Category: A Walk

Rain and Jags – 4 October 2022

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp was out for coffee this morning with Isobel. I did some rearranging of the ‘painting room’.

The rain during the night and this morning was torrential. When Scamp left to pick up Isobel, the rain was lessening and I thought I might manage a short walk. Five minutes later it was torrential. A real downpour. Short walk cancelled!

I resigned myself to starting to tidy up the back bedroom – the painting room. What I really needed was a skip to lob in all the broken or useless, or pointless things I have stashed in that room. It’s going to come to that some time soon, but for today I did fill a bag and I’ll fill another one tomorrow I hope. Realistically I need about 23 more bags and the incentive to fill them, but one step at a time.

After a wet Scamp returned with a bag of rolls, we had lunch and hoped that the rain would go away. It did, but it took a long time about it. Scamp was supposed to be meeting her sister on Thursday, but she got a text to say that Jackie was cancelling as she was needed at work this week. That was a pity because Scamp was looking forward to the visit and a loooong blether with her sister. They’ve rescheduled for next week and the tickets are booked.

I got my second box of coffee in two days. This one from The Bean Shop in Perth. Just two packets of coffee and two packets of tea. The coffee is almost superfluous because I got a delivery from Rave yesterday with five bags of the lovely beans. Jamie, if you haven’t tried The Italian Job yet, do yourself a favour and get a bag!

Just after my Bean Shop delivery we had to drive up to the Town Centre and it wasn’t raining! We were going for our Autumn Covid booster and for our flu jag. One in one arm and one in the other. No queues today. In and out in jig time. No reaction to speak off as yet.

It was still dry when we got back and as the sun was coming out, it was coat and boots on and off to St Mo’s for some photos. Got a nice grab shot on the boardwalk of a bloke walking his dog. I don’t know who he is, but I was just wishing someone would come along and give me something to hang this landscape shot on. Turned round and there he was! Thank you mister! However, PoD came from the path at the back of the house. It’s a bunch of berries from our Rowan tree. The tree is being pillaged by starlings this week and this one must have fallen. I liked the colour and the way it stood out from the background.

Prompt for today was ‘Scallop’. Now I can’t eat scallops or any other bivalve molluscs because I’m allergic to them, but Scamp loves them, but that doesn’t stop me sketching them. Today’s sketch was fairly small and rough, but it fits the prompt.

Tomorrow looks a bit wild with strong winds and heavy rain predicted. Oh what fun!

The day that never really got started – 3 October 2022

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Just one of those lazy days.

A typical Monday. The furthest we went today was Condorrat to post two cards. One was a birthday card and one was an anniversary card. Both cards going to the same address. On the way home I took the usual diversion round St Mo’s while Scamp went straight home.

I might as well have gone straight home too. There was nothing to see in St Mo’s, well nothing interesting anyway. A couple of photos of spiders that didn’t quite make the grade, but a pretty little Purple Vetch did get PoD. It’s a member of the pea family, but don’t be tempted to eat the peas, they’re poisonous.

Today the prompt asked for ‘Bat’, singular. Being a generous kind of person I thought I’d draw two different bats, one of the flying variety and one of the baseball persuasion. Mostly drawing in ink with an underlay of pencil lines and a little bit of watercolour to, well, add some colour I suppose!

We’re hoping for a better day tomorrow. A little splash of sunshine would be nice, but rain is more likely. Scamp has an appointment in the morning with Isobel and both Scamp and I have an appointment later with a needle!

The Elephant on the path – 2 October 2022

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We went for a walk and saw an elephant.

We did Wordle (Me 5, Scamp 3). We did Spelling Bee (Me 2 words, Scamp 1). I messed about with settings on the phone again and finally found a way of deleting all the annoying nonsense jokes and funny stories one of my pals dumps on me every day. Basically we just sat there wasting time while it was beautiful sunshine outside. Eventually one of Scamp’s “I’m fed up” sighs prompted me to ask “Should we go out for a walk?” Of course that was what the big sigh was for, so Scamp promptly agreed.

We walked out along the path to Broadwood and over the rickety bridge. Some idiot thought it would be a good idea to make a boardwalk out over part of Broadwood Loch, but make it out of plastic, presumably because it was cheaper and the plastic wouldn’t rot. It wouldn’t rot, but its not strong enough to hold lots of people either. NLC. Numpty Labour Council. Anyway we survived the Wibbly, Wobbly Way and walked on, over the dam down behind it and along past the exercise machines. Back up the hill and into then out of M&S with a bag full of messages.

It was when we were walking up the path to the house, I saw what I thought was a big fat slug on the kerb. On closer inspection, its skin was dry and not at all like a slugs slime. I tried to take some photos with my camera, but it wouldn’t focus close enough. My phone did, though. Back home I did a bit of research and found that it was in fact an Elephant Hawk-moth caterpillar. Like the ugly duckling, it turns into a beautifully colourful moth. You didn’t think it was a real Elephant, did you. Come on, it’s Cumbersheugh. Somebody would have taken it home and hidden it in their bedroom. Ah, but that’s a different story that I might tell you some time. The photo of the Elephant Hawk-moth caterpillar is on Flickr if you’re interested.

I started my dinner early. It was Stew and it needed a long time to cook, so I fried off the meat and dumped it with a chopped up onion, a couple of rubbery carrots and half a can of Guinness in the slow cooker and left it to slow cook for a couple of hours. Then I went for a walk in St Mo’s. It was still a lovely day but I found very little to photograph. I eventually settled for a single dandelion gone to seed. That became PoD.

The stew wasn’t great, because it wasn’t cooked for long enough. Scamp’s salmon was overcooked and the skin wouldn’t come off. Somewhere between those two extremes was the perfect dinner. Maybe tomorrow. Homemade Apple Sponge for dessert was perfect! Our apples too!

The prompt was ‘Scurry’? Well, it just had to be a mouse and cartoon mice are easier to draw than real live furry ones, so that was it settled. A cartoon mouse it was.

Spoke to Jamie later and we discussed phones and the difficulties of working with the Samsung website. Also on the discussion table was vegetable gardening. Glad he’s getting some decent tomatoes after a bit of a problem earlier in the year.

Hoping for a good day tomorrow. The weather fairies say don’t bother.

 

White Rabbits (x3) – 1 October 2022

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A new day, but the same weather. No wind today, but heavy rain.

We couldn’t decide what to do with today. Neither of us really wanted to go for a walk, because the dry spells were short and the rain, when it came was heavy and lasted for ages. Eventually we agreed that we’d stay at home. No sense in getting soaked for no real reason.

I offered to make pizzas for dinner and that was agreed. Lunch was a sandwich each and a cup of tea. My tea was normal Ceylon tea and Scamp’s was white tea ie hot water.

Last night I’d struggled with WhatsApp. Today I fixed it properly. It now has all my ‘Chats’ transferred over from the old phone. The camera in the new phone is quite amazing compared to the one I had before. Battery life which had been criticised in every review I’d read is fine. Storage is adequate. It’s much faster than the old phone and it doesn’t take ‘blackouts’ like the old one did. Recently it’s been going through the motions of shutting down, as if it has run out of power, when there’s about 25% left in it. Sometimes it just refused to power up. Lots of little things. Maybe it had just had enough of being in my pocket.

We didn’t get out a walk, but I did go for one circuit of St Mo’s pond then found a little dandelion growing out of the gap between two bricks on the way home and that became PoD.

I did make pizzas for dinner, but they weren’t the best I’ve ever made. Scamp put on a brave face and ate all of hers, but I know it was tough going. More practise needed.

Today was the first day of Inktober and the prompt was ‘Gargoyle’. I chose the Alien gargoyle up high on the roof of Paisley Abbey. The abbey dates back to the 12th century, but around 1990 when some renovations were being done, it was discovered that some of the gargoyles were in very poor condition. So poor that only one of them could be saved. An Edinburgh stone masons company was drafted in to design and carve new gargoyles. It seems that one of the masons had an affection for the 1979 film.
I’ve seen the gargoyle, but not up close. Too scary!

We’re not making plans for tomorrow. Whisper it. There is no rain in the forecast. Pass it on!

A toy off the rack – 30 September 2022

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Waiting, waiting, waiting.

Scamp was out in the morning in the torrential rain to go to her FitSteps class. I offered her a lift, but she wouldn’t hear of it. I think she was glad to get out of the house for a while

The expression “A toy off the rack” came from Skye. When one of my nieces was quite young, she’d accompany her mum to the shop.

Notice, shop, singular. There is only one shop in Staffin. One shop and one post office.

Or when she went with her mum to the ‘Big City’ of Portree. She would pester her mum for “A toy off the rack”. That meant she wanted something, anything, a toy. And all the toys were kept in those rotating metal racks. Since then it’s been synonymous with somebody in the house wanting something. Today it was me. I’d just spent a considerable amount of money on a phone which was coming today, but now I wasn’t satisfied because it looked like there wasn’t enough storage on it and I was moaning that I should have bought the bigger one. That’s why Scamp was so determined to get out for a while.

I got the message that the phone was coming around 4.30 and it was just 12.30. There was nothing for it but to wait. Eventually the DPD van stopped outside and there was a knock at the door. The man photographed the parcel and left. It must have been a horrible day for driving with all the water that was pouring out of the sky. I sliced open the box with an old bone handled knife that must be older than me. Probably wearing on for 90 years old, and here was I using it to open up a piece of tech that would look like black magic to the person who made that knife. There was a black slab of glass and metal in the black box. I took it out and plugged it into its black rapid charger with its black cable and it lit up with a blue light. Were you really expecting the light to be black?

I knew it was going to take about half an hour to charge, even with a rapid charger, so I took my camera out to have something to talk to when I went for a walk in St Mo’s. There wasn’t much to see today, but thankfully the rain had stopped and there was even a chance that the sun was coming out. PoD turned out to be a shot of two women walking home along my favourite path through the trees. It was good to see that some brave folk were out for a walk through the woods without a care, or an umbrella. I had my Goretex jacket on. I know just how fickle the Scottish weather can be.

The phone was charged and it was big and maybe a bit clumsy, but it was fast. Once it had done all the things that new phones do, I transferred almost all of my apps from the old phone and then set about tidying thing. Chucking things out and found that that 128GB will probably be enough for the present moment. I eventually got to be just after mindnight after winning a lengthy fight with Spotify, but having scoring draw with WhatsApp. I’d had enough of phones. I went to bed. That’s why this is a catch up.

No plans for tomorrow. If it’s good we’ll go for lunch somewhere.

 

A much better day – 29 September 2022

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Decided to have one more try at the Samsung website.

The expression “A Dug wi’ a Burst Ba’.” springs to mind. I just couldn’t let it lie. I just tried to buy the phone this time, but it still kicked me out. Then I thought it might be the extra £100 from Jamie’s generous offer that was causing problems. With a heavy heart I removed it and tried again. Lo and Behold, it worked! DPD sent me a message this afternoon to say they would be delivering my parcel tomorrow. Let’s hope it’s the phone and not the box to return the old Huawei!

So, with a skip in my step and after a lift from Scamp, I got a train in to Glasgow to meet Alex. We got the bus out to Kelvingrove and the picture above is what we saw when we got off, PoD captured. Beautiful light on Glasgow Uni with dark glowering skies above. It only lasted for a few minutes then the light was gone, heading north to brighten somebody else’s day. We listened to the organist playing the gigantic pipe organ in the main hall of Kelvingrove Art Galleries, then we had lunch. After that Alex wanted to photograph the ceiling of the main hall, so I loaned him my wide angle lens while I wandered round the galleries. For the first time in my life I plucked up courage and asked a total stranger if I could take their photo. Thankfully, she said Yes. I never asked her name and she didn’t ask mine, but she was sketching a plaster bust in one of the galleries. Thank you, whoever you are.

After we’d covered everything in the building, we walked up to Glasgow Uni. All that good light was well gone by then, but Alex was heading for the famous Cloisters to get some slow shutter photos of folk walking around them. I did the same, but neither of us was all that successful and we left the excited ‘Freshers’ to their conducted tours and walked back down the hill to get the bus into Glasgow.

There was a bloke came on to the bus in a fancy motorised wheelchair. We were impressed at the way he could manoeuvre it into a busy bus and then reverse it into the wheelchair space. I told him as we left how impressed I was with his driving skills and he just laughed and said “Thanks for noticing!”

Another coffee in Nero and we walked down to the bus station. Alex was getting the bus home and I was heading to the station hoping that Scamp would give me a lift home from there, which she did.

Dinner tonight was Chicken Cacciatore. Delightful with a glass of red. A great end to a really good day.

Tomorrow looks like rain from start to finish!

Back to the garage – 27 September 2022

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Today we were going back to the garage.

We had a problem, but not with the car. The service history hadn’t been updated and wasn’t signed. I thought it would be a quick and easy fix, but forgot that the log book is a legal document and needs to be signed by the person who performed the service. That meant I had to wait for the service manager to take the book to the mechanic for him to sign, then bring it back. These little things seem to matter.

With the book signed, we continued on to Morrisons in Stirling. It was nearby and we hadn’t been to it for years, besides Morrisons is the only place we can be sure to get Neapolitan wafer ice cream. Just to be sure again, we got two packets. Of course we got other less important things too, like food.

After that we drove back through traffic that was considerably lighter than yesterday’s moving car park. Scamp discovered that the reason was probably the fact that there were three cows on the M73 after discovering that the grass was indeed greener on the other side of the fence. Something in the region of a ten mile tailback for three cows. And we wonder why the country is going to the dogs … and the cows.

I’d put the idea of a new phone on the back burner a week or so ago, today I turned up the gas. I had been looking at getting a Samsung Galaxy S21 FE, but Samsung UK didn’t have any to sell. John Lewis had none in any of its shops, Curry’s and Argos did have some, but they didn’t do 0% finance which the other two did. I’d read somewhere that Samsung had halted production of the ‘older’ phone, to concentrate on their newer models. I started looking at a more recent S22+. To help offset the cost, I could trade in an old phone – that offer wasn’t available for the S21 FE. The only stipulation seemed to be that it didn’t have a broken screen and that it would hold a charge. I put in the IMEI number of my old A40 and there it was, an instant £150 discount. I might just take them up on the offer.

With a bit of a smile on my face, I went for a walk in St Mo’s and found lots of spiders sitting in their webs, patiently waiting for an unlucky fly. However, the PoD turned out to be a shot of the late afternoon sun glancing across the Campsie Fells. I also walked over to Condorrat to get some stew and some mince to fill up my section of the freezer.  Back home I ordered another batch of Rave coffee.  Slightly different from what the Perth shop sells.  Not better, nor worse, just different.  A pleasant change.

It wasn’t until later in the evening that I discovered I’d brought something else back from St Mo’s. A tiny little tick on my wrist. It’s now gone to tick heaven. First one for ages. I hope it’s the last one for a while.

Tomorrow we’re visiting Margie. Always an entertainment.

Lunch in the Toon and a Wanderer returns – 26 September 2022

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We took the train in to Glasgow today after Scamp had run us to the station.  Just a wander around the centre of Glasgow with maybe the chance of a lunch thrown in.  Seemed like a good way to use a sunny day.  Sunny, but not all that warm, well it is nearly the end of September.  Glasgow was busy, probably partly because this is the end of September weekend which is a local holiday.  We walked down Buchanan Street and heard a bloke playing a blues on nice sounding guitar.  I gave him a few quid for his efforts.  We walked back up and found the restaurant Val had praised a few weeks ago.  It’s called Mozza and is part of a chain.  We’d been impressed with their pizzas when we’d been staying in Annette’s caravan in St Andrews last year.  Today’s pizza wasn’t a patch on the St Andrews one.  I had Italian Sausage and allegedly Italian Broccoli, but what was on my plate was cabbage, possibly Italian cabbage, but nothing like broccoli.  It was smothered in half a ton of cheese.  Scamp was smarter, she’d asked for just a little cheese and her’s looked a lot less of a mess.  It wasn’t expensive, but it wasn’t all that great either.  It wasn’t as bad as Doppio Malto’s effort, but way below Paesano in my quality rating.

We went for coffee in Nero after the disappointing pizza and then headed for the train.  Just missed the train back by seconds and with 25 minutes to wait for the next one, we went for a walk round George Square and down to Cass Art to see if they had a sale on … they didn’t so we ambled back to the station and on the way I got a few shots of the big glass building that is 110 Queen Street.  I liked the round table set for a meeting.  That became PoD.

Back home and had just finished a coffee when the phone rang and it was the garage to say the Blue car was ready.  I drove the White Duke over to Stirling, noting  the two mile queue on the other carriageway, the carriageway I would have been using to drive home.  Picked up our car and found that an upgrade to the Engine Control Unit had solved the problem and an upgrade to the sat nav and radio had also been done and checked.  I haven’t tested their checks yet, I was too busy plotting a route home that would mean the wheels were turning all the time, but I think we may go for a run soon.

That was about it for the day.  Nice to have the Micra back, but I admit I almost stalled it a couple of times forgetting it wasn’t an automatic!

No plans for tomorrow yet.  Weather looks reasonable for the time of year.

 

Dancin’ – 24 September 2022

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Difficult dancin’ too but, I did tell them I wasn’t to move my left foot from the floor. That’s what made it difficult.

We drove the White Duke to the dance class in Brookfield. Never once did I move my left foot off the floor. I tried out the cruise control on the quieter stretches out approaching Paisley, but I didn’t like the way the car took over the driving, controlling not only the speed, but also the steering. It’s called ‘Assisted Steering’ and it attempts to keep you between the white lines. That’s what my friend, Colin, claims to do when he’s driving on memory. Keep it between the white lines and on the left side of the road! Actually, it drove quite well. Part of the fear is gone, but part is still there. Now, perhaps, I know how Scamp feels when she says it feels like the car is getting away from her. Anyway, we made it with time to spare.

We stared today with the Mambo Marina. It’s a silly, but cheerful little sequence dance with, what Stewart calls, ‘Happy Music’. We know it and it was one of the first sequence dances I learned. That got us on our feet and warmed up, because it was a cold morning this morning. 4.3ºc when I was making the breakfast.
Next it was Gershwin Foxtrot. We’d been practising this at home in the living room and although the heel turns and spin turns were difficult to control when dancing on a carpet, we felt we were progressing. Stewart, the perfectionist, found lots of my steps to criticise, but I understand where he’s coming from. Positioning on the dance floor is important in ballroom. I’m so used to Salsa where you don’t mind where you end up or what direction you’re facing. It’s a couple dance that really can be danced on the spot. Most of the ballroom dances flow round in an anticlockwise direction and a bit of floor craft is necessary to make sure nobody crashes into anyone else. Although a certain person who shall remain nameless did once deliberately crash into a show-off latin dancer, and enjoyed it! We’ve almost completed the Gershwin now with just a couple of figures left to round the whole thing off.
We finished today with Tango Serida which I’d never danced, or don’t remember dancing, although Scamp knows how it all works. To help out us beginners, S&J did a couple of walk-throughs. In the end, we were almost ‘getting it’.

Drove home via the Clyde Tunnel and, again, my left foot stayed firmly fixed on the floor. MPG for the journey was in the mid 50s which is quite good for a fairly heavy automatic, I think.

The rest of the day was spent recovering from the dancing and the stressful drive back, although I did go out for a walk in the afternoon and managed to get some lovely light on a spider stretched out over its web. That got PoD.

Dinner tonight came from Bombay Dreams and was delivered very promptly. The food was just as good as it usually is. I can’t find anything to beat BD for good Indian food, certainly not locally.

We watched the tedious matching up of the professional dancers with the celebrities in Strictly, actually a recording from yesterday. We have today’s equally cringe inducing first dance recorded to watch tomorrow. We just like living in the past, you see!

We watched ‘Ridley’, Hazy. Actually we quite enjoyed it and found that ‘Ted Hastings’ could hold a decent tune. It was a bit long for a police drama, though.

No plans for tomorrow. No F1 GP to watch, but I suppose there will be something to do in the garden!

 

An early rise – 22 September 2022

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Up and out fairly early today to take the car to the garage for its service.

I thought it was going to be a nightmare run to Stirling. The rain was torrential when I woke, but by the time I was leaving it was tailing off and so was the traffic which usually turns the M80 into a carpark if you are travelling before 10am. A nice easy run to the garage.

Spoke to a lady assistant who asked if I’d had any problems with the car since the last service and when I handed her the typed up A4 sheet, she said “Oh! I see”, read it and promptly passed it on the service manager. Actually they couldn’t have been more helpful today. They seem to be under new management, so that might explain it. I signed all the paperwork, drew in a sharp intake of breath when the service assistant told me the cost of the Major Service and we walked out to my car for the day. It was a white Nissan Juke – automatic. His parting words to me were “Just remember not to lift your left foot.” Wise words. At the first roundabout I stamped on the brake, thinking it was the clutch. “Don’t lift your left foot” became my mantra for the drive home. My first thoughts were It’s BIG, It’s a bit noisier than the Micra and It’s got Sport Mode!!

After a bit of a kerfuffle I managed to reverse park The Beast and like all Nissans it complained about everything with warnings on the dashboard screen and beeps for every infringement.

I thought it would be good to go for a drive with Scamp. I knew she’d hate it. It’s too big and it goes too fast. I have to agree, but first I had to find how to put fuel into it. I could not find the switch to open the door that hides the fuel cap. The Micra has two tabs, one opens the bonnet and the other opens the fuel compartment. Eventually I gave in and read the instructions. To open the door, you press on the rear of the fuel compartment door, just like the Megane. Problem solved.

We drove out slowly and put in a few quids worth of petrol, then went for a run to The Kelpies. Just to annoy Scamp, I put on the heated seats when she wasn’t looking. That gave her a shock and a laugh (you taught me that, Jamie). I still don’t like them and Scamp hates them. I managed to drive all the way to Falkirk and only once did an ‘emergency stop’ by trying to use a clutch that wasn’t there. I also gave Scamp a laugh when I started trying to change gear in an automatic. My hand went to the gearstick quite a few times. When we parked at The Kelpies, I tried to pull on an invisible handbrake – the joys of ‘electronic handbrakes’.

The Kelpies were just as magical as they always are. We walked round them trying to see them from a different angle and being amazed at how lifelike they are. It was quite quiet today, no crowds. Well, it was quiet until a lorry load of visitors arrived and mobbed the place. There seemed to be hundreds of them. We went into the cafe and had lunch before they realised there was food nearby. Today’s PoD came from Helix Park, where The Kelpies live. It was a snap shot, not a snapshot. Saw it and took it before I realised that the bloke was with the woman in the background, wearing the yellow jacket and she was photographing him. Oops!

After we’d seen the great metal horses and walked round them, we headed home. Scamp bought birthday cards in Condorrat while I processed today’s photos. After that, we wrote the cards and I walked to Condorrat to post one. Hopefully the other will go to June for safe keeping tomorrow.

Oh yes, tomorrow. I got a phone call from the garage about 5pm to say Would it be ok to leave the Micra with them overnight until they finalise their investigations? I agreed that it would be fine by me. They confirmed that they would extend my insurance. So I get another day to find our more about the White Juke.

Tomorrow June and Iain are taking us out for lunch at the Red Deer (AKA the Dead Deer). Looking forward to it. Also looking forward to getting my Blue Micra back.