Category: A Walk

Soaking up the heat – 20 June 2025

Posted on by Zogman

25º+ today and we’re promised more tomorrow.

How much more can this old planet take before we all just melt in the sunshine. I must say that I enjoyed most of it, but towards the middle of the day I was beginning to fade a little. Too much heat, not enough water and definitely not nearly enough alcohol!

Scamp was out in the morning to Fit Steps. I don’t know where she gets all the energy from. I stayed home and read for most of the hour she was sweating (Perspiring – Ladies don’t sweat, they perspire). When she got home and after a coffee, we went out looking for some bright shining plants to add to our garden. I say ‘our garden’ but you know Scamp does most of the work in the front and back gardens. I’d like to say that I’m the brains of the operation, but you know me too well to let me away with that! This time we went to Torwood for the plants and we were more restrained than we usually are. I picked two that I liked – don’t ask me what their names were. Scamp chose three. Five is a favourite number in the house.

We had lunch in Torwood. Usually a cosy, comfortable cafe, but today the Toasties were over toasted. Red Hot some would say. Almost got blisters on our lips – that’s how hot it was.

While Scamp was planting out two or three of the new plants, I was preparing for a walk over to St Mo’s. I’d sunscreen on and a coating of insect repellant on top, just to be sure. I also had a pair of shorts, a tee shirt, and a skipped cap. The cap was to keep the sun out of my eyes, but in retrospect, a sun hat would have been better and more sensible.

While I was out, Scamp had dragged out her seat and was reading in the garden. When I got home I realised just how dehydrated I was, but two glasses of water later I was back on an even keel. The next time I’m out in the sun, I’ll wear my sunhat DV and carry some water. We Scots are not built for the high 20ºs centigrade. Roll on the end of June when we return to cold rain.

Later in the evening we eventually dragged our seats back in to the house, ready for another hot day tomorrow if the weather fairies are to be believed.

PoD today went to a field of Eryngium Planum in Torwood, which Scamp managed to avoid bringing home. I’d definitely have had the lot in the car if I could!

We’re intending going over to Larky to see Crawford & Nanacy for tea.

Another day at the horses – 19 June 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Only nine days ago Scamp and I went to see the Kelpies. Today Alex and I went visiting. Scamp was meeting Isobel for coffee.

I didn’t want to go on a photo walk in Glasgow. I’m just Glasgow’d out for now. Too many days trailing around our second city. I gave Alex some suggestions for destinations and he asked if we could go to the Kelpies. Not his fault, he didn’t know I’d been to see them just over a week ago, so I agreed. It’s not a long drive from Cumbersheugh to Helix Park where the Kelpies live and my other suggestions would have taken a lot longer, besides, there is always a new angle on these magnificent steel masterpieces.

I picked Alex up at the station an we drove over. I wanted to take a shot looking through the cleats where the boats tie up with the Kelpies in the background. Also, I’d offered Alex a loan of my 10-18mm f2.8 ultra wide angle lens as he was considering buying one. We did both manage to get some good views with Helix Park producing some lovely skies as a background. Lunch was a sandwich and a bottle of juice halfway through the day. Then we split up and found some different subjects. I walked under the canal bridge and took some photos looking back, but the pylons behind the structures rather spoilt the view.

We met up later as I was just finishing my attempt at the view through a cleat to the Kelpies behind. Alex seemed happy enough with his collection too. However, he needed to be back home earlier than normal because he was looking after the kids back home to allow their mother to go out to a concert. It was a tight run back to the station, but we made it with a few minutes to spare. Dropped him off and agreed to have a think about our next destination.

Dinner was a salad with a trout fillet each. A lovely bit of fish and the salad was so much better than I could make. Afterwards we sat and read in the garden, making the most of another beautiful warm day.

It was later in the evening I found that there was a green cast at all the shots taken with the A6500/10-18mm combination. I’d not seen this occurrence before and will have to look out for it. I doubt if there is an easy solution, other to shoot in mono.

Tomorrow Scamp is hoping to go to the FitSteps class in the morning, the last one for a few weeks and I’m maybe going to relax in the sun again.

Keeping your head down – 18 June 2025

Posted on by Zogman

It’s amazing the things you see if you keep your head down.

Today I was out for a walk in the afternoon, heading to the shops to get a variety of veg to make dinner. If I hadn’t had my head to the ground I would never have noticed the burned off rusted pipe on the pavement. Inside the pipe, dirt and stones had collected over time. Some seeds had landed in the old pipe too and some of them had germinated. Add a little sunlight and a plentiful amount of rain and there you have the beginnings of a miniature garden. If I’d just been striding out, or if I’d been thinking about that dinner I was going to make, I’d have missed this little garden in the street. If you don’t look, you’ll never see what’s in front of you. But be careful, watch out for busses as well as little round gardens.

You can find my garden on Flickr. The round garden didn’t quite make PoD. That award went to a White Tailed Bee feeding on a Marsh Cinquefoil flower. Much prettier, but I still like that round garden. It’s the second one I’ve found. Must go back through Flickr to find it.

Scamp was out in the afternoon to meet up with the rest of the Witches, while I was shopping. I’d half intended to drive up to Fannyside to get some landscape photos. Unfortunately the sun didn’t want to play ball today and so instead I searched out a recipe I could use for dinner tonight. I’d seen one on the BBC page and it looked simple enough for me. Actually it was fairly simple and that’s what we had tonight. It was listed as Mediterranean Vegetable Pasta, but in reality it was “What have we got in the fridge”. It served the purpose and it tasted reasonable. May make it again.

The dull weather that prevented me from going to Fannyside lasted for the remainder of the day. Dull and with the threat of rain sort of summed it up. Hoping for a better day tomorrow.

Scamp is intending to meet Isobel tomorrow and I’m hoping to meet Alex for a photowalk.

My turn to cook – 17 June 2025

Posted on by Zogman

It was my turn to cook today and I thought I’d made a mess of it, but surprisingly it all worked out well.

It was a dull, grey day. I don’t think either of us really wanted to do much of anything. I had finished my book and started another. I don’t know where it came from on the Kindle, but it didn’t last long there. It’s now in the Kindle Bin. An hour or so’s research and a couple of quid brought me another book, much more interesting, at least that’s what I’m hoping it will be. By the way Hazy, did you know that Stone and Sky, the new Rivers of London book, set in SCOTLAND! comes out in a couple of weeks? You probably knew that and you probably told me and I probably forgot about it. Too many wee ‘nories’ in my head, that’s what my mum would have said.

Scamp was in a redesigning mood today. Plants in their pots were needing moved and I could see where she was going with this rebuild. Too many pots containing greenery and not enough with some brighter colours. Admittedly she has some beautiful roses growing in the front garden, in pots, of course, but she needs some spots of colour too. Today was a test to see what she could create from what she already had in the garden. I was the pot lifter for the day and I agreed with her changes.

However, I did want to get a bit of photography done and once I was sure she wouldn’t strain her back humphing the pots around, I took the chance of a walk over to St Mo’s where I found a Common Blue Damselfly that was willing to be a model for me. Also a pretty pink wildflower growing beside the boardwalk. It took me a bit of research to find out that it was Valerian. I remembered the name from last year. Last, but not least was was a side view of a white wild rose, fully open and welcoming any passing bees. All are to be seen on Flickr, but the PoD was the Valerian.

Like I said at the start, it was my turn to cook today. It was Mushroom Risotto and I still think I got some of my quantities wrong, but the result worked well. It’s 20 minutes of standing by the cooker feeding the mushroom, onion, garlic, butter and rice mixture with ladles full of rehydrated mushroom flavoured liquid, meanwhile stirring almost constantly for those 20 minutes. Scamp had poached a chicken breast earlier and I added it to the mixture. I’m glad it all worked. I would have hated to have gone to all that effort for it to be a failure.

Tomorrow Scamp is hoping to meet the Witches for a blether and I may go looking for dragonflies, out in the country.

Just a Monday – 16 June 2025

Posted on by Zogman

A day to refill the fridge and the freezer and also the cupboards. Nothing fancy here, just replenishing, yes, that’s it. Replenishing!

But first we had the Canadian GP to watch. It was a bit of a procession until Lando Norris rammed Piastri in the dying minutes of the race and turned everything on its head. Too many hot heads in this GP world.

Apart from the GP, was a dull old day again. Nothing much to see, nowhere interesting to go, unless you consider Tesco to be interesting. It’s more a necessity to us. If M&S doesn’t have it, then surely Tesco will. A trolley was half filled from the list Scamp gave me and then it was added to when she returned from another shop and used her memory cells to recall the little bits and pieces she’d forgotten to tell me to find.

Back home we were unpacking the car and finding places to put all the things we’d bought. I do hope I’ve put them all in the right places or I’ll be getting my knuckles rapped for not paying attention to my wife!

In the afternoon Scamp did some planning of the garden, moving things around to create more space or to mix the colours of the flowers better. I can see what she was attempting to achieve, and it’s working. The colour combinations definitely brighten the borders.

For me, I took a camera over to St Mo’s to see what I could find. What I found was a newly hatched group of Shield Bugs. All of them wandering around the boardwalk and it was one of those bugs that got the PoD when it appears to wander into the jungle. I won’t go in to that in any detail. It’s nothing like what I was intending, but it worked, and that’s the important thing.

We went dancing in Kirsty’s class in the late afternoon / early evening. It was a reprise of the Waltz Nioli we’d started last week. Eventually we got it working properly, or as near as I could make it. Now we have three weeks off her class and another week or two off Stewart & Jane’s. I’m sure I’ll forget everything I’ve learned and I’m also sure I won’t be the only one.

Watched the final two episodes of GOLD and we’re still puzzling about what actually happened in it. It might be based on a true story, but it was confusing as I suppose all true stories are.

We have no plans for tomorrow.

A warm, clammy, overcast day – 13 June 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp was out early as usual to go to FitSteps. I read for a while.

It was one of those days when the weather can’t decide what it’s going to do. Will it rain? Will the clouds break and give us sunshine? Will it be a mixture of the two? In the end it was a combination of all those things, but nothing stayed for any length of time. I read a few more chapters of my book.

Scamp arrived home early because a woman in the class fainted and of course the rest of class was cancelled until someone came to take her home.

After lunch we browsed a food magazine for some suggestions for food for dinner. Eventually Scamp pulled a host of recipe cards from one of the kitchen shelves and we made a shortlist of possibles. We eventually settled on Tomatoey Baked Eggs with Feta. It sounds a bit naff, but actually it turned out well. We added half a focaccia that we’d picked up at a grocery stall at Klondyke. The bread was a bit dried out, but after we’d pierced a few holes in the top and fed some good olive oil into it, then gently warmed it in the oven it was fine and great for dunking in the tomato sauce. That’s another keeper for the kitchen shelf.

I went out later to St Mo’s and after catching a few gentle showers, found a photo in a bunch of Speedwell wildflowers, growing through the grass.

Warnings of heavy rain and thunderstorms for tomorrow.

Dancin’ – 12 June 2025

Posted on by Zogman

A lazy day that started well, but ended with rain.

After a quick lunch we were off to Glenburn for a Tea Dance. Only a few of the usual dancers at the dance, but we did take to the floor and danced a couple of Waltz Nioli (badly in my case) and a load of sequence dances too. Carol (one of the dancers) was walking with a stick after damaging her Meniscus, so Scamp offered to dance with David, so he wasn’t sitting around doing nothing, which I think is his preferred place! After reading about what and where the meniscus was, I sympathise with Carol.

We were late leaving the tea dance and that meant we were caught up in the homeward bound traffic. I chose the M74/M73 route as although it’s a bit longer, it’s definitely quicker, especially if the Kingston Bridge has become a carpark as it turned out it was today.

I walked down to the shops later on a very close, clammy afternoon. On the way back I got some photos of a common Dog Rose and that became PoD.

Watched the semi-final of Glow Up. Just a bunch of posers, posing.

Tomorrow Scamp is intending to go to FitSteps, although torrential rain is prodicted. We’ll have to wait and see if it comes.

Another hot day – 11 June 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Hardly any wind today to ruffle the leaves on the trees, but plenty of sun. Making the most of it, because it looks like it will be all change by the weekend.

Scamp was out in the morning tweaking this and pruning that in the garden. She was just making sure that all the flowers she’d planted yesterday were sitting up straight and looking happy.

We sat and solved our usual puzzles and then had lunch. It wasn’t a day to go our anywhere in a hurry, so we walked down to the shops to get the ingredients to make a stir-fry and then sat in the garden reading until I decided I’d go ‘beastie’ hunting. Scamp’s description of insects, arachnids and things that crawl and sometimes bite.

I managed to get a decent photo of a Four Spotted Chaser dragonfly at St Mo’s pond. Didn’t quite capture a Common Blue damselfly, there have been very few of them in and around the ponds this year. Further on I got a shot of a Yellow Iris with one flower beginning to go over and another just about to unfurl. That was about all the exercise I got today.

Back home we both read for a while in the back garden with a Pimms at hand. Later, Scamp turned the mixed veg we’d bought earlier into a well filled stir-fry for dinner.

That was about all the excitement we could take for one day.

We may go dancing tomorrow.

It’s been a long time – 10 June 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Today we had agreed to visit the Kelpies. It’s been a long time since we last went to see the big horses.

Today we woke to sunshine and blue skies. That made a nice change from the grey skies and rain we’ve been looking at for the last few weeks. Scamp was looking for more flowers for the garden too, so that gave us two places to visit.

We went to find some flowers first and our destination was Klondyke garden centre near Grangemouth. They always have a good selection of plants, possibly too many, because there is limited space in the boot of the Blue car. I can’t really complain, though, because I got a couple of flowers too. Scamp found one of the grasses she’d been looking for. Its proper name is Stipa tenuissima or Pony Tails grass. It’s to be a memorial to June. A nice idea to remember her. She says that June will be able to wave to her in the morning.

After we’d paid for the plants, we headed to Helix Park, home of the Kelpies – The Big Horses. The Kelpies were looking magnificent today, shining brightly in the sunshine. Such a pity they built the Helix Park beside a sewage works. The stink today was awful. It’s the first time I’ve noticed it, but you could hardly ignore it.

We had a coffee in the restaurant. I was supposed to get scones to go with the coffee, but I decided to share a sandwich instead. Scamp was not amused. To make it up to her, I bought us both a ’99’ ice cream cone. That seemed to do the trick.

We drove home after admiring the Kelpies and getting a few new views of them. PoD went to two ladies discussing what was going on inside the great beasts.

Scamp set to and got most of the flowers and plants into their place later in the afternoon, but I’m sure there might still be time to shuffle them around later in the week.

We have no plans for tomorrow, but we do need to take some stuff to the tip. Not very interesting, but it needs to be done.

It’s raining again – 8 June 2025

Posted on by Zogman

Us humans are never truly happy. Last month we were complaining about the heat and the likelihood of their being a drought. This week we’re complaining because it’s raining.

Today I was waiting for another pair of dance trainers. I ordered a pair just over a week ago and they arrived last week, but were the wrong size when they arrived. Yesterday I found a pair online that were the recommended size (one half size larger than normal) and promptly ordered them, expecting to wait another week before they would be delivered, but no, they would be delivered today! Hooray!

It was one of those days when the sun shines in the morning, but before afternoon there is a gradual darkening of the sky and then the rain comes thumping down, only for the sun to come out later and the cycle to begin again.

Scamp took advantage of a dry spell to cut the grass in the back garden, or to be more exact, to strim the grass in the back garden. Strimming the grass is quite a lot quicker than using the lawn mower, and, as Scamp will tell you, cleaning a strimmer is much quicker than cleaning a mower. Once she was finished, we went for a walk round the front garden and Scamp laid out her plans for removing the plants that have passed flowering and also for what will replace them. Just as we were finishing, the Amazon man handed me a big brown paper box, quite like a shoe box actually!

In trepidation, I tried the trainers and although they might be a little bit big, they will work perfectly well. Light as a feather and worth every penny. I’m hoping I’ll get a chance to wear them tomorrow to Monday dance class.

I went for a walk around St Mo’s and almost got it dry all the way. Just a ten minute shelter under some trees when the rain came on, but otherwise ok. A little branch with some Hawthorn leaves and berries looking like a miniature Bonsai got PoD.

After a lot of disagreements, we settled on Sea Bass and potatoes for Scamp’s dinner and Lamb Burgers and potatoes for mine. Dessert was meringue nests with strawberries, raspberries and cream. Lovely.

Spoke to Jamie and told him all about Scamp’s scan. Then we heard all about their 80 visitors to the Open Garden project. They also took part in a Bake Off game where they had to bake a cake and also amongst other things, a batch of macarons. I wonder what Jamie’s gran would have thought of that!

Tomorrow I think we may be going to look at a couple of horses.