Beasties – Page 34 – My Photo Blog

First Full Day – 4 November 2016

Posted on November 4, 2016November 5, 2016 by Zogman

A more relaxed morning than yesterday! Unfortunately it was still raining. Just a shower we told ourselves but the sky gave a lie to that. Breakfast was the usual holiday hotel fare and of course we had too much of everything. Notables were the big slab of butter you could cut for yourself to spread on the bread you also cut for yourself. Butter was white and unsalted and also quite delicious.

After breakfast the rain was going off so we waited a while and then headed off in the direction of Puerto del Carmen. It’s a fairly long walk and the weather was improving so we took our time. Our objective today was to find the cheapest bottles of Gin and Tonic. Although we are all inclusive, it doesn’t go wrong to have the makings of a G&T for sitting on the balcony watching the world go by. The hotel provides us with as much drinking water as we want, free of charge, which is an improvement on some places we’ve been to. WiFi is also free, but only in the reception and only for two devices at any one time. Not a real drawback. To get back to the walk, we wandered down the road checking prices as we went. Stopped for a beer in a wee roadside bar. Checked that a really good Asian restaurant we’d been to was still there. Usual holiday stuff. Then we walked back, and it was getting real holiday hot now. Forgot to get the gin and were appalled at the price they wanted for it in Hyperdino (usually the cheapest, so we hadn’t checked it). I volunteered to walk back to the cheapest shop to get some and also some tonic. Finally arrived back, just in time for lunch. We were a bit more modest in our lunch selection, really just a salad.

After lunch, Scamp went to sunbathe and I went for a walk over the rough lava rocks to get some photos.

Booked dinner in the Asian restaurant in the hotel for Monday as Saturday and Sunday were fully booked. At night we waited for a while for the Flamenco show to start, but gave up on it after a while. Had a drink in the lounge and then went back to try again. The show is supposed to start at 21.30. At 21.45 they started the presentation of the awards of the day for the Kiddies Club. That was supposed to happen at 20.30, so it looked like they were running at least an hour behind. We, or to be more exact, I couldn’t be bothered waiting that long, so we headed for bed. Scamp was keen to demonstrate that she, as Genghis Pathfinder had discovered a faster way to get from the main building to the room and, for once, she was right. Full marks for Pathfinding, Scamp.

Less food tomorrow and hopefully some sunbathing with the possibility of a swim too.

Nursing – 25 October 2016

Posted on October 25, 2016October 25, 2016 by Zogman

It could have been my chosen career, but I chose a different path. That, by itself saved the populace from a bad case of genocide. Scamp has the cold and I’ve been doing my best be head cook and bottle washer.

As part of the nursing program, I was also the driver who took us to Costa Robroyston for a cup of brown water and a spot of Costa lunch. Can’t say I was any more impressed with the coffee, but served as a skinny cappuccino, it’s almost palatable. Hark at me, “Skinny Cappuccino” no less! Quite the man about town.

After we came back I went out to get some photos and maybe, just maybe, a sketch. The sketch didn’t happen, what I did do was get some photos of underpasses, of which we have quite a few here, to sketch from the computer later. It’s a bit of a cop out, but it sounded feasible. I took the shots and they looked ok. I took some spiders’ pictures too in St Mo’s. They seemed quite pleased that I was showing an interest in their web building and posed happily while I snapped away. Mr Grey was sulking in the cold water of St Mo’s pond. Do birds have nerve endings in their feet, I wonder. I also wonder if there should have been a question mark at the end of the previous sentence. That’s the sort of thing that I would know if I had been paying attention in English back in Larkhall Academy, but I didn’t and I don’t, know that is. Strangely, my English teacher was a Mr Grey too! I took this Mr Grey’s photo because of the reflection in the murky waters of the pond.

While I was taking my research photos of underpasses for the proposed sketch (it didn’t happen either), I turned a corner and almost bumped into a guy lurking in the darkness of the underpass. At first I was a bit concerned, then I realised he was just a schoolboy, presumably from St Mo’s, also presumably ‘dogging it’. In other words he was ‘bunking off’ school. What we, in the trade, called a ‘school refuser’ and what the pupils called a ‘dogger’. That has nothing at all to do with dogs and also nothing to do with secluded carparks after dark. Or so I’ve been told!! Ahem, I’ve also been told that when one is in a hole one should stop digging, so I’m laying the spade down now. Anyway, I marched through the underpass and got the shot from the opposite side once the boy had scuttled away in the general direction of the school. He obviously hadn’t, to quote Guy Garvey, “perfected that simian stroll”. What he should have done was amble on in the general direction of the school with that look that said “It’s alright mate, I’m just on my way back from an appointment with my dentist / my doctor / my social worker” (delete as appropriate). Instead he just looked like he was a rabbit caught in the headlights. Maybe it was the first time he’d done it. Maybe he had a good reason. Maybe he’s on the path to become a repeat offender. That made me think of another musical reference: “Razzle in my Pocket” – Ian Dury. Listen and you’ll see what I mean.

Anyway, photos took and still no sketch for the day, because the underpasses hadn’t fired my imagination. Also, I don’t like sketching from photos now. They seem to lack the vitality of sketching from life. After washing up, I took a cup of good coffee upstairs to read while Scamp was watching her Tuesday soap, and there it was, today’s sketch. It’s a bit cheeky to title it as the First Coffee. It was hardly the first coffee of the day as I’d had my Sudoku Cup at about 11am and you can’t count Costa brown water. It was the last cup of the day though and, like the spiders, it posed very patiently for me. It wasn’t even cold when I’d finished. Success. Just in case you’re interested the paper is 110gsm Fabriano Sketch and pen is a Micron 0.3 with a bit of shading from a pale grey brush pen.

Tomorrow? It depends on how Scamp is feeling. Maybe the gym for me, but we’ll wait and see how the invalid is.

Another day waiting for the aerial man – 12 October 2016

Posted on October 12, 2016October 12, 2016 by Zogman

The bloke who was going to take down that bloody aerial failed to turn up today. Different bloke from the last time, different day, same result. Now he says he’ll be here tomorrow. Do we believe him?

Went out early for some photos in the sunshine in St Mo’s. Got one of Mr Grey preening. Unless he’s lost a lot of weight, I don’t think this is the real Mr Grey, more likely it’s a body double. The real Mr Grey has probably flown south for the winter and he’s arranged this substitute to make it look as if he’s still here. The body double probably even collects the real Mr Grey’s Giro. Yes, I know that we don’t do Giros any more, but unemployed bird still use them, because they don’t do internet banking. Anyway, the green leaves were growing from a storm felled tree. There must have been enough continuity between trunk and roots to keep the transfer of sugars and starches. The landscape is from St Mo’s and is of clouds breaking over the Meikle Bin above and beyond Kilsyth. The wee spider was climbing a tree and if you look closely at the Flickr version, you will notice that he’s got his safety rope securely fixed to a branch. Even spiders have to be careful these days.

I’ve been following “The Constant Doodler” and today’s Inktober sketch is my first attempt at his signature One Line drawing where his pen never leaves the paper until the drawing is finished. It’s much more difficult than it looks. Try it sometime and you’ll discover just how much planning is required before you start.

Other than that, it was another dull day after the promise of the morning’s weather. There was a bit of rain in the evening and more if forecast tomorrow. Maybe that will give the aerial man another excuse to avoid the demolition of the bloody aerial. But then you never know. Maybe tomorrow we’ll be celebrating the removal of this piece of roof architecture.

Clingfilm – 11 October 2016

Posted on October 11, 2016October 11, 2016 by Zogman

A strange title, but hopefully all will become clear – like the clingfilm 😉

Lazy start to the day, but that usually happens on a Tuesday after a busy Monday with two hours of dancing and an hour of driving, then preparing the photos, posting them and then blog writing. I’m not moaning about, just explaining why we almost broke our self imposed rule of Up By Ten. The light seemed to be improving in the morning and I grabbed a few shots of the Gazanias in the hanging basket with their covering of raindrops from the showers during the night.

What to do with the rest of the day? We couldn’t decide where to go, because we had decided we’d go out. Dinner was sorted and we needed nothing extra for that. It was finally settled when Scamp said we didn’t have any cling film and that called for a visit to Lakeland. Scamp also wanted to get some flowers to plant in my raised bed for some winter colour. We could achieve both aims with a visit to Lakeland and Dobbies just outside Stirling. What exciting lives we lead when our day revolves around Clingfilm and Pansies!

We came back from Stirling over the Tak ma Doon road. Usually it’s a scenic road with plenty of opportunities for big-sky landscapes. Today heavy clouds had rolled in and everywhere was dull. Oh well, I still had the pics of the Gazanias to fall back on. Just to make sure, I went out to bother the wildlife in St Mo’s when we got back. Just missed Mr Grey, but he saw me and was off like as shot. More snails up trees. It seems that they favour Ash trees. Disturbed a couple of deer and this time I got a shot I liked. One young doe ran when she saw me, then turned and watched to make sure I wasn’t following, giving me the chance I needed to take the shot. I don’t know what kind of fly was on the tree in the other shot. It looked a bit like a mosquito, but on closer examination, the head looks more like a Jenny Long Legs (Crane Fly). Don’t know.

Today’s Inktober (Number 11) is of Monday’s Daily Sudoku which was completed yesterday (Monday) and was lying on the coffee table in front of me, so, like the hand yesterday, it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Fred P can do quick portraits or caricatures of people sitting near him in Costa and they always look like the subject. I just can’t draw fast enough to grab a likeness. It’s all about confidence I think. Anyway, I’m happy enough with today’s quick sketch. Made some more fruit scones tonight. I did think of sketching one of them, but they move off the plate too quickly.

Don’t know what’s happening tomorrow because we’ve got clingfilm now, so possibly no need to go out. Jamie G our Salsa teacher is off on business tomorrow, and we don’t know who will be taking the class. It’s not worth driving for an hour through Glasgow’s Wednesday evening traffic only to find it’s a, how shall I put this, less entertaining teacher. Maybe we’ll stay in and watch a film instead!

I have seen the future and it works, sort of – 3 October 2016

Posted on October 3, 2016October 4, 2016 by Zogman

I couldn’t stay living in the past, I simply didn’t work for me. After I’d tasted the future, the old fashioned way of working in Mountain Lion was passé. I longed for all those little tweaks that could make life so much easier. It had to be done. I reinstalled El Cap via the Carbon Copier disk. Hazel still didn’t work, but I found a strange workaround for the NAS. If I access the drive as a ‘guest’, access is so much faster than if I login as me, with name and password. Weird! The main thing is it works. I’ll just have to rewrite the rules I use a lot with Hazel. Sorry JIC, I should have explained yesterday that the Hazel I’m referring to is not a person, it’s an app. A very clever app that files stuff away according to rules you write for the purpose.

While Carbon Copier was reinstalling the Capitan, I went for a walk to get some photos and to clear my head. Saw at least four dragonflies down near the Luggie. I also forgot to mention that summer is not over yet, because I’ve recently seen swallows still flying and feeding themselves up for the long journey south. The last sighting was last week. It’s easy to tell when you see the first swallow in spring, but it’s more difficult to record the last sighting.

I’m going to bed. I’ve had a long day and am knackered. Tomorrow I intend to do a little computing, some painting and some photographing. Kizomba was much better than the last mob. I think we might stay with this pair. Even if it took us an hour and fifteen minutes to do the 20 min journey into Glasgow tonight. There must be a better way, after all, it’s the future!

Setting the world to rights and macros – 19 September 2016

Posted on September 19, 2016 by Zogman

Met Fred and Val and sorted the world out again over a couple of coffees. It’s so easy, repairing all the wrongs of the world. If they’d only ask us, we could fix all the problems in no time.

After that went for a drive round the outskirts of our wonderful town looking for something to photograph and found a few things.

A Ladybird.
Some Cladonia lichen
Cow Hair on a barbed wire fence.

They don’t sound interesting, but when it’s a sunny day and you’re just out taking your time and enjoying the scenery, they are interesting things to photograph.

The Ladybird was orange with white spots and apparently it is rare in Scotland, but quite widespread in England and Wales. Also, it feeds on fungus rather than on insects like aphids.

Cladonia lichen or ‘Grey Trumpets’, also known as ‘Golf Tees lichen have fascinated me since I started taking macro photographs. They look so alien.

The Cow Hair needs some explanation. I was wandering around looking for something to photograph when I disturbed a black bodied dragonfly it buzzed round me a couple of times and then flew off, but I could still hear its wings clattering. (They sound like cellophane being crumpled. Strange description, but that’s what it sounds like to me.) The next thing I knew, it landed on my shoulder. Now what I should have done was take a ‘selfie’ with my phone. “Here’s me with my mate, the black dragonfly!”, but what did I do? I swiped at it and it flew away. Numpty. Then I saw it again sitting on a barbed wire fence, just across the road. As I cautiously approached it, it didn’t move, which is quite strange behaviour for inquisitive creatures like dragonflies. You get the feeling they are watching you when you are watching them. It was only when I got closer, I noticed that my ‘dragonfly’ was a tuft of black cow hair caught on one of the barbs. Despite my disappointment, I photographed it and quite liked the finished result from the fisheye lens.

Salsa tonight was energetic and a great deal of fun. I was dreading Scamp wanting to go to the next class which was ’styling’. Not my idea of fun at all. However, I acquiesced to her suggestion that we “give it half an hour”. We did and it was indeed good fun, interesting and taxing with its concentration on footwork. I can see us being hooked on this in the future.

Tomorrow looks as if it’s set fair but cooler which is a decent forecast for the time of year.

Sunny Sunday – 11 September 2016

Posted on September 11, 2016September 11, 2016 by Zogman

We went to Glasgow today. Since the buses run to their own timetable on Sundays, we drove in. It was a lovely morning and Scamp thought we might manage to have a coffee outside, but by the time we’d finished shopping, the wind was becoming a bit gusty and we settled for a coffee inside.

Dinner for me was a repeat of yesterday’s, Lamb, Chorizo and Puy Lentil Casserole, but this time made at home. It turned out as good as the Loch Leven Larder’s, if not better. Who am I kidding? Of course it was better! Slow cooked for six hours, it was great. Plenty left over for tomorrow’s dinner and maybe some for lunch later in the week.

I went for a walk to St Mo’s in the late afternoon and got a few shots, but the light was poor by that time and that resulted in a lot of digital noise which you can remove quite easily with Lightroom, but the price you pay is a loss of definition, so it’s a double edged sword. I did see a strange pink blossom at completely the wrong time of year. There were thorns on the stems and on the back of the leaves which look like bramble leaves. The plant seemed to be behaving like a bramble by climbing round other tree branches. Couldn’t believe this was flowering in September in Scotland!

No plans for tomorrow, because like most Mondays it’s eaten up with Gems in the afternoon and salsa at night. Might get some painting done. If not on canvas, then at least on the outside window ledges.

A much more sedate day – 28 August 2016

Posted on August 28, 2016August 28, 2016 by Zogman

After yesterday’s frantic here and there, non-stop, things to do, today was a little respite. After a relaxing morning we watched the Belgian GP from Spa. Plenty of action in the first half, then the new Sky Sports channel seemed to get stuck and we had to go back to the C4 version with laconic David Coultard and the over-excited Ben Edwards to tell us just how exciting it was.

The rest of the afternoon was spent tweaking the gallery feature on the new theme of my blog. What Scamp christened The Summer Look. After getting frustrated with some things working and others not, I took myself off to St Mo’s for a look around. Scamp had meantime driven in to Glasgow to pick up her sister. I didn’t find any deer today and only got decent photos of some insects. Couldn’t get the camera to focus at first, and then realised that it was set on single point focus which is notoriously difficult to fix focus with, but once focus is set, it is really accurate. When I switched to a wider field of view, focusing worked a lot quicker. Hoping for some exercise tomorrow, either in the gym or on the bike, we’ll see which one wins. Like Scamp always says, it all depends on the weather.

Coffee, Dragons and Vitamin D – 25 August 2016

Posted on August 25, 2016August 26, 2016 by Zogman

On a cloudy day, I went for a coffee with Fred in the morning and we set the world to rights again.

Met Scamp afterwards and sorted out our winter, week-long Vitamin D supplement, sometimes known as a week-in-the-sun. For once the process of booking was much easier than it could have been, and has been in the past.

After that, the sun came out, and I took a walk as usual around St Mo’s. Still a few dragons flying around. None of them breathed fire, but I managed to get a shot of one, despite having completely the wrong settings on the camera. I don’t know what I did, but I was using ISO 100 with an aperture setting of f10 which produced a shutter speed of 1/40th. Luckily I set the camera down on the boardwalk to take a low level shot and this meant I had a really steady support, otherwise the shot would have been as shaky as the other 7 I took today. That’s what happens when you assume you have the normal settings and don’t check the info on the screen. Numpty. Still, it’s a good shot.

Physio to look forward to tomorrow :-/ Then maybe lunch out would be good. We’ll see tomorrow.

Birds and the Bees (and a Spider) – 22 August 2016

Posted on August 22, 2016 by Zogman

Today I did some gardening.

This is an example of forward thinking by Scamp:

The weather forecast for tomorrow is rain, a few dry spells and then more rain, followed by rain.
We have a bag of stone chips that we are going to put down beside the new tall fence to complete this area. The stones when they are washed are basically a golden yellow, but with other colours through them, quite pretty. In the bag they still retain the abrasive mix that they are tumbled with and are a claggy yellow ochre.

If you add these two things in the correct order, Scamp postulates that it would be good to lay the chips down today and then tomorrow’s rain will wash the claggy yellow ochre coating off them and reveal their true colour. That’s why it was boots on, riggers gloves on and get yourself mucky laying down the chips. Fine. If only it ended there. Scamp said: “Could we pot up this Hebe using the compost from the potatoes we lifted a week or so ago?” Followed by: “We really need to prune the rose round the back door.” and “Maybe if we ….” Oh, if you can’t beat them, then join them. I volunteered to repot a wee rose that was being completely swamped by some wee blue bell-shaped flowers, that might be Campanula. That’s as far as I went though. This gardening can be quite addictive I’m told. I’ll take their word for it, thanks.

Grabbed an hour and a camera and a new album from the latest John Connolly book and took them for a walk to St Mo’s. I met a heron as I was walking over. I’m not sure if it was Mr Grey or not. It seemed a bit small for him, but I’ve only once seen him out of the water, so it could be. He posed for some photos, then disappeared in a great flapping of wings. The rest of the photos were bees and hover flies. Hence the title of today’s epistle. Birds and Bees and a Spider. The John Connolly album was interesting as it always is. Very atmospheric and all by artists I’d never heard of.

With Hazy’s help, we got Netflix to work tonight and after salsa class, settled down and watched A Royal Night Out. Harmless fun. Better than watching the highlights of this year’s Olympic Games. Princess Margaret is a hoot!

Rain forecast all day tomorrow. Hope it washes the stone chips clean again.