Category: A Walk

Fog – 18 December 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Thick, then thinning. Wet and clinging. That’s fog.

For a week my phone’s weather app has been predicting fog on Saturday. Today it changed its prediction to sunshine. Unfortunately it had already ordered the fog and, like on Amazon, once you’ve paid for it, you’re already too late to change the order. So we had that grey sheet of obliteration all day.

Last night we got the message that today’s dance class had been cancelled, so the silver lining to that cloud was that we had more time to parcel up the prezzies and send them on their way. I say ‘We’, but you all know that it’s Scamp who does all the work. I just do what I’m told (for a change). Today was no exception. Hazy and Neil’s parcel needed a firm top for the box, so I cut a bit of heavy card from one of my big A1 sketch pads and it fitted perfectly. Scamp was ordering and paying for the delivery label the we hit the first problem. The printer wasn’t working. The PC said the printer couldn’t be found. Of course it was because of the new modem which had a new address and password. There was a neat solution, of course. You only need to bring the printer near the modem and press a button on the modem and on the printer and the two will connect without the need for a password. It’s never that easy. This must be a slightly newer version of the modem. It was only after a lot of swearing and searching on the InterWeb that I found you have to hold the WPS button down for about five seconds then do the same on the WiFi button on the printer. With our old modem you just pressed the WPS button, no need to long press it. Once that was cleared up and the labels printed and fixed on the parcels we could relax.

Well, not exactly, that was the next problem. The time was 12:10 and the Post Office closed at 12:30 today, so I got my jacket on and legged it over to Condorrat to hand the parcel over. Thankfully there was no queue and I got it into the bag and the receipt in my hands just as the Parcelforce men were loading the sacks. One down.

With a bit of time to spare now, I went to the butchers to get stew for my dinner this week, plus some Tattie Scones, plus four black puddings, plus a steak pie for my dinner tonight. Walked back to find Scamp had tidied up the carnage in the living room and it was time for a cup of Sumatran coffee. Hazy and Neil’s parcel is going DPD for logistical reasons. That is, I’d already paid for the DPD delivery before realising that we could have sent them both by Parcelforce.

After lunch Scamp and I went out in the fog for a walk round St Mo’s. It was that creepy fog that is thick in some places and non-existent in others. I grabbed a quick shot of a bloke striding home along the path through the trees and with a bit of work, that made PoD. Lots of spiderwebs revealed by the water droplets courtesy of the fog. Very etherial but very few that made a good shot.

Steak pie was lovely, if a little sparse in steak. I couldn’t tell you when I last had a butcher’s steak pie. Half of it is gone with the other half for dinner tomorrow. Scamp had a white dinner Cauliflower and Potatoes.

Later we watched a stretched out Strictly. We weren’t totally surprised by the winning competitor, nor were we impressed by the performance. The worst thing was the time wasting that was going on. I gave up after a while with all the weeping and ‘emulsion’ people were showing. How many crocodiles did they need to collect all those tears?

Thanks for the email address Hazy. We did eventually get signed in and found the film we were looking for on Amazon Prime, plus another one I wanted to see.

Tomorrow looks a bit like today, foggy. Maybe another walk in a different direction.

Off the leash – 17 December 2021

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Scamp was out at a Witches Christmas lunch at Moira’s. Do witches ‘do’ Christmas? Isn’t that an oxymoron? Or am I just showing off now? Answers on a postcard please.

That was after a rather fractious morning. I thought we were going to Torwood and Scamp thought we were going to Calders. After a dodgy manoeuvre crossing lanes in a thankfully fairly quiet motorway and a great deal of swearing on my part and silence on Scamp’s we did arrive safely at Calders. Later I apologised and agreed that she was right (as always).

Then, heading home empty handed, Calders not having the plant she was looking for, we dropped in at Tesco, looking for a box big enough to pack some (a lot of ) Christmas prezzies. Again I returned empty handed. No packing boxes big enough for our needs. We tried M&S, but still no packing boxes. Finally I tried Iceland and asked one of the assistants if they had any empty cardboard boxes. She asked how big and I made the usual accurate dimensions by holding my hand, palms facing and moved them from about 300mm to about 1m apart. Yes, about that size. She returned with a box nearly big enough to fit my car in. Yes, I said, that would do nicely. Thanked the young lady and we drove home with the box, now folded down, still taking up all the space in the back of the car.

After we’d bundled the box out of the car we had just enough time for a coffee before we headed off to Dunnipace to Moira’s house. As we were heading east, the sky was lightening and there was blue sky out there. After I dropped Scamp off at the lunch / party, I headed further east, asking the sat nav to give me directions to Kincardine in the Kingdom of Fife. It found it without any problem and soon I was driving over the Kincardine Bridge and parking.

I took the Benbo tripod with me. It lives most of its life in the boot of the blue car. Took my Sony A7 too. I knew where I was heading and soon I was set up on a strip of sand by the river with just enough time for half a dozen shots before the tide started lapping around the feet of the tripod. I moved back to the asphalt path and walked round the bridge itself, marvelling at the light and the open space here. Less than half an hour later I was walking back to the car, talking on my phone to Fred who had phoned me for a wee blether. After we’d said our bit and then said our goodbyes, I drove home with enough time for a plate of soup before the Tesco man brought three boxes of messages. I just decanted everything from their crates and left them on the work surface, the cooker lid and anywhere they’d sit safely, then phoned Scamp for an update on the time to pick her up.

Checked the photos and knew right away that they were a good set. Fifty three shots taken, five rejected immediately. That left 48 good sharp shots. That must be a success record for me. Phoned Scamp at 5pm to tell her I was on my way. I always get lost going into Moira’s estate. Today I’d set myself markers and knew where to turn left and when to turn right. For some reason it worked perfectly. Spoke to the witches. Moira as welcoming as ever and Annette pretending she was drunk and convincing nobody. It’s all just a laugh and good friendship. Unfortunately Covid had put an end to the Auld Guys coffee mornings in Costa and beers in The Horseshoe Bar. Maybe they’ll return next year, but I have my doubts. Dinner for me was a rather excellent, but gigantic pizza. Half waiting for me for lunch tomorrow.

The real bad news of the day was that the dance class has failed to generate enough interest from dancers this week and Stewart informed us that it is with regret that tomorrow’s class is cancelled. I hope this is all to do with last minute Christmas shopping and not Covid and it will return stronger in the new year.

PoD was a picture of the Kincardine Bridge with afternoon sunshine lighting it up.

Tomorrow we may go for a walk somewhere scenic and somewhere without shops.

Back at the Fort – 16 December 2021

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Feeling a bit flat today.

No, it wasn’t the tyres. We were going in Scamp’s car today except I was driving, but when I turned the key, nothing! The battery was flat. Possibly there is an earth leak somewhere or perhaps that cold snap dragged the battery down because it had only been run once in the last month and that was a fairly short run. Whatever, it was my car that I drove to the Fort.

Scamp was going to Next, M&S and Boots. But she had to score Boots off the list because they were counting them in and counting them out today. That’s not supposed to happen until Saturday, so maybe the staff were getting some practise in before the big day, or maybe they were just doing it to screw up the punters day. It didn’t seem to bother the folk who were queueing all the way along the frontage of Boots shop and that’s a really long front.

I was lucky, I was going for two sheets of thin neoprene and a roll of sticky backed velcro. Found both and waited about five minutes to pay. Heaven knows how long the punters outside Boots would have waited for their goods.

Drove home and after peering at the sky, decided I’d go for a walk first to grab some of the available light before it all disappeared. A walk in the woods at St Mo’s got me the PoD. It was an oak leaf with raindrops on it. The detail in the leaf really impressed me as did the colours that were there. No fancy filters or presets were used in it, just an adjustment to the levels (tones) and a bit of judicious cropping. Otherwise it was SOOC or Straight Out Of Camera. Walked down to the shops and felt a bit nervous about being in a crowd of people. I’d felt the same in Glasgow earlier and I did the same thing again, I put my mask on, at least until I was out of the crowds. How the media hype things up makes you think and act defensively at times.

Back home we hadn’t long to wait for the man from Virgin. This one was on the ball. No delving into the innards of the modem, he just tried twice then deemed that the modem was at fault. He put a new one in and it worked right away. All the websites we couldn’t reach without a VPN were now right there. Poor bloke had been working from 7am and didn’t finish today until 8pm. That’s a long shift. He gets 10/10 for everything in the evaluation email that’s coming soon.

Scamp’s been labouring all evening trying to fit a quart into a pint pot. I swear when one of the recipients of a Christmas parcel cuts the tape the contents will expand to fill the room. You have been warned!!

I think that’s the day covered. Scamp has a booking with the Witches for a Christmas lunch tomorrow. I have things to do and a Tesco delivery to find places for until someone tells me where they should all go.

Another dull, wet day – 15 December 2021

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It rained all day today, but Scamp went out for a walk in the rain.

It was a busy day, though. While Scamp was out posting Christmas cards the engineer arrived to service the boiler. While he was working away Hazy phoned. I just knew she was more interested in getting more information from her mum than talking to me, so I asked her to phone back which she did. Scamp arrived back just in time to save me pulling a cupboard apart to find the maintenance log for the engineer to sign. He gave us a lot of useful information in the time he was here. He showed us a much better way to use the central heating and keep the house warmer too. It’s always good to get information from someone who knows what they’re talking about. In half an hour he passed on more useful knowledge than the bloke from Scottish Gas had given us when he was fitting the boiler. So, the boiler was fine, as you’d expect considering it’s just over a year old, and the house is now a lot warmer without getting too hot.

Once he was on his way, we settled down to hear what was going on in Hazy’s house, while one of her cats was screaming to be fed. Poor wee soul hadn’t been fed for years apparently. Worse still, that bad girl was too busy talking on the phone to do anything about it. Scamp related her tale of woe about NHS waiting lists and the difference if you’re willing to pay. I hardly got a word in edgewise, but that was probably for the best ”It’s always good to get information from someone who knows what they’re talking about”.

After lunch Jackie phoned and I took the opportunity to boot up and go out for a walk in the rain. If it was good enough for Scamp, it was good enough for me. PoD came from that walk and is one of those little weeds I delight in photographing with raindrops clinging to the bracts that used to hold flowers. There is a saying “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” My thoughts today were “If life gives you rain, photograph it.” That’s what I did. Of course the photo is slightly fake edited. I used the new masking tools in Lightroom to blur the background while keeping the subject sharp. It’s not perfect, but it’s a pretty clever tool.

I walked down to the shops and got some frozen sweet corn to make Celeriac and Sweetcorn soup. It sounds awful, but it actually tastes very good. We were both agreed on that.

Years ago I made an adjustable lens hood for one of my Oly lenses. I found the drawing for it tonight and managed to export it from the PC to the Mac and print it out from there. Transferred it to a sheet of neoprene and lo and behold, it fits the new macro lens that didn’t come with a lens hood. I need to get some black velcro tomorrow to finish it.

That’s about it for today. Like I said, it was a busy day. I think we may be going to the Fort tomorrow.

Magpies and mushrooms – 13 December 2021

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Photography started really early today.

While I was making breakfast today I watched a magpie struggling to peck some fat from the bird feeder in the garden. It was sitting on a low branch, too low for it to reach the bird feeder, but it didn’t have the sparrow’s and blue tit’s ability to hover and feed. They aren’t quite as elegant as humming birds, but they do get the job done. Poor magpie eventually gave up, but not before I’d taken a few shots.

After breakfast we drove up to NEXT to get a parcel Scamp had ordered and was delivered to the shop. We were still waiting for the other parcel that should have been delivered to the house on Friday. It was a Christmas present for Nancy who we visited on Saturday. That’s why alternative arrangements and prezzies were required. Next we drove down to Tesco at Craigmarloch and got Scamp’s meds, plus some food necessities. Milk, veg, yoghurt, two bottles of rum and a bottle of wine, oh yes, and bread. Just the essentials!

Back home and after lunch I booked an engineer from Virgin to come on Thursday and see what can be done about the modem. Then it was time to go for a walk in the woods with a camera or two. My favourite from that trip was a close up shot of some deformed mushrooms. They almost look as if they had deflated, like a burst football. It was that image that made me think they might be ageing Puffball mushrooms. They became PoD and I’ve just had a message on Flickr confirming that they are indeed puffballs. It’s good to have experts on hand, even if they are virtual experts.

Not a lot else done today. It was quite dull with no texture in the sky until quite late in the afternoon, then the setting sun found some blue sky and proceeded to change its colour to a lovely shade of violet. Dark at the top and lighter lower down. It was such a pity there was nothing to give a focal point of interest, although I did of course photograph the sky anyway. Not long after I arrived back home the missing parcel arrived. Allegedly it should have been here by 1pm. It finally came around 4pm, but at least it did come!

Tomorrow we have an appointment with a consultant to hear what he has to say about Scamp’s eyes. Hopefully he will be able to give us a more realistic time frame for the procedure than the NHS.

A day in the Toon with Alex – 10 December 2021

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Just a wee saunter round the toon.

We had intended travelling on the subway to Kelvinbridge for today’s photo safari, but instead Alex decided a walk round Glasgow to photograph the lights would be a better use of the day. It was his choice today and I agreed with him. Probably a lot more to see in the city centre than in the West End.

We walked down Bucky street from the Concert Hall were we’d agreed to meet, and went for a coffee in Nero. The market in St Enoch’s Square was just warming up and we managed a few photos before it got too busy. From there we walked along Argyle Street in the general direction of Glasgow Cross then turned on to Parnie Street where we took the opportunity to ogle the toys in Quiggs, now rebranded Merchant City Cameras, but for people of our generation it will forever be ‘Quiggs’. Not wishing to purchase anything today we walked on to take some photos of the McLennan Arch and the Collins Fountain at the entrance to Glasgow Green. Then it was on to the Clyde Walkway to see the graffiti and photograph the better pieces. It’s a bit of a shame that some of the new stuff covers up the old ‘Tiger’ that had been there for years. It’s probably still there, under a couple of coats of paint. I suppose you could argue that it’s had its day in the sun and should really make room for the new works. Still …

By this time we were feeling the need for some food, so we headed for the St Enoch Centre to see what we could find. We ended up in Aulds. Me with a sausage roll (a bit greasy but ok for lunch) and Alex with a cold ham sandwich. Cup of coffee each washed the food down. Back outside Alex wanted another look at the street food market and I wandered round taking street photos. By this time the temperature was dropping and we were heading for home.

One more stop for Alex was the posh House of Frazer. He knew exactly where he was going. Up to the first floor to get a view looking straight down the elegantly draped walls of the clothes shop. I thought we’d have attracted security, but nobody paid any notice, so I took a few shots too. One of them made PoD.

Outside we walked up Bucky Street and I glanced at a street magician trying to attract a crowd. He waved back at me and I turned away. As I did that I realised that his face was familiar. He was a former pupil. I can’t remember his name, but I did teach him. In class he was a quiet individual who seemed to lack confidence. Then at the annual end of term show he appeared on stage and did magic tricks. Everybody, and I mean Everybody was shocked to see this quiet wee boy exuding confidence. And here he was today giving it his best shot. He even said to his crowd “That’s my old teacher.” I stopped, turned, gave him the scary teacher look and said “Less of the OLD, you!” He laughs, I laughed and the crowd joined in. The next time I’m in Glasgow I must look for him. Still can’t remember his name though. It’ll come to me.

I walked Alex to his bus and then headed back to Buchanan Galleries to drive home. Stopped at Condorrat on the way to get a Special Fish Supper and a tub of ice cream. The fish supper was consumed with gusto and the ice cream is in the freezer for tomorrow.

Helped Scamp later to form and coat some rum truffles. That should be RUM truffles, because there was a fair amount of the spirit in them. They did taste good.

Scamp has booked an appointment for Ross Hall Hospital for a second opinion on the cataract situation. Let’s hope they can do the job quicker than Hairmyres.

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go to dance class. Lateral Flow test first just in case.

Off to Hospital – 9 December 2021

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Not for me, Scamp’s visit to Hairmyres.

We left in plenty of time for Scamp’s 10am appointment. I made sure she got to the correct area of this gigantic building. Actually a much airier building than many of its like and with Christmas decorations on all the doors, it was more welcoming than most. After that, I headed for the shopping centre, just to be nosey and to compare it with our megalithic atrocity. It won by a mile, no, make that a hundred miles. Clean, well lit and with many more shops. Very few shuttered shops and no closed off areas. Yes, this was a shopping centre, not a disaster area. Only sore point was that you had to pay to park, but a quid wasn’t going to break the bank for an hour’s stay.

Took some photos of the outside of the building and tried not to compare with the collapsing Town Centre we have. Then I found my way to Calderglen Park. The last time we were there, the place was a mess with ongoing works designed to mess up the traffic flow. Nothing had changed. The last time we were there, there was no notice to show you where the entrance to the park was. Nothing had changed there either. It seems that North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire are joined by more than their surnames. In other words, both as crap as each other. But there was a shining light in the park, the wee cafe, the Courtyard Cafe to give it’s full name. I had a roll ’n’ sausage with fried onions and a mug of coffee for just over six quid. I was pleased with that. Good roll ’n’ sausage, award winning fried onions and, ok, the coffee was a bit of a letdown, but you can’t have everything. There was blue sky when I had arrived, but when I left the clouds had rolled in and it looked like rain was on the way.

I was just thinking I should head back to the hospital when Scamp phoned to say that she too was having coffee (but without sausage or fried onions) and then she told me she’d have to wait at least 10 months for the operation. Almost a year to wait for a cataract removal! Is it any wonder that people are going private? Apart from that, she seemed satisfied with the consultation and of course because it was NHS, we’d already paid for it with our NI contributions. But still, at least 10 months. Factor in the uncertainty with Covid restrictions and what are we talking about? 18 months? 2 YEARS?! Who knows.

Drove home discussing the implications of what she’d heard today and wondering where it took us. Back home and after lunch I had a look at the photos and although I’d taken a few at Calderglen, it was the architectural ones from the EK shopping centre that were the most interesting to me. It’s one of them that got PoD.

We’d brought the tree down from the loft yesterday and today was the day to put it up. That’s really Scamp’s job. Even with her present limited vision, she is far better at lighting and dressing a Christmas tree. With some Christmas cards hung up and some decorations, the place is looking quite festive. All I did was put batteries in the little strings of lights that are scattered round the living room.

I phoned Virgin Media tonight to sort out a problem with accessing some websites. As far as I can see there is something different in the DNS coding/decoding of the relatively new modem we have. After being on the phone for half an hour or so, I managed to convince the lady on the other end that something was awry. She agreed that it would be best to send out an engineer (possibly to get rid of me). He/she is coming on Sunday. We’ll see what they can suggest. Knowing my expertise with modems it will be a simple fix and it may cost us £25 if there is no fault with the hardware. It’ll be worth it to be able to access websites properly and at least we don’t have to wait ten months for someone to fix it!

One last thing.  I saw this on FB today, attributed to Chris Riddell political cartoonist on a sketch of a certain British Prime Minister:

I’m really sorry that the British public found out about the party that didn’t happen last Christmas, but the person who laughed about not being at the party that didn’t happen has resigned and I have appointed someone who might have been at that party that didn’t happen to investigate … Now please wear a mask the way I don’t …

Hoping to meet Alex tomorrow in Glasgow. I intend to drive in that means I don’t have to sit on a bus or a train with the great unwashed. Don’t know where we’ll go. It’ll be a surprise!

 

Fort Apache, Glasgow – 8 December 2021

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Today Scamp wanted to go to The Fort today.

Before we went I added some air to the Blue car’s tyres. They’d all been down by about 4psi. Strange that they should all be down by exactly the same amount. It makes me think that all the tyres had their pressure reduced during their service in September. I hadn’t checked, but who checks the pressure in their tyres unless they look a bit flat and mine didn’t, but I felt the steering was a bit heavy last week and noticed the drop. Thankfully Scamp had a fairly new automatic inflater and it didn’t take long to get them up to snuff.

Drove to The Fort and Scamp masked up and walked into M&S while I went for a walk along the curving frontage of the retail park, looking for Paperchase or any shop that sold pens. No Paperchase and not much luck finding a pen. Does nobody write any more? Oh dear, that makes me sound so old 🧐. Plenty of clothes shops and if you’re looking for a pair of trainers you’d be well catered for, but no pen shops. I walked back empty handed. Met Scamp in Waterstones then we went to NEXT and Boots then I was dismissed to go to Costa and get the coffees in. As we were walking to the car after the coffee, I saw this sign with part of it obliterated by a parked car. I laughed, glad that I’d pocketed the A6000 before we left the house. We also saw the bronze deer statues and one of them with raindrops became PoD.

Back home and after lunch I got my boots on and grabbed the big camera, then went for a walk round part of St Mo’s, took a few photos, knowing that they’d have to be good to beat the ones from The Fort. Then I waked to Condorrat to post the 25 cards we’d written and stamped at a ridiculous cost. When I was buying the 25 stamps at the post office I laughingly complained that they cost almost 10 times what the cards had cost. The lady behind the counter replied “But they have to go a long way”. That got me thinking what would the total mileage all those 25 cards travelled? Thought for the day!

Dinner was slow cooked Prawn & Pea Risotto. Done the proper way in a pot with loads of butter and a great deal of care. Not like my usual method of letting the oven do the hard work. Tasted good though, so worth the care and attention.

Tomorrow we’re off to Hairmyres early in the morning. Hoping to get some answers to questions that have been buzzing round both of our heads for over a month now.

 

Out in the morning again – 7 December 2021

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The weather didn’t look too clever, but then, neither am I. So I went out.

It was really dull this morning. In fact it turned out to be really dull all day. I took two cameras, but ended up only really using the small A6000. As insurance I took my Gorilla pod and was glad I did. I found a patch of Stag Horn fungus on a well rotted log. Light was really low already and it was only 11am. Since there was no wind to move the fungus, I could use the Gorilla pod on the ground to hold the camera and take the shot at a very low shutter speed but an equally low ISO. That gave me a sharp smooth photo in very low light. Suffice to say that I only took one shot and was satisfied that I had a potential PoD.

With one in the bag, I went for a walk in the woods and to my surprise I found a ladybird hibernating deep in a crevice in a tree. It was a 14 spot Orange Ladybird (Halyzia sedecimguttata). I’ve seen them before in the woods, in fact for the last two years I’ve seen them hibernating from November through to March. I had to get a photo, but the 50mm lens was a wee bit short for the task and I couldn’t use my Gorilla pod on the tree to steady the camera. I eventually got a reasonable image after hiking up the ISO to noisy levels.

By this time the rain was starting, so I put the hood up on my Bergy and walked home. As I was getting near to the house, the rain changed to sleet and the temperature was dropping. I was just taking my jacket off in the house when I looked out the window and it was snowing. Big fat flakes of the white stuff. We weren’t due any snow until nearly midnight, this isn’t what we signed up to. Never mind, it was tomato soup for lunch and it tasted good. Felt warm again. I think it’s the colour of the soup as much as the taste that makes you feel warm. Whatever it is, it worked.

After lunch I drove Scamp to the dentist through the sleet that had come after the snow, and then drove to Tesco to get some messages. I was just at the checkout when I got the phone call to say she was ready to come home. This was a lot earlier than we’d anticipated, but there was a reason for that. She hadn’t got her tooth fixed. The dentist had examined it and told her she’d need to come back to have the work done. The appointment is for the 25th of February 2022! That’s three months in the future!! Of course, Covid was blamed for the delay. They are short staffed just now and they need to wipe down all the surfaces after a consultation, etc, etc. She still had to pay for the ‘consultation’ though. Really it’s getting ridiculous now. Three months wait to get a tooth fixed. Maybe we need a different dentist.

I drove back and picked up Scamp who was just disappointed, but resigned to her wait. I looked at my photos from the morning with the occasional glance outside, but the sleet had stopped and the sky was actually lightening, but it didn’t last. The sun was low on the horizon now and night was closing in.

Dinner tonight was a Scamp speciality, Chicken, Mushrooms and Rice. It was ages since we’d had it and it tasted great. Posted my photos early, which was lucky, because Flickr is down now. And the fungus did get PoD.

Ordered myself a new-to-me lens mainly for the A6000 it’s a Sony 55-210mm zoom. Not best quality, but it’s got built in anti-shake and I can afford it. Coming on Friday hopefully.

Jamie phoned tonight to say that his interview in Doncaster had gone quite well and he was satisfies with his performance. Now he has to wait until January. It seems that everyone has to wait for something these days.

No plans for tomorrow. Threats of heavy snow overnight have been removed, but will the snow know that? We’ll have to wait for that too!

Encouraged – 6 December 2021

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Woke to rain, heavy rain, thumping down.

This wasn’t going to be a good photographing day by the looks of things. Sat down and got started on yesterday’s unfinished sudoku. There are six sudoku puzzles a week in the Times daily block. Five weekday puzzles were Monday is the easiest and Friday is really hard. You get two days to solve one weekend puzzle which is at times diabolical. On Saturday I started what looked like a remarkably easy one, but I wasn’t fooled. Last night I was still struggling with it. As sometimes happens, when I look at it afresh, like today, it just falls into place. Easy! With that done and after a false start, I got today’s done. That took me to coffee time. By the time I’d finished my coffee the sun had come out properly and the rain had stopped. That’s when I was ’encouraged’ by Scamp to go for a walk while the sun was out.

This was a two camera day. I thought I might get some decent light and with the kit lens on the big camera and the macro on the other one, I was ready for most things. I saw my first opportunity when I was walking up the path to the ’venchie. That was the abbreviated version of Adventure Playground. It’s a bit more upmarket than the one that two of my readers would remember, but is just as well used. By kids in the daylight hours and neds in the evenings. You don’t want to know what goes on in there after dark. You might think you know, but it will always be worse. Anyway, it was just a photo of a leaf and it was just to get the ball rolling so to speak. Next I found an old scarf tied to a tree branch. It has been there for years and is now growing all sorts of fungi and a nicely sprouting hummock of moss on top. Quite photogenic to a photog.

Walked over to St Mo’s where everyone but me had a dog. Dog walkers look at you kind of strange if you’re walking alone and without a dog on a string. Why? Dog-walkers, on the end of that bit of string is a creature that is one stage away from a carnivorous wild animal. And you think I’m strange? Some of them even have two or three of the things. Each of them capable of communicating with each other and planning your demise in a language no translator will be able to understand. I walked on.

I took photos of Cladonia lichen which I love and besides it looks as if I’m photographing a rock. Sometime I talk to myself while I’m doing it. That really spooks the dog-walkers. You can see them pulling their pooches away from the obviously deranged man in the old dirty jacket. You see how photogs get a bad name now? PoD ended up being a monochrome shot of a park bench in St Mo’s. The scarf came a close second and in third place was a rather limp nettle. All can be seen on Flickr.

After lunch I spent the rest of the afternoon trying and failing to avoid writing Christmas cards until dinner time. Spaghetti Carbonara followed by panna cotta.

A strange thing happend last night, just as I was locking up before going to bed.  There was what looked like an envelope lying in the garden.  I went out to have a look and it was indeed an envelope.  No address on the front, just a message Merry Christmas.  Inside was a Christmas card with a message “To you Stranger.  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year”.  A random act of kindness perhaps?  Scamp suggested we put it in the window in the kitchen.  Hopefully someone will see that it was delivered and read.  There are good people out there.

Tomorrow Scamp has an appointment with the dentist and I’m taxi driver.