Category: A Walk

The thaw is with us – 17 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

The snow is not quite on the back foot yet, but the end may be in sight.

I think the thaw yesterday caused the surface ice and snow to melt, but the crunch of footsteps this morning signalled a refreezing of the surface. One of our next door neighbours was out fairly early putting salt down on the really icy parts of the path because we live on the outskirts of NLC and the council pretend we don’t exist, so they don’t have to grit our paths or our roads.

With no trains running, and with icy roads, we resigned ourselves to a stay-at-home day. There was no real need for us to go out and we could live quite happily out of the freezer if need be. At lunch time I watched a man walking down the path to the shops, putting on what might have been a modern dance routine or it might just have been that he’d lost his footing on the ice and was attempting to keep his balance!

After lunch I took a walk over to St Mo’s and with Scamp’s insistence and also with the memory of the ‘modern dance routine’ I wore my YakTrax over my walking boots. The boots are comfortable, warm and great for walking over most surfaces, but they draw the line at ice. The grips on the soles are just not deep enough to get a hold on the ice. You really need Vibram or Commando soles to get that assurance of a positive connection with what’s under your feet. YakTrax give you that confidence with their coiled wire grippers. Anyway, enough of this advert for expensive overshoes. I managed a walk round St Mo’s pond without slipping or sliding and got at least one acceptable photo that became PoD. I also managed to get back home without any slipping or sliding.  On reflection, today’s photo wasn’t really all that great.  I much preferred a re-working of a shot I took out with Alex last week.  It too is on Flickr and is much more vibrant!

I spent most of what was left of the afternoon sorting out some photos to take their places on the first eleven pages of the 2023 calendar. I prefer to leave that last month free until we are nearly out of 2022. Superstitious as usual, that’s me. So I’ve now got the pre-print almost complete and I think I will take Hazy’s idea of using a clipboard as a support for the calendar and run with it. It saves the tedious punching, aligning and clipping exercise. One clipboard and two small bulldog clips works really well. Thank you for that idea, Hazy.

We watched the final, and tediously stretched out, Strictly of the year and the correct couple won, in our eyes.

The temperature at 10.55pm is still a positive 1.1ºc, so we’re hoping that we might just be able to catch a bus in to Glasgow tomorrow to see what the wider world has to offer.

A distinct quiet – 16 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

There was a distinct quiet about when I woke, almost as if everything was muffled. That probably meant it was snowing or it had snowed during the night.

I took a look outside and indeed, everything was white. Cars, road, trees and paths, everything. It wasn’t actually snowing at the time, but it definitely had been. One poor bloke was clearing his dark red car and getting ready for the morning commute. However, as it was about 6.50 in the am, I went back to bed and slept for another couple of hours before getting up to make breakfast. You can’t rush these things.

When I looked out a two hours later there were only two sets of footprints showing on our path. It must have been Wullie who lives at the corner and works odd hours. Nobody else had moved their cars and the space left by the dark red car was now covered in snow, so there had been another fall of the white stuff when I wasn’t watching. The temperature was a remarkable 0.3ºc when I was making the breakfast, a POSITIVE 0.3ºc. It felt like it had been weeks since the temperature had been above zero, but it was only a few days.

After breakfast I wrote my remaining cards and, dressed for the weather, I walked over to Condorrat to post them. I was hoping against hope that they would arrive on someone’s mat before new year, but I wasn’t confident about their chances.

On my way to Condorrat I took a photo of some leaves that would turn out to be the PoD. Just some warm brown leaves in a bunch without any frost or snow on them, but surrounded by lots of raindrops on the branches, in fact there was a very fine drizzle in the air. On my way back home I took a detour round St Mo’s pond, bit couldn’t see anything that would compete with the leaves. No directional light, you see. You really need directional light to give you shadows and form, to take away the two dimensional look of a photo.

Lunch was a bowl of Slimmers Soup. I don’t know if it is actually slimming, but the recipe came from Slimmers World via June and it’s quick to make and is just what you need when you’ve been out chilled in the snowy wastes. Scamp made it and it always tastes good.

We had already cancelled a dinner date with John and Marion for today because of the weather. Today we got a message to say that dance class tomorrow is also cancelled. One of the teachers is suffering from a cold or flu and doesn’t want to pass on her ‘Lurgy’. That’s a pity, but better safe than sorry in this weather.

Dinner tonight is Salmon fillet and potatoes for Scamp and a tub of stew Scamp discovered in the freezer. Both went down well. A wee glass of wine helped them on their way.

It’s been raining on and off all day and the temperature has been rising. We’re now up to 3.4ºc and the snow is finally receding. No real plans for tomorrow, but we’re hoping to get out somewhere if the roads are still clear.

Freezin’ – 15 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

But I don’t mean outside, I’m talking about inside!

Spoke to Hazy this morning. We had a good conversation. Glad to hear that they have booked a cottage for a wee holiday in the early spring. I’m sure it will be a welcome break. Not so good was that Neil has a chest infection, but I’m sure a course of meds will put that right. We discussed the weather and the postal strikes that are really making life difficult for everyone just now and also the pros and cons of varifocal glasses. More pros than cons, thankfully.

Once we’d finished our call, we had to discuss whether or not we were going to the tea dance at Glenburn. We eventually settled on staying home for today and hoping for more open weather on Saturday to allow us to get to dance class.

After lunch which was a piece ’n’ sausage (link sausage this time) and French Toast for Scamp, I thought I might attempt a walk in St Mo’s. The landscape was changed again. On Tuesday it was shrouded in fog. On Wednesday it was white with frost and today the wee berries I was hoping to photograph had lost all their frosty covering, as had most of the branches on the tree. Could it really be thawing? My fingertips said no, it certainly wasn’t and my phone confirmed it. Definitely still sub-zero. Maybe it was the effect of the sunshine that was streaming from a blue sky.

Some days I take fifty odd photos and most of them end up on the cutting room floor. Some days, like today I take a little more than a dozen and they are all winners. I think it was the colour returning to the land after the frost had gone. Not totally gone, but probably on the back foot. My favourite and PoD was a shot of a bunch of Alder catkins. I never realised that the catkins were formed in the middle of winter and don’t open until the early spring. Photography is a learning experience. Everywhere I looked today there were little spots of colour appearing out of the frost. It was good to see.

Back home I was post-processing the photos I took when I realised it was quite cold in the room. The Hive said it was 17ºc, but it was definitely lying. Checked the radiators and they were cold. Checked the boiler and the burner was off, plus there was an error message about ionisation. I did what I usually do and reset the power to the boiler. It started gurgling ominously. Oh dear, and just after we’d had it had it serviced too. I went out and tapped the soak-away pipe and it sounded solid, also the pipe from the boiler to the outside drain was dripping in the cupboard. I switched it off again and phoned the emergency plumber and he sussed it right away. Asked if where the boiler was, did we have a pipe going to the outside and said it was the outside pipe that was frozen. The solution was to dribble a kettle full of boiling water onto the outside pipe. That would melt the ice and allow it to wash away. Two kettles full usually does it, he said and he was right. After the first dose of water dripped down the pipe I could hear the water running and also the pipe wasn’t sounding solid when I tapped it. Switched the boiler on and reset it. The boiler started right away and we were back in a cosy house again. Not really surprised that it was the cold that had caused it, and hopefully I’ll know better next time.

While I was out with the kettle I noticed a bloke doing the exact same thing to his pipe, only he was about ten feet up a ladder doing it. I hope he was successful too.

We have no real plans for tomorrow, but it looks like we might get some snow. So it might be a stay at home day.

Living in the frozen wastes – 14 December 2022

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The frozen wastes of Cumbersheugh.

Despite the freezing temperatures I did go for a walk in the morning, but before that there was the car to defrost. It didn’t take long to defrost the windscreen, the rear screen and the wing mirrors. Two buttons and about ten minutes max and they were clear. It was the side windows that took the time. The ice on them resolutely refused to budge until the sun came up far enough to reach them. After that it was a simple nudge with the old plastic scraper and the ice was gone.

With that done I had time to go for a walk in St Mo’s. It had to be done in the morning because we were booked for a visit to see Margie in the afternoon and I knew we’d be back after the sun had set, so lined jacket, lined walking trousers and a pair of sturdy shoes for a change and I was off to see the frozen world. Actually it was quite pleasant to be out today. The sun was shining from a cloudless blue sky with no sign of yesterday’s fog. I didn’t really like the fog. Like I said yesterday, it seemed to suck all the colour from everything. The frost did the opposite. It seemed to turn up the contrast on everything. Whites looked whiter and blacks looked blacker. I even remembered to old photographer’s maxim. Overexpose by at least one stop when shooting snow scenes. And while this was frost, not snow, the same rule applied. The camera is fooled into making the frost look grey, because that’s what the exposure system is designed to do. The photographer’s job is to make the finished scene look like what he or she saw on the camera screen, or maybe what he wanted to see!

I covered a fair bit of ground, tramping into the wilderness at the back of St Mo’s and the eventual winner of PoD was a cow parsley seed head completely covered in frost. It’s almost black and white, but there are just a few bits of colour there too. I arrived home with just enough time to download the photos, have a plate of soup and a cup of tea before we headed out again in a defrosted car to see Margie. I don’t know what’s wrong with my new phone. Every time I connect it to Spotify it will play one song and then stop. I suspect it’s something to do with bluetooth, but I’m not sure how to fix the problem. What worries me is the amount of folk on the ‘net who are having the same problem with the same line of phones, the Galaxy S22. I did some tweaks and a reset tonight, but I’m not convinced it will make any difference.

Margie was her usual interesting self today with lots of stories to tell. She has such a cheery manner and quite outspoken when she feels the need. Not as fit as she used to be, but doing well for 89.

We got back in plenty of time for the Tesco delivery. Three basket’s worth this time. I pity the poor delivery drivers. It must be no fun lugging those heavy baskets and driving on the sometimes untreated roads. Although, for the first time in a long while, our road has been gritted, or at least the hill has been gritted, which makes a difference.

Fish ’n’ chips for dinner tonight. A lovely bit of cod cooked to perfection as only Scamp can. After dinner we watched The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. We’ve seen it, maybe twice, but this is the first time I can remember seeing the first ten minutes of it, where we meet the characters for the first time. Still a feel-good film. Worth watching again and again.

More cold weather forecast for tomorrow, with the chance of snow tomorrow night or on Friday. We’ll have to wait and see.

A stitch in time – 13 December 2022

Posted on by Zogman

The weather was foggy today, really foggy. It didn’t look as if we’d be going very far.

With that in mind, and the fact that my warm walking trousers badly need washed, I thought I should maybe stitch up my other pair that have been living in the back bedroom waiting for the sewing machine to come out. Today would be that day.

Actually it didn’t take too long to take a couple of inches off the legs and stitch it back up again. I’d done it before with the pair that are now drying over the banister after Scamp washed them. That first time needed a lot of planning because these are posh walking trousers with a liner. Thankfully I remembered most of the steps and just copied them this time, but without the swearing.

Partly to test the new trousers and partly to get some etherial photos in what turned out to be freezing fog I wore them when I went for a walk in St Mo’s. It was COLD, really cold -7.3ºc when we woke. There was a slight dampness in the air and I was wondering if we were going to get snow, but the sky cleared a bit and the dampness in the air receded. I think it was the dampness that helped create the Rime Ice on, well, just about everything. In fact I think I had some in my beard for a while. It’s ice crystals that grow in the shape of sharp needles, but are really fragile. Strange things you see in freezing fog. It was a picture of some cow parsley seeds covered in rime ice that got PoD today. It was strange how that fog seemed to draw all the colour out of everything.

Eventually I felt I’d taken enough fog and ice pictures to satisfy me and I turned for home. On the way I was thinking if I’d have tea or coffee when I reached the house, then I decided it would be cocoa instead. It’s ages since I had a cup of cocoa and it was just the right thing to warm me up today. Another thing, or things, that heated me up today were my Scarpa boots and a pair of Hazy’s knitted sox, purple and blue striped ones, H. Great boot sox, and no, that’s not a plea for another pair. I have plenty.

Dinner tonight was more minestrone soup and Macaroni ’n’ Cheese with both tomato and brown sauce. Quite, quite excellent.

We’d hoped to be making dinner for John and Marion on Friday, but I phoned John this afternoon to say that with the weather showing no signs of improving, we’d not be surprised if they chose to reschedule. John seemed relieved and he has a really heavy cold, so the ladies of the house will consult their diaries and a new date will be chosen.

Tomorrow we may be visiting Margie to hear more of her stories and find out what she’s been up to. It’s quite a while since we’ve seen her. Then we have a Tesco delivery booked for later.

The day the tree went up – 12 December 2022

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The usual Monday morning struggle to get a Wordle and a Spelling Bee answer. Still looking for that seven letter Spelling Bee word!

It had been a cold night last night, -6.3ºc according to our weather machine. Maybe it is time to change the 1TOG duvet for something a little thicker and warmer.

I’d half intended to go shopping in Waitrose in Stirling, but after defrosting the car and driving cautiously down a road that was sparkling with ice, we both agreed that we’d make do with Tesco in Cumbersheugh today instead. As well as that, Scamp booked a delivery for Wednesday evening, just in case.

When we got back from Tesco I decided to keep my boots on and take the big Sony out for a walk in St Mo’s to see if there was any chance of some frost photos. Bright sunshine today and yes, lots of frost on everything. I took a walk over the woods to the wee pond beside the motorway because I was sure I’d find some little frost trees and sure enough there were a few. Not as many as I’d hoped, but enough to photograph. It’s still scary putting an expensive camera on to the ice and pressing the shutter button, listening all the time for creaking noises from the ice. I needn’t have worried about it, the ice was really thick today. On the way back home to a couple of rolls ’n’ square sausage I found some more little frost trees on the verges of the big pond, and of course I took some pictures. Happy with the shots I headed for those rolls.

Back home and after lunch and a bit of post-processing I climbed the ladder into the chilly loft to retrieve the Christmas Tree, two bags of decorations and two boxes of the more fragile decorations. Inside one of the bags was the sweetie tin that holds the lights and that all important letter. When Scamp opened the envelope and read the letter, she handed it to me. I’d almost forgotten about this important epistle. So many questions, so many plans. Some came to fruition, some we’ll return to, hopefully. The tree is now up and decorated while Joni Mitchell sang about “putting up reindeer and singing songs of joy and peace”. It’s traditional, and that’s what Christmas is all about.

Later in the afternoon I made Minestrone soup. Just loads of different veg, a tin of tomatoes, a tin of beans, salt, pepper and almost a litre of water. No stock cubes, all that veg makes is own stock. Bring to the boil and simmer for an hour. Add a handful of smashed up pasta later and simmer for another 15 mins. It’s really more like a veg stew. Came from a book we bought just after we got married. It was published in 1978.

PoD went to one of those little frost trees and a cold heart made second place.

No real plans for tomorrow, but a parcel may come and be instantly ‘disappeared’. Schrödinger’s parcel, Hazy! 😉

 

Not driving today – 11 December 2022

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The wee car got a rest today.

Scamp was the only one braving the icy weather because she was off to Glasgow for lunch and then a concert at the Royal Concert Hall. Me? I was to stay at home waiting for a parcel that would be arriving some time before 10pm. Amazon are really good at giving you a time slot for their deliveries, but it would be good if the time slot was a bit narrower! At least it gave me an excuse to stay in the warm.

I did actually go out for a while, but only the back garden to get something to put in Flickr. That something turned out to be a photo of a Christmas Rose. If you look closely, you’ll see that it has a frozen water drop hanging from it.  It got PoD. Another photo that was competing for first place was one of a strawberry flower that never quite managed to turn into fruit, but I liked it anyway. It’s on Flickr.

The parcel eventually arrived just after 4pm, by which time the sun had set and the temperature was dropping away. I was glad I’d taken the opportunity to get those flower photos in the garden.

Scamp sent a text to say that she was on the 6.05pm bus and after shuffling around the different bus time tables, I was pretty certain that it was due to arrive in Cumbersheugh about 6.40, so I got wrapped up and put my boots on, then went out to meet her because the paths were treacherous with only a few of them being gritted. As I was walking through the estate I saw something running up the road that crossed my path. At first I though it was a ginger cat, then realised cats don’t have that shape of muzzle. It was a fox. Not a big one, but it was loping along at a fair lick. Who would be a fox in this weather. My calculations were correct. I met Scamp at the bus stop but while I was waiting I grabbed a quick, almost abstract photo with my phone. It was a security light casting a shadow of some weeds onto the new perspex bus shelter. It will need some work to make it useable, but it might appear on Flickr once I’ve fixed it. We took our time to walk back along the path. My boots are great for keeping your feet dry, but they’re not much good on ice. I should have worn my YakTrax. It’s that time of year.

I’d already decided that my dinner tonight was going to be from the freezer and it was a portion of Carrot and Lentil Curry. Scamp wasn’t impressed because I think she was going to have it for her lunch this week!

Spoke to Jamie and heard about Simonne’s third bout of Covid, yes THIRD!  Poor woman must be fed up looking at test kits and wondering what she did to deserve this.  Jamie was having a hard time at work too.  Trying to disguise the annual Secret Santa from visiting American dignitaries.  Even worse is the prospect of having to work in the days between Christmas and New Year.  However, being Jamie, he always manages to smile about it.

I might get out tomorrow for some frost photos because otherwise we’ve a free day. Maybe we’ll go for some messages too.

 

The Early Bird – 9 December 2022

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Scamp was off to her FitSteps class and I was out too.

It was early for me at just after 11am, but the sun was shining and so was the frost that coated everything, in fact it was sparkling. I went for a walk over to St Mo’s and realised I should have brought the macro lens to capture some of the ice crystals that were covering the reeds beside the boardwalk. But it was cold. Definitely below zero and if I went back to get the lens, I’d be even colder by the time I got back to the business of actually taking photos. I soldiered on using the kit lens and the 18mm ultra wide. One of the first shots I took got PoD. It’s just a backlit bramble leaf with the sun sitting just above the tree tops.

I wandered on, but nothing I shot was as good as that first photo and so I made my way back. The poor swan, the geese and the ducks were restricted to swimming a circle of open water surrounded by ice. I didn’t envy their day on the pond.

I walked home and got a few more shots looking up the lane at the edge of the woods. I knew if I had someone in the frame to give me a composition of sorts, I could deal with the lighting later in the computer. And so it was that one a bloke was walking home from the shops and he became the second shot to be posted on Flickr. Two in the bag. All that was left to do was post them.

We had soup for lunch when Scamp came home, not happy that I’d forgotten to buy a fresh loaf. Later we walked over to Condorrat to post some cards and buy some stamps. I don’t know why we buy stamps these days. There are so few days when Royal Mail are actually working. It’s beginning to look like a general strike with the postal workers, the train drivers, the teachers, the English and Welsh nurses and now Border Force taking industrial action.

Anyway, as well as stamps and finally, bread, Scamp also treated us to a Fudge Donut each from the Spar shop. They were delicious. None of your ‘real cream’ in the donut, no it was 100% synthetic. It tasted like the cream I was sent up to Frames for when we lived in Larky. You got it in a cardboard tub with a paper top and it tasted great. We got it when my mum was baking cakes because my Aunt Mary was visiting. Happy days.

Dinner tonight was baked potato with tuna for Scamp and for me it was the bolognese sauce I made earlier in the week, defrosted and reheated with pappardelle. A bit dry, but perfectly edible.  Later we ordered some presents from Santa, but arriving from Amazon for good boys and girls.  Present company excepted!

Tomorrow we’re intending going to dance class in the morning and then to the Christmas dance in the evening. That is, if the weather holds.

Out on the town – 8 December 2022

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We were both out to lunch today, but in different place and with different people.

Scamp has a lunch date with her pal Mags and I had a photo walk booked with Alex. We caught the same bus, but I hopped off early at Greenfaulds, crossed the road at the underpass and caught the fast bus in to Glasgow.

I got there half an hour before we’d agreed to meet and as there was no sign I decided that either Alex was still travelling or else, more likely, he too had come in early and had gone to get some photos. Either way, I probably had time to get my hair cut. Just walked in and got a chair right away. Fifteen minutes later I was back out with a number four all over, plus ears and eye brows done for less than a tenner. Walked back to the bus station and met Alex. He had been off on his own taking photos.

He wanted to take some photos of the old Pavilion theatre and once we walked over to it, I could see why. Even although it was midday, the sun had a distinct warmth to its colour. We took a few photos and it wasn’t until I was processing one tonight I noticed just how steep the hill it was built on was. We walk past these buildings all the time and don’t notice these things. With a few photos in the bag we went for coffee in Nero because photogs run on coffee.

During the coffee break we set out a plan for the day. This was Alex’s choice of venue and he had an outline plan of what he wanted to take. I added in a few ideas of my own and we started out down the hill to Buchanan Street Subway entrance which always draws us when the light is strong and it was very strong today. A few photos there and then on to George Square where we took some photos of the carnival rides.

A stop in Paesano for a pizza lunch and a glass of red wine for me because I wasn’t driving today and then on toe Princes Square for more photos. From there we walked on through St Enoch’s Square to the Clyde and walked down the walkway to the Squiggly Bridge whose proper name is the Tradeston Bridge, but nobody calls it that, taking photos all the way. Then it was back to Nero in St Enoch’s for more coffee before our final photo destination for the day which was George Square for some early evening ‘blue hour’ shots of the attractions. When SD cards were full we walked back and got our buses home. This time I chose to take the X3, the slow bus because I’d already completed 13,000 odd steps and the X3, while slow, stops nearly at our door.

264 photos taken and after the first cull 114 of them were on the cutting room floor, leaving an acceptable 150 deemed worthy of a place in today’s shoot. PoD went to a monochrome shot of Buchanan Street Subway entrance/exit, but another two shots are in Flickr.

Tomorrow Scamp is probably going to FitSteps, but I’m hoping to have a relaxing morning.

Coffee with Isobel – 7 December 2022

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We were out this cold morning (-0.4ºc) for coffee with Isobel. Always an entertainment. Straight talking, never bothered who hears her and straight to the point. She never changes and that’s what’s so great about her. She and Scamp had a long conversation about her extended family and I listened because there wasn’t much chance of getting a word in edgewise. When the two of them had finished their discussions we dropped Isobel back at her house and then came home via Tesco.

After lunch which was a bowl of Scamp’s rather delicious lentil soup, I dragged my boots on and went over to St Mo’s with the A6000 and a couple of lenses. Again I was just that half an hour too late to capture the trees lit by the setting sun. One of these days I’ll get it right. However I did get a shot of a duck feather sitting on the ice with tiny little frozen water drops hanging from it. That became PoD. The contender for the accolade was a low down photo of a single dandelion with its seed head closed, waiting for a blustery day to release those seeds to the vagaries of the wind. It’s on Flickr if you care to look.

Dinner tonight was paella which I haven’t made for ages. It tasted good, so good in fact that we ate the whole lot. I’d hoped to keep some of the rice to make more arancini tomorrow, or next day.

We watched the Portrait Artist winner for this year painting her portrait of Lenny Henry. I wasn’t impressed with her, or the painting, but I was impressed with him. I hadn’t realised he’d worked to get a PhD. What impressed me most about his was his quiet manner. No longer the noisy shouting comic, but a man who looked comfortable in his skin. We both agreed that the portrait didn’t look like him, and isn’t that what portraits are all about? Nice perspective and control of things like foreshortening, but there was only a fleeting likeness of him in the face. Disappointing.

Tomorrow I’m heading in to Glasgow to take some photos with Alex and hopefully to have a pizza for lunch.