Category: A Walk

An early rise – 15 September 2022

Posted on by Zogman

A voluntary one.

I’d had breakfast, but couldn’t find a book I wanted to read. The sun was shining although the temperature was just crawling into double figures, but I made up my mind to head out to get a photo of a climbing frame in a children’s adventure nearby. The reason for the photo was this week’s Flickr Friday requested a photo of a “Tower”. There is a tower, a rope climbing net and a slide on the climbing frame, so I reckoned it fitted the bill. There was also a lot of graffiti and a telephone number from an eighteen year old girl who was desperate for love. She must have been desperate, because there was a 17 scored out and replaced by the 18!

I took a few photos with the ultra-wide lens to accentuate the height of the structure, but wasn’t happy with it. To give the sun time to clear the surrounding trees, I took a walk in St Mo’s. There wasn’t much to see. The sun hadn’t cleared the trees here either so the cold blooded dragonflies would need to wait a while for it to warm their bodies and wings before they could fly properly. By the time I’d walked back to the ‘tower’, the sun was warming its eastern face and I got today’s PoD.

While I was doing some post processing of the PoD, Scamp left to meet June and Isobel. After I was satisfied with the photo and posted it on Flickr, I planted some basil seeds. Our basil plants are looking a bit straggly and will need replaced soon. Why buy basil plants from the supermarket when you can grow them right through the winter in the house?

Lunch today was a piece ’n’ banana for Scamp and a Cornish pastie for me. It was Thursday and Scamp had said she wanted some pansies to replace the violas that had flowered non-stop all summer, so I drove to Calders to get some for her. There was only one tray of Peach Pansies left in the garden centre, so I took them. Apparently Christmas is just around the corner. It looked like an articulated lorry had dumped all of its load at the garden centre. Boxes of jolly Santas, cheeky elves and reindeer, so many reindeer! That’s not to mention the lights and decorations, so I won’t mention them. Heavens, it’s the middle of September and we’re being suckered into buying Xmas tat already!

I drove home and made easy haddock risotto. Easy because the oven does all the hard work and as usual it worked perfectly. Nothing to do with me, I just follow the recipe and it works every time.

Tonight we had another dance practise.  A more in-depth one that the last two.  Trying to get the ‘slows’ and the ‘quicks’ in the right places and at the right time.  This ballroom dancing is not anywhere as easy as it looks on TV.

Miles and miles of folk queueing to get in to see the Queen’s coffin lying in state in London. Three miles, possibly four waiting to file past. If it brings the some solace then it’s a good thing.

Tomorrow Scamp is intending going to exercise class in the morning. I’ll exercise my right to stay at home.

The Heron and the Holey Man – 14 September 2022

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Today went out to lunch.

John had told us about a restaurant they’d been to. It was called The Heron and was between Strathaven and Darvel and since he said the food was good, we just had to try it out.

It was indeed in the badlands between Strathaven and Darvel, in the middle of nowhere, up a long hill on a single track road with passing places. It wasn’t a real ’Skye’ single track, just a narrow road. There were plenty of tables, although some of them were in the ‘Dog Friendly’ area. Since neither of us is dog friendly, we chose a different table in a different area. There wasn’t much variety in the menu, but that didn’t bother Scamp. She went straight for the Mac ’n’ Cheese. I was more adventurous with Steak with Chimichurri dressing in a Bagel from the specials. Not my usual lunch choice, but it looked like it was that or a sandwich. Food came fairly quickly and Scamp’s M&C looked really good served in an old style enamel Ashet dish. Mine looked good. A bagel with minute steak and some green dressing, presumably the Chimichurri. Unfortunately it was barely warm and the dressing had almost no taste. Scamp asked for peppermint tea, but unfortunately they didn’t have any, so she settled for her speciality ‘white tea’, ie hot water. They were obviously rationing the coffee too judging from the slightly brown water in my cup. It wasn’t expensive, but it wasn’t very good either. Still, it was doing a roaring trade with a constant stream of folk coming through the door. Maybe we were just unlucky, or maybe not!

We did go for a walk round the ‘shop’. It was overpriced. A 50g box of Assam tea was £5.50. My Assam from The Bean Shop in Perth costs £6.50 for 200g. Lot’s of interesting beers at reasonable prices, but the gin and vodka was just silly money. I described the place as ’Style over Substance’. I doubt if we’ll rush back.

With all that said, it had a lovely outlook over the hills and farmland and the weather couldn’t have been better.. We drove back down that narrow road and turned right to try to find Loudoun Hill which was my destination today for photos. It’s not hard to find. It’s a volcanic plug, apparently. It looks like a big lump of granite or some such mineral, dumped in a field. You just can’t miss it. I missed the turning for the car park, though. A mile or so down the road we found a place to turn and with Scamp giving directions, we found the path to the car park.

I’d brought my rucksack with both cameras in it, but forgot my walking boots. I had no intentions of climbing the hill anyway. I just wanted to make sure I got the image I had in my head for today and it was there in front of me. The Spirit of Scotland monument by artist Richard Price was erected in 2004. It stands on a pathway which runs through the Irvine Valley near Drumclog. The monument, made from steel stands over 5 metres tall. It’s one of the ugliest monuments I’ve seen, but one of the first I’d seen with the shape burned out of the steel slab. It commemorates the Battle of Loudoun Hill between Aymer de Valence and Robert the Bruce in 1307. It was a return grudge match which Bruce won, despite being vastly outnumbered. Loudoun Hill stands in the background. It might be ugly, but it gave a foreground for the scenery in the background. PoD captured.

Another short dance practise when we got home, because I don’t want another day like last Saturday. I want to be able to crack not just the Jet Lag Waltz, but also the New Foxtrot. I’m getting there, and there are a few more days to go to get it even better.

Tomorrow, Scamp is meeting June, Ian and Isobel for coffee in the morning.

 

Going for the messages – 12 September 2022

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Just the run of the mill shopping run.

Scamp accepts that Tesco deliveries are a lifesaver at times, but prefers to see what she’s buying, and I have to agree with her. We did a fairly big shop and while we were going round I bumped into Fred and had a wee blether with him. He gave his apologies for not being able to get to the “Beer in the Toon” tomorrow and I understand the pressures he’s facing with his and his wife’s health. Hopefully some day soon we’ll be able to have that beer.

After we’d got through the tills and paid for the messages we trundled them to the car and found that there was nowhere to put them in the back seat because the bag of bottles we took for a trip to Tesco last week were still there taking up space. After a few grumps from me followed by an icy silence, Scamp drove straight to the council skips and we dumped the bottles into the overflowing plastic skips. One job done.

Back home lunch was a roll filled with cheese for me and one filled with Dairylea for Scamp. Honestly I didn’t think they made those Dairylea triangles any more, but it looks like they do. A second roll filled with jam became the lunchtime dessert.

After that we just lounged about for a while doing nothing in particular. Then I took the camera out for a walk in St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which was a little furry hoverfly sitting on a Scabious flower. Nice bit of sunshine on the background created some lovely patterns from the leaves of the bushes. While I was out, Scamp was picking the remainder of the James Grieve apples and beginning to prune the tree into a better shape. I had one of those home grown apples after dinner and it was a bit sharp, but perfectly edible.

Dinner tonight was Carbonara made the proper Italian way without cream, but with an extra egg yolk instead. It worked well.

That was about it for a cool day that was beginning to look like autumn was just around the corner.

Tomorrow I’m intending to head in to Glasgow and Samp is out to lunch with Mags.

Runnin’ – 11 September 2022

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Keeping up the theme of the last couple of days with the trailing apostrophe.

We weren’t actually doing any running ourselves, but today was the Cumbersheugh 10K and we were going to Broadwood Stadium to cheer on the runners.

It was a beautiful sunny morning and I didn’t mind foregoing my morning coffee for a walk down to Broadwood. We didn’t know when the 10K would start, but there were a lot of fit looking folk there already in a multitude of colours of lycra and all wearing running shoes that probably cost as much as one of my cameras. For the first time in my life I got to walk on the hallowed turf (well, astroturf actually ) of Broadwood Football Park. It was mobbed. We thought it was busy outside the stadium, but it was double or triple that inside, nearly all weans. But where there is a wean, there are usually at least two adults. Parents, Grannies, Granpas, Uncles etc. All cheering the weans on in the races. There were a variety of running styles being demonstrated, but thankfully none of under-teenagers was wearing tracksuits or lycra, that was reserved for the parents, grannies etc.

We watched the weans running races and getting their medals, but then there was almost an hour’s wait for the main event, the 10K. Thankfully, Scamp had brought a zip lock bag for us to fill with ripe brambles. The rain and the warm weather had meant that most of the brambles were just a bit too soft, but we managed to find enough to add to some of our apples to make a decent apple and bramble pie. Then we went for a walk round the exercise machines. We spoke to a woman who commended us on ‘foraging’, rather than just buying brambles in M&S. We agreed and finished our walk in time to find a good place for me to photograph the 10K.  The first man out the blocks was PoD.

What you never get to experience when you watch a group of runners on the TV is the breeze they create as they pass. I remember, years ago waiting for the peloton to pass in Ireland when the Tour de France started from there and being taken aback by the wind they generated as the body of riders displaced the air they were travelling through. It was the same today, although in a slightly smaller scale.

Once the pack had passed and the walkers tagged on behind, we walked over the dam and sat on a seat to watch for them returning, but they never did. Instead they came back by a totally different route. We couldn’t be bothered waiting and lunch was calling, so we walked back home. The closer we got to home, the heavier the clouds were looking. Scamp had washing hanging out, so we were on guard.

After lunch, Scamp made the Apple and Bramble Pie and just as she was finishing, she called through to me to take the washing in, because the rain was starting. It was a good call, because it wasn’t a passing shower, it just got heavier. The washing was safely gathered in by then and dessert was ready for the oven, as was the Fish Pie from M&S.

That fish pie was delicious, although I’m blaming it for a bit of heartburn tonight. The pie was also excellent with just enough sharpness and sugar in the apples and the lovely bramble juice too.

Spoke to Jamie later and heard about the visit from Yves and Simonne’s cousin.  We heard about Tennents Super Lager and the lack of serviettes.

On the phone question, I’ve decided to put it on the back burner for now.  Not literally, although sometimes I think that might be a possible solution.  It’s working.  It does what I need.  It’s sometimes cantakerous and does things its way, but then, so am I. It may not stay on that virtual back burner for long, but it’s there for now.

Tomorrow we have no plans.   We need a few days without plans.

 

Dancin’ – 10 September 2022

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We drove over to Brookfield in beautiful sunshine.

We arrived early, mainly because there were no football matches on today as a mark of respect for the death of the queen, so the road was fairly clear.

First today was a reprise and a cleaning up of the Charnwood Cha-Cha, which we managed fairly well. Next was a new Foxtrot routine. We only did about half of it, but it was looking quite good. A lot more technical than the older foxtrot we learned earlier in the year. After that, things started to go downhill rapidly for me. Stewart announced that we were going to learn a new sequence dance called there Balmoral Blues, and nodded to us, because we’d attempted it on Thursday by watching what others were doing and following them. Today was different. Today we were learning the proper version and it seemed to have many more steps than Thursday’s version. Jane said she hated this dance and by the end of the lesson I fully agreed with her. None of the figures seemed to gel with each other. It just looked like a hodge-podge of moves. Lastly was the waltz we’d been learning. I think my brain had shut down after the Bloody Balmoral Blues. I’d had enough. I just couldn’t figure out where we were and what came next. I apologised to Scamp and sat out the last five or ten minutes and watched other suffer.

We drove home by our alternative route through the Clyde Tunnel which cuts out the dastardly Kingston Bridge. It worked its magic again and we only had about five minutes of queueing on the other side.

Back home, Scamp went out to get chicken for tonight’s dinner and told me to get up and go out for a walk in the sunshine to brighten my mood. I took her at her word, but it wasn’t until she came back that I was kitted out to go for a walk in St Mo’s. Lots of butterflies, Peacocks, Red Admirals and maybe a Tortoiseshell. Lots of bees and hoverflies on the Scabious flowers too. PoD is a Common Carder Bee. Ended my walk by going down to M&S and sourcing a fish pie for tomorrow’s dinner.

I’m still searching for my next phone. I did think about an iPhone 13, but after some good advice from Hazy, I may review the Samsung again. Now it’s your turn Jamie and Simonne. I’m looking at either an iPhone 13 or a Samsung S22+ with 128GB. Hoping it will give me a decent camera and enough storage space for my needs. Do you pair have any suggestions?

Tomorrow is the Cumbernauld 10K.  We may go and cheer the runners on if it’s not raining and if we’re up in time.  We will not be running!

Jammin’ – 9 September 2022

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We were going out to Larky tonight for dinner at Crawford and Nancy’s

The bag was wrapped up and put into a bigger bag ready for tonight’s visit. It was only once the wrapping and packing was done that Scamp noticed the protective bag was still lying on the table. It seemed a shame to undo all that good wrapping just for what was a superfluous protective plastic bag, so she decided to leave it out.

Other than that, we did very little. I browsed the reviews of different phones and came to no conclusion. Eventually Scamp decided we should get rid of the bag of bottles we’d collected during the bin strike. So we loaded the bag into the wee Red car and she drove us up to Tesco because there was a bottle bank there. “Was” is the key word in that sentence, past tense. Boxes with code pads on them, presumably where you can pick up or drop off Amazon deliveries and some sort of similar thing for Tesco pick ups, but no bottle bank. It’s not as if they don’t have the space, because the entire car parking space was empty. We drove a circuit of the area and then went home. I said that we could drive to the council tip and smash the bottles into the big metal skips, but the suggestion was met with a stony silence. We drove home. I’ll probably take the bottles to the skips during the week. I’m not proud (and I like the crashing, smashing noise they make when they shatter!) I once worked with a bloke who said that it’s inbuilt in a man’s brain to throw things into the sea, stones and shells and such. A man will also throw things into a bonfire, wood, paper and anything he finds lying around. Maybe it’s the same with glass bottles and a skip!

Later in the afternoon I went for a walk in St Mo’s. Not a lot of interest, photographically, but a Garden Cross spider repairing a well worn web got PoD.

By then it was time to get ready to drive to Larky and a night with Crawford and Nancy. We drove to Larky and Scamp handed Nancy the bag with the bag inside and she was delighted with her yellow handbag. Crawford also seemed pleased with his bottle of Bowmore whisky. After dinner, Crawford asked me “Did you bring your guitar?” and I replied “Of course!”. Once the table was cleared, we went through his song book. He played ukulele and I played acoustic guitar. We could only have been playing for about half an hour when Scamp told me it was time to go home. I looked at my watch and it was just after 11.30pm! Where had the night gone? I was sure we’d been playing for about half an hour when it was closer to an hour and a half at least.

We drove home in the dark, which is a strange feeling when you’re not used to it. No time to write and post the blog because we needed to be up and out by 10.15am to drive to Brookfield for the dance class.

Of course, this is a catch-up blog … again. But it’s traditional to say at the end what we’re going to do the next day. We are hoping to go dancing.

The Fort and The Phone – 7 September 2022

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Scamp was looking for a bag. I wanted to look at a phone.

Armed with a measuring tape we went looking for a bag, a paper bag that would be big enough to hold another bag which would hold a yellow bag. She was also looking for a birthday card for her sister. She found a really funny one. Maybe she does have a sense of humour after all.

Meanwhile I went to EE to look at a prospective phone. The assistant asked me how she could help and I told her I was looking for a new phone because I was reaching the end of my contract. With the words “… end of my contract.” I saw her shutters come down. I’m guessing that there is far less kudos attached to an Upgrade than there is to a New Customer. She did show me the phone I was looking for, but it was a bolted down dummy with a picture of the screen glued on the front. She apologised and said if I wanted to see a “Live” phone, I could go next door to O2 where they had live ones that actually worked. I noticed that she didn’t say “Then you can come back and we can work out the details of what you need.” It was more like “We don’t do upgrades. Goodbye.”
I did go to O2. I did see the phone working, but nobody there was interested in getting my business. Maybe they are just fed up with punters coming in from EE to play with their phones!

Lunch was a nuked roll ’n’ sausage for me and a nuked chicken wrap for Scamp with a coffee each in Costa. Which apparently doubles as a creche judging by the number of prams parked in the aisles.

Back home, Scamp was going to do some ironing. I grabbed both cameras and took them for a photo walk in Fannyside Moor. No insect life today, but lots of birds massing on the telephone lines (they still have telephone lines in these rural areas). I think the majority of the birds were swallows. It must be getting close to the time for them to fly back down south for the winter. I always try to record the day when I see the first swallow every year, but it’s much more difficult to set the date you saw the last swallow! A landscape shot of the cloudscape at Fannyside got PoD.

On my way home I went to see what Tesco Mobile had to offer and managed to muddy the water, because they didn’t have the phone I was ogling in O2, but did have a newer and allegedly better, but cheaper model. Now I’m going to spend waste another day comparing and contrasting both the phones and the providers!

Dinner tonight was Fish Fingers, Egg and Chips with Tinned Spaghetti on the side. A fall back when you can’t decide what you fancy for dinner and a common occurrence in this house.

Tomorrow we’re driving what Scamp calls “That awful road” because we’re hoping to go dancing!

An Explanation.
Later in the evening when I was writing this blog, I inadvertently clicked the wrong button on the menu and wiped today’s entire blog. Despite my best efforts searching for the text, it had gone. I know it’s not really gone, all the app has done is remove the header from it and the bulk of the writing is still there, but this morning I did a deeper search and eventually rewrote it.

 

 

Getting lost in Glasgow – 5 September 2022

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It’s easier than you think, especially if you follow the signs!

We were heading back to the House for an Art Lover today, but we were parking in town and taking the subway over to the South Side, then walking the rest of the way. What could go wrong? All we needed to do was follow the Glasgow Council signs from Ibrox subway. That would be the signs that pointed one way, then by a circuitous route, took us back to almost where we’d started. Eventually I gave up with the signs and with a little help from Google maps we found our way to the House.

Last night there had been some torrential rain and we’d decided we’d better come prepared and wear our raincoats. By the time we got to Bellahouston we were beginning to think the raincoats were a bad idea. The sky had been blue and the sun had been shining for our hour long walk, but when we got to the house and decided to have tea outside, the first raindrops fell. We did have shelter under a patio umbrella, but it wasn’t needed because the clouds rolled away, taking the threat of rain with them.

The visit was a success, though. A birthday present was bought and it was almost exactly what Scamp had been looking for. I’m glad our walk through the hinterland of Glasgow wasn’t in vain!

Rather than try to walk back the way we’d come, Scamp suggested we get the bus. According to my phone, the No 9 or the No 10 would take us in to town. The woman at the House told Scamp we needed to walk down to Paisley Road West to get the bus and that’s what we did. The bus took us on a mystery tour through Govan, eventually crossing the Clyde and dropping us on West Nile Street. Ten minutes later we were in the car and heading home. I don’t think we’ll risk using the detailed Glasgow Council signs again. In fact, I don’t think we’ll bother with the subway either. If we go back, we’ll get the bus. It’s so much easier.

Back home and after a light lunch, Scamp got ready to go to the dentist. This was to be the last visit in a treatment that started in December 2021. Covid rules, retirements and finding a new dentist had made a drama out of what wasn’t even a crisis. She returned with the usual slurring of speech that comes from a visit to the dentist. She’s not due to return until March 2023, but I might be the next to try out the new dentist.

I’d taken a couple of shots from the JL bridge in Glasgow, but they were nothing special, so I took my camera out with me for a walk in St Mo’s. Saw a couple of large dragonflies circling the pond, but they were busy egg laying and weren’t stopping to talk. Couldn’t quite catch them, so PoD went, instead, to what looked like a wee posy of wild flowers. Taken with the LensBaby which I haven’t used for ages. I still like the effect it produces.

No real plans for tomorrow, but Scamp thinks we might go out for lunch.

 

More rain – 4 September 2022

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We’re never happy. Either there isn’t enough rain or there’s too much. Today the moans were about too much.

Not real moans, but it would be good if it would rain all night and leave the days for us going for walks.

After lunch we did go for a walk. Down to Broadwood Loch, over the dam and round the exercise machines, which are gradually being swallowed up by the grass that surrounds them. On the walk we found some pretty purple and yellow flowers that looked a bit like potato flowers, but they seemed to produce bright red berries that the birds didn’t eat. That usually means they are poisonous and after a bit of research online it turned out that they were Woody Nightshade, also known as Bittersweet and were indeed poisonous. The flowers looked so good, they became PoD.

On the way back past Broadwood Stadium we chanced upon a different kind of berries. Lots of lovely fat, juicy brambles in easily accessed clumps beside the car park. We managed to pick just over 700g of berries which, added to my 550g from Friday gave us over a kilo of the black fruit which is now chilling in the freezer, ready for Scamp to boil it down with some apples to make juice that will in turn produce bramble jelly.

Speaking of apples, we had our first apple from our tree today. It was a bit tart, but perfectly edible and without any wasp bites of flaws. Lots more to come, but we were discussing today how best to support the poor tree, because it’s leaning over, pulled down by the weight of the apples. Perhaps Scamp’s right when she says we should reduce the amount of fruit we produce on it. It seems such a shame to remove fruit, but I suppose we have to consider the health of the tree too.

Dinner tonight was Chicken Escalopes.  Chicken breasts bashed flat with a rolling pin before being dipped in egg, then breadcrumbs and fried in the frying pan.  Really, really good.  Of course, Scamp made them.

Spoke to Jamie and thanked him for my fancy tea. He had been buying it online but it seems that there are shops, mainly in the south of England, but there is also one in Scotland. Good to hear from him that he’s beginning to settle into his new job.

We’re hoping to continue our search for a suitable birthday present tomorrow. Somewhere in Glasgow I’m led to believe.

A late rise – 3 September 2022

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We must both have had a hard day yesterday. My excuse was that I’d been out cycling and Scamp’s was that she and the witches had been talking almost constantly for all of yesterday afternoon.

Once we’d dragged ourselves out of bed, dressed and completed today’s Wordle successfully, we discussed where to go and what to do with a very dull day. We settled on a run to Torwood, looking for something to buy for someone who has a birthday coming up soon. Unfortunately Torwood Garden Centre was having a bit of an Autumn Clean, which is really just a Spring Clean six months later. Lots of the garden furniture that usually lives outside was now inside and none of the usual stuff that Scamp expected to see had been put into storage, it seemed. For what must be the first time in our Torwood history, we left empty handed.

I suggested we try Calder’s in Cumbersheugh as an alternative, but although they had lots of things that “might do”, they didn’t have the exact article she was looking for. We were just about to leave when the heavens opened and the threatened heavy rain made us think again about walking out just then. Once the rain had eased, we ran to the car and drove home.

Later in the afternoon the sky cleared and although the sun didn’t shine, it was bright enough to take a camera for a walk in St Mo’s. The PoD went to a photo of a hoverfly on a Scabious flower, a wild scabious. While I was out, Scamp was talking to Jackie in Skye. She and Murdo are just recovering from the dreaded Covid and they both seemed to have it bad, but feeling better now.

On our walk earlier in the week, Alex and I had been discussing processing old photos taken years ago and tonight I worked on a photo of Castle Stalker in Appin from 2005. Taken with my old D70 it scrubbed up well as you can see here.

Tomorrow we may go looking for that birthday present again or we may leave that for a weekday when there will hopefully be fewer crowds