Category: Blossom

Busy, Busy, Busy – 26 April 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Actually a fairly relaxing morning. Afternoon not so much.

In the morning I worked at the computer for a while. I wanted to see if I could handle the programming of the catalog for the new photo app. It looked remarkably easy in the tutorial, but, as with most ‘easy’ things, there were a few twists and turns on the way to success. However, after an hour or so’s work I think we have a more elastic, less restricting framework of a catalog. I still need to tweak some things and work out how to implement others. Let’s say it’s a work in progress and leave it there.

It was a dull day with the threat of rain. Actually the rain didn’t appear until late in the afternoon, but by then we were well into the biz. First to appear was the Tesco delivery and I must say we are getting into rhythm unpacking the crates and then distributing the contents to the various storage places around the house. Scamp wanted to clear out a cupboard next. It’s the one where we keep the extra duvets for visitors as well as the ones we use ourselves. Hard to believe that there are TOG 10 duvets in that cupboard. We usually restrict ourselves to a TOG 1 from late spring until early autumn, with a TOG 3 or 5 in the coldest winter weather. The heavier duvets were earmarked for the tip along with a bag of deflated pillows which were well past their use by date. In all three black bags full and a small bag of electrical odds and ends. I drove to the tip and dumped them.

Back home we were visited by the girl who encouraged us to stick a swab down our throat and up our nose. If we did it properly without choking or gagging too much we got to answer her questions which were carefully phrased so I didn’t have to admit to being in another house for 15mins. That was the visit to Val’s two weeks ago and she was only interesting in an hour long visit in the last seven days. I did tell the truth, but not the whole truth. With that done it was wander around for a while time before the next big visit.

The big visit was to Muirfield Centre near the Town Centre for my second anti-Covid vaccination. They really do have it very well organised now. No messing about. You go from one testing station to the next to a row of cubicles to ensure social distancing, then to the doctor or nurse who administers the jag. That when it went a bit wrong. I answered my name, DOB and postcode for the first time, elected to have my right shoulder punctured and then the doctor looked at the ampule bottle and said “Oh, this one’s a dud.” It was only part full, so he had to go and get another one. I was going to ask him if this was a common occurrence, but by that time it was all over and he was pulling up my shirt sleeve. All done.

You know that feeling you get in your jaw after you’ve been to the dentist and the anaesthetic is beginning to wear off. It’s a kind of dull not-an-ache feeling. I could feel that sensation just as I was driving out of the car park. Now the bloke who gave me my jag was wearing dentist’s scrubs and I don’t know if this was psychosomatic, but it was strange. Maybe something to do with the release of stress or something or maybe I’m just that kind of zoomer!

Back home, all done and dusted. Scamp had taken over the Monday dinner but kept it to pasta, the way it should be. It was Mac ’n’ Cheese. Lovely! Afterwards I did a quick walk round the garden for a suitable PoD and found the apple tree almost ready to flower after today’s rain. That would do nicely.

Tomorrow, Scamp is off walking with Veronica. I’m hoping to be experimenting more with Capture One or making fancy bread.

 

Walking in the woods – 24 April 2021

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The woodlands of Coatbridge. Not the first thing that springs to mind when I think of Coatbridge.

Coatbridge used to be a centre for heavy industry with a dirty old dilapidated canal running through it. Now it’s cleaned itself up quite a lot and most of that dirty old canal has been drained or filled in and where that failed, it’s been gentrified. We used to restrict ourselves to a wet walk around the pond whose name is really Lochend Loch. The path was really a conveyer belt with people in both directions, keeping left and stubbornly completing their exercise for the day. It was only recently we discovered the paths into and around the woodland that covers the majority of the park. The forests are a mixture of deciduous and coniferous trees and the paths are wide and winding. Some gentle climbs and some slightly more demanding. All easy walking, really. It’s difficult to get lost with the park being bounded by a railway line, a road and the pond, oops Loch. Wandered round today and chose a new path we hadn’t travelled on before and found a cricket ground. A cricket ground in Coatbridge! Who knew? The walk finished with an ice cream cone which seems to be becoming the icon of this spring’s warm days.

Back home I fashioned the remains of yesterday’s pizza into another shared pizza. It wasn’t quite as memorable as yesterday’s, but it filled a wee space. After that and after a cup of coffee, Scamp seemed determined to tidy things up an I got my shorts and boots on and went for a walk in the woods of St Mo’s. I’d tried a few shots of blossom and horse chestnut flowers in Drumpellier, but I reckoned there was better to be found in St Mo’s. Actually it was the blossom from Coatbridge that got PoD and a little mini tree got second place. None of the chestnut tree pictures got a sniff at the place on Flickr. Maybe once the candelabra flowers open up they will get their place in the sun and on Flickr.

Dinner tonight was a disappointing curry from Bombay Dreams. Pakora was only just warm and my Chicken Tikka Bhoona had too much ghee and too little flavour. Scamp’s seemed to be a bit better. Not their best offering.

Tomorrow may be the last of the warm spring days and we might go for another walk somewhere interesting and not too far away.

 

Another cold day – 6 April 2021

Posted on by Zogman

What has happened to spring this year? We seem to be back in winter.

Another lovely day … as long as you were in the house with the heating on. Once you stepped out, you found out what the Arctic feels like. Of course, I speak from experience. We both stepped out, but only as far as the car. We drove up to Tesco and while Scamp waited in the queue for the chemist to get her meds, I wandered round Tesco picking up the makings of lunch and dinner. Then it was a drive home through a snowstorm. I kid you not, this weather has only got worse since Donald Trump was chucked out of the White House. Bring back DT, Make Weather Great Again.

After lunch we agreed that we should go out again, but this time we’d be walking. Twice round St Mo’s pond without a photo being taken. Then to lengthen the walk we followed the path down in the general direction of the shops, but turned left before we got there. Walked down to the underpass that would take us to Broadwood Loch, but again turned left and went back up to the house. While Scamp was admiring a Magnolia bush, I was looking at some yellow flowers nearby. I took some photos, but they didn’t make PoD.

After a coffee and while Scamp was reading, I went for a walk in St Mo’s. Yes, it was cold, but not too cold, especially if you were out of the wind and in the sun, which I was for a while taking photos of Larch flowers, the aptly named Larch Pineapples. I named them that, you won’t find that description in Wikipedia. Even they didn’t make the grade for PoD.

I walked across what is usually a swampy mess past a small pond. Today with my new waterproof boots on, it wasn’t really all that wet, but it did give me a chance to test the grip from the Vibram soles, and they did get a bit wet. I felt better. They now looked ‘lived in’. Found my little ladybird still sleeping away the cold weather in its little crevice in the ash tree and grabbed the best photos yet of the insect.

<Technospeak>
Back home I squirted all the photos into Lightroom and decided the ladybird and the larch pineapple were the best of the bunch, so I used a new processing app on the iMac to do an auto adjust of the two shots. The results were interesting. The larch pineapple was worse after its dunking in the auto adjust bath. Highlights blown out colour just not right. The ladybird looked a lot better after its magic processing. I can’t explain it. It must be something to do with the basic colours of the subject and the browns and oranges of the ladybird pic work well with the algorithm for tuning the adjustments. Finally decided that the ladybird got PoD and used the new Capture One processing, but processed the larch pineapple with Lightroom.
</Technospeak>

Watched a BBC 2 programme we’d recorded last week about a Scottish painter James Morrison who painted wonderful landscapes from the North East of Scotland. Beautiful enormous watercolours and oils. If you have the time and inclination, watch “Eye of the Storm” on iPlayer. Quite stunning work and a great old man who died soon after the film was made, aged 88 I think. I have to thank Fred for telling me about it.

Tomorrow, Scamp is hoping to go for a walk with Veronica and I’m hoping to bake something interesting for her to come back to.

The North wind did blow – 5 April 2021

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And we did have snow.

Thankfully not a lot of the white stuff, but the evidence was there, on the cars and on the grass. It soon melted in the sun. A beautiful looking morning with blue skies all around and bright sun. However, one look at the outside temperature told a different story 0.7c is pretty cold, even for early spring. I thought we might stay in the warm for a while before we risked going out for a walk. Just to give the world a chance to warm up.

An hour or so later some clouds were arriving from the north and we felt it was time to go out and stretch our legs. Out of the wind, it was quite pleasant, but facing into it, you really did feel that icy blast. No more snow, but a bitter cold. We walked down and round the end of Broadwood Loch, over the dam and down the long winding path past the exercise machines then up the hill to the shops. Not a lot needed today. Just some mozzarella cheese and some fruit and veg. Then it was back home to make lunch.

Yesterday I’d made paella for dinner and as usual I made too much. Scamp had the idea of making some arancini with it. Little balls of left over rice and peas stuffed with mozzarella, dusted with flour, dipped in egg then rolled in breadcrumbs before being deep fried in oil. Scamp was doing the making of the balls and the stuffing with breadcrumbs, plus the dusting with flour. I was doing the dipping in egg and rolling them in breadcrumbs until I had enough to slide into the pot of hot oil. We had about three or four each and that was more than enough for a lunch. They were tasty, but if I was making them again (and I hope we will) I’d use a bit more mozzarella next time.

The lovely sunshine and blue sky kept calling me, especially as the clouds had cleared away again, leaving a sparkling day. However it only took a moment to remember that cold wind that would blow away any enjoyment of a walk in St Mo’s. Anyway, I had enough photos from the morning’s walk I thought. I spent the afternoon watching a tutorial for a piece of editing software I’d got a free, not time limited, copy of. It’s a cut down version of the full editing package which costs an arm and a leg. It must have been one of the best video tutorials I’ve seen. Hardly a stumble in the guy’s explanations and everything clearly presented. No histrionics either. So many people, mainly americans, have to shout at you and dance around when they’re supposedly teaching techniques. No, this was an adult, confident in his ability. He did do a bit of soft selling at the end, but didn’t push the full price version. I was impressed.

It was spaghetti with a tomato sauce for dinner, but the star attraction was home made Sticky Toffee Pudding with loads of sauce and custard. Delightful, Scamp!

Today’s PoD was a branch of blossom caught on our morning walk. I could get used to this morning walk regime. It means we have to get up fairly early and get out. It also leaves time for me to go for a photo-walk later in the afternoon if time and weather permit. It’s so easy to just vegetate on cold days like today. I should have gone out in the afternoon, but my time wasn’t totally wasted. The PoD was processed in the new software which is called Capture One. I knew you’d want to know that JIC.

Another brightener today was seeing the first swallows and this is week 14.  Fairly late this year, but what a welcome they had, flying all the way north from Morocco and arriving into a snow storm!  Whatever would they be thinking?

No great plans for tomorrow, but if it’s as cold as today which seems likely, I may do some fancy Tear and Share bread baking.

 

Today was dull, just dull – 25 March 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Not the most interesting of days. Dull grey morning with the promise of rain later.

Spent most of the morning searching for a paintbrush. Arty paintbrush, I don’t bother much with the decorating ones these days. Eventually found it in the last place I’d look, where it should be with a load of other brushes in a cup on the wardrobe. That’s the thing about putting stuff away after you’ve used it, you have to remember where ‘away’ is.

I eventually dragged myself out for a walk to the shops. Instead of going the direct route, I walked down the path Scamp and I had walked yesterday, hoping to get another view of the deer. Unfortunately the deer had other places to go today. What I did find was a whole tree’s worth of catkins. I’ve never seen so many all out together. A small section of that made PoD.

Back home I began baking. Yesterday we had panna cotta for pudding. It was meant to have a tuile on top. A round wafer thin biscuit curved into a cylinder. Tuiles need to be very thin, so I’d watched folk making them on Monsterchef and they scrape the mixture over a template to get the initial round biscuit batter onto the greaseproof paper. In the morning I’d made these templates. Now I was going to see if they worked. Surprisingly they did and although the baking process was a bit hit and miss, we had a tuile each with tonight’s panna cotta. I’ve learned what my mistakes were from Scamp and will try again soon. Ingredients were:
Soft Butter
Icing Sugar
Plain Flour
The whites of two eggs (sorry Hazy)
All the above in 50g quantities and mixed in that order. Bake for 4mins or so at 180ºc, just in case you fancy trying it.

Scamp had spent the afternoon and some of the morning making Carrot & Lentil Curry. It was very good too. We both agreed it was quite spicy hot, but Scamp was adamant that no chilli powder had been added, just Garam Masala which isn’t spicy. A mystery.

Spent the evening trying to work out how to get a video to play using chapter marks in any of Win 10’s video players. Eventually gave up, installed VLC which, although clumsy, did work. I hate Windoze.

It’s raining quite heavily now, but it’s forecast to be clear tomorrow for a while. We may go somewhere for a walk. If we leave it too late there is the chance of ‘wintry showers’. Brrrr!

Happy Birthday, Birthday Girl – 24 March 2021

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Up and out fairly early.

Had to get up and go out to get the makings of today’s dinner which would be Cod and Prawns with Fennel and White Wine. Sounds really posh, but is fairly easy to do, successfully. However, it does require Cod and Prawns as main constituents and I’d forgotten to get them yesterday. Also, pudding would be Panna cotta which really needs double cream and whole milk, also on the ‘forgotten’ list. So a quick run up to Tesco was in order. Because the ‘birthday girl’ enjoys the odd glass of Kraken dark rum, and because of a price reduction of the same in Tesco, it seemed the right thing to do to add a bottle to the list. Managed to curb my spending to those essentials, and drove home.

After a light lunch and with the panna cotta cooling, we headed off for a walk round the Broadwood Stadium, route, because the clouds were gathering and it would have been pushing our luck to go the full Broadwood Loch path. On the way there, we saw a young deer buck happily grazing by the side of the path. I grabbed half a dozen shots of it before it loped off a few yards than stood in open ground staring at us and looked like it was saying “are you still there?” Spoke to a couple who were walking the opposite direction and agreed that the animals seem to be less frightened of us humans. Probably a side effect of Covid because a lot more of us humans are invading the animals’ space. Not only heavy cloud, but also a cold wind when you were exposed to it might have encouraged us to walk that little bit faster round the Broadwood paths.

When we got home I thought I might have just enough time to go round St Mo’s a couple of times to augment my deer photos. I visited the ladybirds still hibernating in the woods and grabbed a few shots just to remind me of when I’d last seen them, because they will be leaving soon. Nothing else interesting poked its head out to see me.

Back home it was full tilt into prep for dinner. One thing I’ve learned from Scamp and from my one day at cookery school is mise en place, or ‘setting up’. I’ve tried to use it more and more in my recent cookery. Just getting everything at least ready, if not measured before I start. It saves time when the gas is turned on!

Starter tonight was Pizza Bread Bruschetta. Main was Cod and Prawns with Fennel and White Wine. Pudding was Panna Cotta with Raspberries. All worked out well and were deemed a success.

Hazel and Neil had organised a Zoom call tonight with Jamie and Simonne for the Birthday Girl. We had an enjoyable hour talking to them all. What a wonderful idea Zoom is. Not quite as good as face to face meeting, but better than a simple phone call. Great catchup you people. Thanks for organising it.

Well, that was a busy day. PoD was a photo I took of blossom on a fruit tree near Broadwood Stadium. Those who are observant will notice that the blog is now HTTPS after I eventually set up my security properly. I don’t think it will make any difference to your connection, but if it does, drop me a line. Tomorrow, relaxing I hope!

Deep breath and here we go – 22 March 2021

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Today I left Sierra behind and found Mojave.

I’ve been running Sierra on the iMac since I bought it about four years ago. It’s been getting slower and slower all that time. Finally, today, after making another backup and filing away some important passwords, I ran the Mojave installer and went to have my lunch. I fidgeted and paced the floor like a dafty on and off for about half an hour after that. Actually, the time scale the installer gave was almost correct and after an hour I had a new, responsive operating system. I’m quite impressed with it and have learned a lot in the process. The main thing I’ve learned is to let the computer and the code I’m injecting get on with things and don’t poke about in it. I’ll try to remember that when things go wrong as they did about half an hour ago when my memory usage was red-lining and one app was taking up twice as much physical memory as I have installed. Don’t ask me how that’s possible, I don’t know, but it just is.

It was a dull day, so I suppose it was the perfect day to do this kind of messing around. It didn’t actually rain, but it looked like it wanted to. Scamp was busy doing housework while I was pacing the floor and swearing at anything that got in my way. Eventually, I closed the computer down, grabbed my camera and went for a walk in St Mo’s. For the last week the weather has been really like spring, but today it was as if we’d returned to winter. Cold wind, grey sky and not a lot of light. However I was out. I did two circuits of the pond and then came home with a few photos, two of which got red spots, which means they were good enough to post on Flickr. PoD went to the photo of the red flower with the zig-zag stem. I also took a few shots of desiccated weeds. The structure of weeds is really interesting. As someone who used to make a living drawing structural steelwork, these featherlight vertical structures are amazing. They can sway in the breeze and not break. They have evolved to cope with wind, rain, snow, sun and ice. If you study them, they are incredibly strong for their light weight. Anyway, as I photographed some weeds a line from a George Gerdes song popped into my head, “Seeds that I’ve sown were all a bunch of weeds”. When I got back home I searched for George Gerdes and found that he had died of a brain aneurysm on January 1st this year. He was 72. We heard him sing at a Loudon Wainwright concert in Glasgow away back around 1974. RIP George. I loved the humour of your songs.

We had a quick attempt at the figure we learned yesterday, The Five Step, but after Scamp trod on my toe and I trod on hers, both by accident, we decided to call it a day and try agin tomorrow.

There will be some worried faces in the SNP party tonight since Nicola Sturgeon was cleared of ‘breaching the ministerial code’, which is legalese for ”She didnae dae it!” That means all those who had their daggers drawn ready to take her down will be keeping a low profile for some time to come. I’m not saying she’s vindictive, oh no, I didn’t say that. I’ve always said she was the best leader we’ve ever had. Ahem, I think I got away with that.

Tomorrow looks reasonable weather wise, but we may get some of the wet stuff.

 

 

Painting without a brush – 3 May 2020

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Scary business slashing away at a painting with a knife.

For some unexplained reason, I got up this morning and started cleaning up the back room. Scamp thought I was doing it to provide me with a spare bed in the event that someone was disturbing my sleep by snoring. Unlikely. Or did I mishear her, did she say that I was disturbing someone’s sleep by snoring? More likely. If it was either of those reasons, then the prompt was subliminal, I didn’t generate it knowingly. Luckily around 11am it was time to turn on the coffee machine and I gave up on the pointless exercise to return to reality, and coffee.

It looked like another beautiful day had dawned. It had taken a few hours for the weather to get its ducks in order, but now the sky looked set fair for a few hours. I took some of my plants out of the little greenhouse and set them on the grass to harden off a bit. The garden is beginning to look a lot more active with the sun last week warming up the ground and the rain at the end of the week giving some much needed moisture. I even have a pea pushing its little green head above the soil of the raised bed. One pea of the dozen or so I planted in double rows. Well, perhaps it’s one of many to come. It looks like the peas I planted in the little plug pots are beginning to show signs of growth, even a couple of the ones I held back from last years harvest and carefully dried over the winter have sprouted. The James Grieve apple tree has its first flowers and hopefully the Russet beside it will come to flower this week. My biggest surprise is the return of the American Cowslip “Shooting Star”. I’d thought it was dead and was really pleased to see some green shoots coming from it in April. Today it has three flower stalks and two flowers in bloom. I just checked and it was flowering last year on 2nd May. Just one day behind this year isn’t bad.

After lunch I got started painting. I took a photo out of the painting room window and used that as a prompt. A few heavy clouds and some blue sky over the Campsie Fells. It took about an hour and a half to get the first likeness, and another hour after that to get the details. It was all done with a painting knife or two painting knives to be precise, no brush was used. I finished it (for today) just before Scamp called me down for dinner.

Dinner tonight was Bruschetta with a base of home made bread, then a rub with garlic and topped with little vine tomatoes, basil and olive oil. Lovely starter. Main was sea bass with Jersey Royal potatoes and broccoli, washed down with Rosé D’ Anjou. Pudding was our own stewed rhubarb and custard. Quite delicious because Scamp was cooking and I volunteered to be pot washer.

Spoke to JIC and were updated on all things gardening down south and also how to deal with money grabbing cruise companies like, say P&O who withhold the deposit you’ve paid even when the cruise you booked on isn’t going to sail due to government restrictions. We may try some of his suggestions.

PoD was the apple blossom, but the Shooting Star gave it a run for its money.

With the tree lights shining multicolouredly (if that’s not a word, then it should be), that brings us to the end of another blog. Hope you enjoyed it.

Another delivery day of sunshine and groceries – 28 April 2020

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This time Tesco were doing the needful for the groceries and the blue skies were producing the backdrop.

A dull day at 4.40am, but the birds were singing happily. Blackbirds I think, certainly not magpies that abound just now and definitely not seagulls they should be banned or better still culled.

Spent the morning clearing off the dried paint from my painting palette which is nothing more than a large white floor tile, but it has a hard glossy surface that works so well with any kind of paint and generally washes clean. It didn’t do it today, in fact I had to take some turps on a rag to it. That got the paint moving. Unfortunately it made the whole house smell too. I think I’ve finally got rid of the smell tonight. Since I had the turps out, I cleaned my oil painting brushes with it and then washed them in hot soapy water. That way they won’t pass any Covid-19 to each other.

Gary, the window cleaner came round today to make an honest fiver. Haven’t seen him in ages and we did a bit of long distance social distancing catching up. He was asking after you JIC. I don’t think you knew him Hazy. He used to go to karate class with JIC and me. Then it was lunch time.

In the afternoon I sat and struggled again with the problems of getting a Pilatus PC12 to follow a GPS trace. Finally, and I say this with a fair degree of certainty, I know how to set it properly and make the aircraft play nice. It’s just a case of knowing which of those screens to set up properly, which of the buttons to press and when. Heaven knows how real pilots know which of the buttons to press and more importantly, which NOT to press.

Later in the afternoon I went for a walk round St Mo’s. Just because it was so nice, I went round twice and got a couple of photos of blossom and flowers. The blossom was Hawthorn or May Blossom. That got PoD. The other little flower I got was a Lousewort. Ugly name for a pretty little flower. I’d read last year’s blog last night and I’d photographed the same flower, but hadn’t found a name for it. Now I know. I used my old trusted Collins book Wild Flowers of Britain and Northern Europe to find it. Of course I cross-checked it with Google!

Dinner tonight was a combined affair. Scamp made Cauliflower Fritters and I made Souk Style Chicken and Chickpea Soup. It was like a soupy tagine. Very spicy, but not hot. We got the recipes from a cooking magazine and Scamp suggested we both look through it separately and write down recipes we would like to try. Not surprisingly, we both chose a lot of the same things. We’re intending to work through the list now and maybe cut a few from it to make a short list of favourites.

Tesco delivery arrived early as usual and with the wrong printout of groceries. Scamp was confused for a while and then she noticed the delivery address was wrong. Most of the stuff we ordered came this time, even bread flour. Now the problem is going to be finding yeast. We’ve enough to do for about a month, so there’s no rush for it. Just a matter of waiting until the panic buying is past its peak.

Read some sad news on the web today. Apparently John Prine a singer songwriter I’ve been enjoying for the last few months died on 7th April with complications from Covid-19. Such a pity. If you get a chance, search Spotify for Some Humans Aint Human. Clever lyrics that mean so much more nowadays.

More rain tonight, but the day was clear and sunny for most of the time. However, the weather fairies say the good weather isn’t going to last. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Two ponds in one day – 20 April 2020

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It was a fair bit colder today caused by a strong east wind.

East winds are usually cold. They blow in from the North Sea which has no North Atlantic Drift (Wrongly called the Gulf Stream) to warm it up. It felt raw today, but inside with the sun streaming on through the front windows it was lovely. So lovely I didn’t want to shift too far from the couch, which is a bad thing really. Eventually had to move to get lunch. After that I was encouraged to go for a walk to allow Scamp some ‘me time’.

I chose to walk round St Mo’s, but I’m becoming jaded with its greenery, its swans and geese and even its trees which are starting to look very tree-like all of a sudden. I didn’t even take any photos there today. Instead I walked down through the underpass and on to Broadwood Loch. Unfortunately it was the same story as yesterday. Too many people in too big a group with only one brain cell between them. The paths are very tight in places and while some people give you room to pass, some of the dunderheids don’t know enough about social distancing or don’t care and just bustle past. Really, they shouldn’t be allowed out without a carer, a polis escort or at the very least, a man in front of them with a red flag. Cumbernauld! Where it’s not just the dogs that piss on the trees.

On the way back up over the green hill between the ring road and the houses where they are considering (Councilspeak for going ahead with) building yet more houses on the greenbelt. That’s where I found another wild cherry tree and took its picture. That became PoD. Hardly needed any post processing.

Watched Christine & The Queens tonight on YouTube on Fire Stick because it’s about ten times faster than using the Sony TV to do it. It all started with trying to watch the Stones on BBC singing in harmony(!) with each other from their homes, over some supposed video link that was as dodgy as the singing. At least it was funny, but the presenters, oh dear, the presenters. The Wood family. Just not up to the job I’m afraid. That’s what sent us to YouTube to find C&TQ, which was what we were looking for. Amazing performance from Glastonbury last year.

That was about it. Short dancing practise today. Tomorrow, probably longer one.