombudsman can do to jolly them along.

After lunch we walked down to the shops for the makings of a stir-fry and some potatoes to make Potato and Leek soup.  There were a group of ‘workies’ cutting back the bushes at the front of the house.  I didn’t envy them their work in the cold breeze that was blowing.  We felt it too on our fifteen minute walk to the shops.  I’d intended leaving the bags with Scamp on the way back and going for a walk in St Mo’s, but they were quite heavy, so I walked home with her and then went out again to see what I could find. Not a lot was the answer, although I did startle a deer in the woods. It saw/smelled/heard me long before I noticed it and it was away like the wind.  I tried taking photos of some fungi but few of them were interesting, then I found a curvy looking flat topped mushroom just as the sun shone through the trees on it.  I think I missed the best of that light, but was happy with the image I did get.  That became PoD.

Back home the workies had finished and I could smell soup, so the potatoes had been used! I made a cup of coffee and uploaded today’s photos then worked on them for a while.  Then I remembered, or was reminded by the computer that there was an update to the iMac’s OS, so I put it in.  About an hour later I was walking past the computer and noticed the screen was still black with a white progress line half way along its slot.  Not long after an error message flashed on the screen.  The update had failed for some reason. On a normal week, I’d already have made a backup of the OS and would just have overwritten the OS with a new one, but I hadn’t made a backup and I didn’t want to risk losing the data as well as the operating system.  I tried a Safe Mode start and everything was still there, but I decided I’d wait until tomorrow to do a backup and then replace the OS.  Computers are a pain some times. Dinner was the stir-fry and it was quite good, but nothing special. Soup was kept for tomorrow.

Today was the last sketch in Inktober for this year.  The prompt was Fire. Instead of an actual fire I chose to sketch the vehicle that hopefully would be responsible for stopping a fire. It’s based on a Dennis F8 Fire Engine 1955. The group this year with a couple of headbanger exceptions has been really good and well behaved.  That made my life a lot easier!

I think a dance practise will be called for tomorrow.  Other than that, we may well be sheltering from the predicted rain!

Glorious Light! – 30 October 2023

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Today was a much brighter and much colder day than yesterday.

We watched the Mexican GP and it was a fairly lively affair with the home boy, Perez going off at the first bend after attempting an overtaking manoeuvre that was always going to end in tears for somebody. After bouncing his car around on the run-off area, he took it back to the garage and said “It’s Broke!” In Mexican I presume. Of course the golden boy won the race as Scamp had predicted he would.

Today was Monday and Monday is a day for doing shopping. Nothing fancy, just the messages. The boring stuff like bread and cauliflower, rice and coffee, fruit and onions, essentials. Plus a bag of jam doughnuts and a couple of bottles of wine. Because man cannot live by bread alone, and neither can woman! Tesco shopping it was today. We talked about going to Morrisons or Waitrose, but neither of us were interested in travelling far afield. Sometimes it’s better to stay local.

When we got back it was lunch time and that meant the rest of the soup I made yesterday. It was thicker today and the taste was stronger. Just the thing with a slice of bread ‘dooked’ in it. When that was done I waited long enough to see what the weather was going to do later in the week. Then got my boots on and my jacket with the inner sleeve still damp from yesterday’s soaking and drove over to Fannyside where I thought I’d get some autumn colour from the trees. While I was off in the country, Scamp was brushing up the leaves in the garden, in the sunshine.

The light was nothing short of amazing today. After yesterday’s rain had cleared the air, you could see for miles. I was heading for the old ruin of Jawhill Farm. The farm wasn’t really the centre of attention today, it was the trees that were the stars. They were that lovely rusty gold colour that leaves get just before they fall and the sun was getting low in the sky picking out the textures in the farmers’ fields. Blue sky overhead with just enough broken clouds to give a bit of interest to the scene. These days don’t come often, so we have to make the most of them. It’s a pity the cold east wind was really cutting. I was glad I’d picked the heavy Bergy jacket, rather than my fleece.

On the way back to the car I passed three cattle, two cows and one bullock in a field. I just had to have a picture of the bullock. Its coat was almost the same colour as the leaves I’d been photographing and it only had one horn. I don’t know what the story was there. The farm house made PoD, but the bullock got second place.

Today the penultimate prompt for Inktober 2023 was Rush. I duplicated it and it became Rushes, Bull Rushes. I’ve been reading some comments about the prompts this year being a bit too obscure and I have to agree. There have to be better prompts than the ones we’ve been given recently. For the past few years these one word prompts stump a lot of people who then give up on the whole thing. Anyway, today’s sketch was done in fountain pen and a water wash to get some shading.

Tomorrow we have no plans, but the weather looks good, but cold again.

Summer is gone – 29 October 2023

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It’s been replaced with rain, I think.

It was raining when we woke today. It’s still raining now at 11pm. I believe there have been dry periods during the day, but they didn’t last long.

I spent most of the morning writing to my brother, commenting on his photos which are always worth looking at and adding some of mine which are sometimes worth a nod in the right direction.

After that we watched the qualifying round of the Mexican GP and for the second, or maybe the third race in a row, despaired about the new ’Track Limits’ rules which just seem to be a way of giving the stewards some air time. Why not remove them entirely, the Limits and the Stewards and just let the drivers race. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? Or is it more about money changing hands? Hmm answers on a postcard please.

Later in the morning I volunteered to make “What’s in the Fridge” soup. It was based on carrots, onions, half a sweet pepper, lentils and three kale leaves, plus a litre of water and two stock cubes. Actually it turned out quite well, once it had been left to simmer away for an hour or so.

We hadn’t crossed the threshold until well after lunch, but I thought the rain was lessening and Scamp confirmed that it wasn’t raining, that was around 3.pm. I booted up and put on the Bergy jacket and walked over to St Mo’s. The two trees at the far end of the car park looked interesting and bright with the dull green of the pines behind them. I took four shots then the rain came down in torrents (and everywhere else too) and I decided I’d be absolutely soaked if I walked round the pons, so instead I headed home. In total I had 7 shots. The two trees made PoD after I’d injected a gloomy looking sky into the mix. A low down shot of the watercourse that used to be a path was the other photo to join the trees on Flickr.

Dinner tonight was soup and a slice of doughy bread from Tesco. Probably the worst loaf Warburton’s has made. The soup made it worthwhile though. With a yoghurt and the promise of a Crunchy ice lolly later that was Sunday dinner. It was that sort of day.

We watched a dull Strictly and weren’t surprised by the couple who left. Like Scamp said, she was the only non-dancer in the whole group. What she meant was that all the rest were either dancers or actors who’d been to dance school. No room for amateurs on Strictly.

Spoke to Jamie and heard that the roof is still holding and there is no further ingress of water in the bedrooms. Scaffolding should be finished soon and all is well. Apart from poor Vixen having an upset stomach after her visit week in the kennels.

PoD was sorted and the prompt for today was “Massive”. Every time I said that word I thought of Massif Central which is a highland area in France. Why it stuck in my memory I do not know other than it originates from Mr Anderson’s O Grade Geography class in Larky Academy back in the dim mists of time. My answer to ‘Massive’ was a gigantic fly being attacked by ‘neohumans’. Just a bit of fun.

Hoping for some dry weather tomorrow to get out somewhere nice for a walk, perhaps?