Category: Arachnids

Still didn’t get that painting done – 13 April 2021

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Scamp went out for a walk with Veronica and it should have been a golden opportunity for an hour’s painting, but other stuff came first.

I wanted to have a deeper dig into some of the secrets of these two new software packages. Today it was Capture One’s turn. It’s very powerful and with great power comes great confusion. There seems to be ten different ways to do the simplest thing. Unfortunately, all the ten different ways produce slightly different results and none of them exactly what I’d intended. I’ve been using Lightroom since version 1 back in 2007. Over the intervening years I’d worked through five other versions and built up a library of tweaks and plug-ins. Capture One is like starting again. Nothing seems familiar. Maybe it’s too big a step.

The other thing I’d to do was to remove our coloured lights from the rowan tree in the garden. They hadn’t worked properly since the snow earlier in the year and although I’ve replaced the NiMh battery, there hasn’t been a light from it in about a month. It was time to call it quits and take it to the skip. Actually it didn’t take long to take it down and remove all the staples that were holding the wiring. By that time Scamp had returned .

After lunch we walked down to the shops to get a flower pot for an Astilbe plant Scamp was donating to Isobel. I’d intended walking part of the way back and then going for a jaunt in St Mo’s, because it was a lovely day with quite a few spells of decent sunshine, but I’d left my phone at home. Isn’t it strange how controlled we are by these slabs of glass and silicon? Well, for under 50s it’s just part of life, but for those of us who grew up using call boxes to make phone calls. The mobile phone is a help and a hindrance. I walked back with Scamp to get the phone.

I was hoping against hope for just one damselfly in St Mo’s. I’d seen a hoverfly last week, but today I had to make do with the skittish spiders, Wolf Spiders. They seem to live under the boardwalk, but on warm day, especially sunny days they come up to bask in the rays. I managed to catch one who was watching me as I was watching it. Later in the year they are easier to photograph with their bundle of eggs carried on their back. Apparently the warmth of the sun helps the eggs to hatch. Too early for that today, these ones were hunting, but dismissed me as too big and stringy to make a decent meal!

Back home it was time to put up the new lights under the careful instruction of Scamp. Then it was time for dinner which was potatoes, beans and either veggie sausages (Scamp) or beef burger (me).

Watched the final of Landscape Artist of the Year (Canada) and sure enough, the worst painting of the lot won the prize. If you’d given one of those wolf spiders a brush and some paint it could have made a better job of it.

There was great news announced today. From Friday we will be able to travel the length and breadth of Scotland. The Scottish world is once again our oyster!! Non-essential shops are still shut. Restaurants are not allowed to open. Pubs too are still closed, but at least we can travel to discover if the sea is still there. We will have to take a flask of coffee and pieces. We’ve effectively been locked down for the last five months. What will the world look like? Will we still remember it?

Tomorrow we may go for a walk.

An improving day – 27 February 2021

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It started off dull and foggy, but it ended up much better.

We hadn’t anywhere to go today and no real reason to go there anyway. However we drove over to Kilsyth on the pretext of going shopping in Lidl. I wanted a bottle of their excellent Hortus gin and Scamp wanted ‘messages’. We achieved our aim and got both. I was very good and didn’t open the gin right away when we got home. Instead, I went out for a walk in St Mo’s but that’s not where today’s PoD came from. I got that much earlier.

The light was beautifully soft for a while after the fog had lifted and so had the heaviest of the clouds. The freesias on the windowsill were looking great and I grabbed a few shots, but I knew they would look better on a dark background. I hung Scamp’s black cardigan on the handle of the window and banged off another half dozen shots, one of which Scamp chose as PoD. No cardigans were harmed making this picture.

The trip to St Mo’s was just because the light was improving and I did find some more subjects. A tiny little spider for one. The first spider I’ve seen this year. Another was a little branch from a weed with lots of water droplets, probably from the morning’s fog, shining brightly. It seemed to be one of those days when you couldn’t put a foot wrong. Except I did put both feet wrong and came home with wet sox again!

Scamp suggested we do a Golden Bowl (best Chinese food in Cumbersheugh) and I readily agreed. Chicken Chop Suey with Fried Rice for Scamp and Special Chow Mein for me. Washed down with a glass of Red.

In the evening we practised the waltz routine and it is looking good. Much more ‘together’ than it’s been all week. Partly due to S&J’s video, but more to do with Scamp breaking things down and working out whose foot goes where, when. We also found the real name of a song Stewart uses for the rumba routine. Tried Shazzam, but it’s rubbish now. Used Sound Hound and it worked first time. It’s now in the dance music folder in Spotify.

Today’s topic was “Chess”. I dug out my old wooden chess men and set them up to fight. Black lost. That’s what happens when you paint yourself into a corner.

If the weather is decent tomorrow we may go for a walk somewhere.

Out to Brunch – 22 October 2020

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Another day to get out and about fairly early.

We were picking up Isobel at 10.15 and then we were all heading off to Calders for either a late breakfast or an early lunch, it was unclear which. I’d been warned beforehand not to order coffee because I’d be disappointed with the quality and the quantity of actual coffee in my cup. The other two had scrambled eggs and a latté each while I went for poached eggs on sourdough bread with a pot of tea. Even the tea was a bit thin and to be even more critical, the eggs were a bit underdone and tepid. Maybe a bit harsh, but I am one half of the Foodie pair. As usual, Isobel regaled us with stories about her family.

We dropped her off and drove home for a cup of real coffee each. Then I went upstairs to check out a bag full of old hard disks that had been torn from ancient computers over the years. Two went in the ‘skip bag’ and two were given a reprieve until I get a chance to download the useful stuff, then they will probably be ‘skipped’ too. In the process I discovered that one of my old removable drives was also destined for the ‘skip bag’. It had had a question mark hanging over it for a while and now it wasn’t booting up, so it is with regret that it goes in the ‘skip bag’ too. However, as Scamp keeps reminding me, that’s what’s wrong with our house. Holding on to too many things that have outlived their usefulness. That’s why I make the breakfast every second day and do my fair share of the cooking too. Otherwise I might find myself in that big blue Ikea bag with the hard disks one of these days.

While I was doing the technology thing, Scamp was shopping for dinner stuff. The dinner turned out to be Trout en Croûte. They looked a bit like sausage rolls, but tasted so much better. They were so good I was almost won over to be a pescatarian!

Before dinner I risked another soaking by going for a walk in St Mo’s. Got a few shots in among the trees. Some nice looking toadstools (not good enough to eat though) and the PoD which is a spider living life in the upside down. Managed to get my feet soaked trying to get the mud off them by paddling in the shallows of the pond. Merrel is not the company it once was. Quality has really gone downhill in the last few years.

I had found some gems in my search of the hard disks. We spent an hour tonight watching a video we’d made in Amsterdam away back in 2007. Half an hour of seeing life in a different world. Crowds of people not obeying the two metre rule and none of them wearing a mask!

You will notice the lack of a sketch today. This is due to a technical problem (I didn’t have time … or inclination.). Hopefully normal service will be resumed tomorrow. I Lied!

On the subject of tomorrow, we have no plans as yet. Apart from two sketches!!

Temptation – 1 October 2020

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I warned you yesterday that I was going to do it and today I did.

I swithered, that’s a good Scots word, isn’t it? It means I couldn’t decide quite what to do about the camera. Eventually I settled for leaving it until at least the afternoon before choosing whether to go in to Glasgow or not. Last night as I was going to bed, ‘Not’ was winning. Today I swithered. I laid my case before that preeminent judge, Scamp and she listened impartially without giving any decision, because she knew I’d make my own mind up when the time came.

After lunch I made the decision to go in to JL and hold the camera if they still had it. That’s always been my way to assess the usefulness of a camera. You can read as many reviews as you want. Balance the Pros and the Cons, but if it doesn’t feel comfortable in your hot little hands, you’re not going to use it. Many, many years ago I picked up a camera, a Sony strangely enough, and knew it was worth having. That was a Sony F707 which I still have (Scamp will tell you I still have all of them and that’s nearly true) and it still feels ‘right’ in my hands. It’s just got a few problems now that aren’t repairable, but I still don’t want to part with it.

So now I have a Sony A7 full frame camera with a 28 – 70mm lens sitting on the table in front of me. It’s second hand.  It’s been used and taken back to the shop. There are a couple of scratches on it, but nothing serious. Tomorrow I’ll take it out for a walk in St Mo’s along with the Oly E-M1 which knows St Mo’s fairly well and we’ll see what they can come up with. Little and Large.

The new camera’s battery was charging this afternoon, so I took the Oly out to get some photos in the sunshine. There wasn’t much doing, but it was good to walk about without a raincoat or a fleece on. Cool in the shade, but plenty warm in the sun. I just found out about fifteen minutes ago that I picked up a tick on my travels. First one I’ve had in ages. Must be less blasé about them. I know our minds are on Covid just now, but there are other nasties out there, waiting for the unwary.

While I was out, Scamp was making mince ’n’ tatties with cabbage and carrots. She, of course, denied herself the pleasure of the mince and had the veggie version. Dessert was stewed apples and rhubarb with custard. Our own apples and rhubarb. All the apples have now been picked and the rhubarb too is finished until next year.

Today being the first of October is the start of Inktober. Today’s sketch is of one of the fish statues we saw in Corralejo back in 2016.  It will do to cover today’s topic of ‘Fish’. PoD was a bramble leaf from St Mo’s.

Tomorrow we have no plans, but the weather looks reasonable, so we may go for a walk somewhere interesting.

Coffee with Val – 28 September 2020

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Queueing for Costa coffee.

You’d have to be desperate to queue for coffee in Costa, but that’s what we had to do today. Costa didn’t open until 11am because today was a bank holiday. Nobody had mentioned it was a bank holiday. Even the banks didn’t know about it, because the bank across the concourse was open when I passed. Maybe it’s a secret bank holiday, one that only some people were told about. After we’d all queued until after 11, some wee ’jobsworth’ was in your face with his iPad taking your particulars for Track & Trace. We just told him we’d already signed in and he went away to bother someone else. Finally got sorted out with coffee and a bite to eat then got down to the serious business of discussing the technology we’d both been buying and playing with in the last month. Really enjoyed the natter, but soon it was time to go. Bid goodbye to Val as he headed to Asda and I drove home in the rain.

After lunch I did a bit of tidying up of the back bedroom. I did manage to chuck some stuff out, or at least bag it for chucking out. Undid a Gordian Knot of USB cables and sorted them by type into two lots. I’m going to test them next on the most exacting bits of tech to see if they are working perfectly or not. Pass the test and you can stay. Fail and you go in the bin. Marie Kondo eat your heart out.

The sun was coming out after I’d sorted the wiring and performed a cursory chuck out, so I took the Oly for a walk in St Mo’s. Lots of photogenic spider webs holding beads of water. Unfortunately there was a bit of a breeze which made photographing them difficult. One particular web was loaded with raindrops, it makes you wonder what weight is on these fragile strands and how the spider knows to construct using triangles. It wasn’t until I got home that I noticed on the screen that those particular shots had captured the spider as well as the web. A lucky! One of them made PoD. Of the 26 shots I took, only 6 survived the first cull. That’s not a good average.

It was pesto spaghetti tonight and I think I was too heavy on the garlic. Believe me when I tell you that although it tasted fine about 6pm, at 9.20pm it’s not quite so tasty!

Tomorrow we might be going looking for a small bookcase to assist in the further cleanup of the back bedroom. I don’t suppose that would fit with the ethos of Marie Kondo’s method, but I won’t tell her if you won’t.

Dining out – 23 September 2020

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Just an opportunity to go for lunch and put aside Covid fears for an hour or so.

Scamp had bought the original Itison (Scottish version of Groupon) voucher back in February with the intention that it would be a useful lunch treat in the spring or summer, then Covid arrived and we tumbled into lockdown. Recently, when restaurants opened again, the vouchers came back to life. Today’s was for “21”, an Italian restaurant in Hamilton.  We even got free parking in the town because all the meters were covered, presumably to avoid folk having to risk catching the disease when emptying the meters. A little bonus. We walked down to the restaurant in the sunshine and arrived right on time. Scamp had Cream of Veg soup to start, followed by Veg Risotto. I had Salami Bruschetta followed by Balmoral Chicken. Both were perfectly satisfactory, but I wished later I’d stuck with my original choice of Lasagne. Because we’d had a cheap starter and main we felt it would only be fair to had a dessert too. Scamp had Coppa Amarena (ice cream with cherries) and I had Tiramisu. The Coppa looked great and the one cherry I had was beautiful. The Tiramisu was dry and looked as if it had come from a wholesaler. Not great. All in all it was fine. Next time if we go back, I’ll be more sensible in my choices. What impressed me most was that the staff spoke Italian to each other. That’s the way it should be.

Back home and back to reality, Scamp cut the front grass and I volunteered to do the same to the back grass. Maybe that will be the last cut of the year. The light was still good when we were done, so while Scamp relaxed, I took the Oly over to St Mo’s and went for a walk in the woods. It was a bit cold out of the sun, but the low light created opportunities for some decent photos. PoD was a backlit shot of a spider wrapping up its dinner. It’s a Garden Spider (Araneus diadematus).

Tonight about 8pm I was taking the recycling out for collection tomorrow morning. A group of folk were standing outside the house next door. Their father and mother, whose house it is, were inside with their grandchildren, but the parents were outside talking. Some were standing, some were sitting in garden chairs. It was dark and the temperature was a chilly 9ºc. What they were doing was perfectly legal and in line with the new rules for Scotland, but why would anyone go to those lengths? Will they do the same in a couple of months when it’s snowing? Who knows.

Tomorrow we may drive in to Glasgow.

Back in the old routine – 8 September 2020

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Going for the messages in Blue.

I drove to Stirling today with Scamp. We were heading for Waitrose ‘for the messages’. The sky was dull with occasional attempts at rain, but nothing that you could really call precipitation. Parked at Waitrose and walked in to Stirling town (it’s not a real city, even if Mrs McQueen says it is). I went to M&S and Scamp went to Debenhams both for different reasons. Met up again in the Thistle Centre and decided Nero was too busy and Costa was too dark and gloomy, so we went to HSBC to get some English money. I couldn’t tell you the last time I used a ‘hole in the wall’ machine. Some time in early March I think. Thankfully I remembered my pin.

On the walk back we stopped as we usually do to look in the picture gallery.  This shop usually has some good and some not so good artistic works.  However, we’ve neither of us seen anything to match the clumsy painting of a girl and a dog.  I think it’s downright dangerous to give a toddler oil paints to play with.  This ‘painting’ was priced at £450.  Unless, of course the decimal point wasn’t working on the computer used to print the price tag!

I think we did actually buy Waitrose this time. It was really just a test to see how much we could cram into the Micra boot. The answer was quite a lot, or maybe even Too Much! However, at least we got to walk round a fairly quiet shop pushing a trolley. Won’t need a Tesco delivery this week or next.

Came home and I tried to install the supposedly brilliant Nissan Connect Services which is a phone app that can do all sorts of wonderful things. I’d tried and failed to get the last one to work on the Juke. This one was no better. Got as far as creating an account, then things went belly up. You can scan in the VIN from the plate on the windscreen, but the app says it’s wrong. You can scan the VIN from the door upright, but the app says it’s wrong. You can type it in, but … Nothing I did worked, then I read the comments on this 1.2 star app. Almost everyone had the same problem, apart from the obvious ‘ringers’ who said it worked perfectly. With so many people having the same problem, you’d think a warning light would come on for the developers, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Another lost opportunity, Nissan.

Took my frustrations out on St Mo’s with a couple of circuits of the pond. Not a lot of light at all by 4.30pm. My PoD was a sideways look at a spider on its web, getting bounced about in the breeze.

Beef burger for dinner. What Scamp had dubbed an Artisan Burger. I’d made it myself, with my own fair hands and a pound of mince. It needed salt, but otherwise it was fine. Scamp had a piece of salmon and we both had some of those Home Grown and Artisan Charlotte potatoes. So, a hand-made dinner.

Thought I’d have to de-coke the coffee maker. Orange steam light flashing away apparently means de-scale. I managed to get the light to go out by resetting the water softness setting. Hope that keeps the orange light at bay.

Tomorrow I’m hoping to meet John at Chatelherault outside Hamilton for a walk and a chat about photography and cameras. ‘Hoping’ because it’s torrential rain and high winds here just now.

The calm after the storm – 26 August 2020

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After another windy and wet night, today dawned (well, 9am is nearly dawn) calm if a little wet.

Yesterday Val had given me a wee sample of Cuban coffee. Just Cuban, not the Cuba Taraquin that I usually buy in Perth. I tried his coffee this morning and it was more bitter than mine and a bit thinner too. Still, really good of him to make the effort. Just what I’d expect from a good friend like Val.

After coffee and a first try at today’s Sudoku Scamp went for a walk down to the shops for the essentials which for once will not include gin. Speaking of gin is not a good thing to talk about in this house. Scamp had ordered gin from the Isle of Barra Distillers. She ordered it about 23 days ago with a promised delivery time of 7 to 10 days, and it’s still not found its way to Cumbersheugh. So this is just a warning. If you’re thinking of ordering some Isle of Barra gin for Christmas, you’re probably too late already. You should have ordered it in February … 2019.

While she fumed, I went upstairs and added the ink lines to the architectural painting I’ve been working on and then added the first of the washes. It looks ok. I won’t go any further than ok at present, but it’s better than I thought it might be.

With some better light appearing I took the Oly out for a walk in St Mo’s. Lots of dragonflies out and all of them skittish. Landing for a few seconds then off again, constantly circling the wee pond then landing on the boardwalk kerbs, probably to warm up from the reflected sunlight before their next sortie.  PoD was a close-up of a wolf spider.  It is a spider, but at first glance it looks more like an octopus!

After dinner we watched another episode of Line of Duty (soon to be abbreviated to LoD) and I’m sure we hadn’t seen that one before. Then I watched Blood of the Clans which is a fairly interesting dramatisation of Scottish history presented by Neil Oliver as he tosses his hair in the wind and walks off camera stage right. I don’t really like him, but some of his one-liners in this show are worth watching it for. Interesting to see how what we think of as modern political machinations are just variations on a theme that’s been running for centuries. Double dealing and backing both sided didn’t start in the 1980s after all.

 

More rain predicted for tomorrow. We’re intending to drive to Larky because Scamp needs her eyes tested. I might go for a walk down the glen.

A Sunny Spell – 24 August 2020

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Neither of us expected such a sunny day today, but we took it gladly.

Scamp was out this morning for coffee with her sister and her cousin. While they were out I completed my thumbnail sketch for my architectural painting and then worked on the light pencil sketch. None of the chunky sketch work of the Palomino Blackwing pencil, this was all done with a 0.7mm mechanical pencil. The groundwork is now almost finished, I just have to convince myself that the perspective at the front of the building is true. Once that’s done I can go on to the ink work. Phoned John and had a chat with him about the joys of retirement. Managed to finalise a date for them to come over for dinner. The last date was rather spoiled by a lockdown some time in March.

When Scamp returned with two plants from Isobel, we had lunch. After that we did a bit of gardening. Heavy duty pruning for me, using the loppers to get stuck into the big climbing rose at the back door. It’s now chopped down to head height and a bit straggly in places, but we’ll leave that until later in the year before we do the final tidying up, all being well. Scamp was finding places for the new plants to go.

Later in the warm afternoon we went for a walk round St Mo’s pond. Found two relaxed dragonflies and got a few shots. It turned out they were Common Darters, one male and one female. Just for future references, the male is smaller and red, the female is yellow ochre with red stripes down her back. They didn’t get PoD though. That went to a Harvestman which is not a spider although it looks like one. It’s in the order Opiliones and joins the spiders in the Arachnid group. It’s amazing what you learn. If you look closely you’ll notice that it only has seven legs. It appears it sacrificed one, probably to save its life.

Dinner was chicken curry made from a Holy Cow mix and half the left over chicken from last night. It was hot, but tasty. Excellent flatbread, even if I say so myself with the additional secret ingredient of two dollops of coconut yogurt.

Tomorrow I’m intending meeting Val for coffee. Tried to phone Colin but it went to voicemail and Val hasn’t managed to get a reply from Fred.