Category: A Walk

Got a little bit of sunshine today – 11 January 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp was off to Costa this morning to meet up with Isobel. June had a problem to sort, so she called off. I stayed home and did more tidying up of the back bedroom.

Actually I spent a lot of the morning poring over other folk’s photos on Flickr. I also read my blog post for 10th January 2022 and found great similarities with my thoughts on 11th January 2023, namely that the weather was awful and it was getting harder and harder to find a picture every day that would deserve the name of PoD. Then I glanced out the window and it was raining. There’s the reason. When the weather is so persistently bad, it’s difficult to find the incentive to get up of the sofa, get dressed for winter and head out into the cold to take some photos that look so dull they could be monochrome. What is the point? Then, five minutes later, the sun shines and lights up a patch on the hills and I just want to go out and capture it. A 365 isn’t an easy thing to do, but it does force me to get out of the house and find something interesting.

When Scamp came back we had lunch and then I took a big blue IKEA bag filled with broken or obsolete electrical stuff out to the council skips. As the light was still holding up, I drove up to Fannyside and parked in my usual spot in the shelter of the big Scots Pines. Then I walked down the road to see if I could get a close up view of the old ruined farm. Walking down the path I spotted a couple of sheep, sheltering from the cold west wind. I managed two shots of them before they headed off. That photo was to be PoD. I didn’t know that then, of course, so I carried on until I was nearly at the farm, but I couldn’t find a path to take me closer and to be honest, although it was bright and sunny, that cutting wind was making me think of a nice warm car, rather than a mucky tractor path to a ruined farmhouse. Maybe another day. That’s what I told a solo sheep that had come to interrogate me. I bade it goodbye and walked back to the car and drove home via Tesco.

Scamp was feeling a lot better today, but was still not completely free of whatever had upset her stomach, so she asked me to pick up some Kefir milk or yoghurt at Tesco. I also needed tomatoes for Friday’s starter. Last, but not least, we had no plain gin. Yes, we had raspberry gin, but no honest to goodness plain gin. That in itself needed remedying! Got the essentials and also filled up the tank of the blue car

Dinner tonight was Prawn and Pea Risotto. I’ve not had the courage yet to try the Magic Pot for risotto, so this one was hand made in a normal pot on the stove and it turned out fine.

Tomorrow looks a bit like today. If I’m going to get a decent PoD, I’ll have to be up and out early. That’s unlikely to happen, but we’ll see what transpires. Hoping to go dancing in the afternoon.

Out to Lunch – 9 January 2023

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Today Scamp was out to lunch with an old friend she used to work with. I wasn’t invited.

It was a dull morning with rain. Not much to recommend it and because it was Monday, nobody seemed to want to move from the car park at the house.

Since Scamp was driving to Calders I thought it might be a good idea to change the windscreen wiper blades. I’d had two new blades sitting in the boot of the car since before Christmas and they weren’t going to be keeping the windscreen clear if they were languishing there. Five minutes later they were on and were keeping the screen much clearer than before. Scamp drove off about fifteen minutes later in a downpour.

Left to my own devices, I started another clean up of my room. It didn’t last long. I chucked out a couple of magazines and ditched two exhausted basil plants. The plants went into the compost bin and the pots went into storage in the wee greenhouse. The greenhouse was a mess. Inside the walls were running with condensation and all the plants that had been put in there before the snow and ice came were well and truly dead now. One of the problems with wee plastic greenhouses is that there is no air circulation. I think the greenhouse will need a good hose down, inside and out, on the first dry day – if such a day ever comes.

I went for a walk in St Mo’s later to get some photos. I wasn’t very hopeful, but I did come home with some interesting macro shots of a clump of Cladonia lichen I’d never seen before. The PoD was a photo of a Knapweed seed head, looking like it was covered in little spiders. Actually they are the seeds themselves.

When Scamp came home I started to make some soup in the Magic Pot. Just a variety of “Just Soup”. A mixture of veg with some lentils and a couple of Stock Pots to add some flavour. Ten minutes cooking time and there was a pot of soup. That was dinner sorted.

An hour or so after dinner Scamp began to feel a bit unwell. Feeling sick, and then actually being sick. We both immediately blamed the soup, although I didn’t seem to be affected. Even after she’d been sick, she wasn’t much better, feeling light headed and just not right. She went to lie down for a while and although that helped, she still felt queasy when she got up, so decided she’d have an early night. She and Denise had had sandwiches at Calders, Scamp’s being Tuna. I just wondered about what Jamie always said about not trusting mayonnaise in cafes and restaurants. Maybe that was the culprit and not the soup. Time scale was about right, at 7 hours. Maybe …

I decided I too would have an early night, so this is a catch-up. Scamp is feeling better this morning and is going to risk scrambled egg and toast. The soup went down the toilet this morning.

Today we’re having a lazy morning and probably a lazy day. It’s raining!

What!! No Coffee!!! – 8 January 2023

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The orange warning light was flashing on the coffee maker this morning, indicating that its innards needed cleaning and I had no cleaning solution. Oh my! What would I do without coffee?

Well, the answer, of course was to look on Amazon. Ah the relief, they had the descaled, but it wouldn’t be delivered until TUESDAY!!! That would be three days before I’d get my 11am fix. What other options were there. Thankfully JL came to the rescue. John Lewis had them in stock and actually cheaper than Amazon too, so I could get them today. We just dropped everything, jumped in the car and drove to Glasgow where I picked up the life saving liquid. Scamp was looking for tops to go with skirts, but I had the important stuff paid for and in my bag. We’d nothing else to go for today, so we just drove home.

After lunch I started the long winded cleaning routine. It takes a good half hour to descale the boiler of the De Longhi 685 and then another fifteen minutes to wash it out. Life is tough when you’re a home barista.

While I was engaged in this delicate operation, Scamp was out pruning the roses and tidying up the plants in the back garden. She came in to tell me she’d found a Snowdrop, the first one of the winter, and a sign that spring wasn’t too far off. The flower was growing in a rose pot, surrounded by vicious looking thorns, so I was extra careful getting its photo, but I did get it, more than once. We compared the photos I’d taken and Scamp chose her favourite. She’s becoming really good at spotting the good shots and sidelining the poorer ones. I think she chose the best one to be PoD and I started work on it.

She was almost finished when I thought I’d broaden my photographic horizons and went over to St Mo’s to see if I could capture some of the reflections of the setting sun from the boardwalk. I managed a good dozen shots of various formats and angles and then quite suddenly, the light was gone. It was like the sunsets you get in much warmer places, when the sun sets and fifteen minutes later it’s almost dark. It’s not something you find very often in more temperate zones. It didn’t matter all that much, because I was on my way home by then.

Dinner was Chicken Milanese (battered flat and dipped in breadcrumbs before being pan fried) with a baked potato each. Beautiful. It was followed by coffee from the sparkling clean and descaled coffee maker. I’d say the coffee was better than normal, but it was probably something to do with the extra glug of Kahlua that went into each cup.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard that he’s got ‘Mallet Finger’. I was telling him that my pal, Fred has ‘Hammer Thumb’ which sounds similar and that I get a less painful version of that. Then the strangest thing happened, my thumb (always my left thumb) went into spasm and folded across my palm and refused to come back out. How strange is that.

Tomorrow Scamp is out in the morning for coffee with one of her, recently retired, work colleagues. I’m tidying up the living room table of all the calendar junk that’s been living on it for the past month. If it’s dry I may go and take some photos in St Mo’s.

Not the best day – 7 January 2023

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“Disappointment lurks” as Neil Young sang.

Flushed with our recent success we had a short list of three cruises we wanted information on, so Scamp phoned P&O to find out the situation with flights before we made a final decision. After a bit of a wait, she was told that there were no more flights available from Glasgow or Edinburgh, in fact there were none available from Scotland. However, she could offer us a flight, not with their usual Jet2 provider, at £490 EACH! She did seem surprised when Scamp said a decisive “No thank you”, but was quickly back on the script when she asked how we’d like to be contacted by P&O in the future. I’m glad it was Scamp who was speaking to her, because I’d have given her the standard ‘two word answer’. The second word is “Off”. Almost £1000 for the flights alone.

That put a damper on the day, but after lunch we went for a walk to the shops to get something for tonight’s dinner that actually turned out to be tomorrow’s dinner. It was quite pleasant walking down to the shops with the warm coloured sunlight glancing across the trees. After we walked back, I took the camera for another walk round St Mo’s, but although I got a lovely sky shot, there was nothing else in the tank.

The reason that tonight’s dinner became tomorrow’s dinner was because, after some discussion, tonight’s dinner became a Golden Bowl standard. Chicken Chop Suey with Fried Rice for Scamp and Special Chow Mein for me.

After dinner, I still had to find a Picture of the Day. I’d seen a bloke in Flickr doing some interesting monochrome shots of dried leaves and when I found our poinsettia had lost another two leaves I decided a photo of the one remaining desiccated leaf would fit the bill. Instead of reducing it to mono, I kept and enhanced the magenta colour of the leaf, photographed against a black neoprene background. It worked very nicely, and I had a PoD!

Tomorrow looks like a good day, maybe even better than today. We’ll see if the weather fairies are correct.

At last, a walk in the sunshine – 6 January 2023

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Today we managed to go for a walk. It was cold, but it didn’t rain.

We drove to Drumpellier and went for a walk through the woods. Lots of folk out doing just the same thing, although to be honest most of the folk were doing circuits of the pond. Not our idea of fun, now that we’ve discovered the variety of paths through the woodland. Some are official paths, but there are a lot more that are just paths trodden by walking feet and although many are mucky and slippery, they are more interesting than the official paths.

I took a few photos in the woodland, but the best by far was just where we were parked. It was the Whale’s Tail with two gulls landing and one just taking off. Another two gulls were taxiing before take off. The low sun you get at this time of year helped add a bit of contrast to the scene. The finished shot was almost as it came out of the camera.

We need a large wall calendar for the kitchen and when we left Drumpellier we drove to The Fort to see if we could find one. But we came home empty handed. I’ve an idea where we might find one tomorrow.

Back home I was trying to work out how to use mail merging in MS Word to create a Word document from an Excel sheet. I’d already tried to do the same thing on Pages in the Mac, but it’s really just a toy. Very little practical use. I’m still trying to do it and it still evades me. I know I used to do it regularly in school, but then I was using a PC every day. Macs in general aren’t used for this sort of thing. I found the Avery app really useful for it last year, but that facility is no longer in the app or is so deeply buried that it would take me too long to find it. I’ll keep looking, it’s in there somewhere.

Scamp was ploughing through the holiday companies on the computer looking for somewhere warm for February. After a fair bit of searching and evaluating, I think we can say that we may be going to somewhere warm for a week, all being well. Still nothing booked for the summer, but we have a few possibilities that just need some things confirmed before we make a final decision.

Dinner tonight was a half a pizza each. Actually it was more like two thirds for me and just a third for Scamp. It was washed down with a nice glass of red. Dessert was Scottish Tablet Ice Cream!

Tonight looks wet, but tomorrow, for the most part may remain dry during daylight hours. That’s the best you can ask for. It was good to be out in the sunshine today somewhere that isn’t Cumbersheugh!

Another day Another walk – 4 January 2023

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A slightly different start to today’s walk, but basically the same route. There are limited variations in this area.

The day started with the usual struggle with Wordle and Spelling Bee, but they weren’t all that difficult today. Just before lunch I got a message from Alex to say that the family were almost all down with what sounded like a Norovirus variant, so we wouldn’t be going for a photo walk this week. Hopefully they will be over it by next week.

After lunch we went for that walk round part of Broadwood Loch and then up the path beside the exercise machines. Then it was back through the underpasses and on the path to home. While Scamp walked home, I went for a circuit of St Mo’s. Instead of the usual circuit I went up through the woods behind the main pond and got some photos of the smaller manmade pond near the motorway. I could see streaks of blue sky through the clouds and waited for a while to see if those streaks would get bigger, but I was disappointed. They just faded away as the sun started to drop to the horizon. I walked straight back to the path through a shallow bog. I am sure I lost the lens hood from the Samsung 18mm lens in that bog in the spring and I was hoping I might catch a glimpse of it in among the grasses, but again I was disappointed. I trudged home thankful for good boots and dry feet. The boots aren’t too clever on ice and slippery leaves, but are (touch wood) waterproof and comfortable giving a good grip on dry ground.

Today was the day we’d agreed to take down the tree.  No matter how careful you are with taking all the ornaments off first,  there’s always one more you find.  Also there are always one or two decorations left on the wall and you don’t notice them until the rest are packed away.  The place always looks really bare once the decorations are packed away and the tree is also in its old cardboard box that Scamp says is more parcel tape than cardboard now.  However a bunch of flowers in a vase will add some colour again.

Dinner tonight was the remainder of the fish pie from yesterday for Scamp and a piece of bacon joint for me. Using up stuff that was near its ‘best before’ date made good sense after the excesses of the last couple of weeks.

Just before 9pm someone knocked the door and there was a bloke with a big parcel that wasn’t due to arrive until tomorrow. It’s been on the road for about a week now and was a bit battered, but secure and everything inside was intact. Prezzies for Scamp, June and me from Hazy and Neil. Scamp got a pair of fancy earrings and a pair of cleverly up-cycled gloves. Mine was a book I was considering buying and a badge with ‘bad words’ on it that brought a smile to my face. My Bergy jacket was getting washed and I’d worn my old, and I mean OLD Bergy today. It has a badge on it and that badge also has ‘bad words’ on it. Needless to say it came from Hazy and Neil, but I think Hazy was the prime mover there. We got a box of high octane boozy chocolates to share. My Mojito had a fair kick to it! I can’t remember what Scamp got, but she could walk after it!

PoD was a shot of a branch with two pine cones on it, sitting on a mossy stone. It was taken in the woods at St Mo’s. 11,359 steps today!! First time I’ve broken the 10,000 this year.

Tomorrow we may be going to a garden centre, it being Thursday. We may have a spot of lunch too.

A walk in the cold – 2 January 2023

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It was a bit cool this morning. We were definitely in the sub zero realm.

It was a good morning for a walk, so we got booted up and went for a walk. It was not only cold, but frosty and just a wee bit slippery. I stuck to wearing boots, but Scamp wore her Yaktrax for that extra bit of security. We walked round the machines in a counter-clockwise direction! That’s the opposite direction to our normal walk. It was a bit worrying for a while, but once we calmed down the unusual walk was quite enjoyable.

I got a few photos, but nothing really worthwhile, so while Scamp walked home, I went for a circuit of St Mo’s and got a few more photos. My favourite, and PoD was a view looking down through the trees to the boardwalk. I know I’ve taken it before, but it just looked so pretty!

Later, after dinner, we had a free and frank discussion that led to the creation of a toilet calendar. It’s not really a calendar because it doesn’t have any dates in it. It doesn’t have cherries or apples in it either. It’s just twelve photos, six from each of us and each with a month. If I get it printed off, it will hang in the downstairs toilet. If you hang it in the toilet, everyone who comes into the house gets a chance to see it.

It was a very cold day today, but hopefully it will thaw a bit tomorrow, but it looks like we’ll be getting a lot of rain tomorrow, so probably not a walk, clockwise or otherwise.

Happy New Year – 1 January 2023

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A new day, a new year, but the weather remains the same.

New Year’s Day is one of those days that promises a lot and delivers very little. It sounds as if it’s one big party from start to finish, but for most folk it’s not. It’s a day off work for those lucky enough to be employed, but a day off work in the dullest time of the year isn’t a bundle of fun, really. Christmas is all bright lights and having fun, but NYD is a bit of a let down, I’ve always felt. Maybe it’s just me.

We went for a very quick walk round St Mo’s pond. Scamp wanted to try out the GPS on her new watch and yes! It worked!! It also gave us an excuse to be out in the fresh air. Bumped into Susan Greenshields in the park with her two dogs. We said hello and repeated the HappyNewYear speech everyone does on the 1st, as usual without a happy smile on our faces. It was a rushed conversation because we’d just been sent the Zoom link by Hazy who was hosting today again.

Back home it was boots off, jackets off and get the laptop set up. Scamp doing the ‘techy’ things today. Actually this was the high point of the day. Just like being there. Everyone talking over each other and it was good to see that both Neil and Jamie were looking a lot better than on Christmas Day when both were definitely not at their best. I think we used up almost all the allotted time on Zoom and I felt better after that. Just talking to folk is great sometimes, but talking to them and seeing them is even better.

Dinner tonight was Forestier Paté for starter then Potatoes, Brussel Sprouts and a choice of Salmon Fillet or Ribeye Steak for the main, finishing with Panna Cotta which I managed to make in the morning. It was a bit rubbery I thought, but Scamp said it was fine. Two more in the fridge for tomorrow.

I spent most of the rest of the day wrestling with Lightroom while Scamp read. Most of the swearing has abated now and I think Lightroom and I have declared a truce. Battle may resume tomorrow if it doesn’t play nice. However, we now have a photo calendar on the wall using Hazy’s wonderful idea of using a clipboard. Hopefully calendars will be printed this week … or maybe next.

PoD was a grab shot of a bloke walking his dog down that lane. The path that keeps giving.

Thank you, H, J, N & S for the Zoom meeting, it brightened our day.

Tomorrow looks better than today, but I’m not sure yet if it’s just a weather fairies’ ruse! Only time will tell.

The end of a long year – 31 December 2022

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At last we got a dry day!

To celebrate we went for a walk. A long walk round Broadwood Loch. Not the most interesting place for photos, but that didn’t stop me from taking some. I don’t think I’ve seen the loch looking so still. One wee moorhen paddling smoothly across the waters almost made PoD.

After lunch Scamp walked down to the shops and I went for another walk in St Mo’s this time. There I got today’s PoD which is a sycamore key caught in a whin bush. I just liked it and that’s why it got the last PoD of 2022.

I walked over to Condorrat later to get a Special Fish Supper for me and a Small Fish Supper with two Pickled Onions for Scamp. If you don’t know what a Special Fish is, imagine a haddock fillet dipped in breadcrumbs and deep fried x 2 and you have a rough idea. Just the thing for the last Saturday in 2022.

I’m not going to go over the good bits and the bad bits of 2022, because it’s not over yet. Maybe tomorrow.

Speaking about tomorrow, we have no plans. Probably because it’s snowing right now.

Happy New Year when it comes.

Standing water – 30 December 2022

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Scamp was going to have coffee with Shona today.

I drove Scamp up to Costa in the town centre. What should have been a quick journey turned out to be a bit fraught. I thought I’d be smart and take the shortcut through Condorrat. Alas the sign saying No Road On Right had fallen down. I hadn’t noticed it at the time, but once on to the closed road there was nowhere to go but back again. Still stuck on the idea that this was a shortcut, I carried on round the Condorrat ring road. Then I was stuck in a queue because the road was flooded almost right across the road and cars were taking turns to drive through it. We did eventually get through the flooded stretch, but it was deeper than I’d first thought.

I came home the normal way and went to get my meds, then went next door to Tesco and got some fish because I was making a fish risotto for dinner. I also got a vanilla pod to use for Sunday’s dessert. Almost six quid for one vanilla pod? Somebody’s having a joke here. The reason the road was flooded this morning was because it had rained incessantly through the night, but when I came out of Tesco the sky was clear and the sun was shining. Where did all the rain go? Not a cloud to be seen!

I drove home, dumped the stuff and grabbed my camera bag and went over to St Mo’s. Of course, as soon as I left the house the sun disappeared and the first spots of rain appeared. Undeterred I carried on and got some photos of the flooded pond. Not the most interesting photos and by this time the white cloud had covered the sky, so there was no texture from that either. Still, I had a photo or five and an hour ago I didn’t think I was going to get any.

I walked home and just as I got in, my phone rang. Scamp’s bus from the town centre hadn’t appeared. I drove up to the town centre and picked her up. I made sure I came home the long, but unfolded way.

After lunch which was yesterday’s soup with croutons, or fried bread if you prefer, I settled down to write to Peter Hayward who I used to work beside. I’d only just got started when two cards dropped through the letter box. One for Scamp and one for me from Peter. After reading it I felt even worse for not writing sooner. But the letter was finished and in with the belated Christmas card then I walked over and found I’d just missed today’s collection. Never mind, it wouldn’t have been going anywhere until Monday or Tuesday anyway. After dropping it in the post box I felt a lot happier.

Back home again I started the dinner. It was Leek and Haddock with Cabbage. The cabbage wasn’t really meant to go in the risotto, but it was languishing in the chiller drawer of the fridge and it seemed a shame no to use it. Apparently that was a really good risotto. I don’t know what I did differently, but I too liked it.

The photo you see here as PoD has a more interesting sky than when the shot was taken. I don’t consider that cheating because I took the photo of the sky months ago and just got an app to insert it, and its reflection into the picture. By the way, its title was Porcupine, because that’s what I thought of when I first saw this big clump of reeds!

Tomorrow there’s talk that it may, just may, be dry. If that’s the case we might go for a walk. Drumpellier has been mentioned.