Category: A Walk

Rain, Sun and Wind – 2 July 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Three words to sum up today as far as weather goes. There was rain. Sometimes heavy sometimes light, but always there on the horizon. Then there were occasions sunbursts, sometimes while the rain was falling, but welcome when they appeared. Lastly there was wind for the third day recently. Gusty wind blowing in from the west. Very unseasonable weather after a Flaming June.

Scamp was out planting her new flowers. They are a white Salvia and a white Penstemon. Both in the new pot she bought (but didn’t wear) yesterday. They are now ensconced in the front garden to strengthen the barrier and hopefully prevent the Scottish Terrier from round the corner from crapping in our front grass. If that doesn’t work, then we’ll have to resort to digging pits with sharpened spikes at the bottom, between the pots or the ‘nuclear option’ – Land Mines. Anyway, for now the flower pots are doing a good job of keeping Hamish at bay. In the afternoon I swear I saw Scamp out in the front garden watering the plants while the rain was tipping it down. I now have seriously concerns about her sanity.

Later in the afternoon I put my boots on and went for a walk in St Mo’s, hoping to get some photos of some yellow Flag Irises, but was disappointed to find that they were long gone. That spell of hot weather had forced the flowering of these elegant plants way ahead of their usual blooming time. What I did find was a couple of Batman hoverflies, so called because they have what looks like the Batman symbol on their thorax. Then a Five Spot Burnet moth feeding on its favourite knapweed flower. After some discussion with myself, the Burnet moth got PoD.

Watched a crazy Austrian GP with almost half the field succumbing to five second penalties for exceeding ’Track Limits’. For once, Charles Leclerc didn’t find the wall!

We don’t have any plans for tomorrow.

 

A new month – 1 July 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Finally I’ve cleared the backlog of blog posts and Flickr submissions. It took a bit longer than I expected, but even as I was downloading today’s photos, I found more on the A6000 that I had missed so I’m now up to about 1300 photos for June. That’s a personal record, I think. It’s partly down to the new phone. The results I get from it are almost indistinguishable from those on my A6000. Not quite as good as the A7iii, but it gets close when I use the RAW mode on the phone camera. Quite amazing. Truly now, the best camera is the one in your pocket.

I spent most of the morning and part of the afternoon clearing up loose ends of blogs. If any of you out there notice any mistakes, please don’t tell me, because I’m not going to do anything about them. Not long after midday I posted the final backlog blog.
Meanwhile, Scamp was doing the ironing and by the time she was finished, I was just finishing, so we could have lunch. Both of us settled for banana on toast.

After lunch Scamp decided she needed another garden tub to house her two new plants, so we walked down to the shops, got some messages and other essentials like jam doughnuts and then picked us a reasonably sized tub that Scamp threatened to wear on her head on the way home to protect herself from the rain. Thankfully the rain dried up once we left the shop. I could have gone for a walk in St Mo’s and probably I should have, but instead I came home with Scamp and did my file shifting that I usually do at the end of the month.

It had been windy since early morning and photography in the wind is difficult, so I chose to take some shots in the back garden where there is a bit of shelter from our high fence. PoD turned out to be the seed pods of the long gone Shooting Star flowers that bloomed in May. There wasn’t much more to tempt me today. Maybe I should have gone over to St Mo’s or encouraged Scamp to wear that flower pot hat and got a shot from one of those two situations … or maybe best not!

No plans for tomorrow.

 

Submarines, Cats and Islands – 16 June 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Today was Kotor and I was up early and out on the deck watching the ship sail through the narrow passages that would open into the Bay of Kotor. This is the part of the cruise that looks just like the west coast of Scotland. Although we’ve never actually sailed round the west coast, this is what I’d like to think it looks like. It was certainly Scottish weather at 6am. Not that warm and just a bit of dampness in the air.

I saw the old camouflaged submarine pens which apparently date back to WW2, but I missed seeing the two little islands in the bay. You can’t be on both sides of the ship at the same time. I saw the little lighthouse too as we entered the bay and didn’t realise it was also a church.

Later we got the tender that took us to the town and we walked into Kotor and through the old town. Scamp was looking for the Christmas shop where she always buys some souvenirs. It rained on and off all day. Not as bad as yesterday, but not what you want when you’re expecting sunshine!

In the evening we went to the ‘Sit Down’ dinner, and were finished just in time to see the two islands passing on the right (starboard) side of the ship. Two little man-made islands. One is a chapel and the other is a monastery.

Things we’ll remember:

  • The tender that took us over the sea to the town.
  • Cats. Cats everywhere.
  • Eating cherries we bought in the market.
  • Scamp’s face when she finally found the Christmas shop.
  • The submarine pens, or at least the entrance to them.
  • The two little islands.
  • The wee church that’s also a lighthouse.
  • The clear water running down from the mountains in Kotor town.
  • Watching town. float past the ship.
  • A surprise bunny wabbit towel animal on our bed.

The day the rains came in Dubrovnik – 15 June 2023

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… and forgot to stop!

Things we’ll remember:

  • Waking to rain on the balcony.
  • Heavy rain, light rain, but constant rain.
  • Breakfast in “Smash ’n’ Grab”.
  • Constant messages from the Cruise Director.
  • Warnings to those going home to stay in your cabins until called.
  • Went for a walk in the afternoon.
  • Almost cut my hair – or got it cut.
  • Saw the ‘battleship’ and the armoured car.
  • No cats in the armoured car.
  • Watched the rain forming rivers on the windows of “Indigo”.
  • Tapas for dinner – excellent.
  • Show was “Movies”
  • Aka the professional male dancer’s flies burst open during his routine!
  • Nearly dropped his partner when the ship moved for him!
  • Brambles for two – very nice!

 

Bar – 14 June 2023

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A small town that is a bit down at heel, but trying hard to make something of itself.

Things we’ll remember:

  • Beautiful sunrise and sail in.
  • Two Tui ships in port at the same time.
  • Free bus into town.
  • Decorated utility boxes (substations and the like) in town
  • Temple of St Jovan Vladimira. Frescos on every wall inside.
  • Wild flowers everywhere.
  • Chinese shop with everything, everywhere.
  • Vista restaurant for dinner – pretend posh Italian.
  • Vista didn’t cut the mustard.
  • Thunderstorm at night.

Water Leak – 11 June 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Today was Sunday in Piraeus and it was hot, but cloudy with the threat of rain and thunder storms.

We had a warning last night in our cabin that over 900 passengers would be leaving the ship at intervals in the morning to go on excursions, so probably best leave breakfast until a little later. This morning we had another warning, not the one you want to hear when you’re on a ship. There was a water leak and we were given an hour’s warning that the entire water system of the ship was being turned off.

After our late breakfast we made sure to use our time wisely and evacuated whatever needed evacuating, then left the plumbers or engineers to do their work. We walked off the ship and on into the town which seemed closed. Well, it was Sunday after all and we were in quite a small town.

I was searching for two things. The first was the fish market, which I didn’t find, presumably because it was Sunday and it would have been closed anyway. The second was the place where motorbikes go to die. It’s a bike shop on a street corner with some lovely machines inside. Outside is where the scrap bikes are left to be cannibalised for spare parts. I found it, up a steep hill with a children’s playground and dog walking area across the road. Got a photo of a Kawasaki chopper that might make PoD.

Things we’ll remember:

  • Late breakfast.
  • Water leak.
  • Looong walk into town.
  • Shops shut on Sundays.
  • Today was Sunday.
  • Angry dog.
  • Where motorbikes go to die.
  • Sunset over the mountains.

 

Souda for Chania – 10 June 2023

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The first Greek town this year, although Scamp does remind me that it’s Crete, not Greece!

We had breakfast in the posh restaurant we ate in last night. Sensible plates of food for once. Then we watched the sail in on a beautiful morning.

With no tours booked, we just watched until the queue for the bus calmed down then walked out and caught the €1.50 bus from Souda, where we were docked, into Chania town. We had to stand for the 15min journey which was a pain in the legs.

It was a bit busy in the town, In fact it was very busy, but it was Saturday and you have to remember that. My watch wasn’t syncing yet with my phone, so I also had to remember to add on an extra two hours to the time.

We walked through the shops, all of which seemed to sell leather goods, but didn’t buy anything. We did go for coffee in a wee cafe in a town square. We walked as far as the harbour and watched the horse drawn carriages going past. We both felt sorry for the horses.

At night we had another posh dinner sat next to a crazy man and his wife. He was telling the steward how he had a machine gun fitted to the front of his mini. He said it kept everyone out of his way. Scamp tapped him on the shoulder and he jumped as if he’d been slapped and shouted “Don’t touch me!” If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was Ray Furminger’s brother. That same kind of sarcastic humour. Great fun was had by all apart from his wife who smiled and shook her head at everything he said.

Dancing at night to music by a girl from the entertainment team. Sitting with two women who were dancers, certainly better than me, but they had the advantage of being sober.

Tomorrow it’s Piraeus

Things we’ll remember:

  • The sail in.
  • The man with the Barrel Organ.
  • Horses pulling two seater gigs in Chania.
  • Old church or cathedral. Beautiful, but dark inside.
  • Two weans chasing pigeons across the church square.
  • Watching the wee fish swimming in the harbour.
  • Overcrowded buses, going in to town and returning to Souda.
  • Mad Saturday traffic.
  • Being served ‘sit down’ breakfast in the posh restaurant.

Almost there – 7 June 2023

Posted on by Zogman

A day for doing as little as possible and not thinking too much about tomorrow.

As usual, I was just a little bit stressed, but Scamp suggested lunch at Broadwood, partly to reduce the stress and also so we had less work preparing dinner. It was the usual fare. Scamp had fish ’n’ chips and I had a couple of slices of roast ham and roast turkey with all the trimmings and a pint of murky Belhaven Best. Only drank half of it, just in case it affected my sometimes dodgy stomach.

Later I went over to St Mo’s and found a PoD which was a baby’s sunhat sitting on a tree stump. That might be a strange subject for today’s photo, but there is a Flickr group called TLOP (Things Left On Posts) and this would fit perfectly. There wasn’t much else to photograph. The dragonflies were still buzzing round the ponds and seemed to have no need of a rest, so TLOP it was.

Later we watched a Sewing Bee from our catalog of programs downloaded, but not yet watched. They seem to be making the tasks harder and harder this year.

After that it was time to set the alarm for 2.45am (!) and go to bed for a very short sleep.

Money makes the world go around – 6 June 2023

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The money in question was foreign and old.

The money was Kuna abbreviated to kn, and the part of the world was Croatia. When we were last in that neck of the woods, last summer, we hadn’t spent as much kn as we’d intended to, and when we came home it was squirrelled away for use when the time came to travel to that far land again. Unfortunately we hadn’t noticed that on the 1st of January 2023 the kn was replaced by the Euro. Scamp had noticed this earlier in the week and after a bit of calculation we discovered that our 1500kn was worth about £150 if we could get somewhere to buy it.

We were going in to Glasgow today anyway to swap out a shirt I’d bought, not noticing it was a ‘Tailored Fit’ that wouldn’t fit my not quite svelte body. We’d drop in to JL first to see what they’d offer for our kuna. The answer was that JL didn’t buy kuna because there is no demand for it now, I suppose. However the cashier said she thought Euroexchange at the opposite end of Buchanan Galleries were still buying Kuna. We trotted along and after a couple of phone calls we were told that they would buy back most of the notes. Some of our smaller denomination notes were too old and virtually worthless, but we did get a fairly decent exchange rate for our out of date Croatian money. Quite delighted we walked on to Slaters where the shirt was exchanged for a ‘normal fit’.

On the way back I could feel that the unexpected money was burning a hole in Scamp’s pocket. But she is much more cautious than me and would only part with the ‘lump sum’ if she thought she was getting a bargain, and it appears that nothing she saw fitted that bill. Lunch was in Paesano and it was just as delicious as usual, sorry Alex! Coffee in Nero was the last stop before we drove home, but on the way there I took a few photos of the Donald Dewar outside Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. Donald Dewer, in case you don’t know, was the inaugural First Minister of the Scottish Government. That became PoD.

Sun took a bit longer to come out today. Maybe it wasn’t quite sure if those clouds were going to break enough to make it worth its while and it was late into the afternoon before it finally made up its mind to shine. Even the, there was a cool breeze. Maybe this is the end of summer, when it’s only just begun.

Tomorrow Scamp is getting her nails ‘done’. A birthday present voucher from her big sister that she’s finally used. Hope they aren’t those ‘Tiger Claws’ I see some women with!

The Lawnmower Man – 5 June 2023

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Scamp was out this morning to meet June for coffee. I thought I’d cut the grass.

It’s a long job, cutting the grass. Not as bad as some folk who have enormous lawns that need a petrol driven mower, but who secretly hanker for a ride-on mower! Ours is just a wee pocket hankie by comparison, but there’s a bit of preparation needed before you get started, pots to shift and then shift back once the first cut is taken. Squirting WD40 into the squeaky rear wheel, that screeching was putting my teeth on edge.

After I’d done our wee square, I thought it would be the right thing to do to cut Bobby Flavel’s grass too. I know my method is very rough and ready compared to Bobby’s straight lines, but at least it’s done and tidy. I hope you were sitting up there watching me struggle with the mower at the end of its lead, Bobby, just managing to get the furthest edge cut. Angela was the first person to cut Bobby’s grass after he passed away and we all agreed that we should take it in turns to cut his grass. For that reason and also because she doesn’t have much free time to mow her own grass, I cut Angela’s pocket hankie too. My good deeds for the day.

If the preparations before starting are a pain, the cleaning of that mower are even more of a drag. However, Scamp maintains it well and I think my cleaning routine was almost as good as her’s. I gave the blade a squirt of WD40 and then gave the squeaky wheel the grease it wanted. Done!

I’d just finished when Scamp arrived home. Piece ’n’ Cheese for her lunch and a slice of buttered bread covered in the remains of yesterday’s stew for mine. By then the sun had made an appearance and after some dithering, I took the A7 and the big heavy macro lens out to St Mo’s looking for damselflies, only to find that the dragonflies had taken over the ponds. There were dozens of them fighting and gatecrashing each other’s parties. Just like the unruly teenagers we get in the same neck of the woods with their ghetto blasters later in the summer. At least the dragonflies were just “doing the what comes naturally” and weren’t hyped up on Buckfast!

I couldn’t get as close as I wanted to the dragonflies, so I got as good a shot as was possible and enlarged it in ON1 software at home and produces what you see here. It’s a four spot chaser.

On the way home I had to check out the work being done by the council road repairers. They’d closed off part of our street to repair a section of the road. It has been crumbling away for years and a month or so ago they patched the bits that were easy to do. This, though, was a major bit of work with the tarmac being scraped back to the hardcore base and fresh tarmac replacing it. It was supposed to take two days, but it looks like it’s finished tonight.

Another end of day seat in the sun with Scamp. Both of us reading with a glass of something to keep us from drying out in this sunshine!

No plans for tomorrow, at least not at present.