Category: Canals

Doon the Canal – 19 June 2024

Posted on by Zogman

This morning, Scamp was out for coffee with Isobel while I stayed home and finished my book.

The book is Edge of The Grave by Robbie Morrison. A story based in 1932 Glasgow. If you’re thinking it might be interesting, my recommendation would be to ignore it, and go straight to the second book in the series, Cast a Cold Eye, a much better read. I’ll write a review of EoTG on Goodreads soon, but don’t expect it to get five stars.

When Scamp returned from Costa, and after we had lunch, Scamp suggested we go for a walk. I agreed and chose Auchinstarry as the destination.

We got parked quite easily for a change at Auchinstarry, it’s usually a full house in the afternoon with folk parking there and walking or cycling along the canal. It was a very pleasant walk along the Forth & Clyde Canal, with around 25 photos taken. Favourite and PoD went to a landscape view across the valley to the Campsie Fells under a blue sky and for once I didn’t have to fake the sky!!

We turned at Twechar and walked back along the old mineral line, but about half a mile from the car, Scamp was complaining about cramp in her foot and I was constantly shifting my camera bag to a different part of my shoulder to ease the ache that had appeared. I think we were both happy to get a seat on the wall at Auchinstarry Quarry. Just five minutes made all the difference. Then we drove home and sat in the garden for a while to enjoy the sun. Scamp with a Pimms and me with a glass of beer.

Highlight of the day was watching a cow on the far bank of the Forth & Clyde Canal munching its way through the lush vegetation at the water’s edge.  It stopped for a while to stare at us and it reminded me of a poem:

What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

Leisure by William Henry Davies.

Our own dinner tonight was a re-heated veg chilli and it had increased in heat since it had been put in the freezer a month or so ago.

Watched the second of Scotland’s matches in the Euros and decided that they almost deserved the 1 – 1 draw, but towards the end they were looking ragged. This is the opinion of two people who have only been to one football game in their lives!

Hazy, the Captain’s Grog was even better than Boozy Gladys. You can really taste the rum in the beans. Two very good choices!! Thank you.

Tomorrow is a Tea Dance day. Hopefully I’ll be able to remember which is my left and which is my right foot!

Quandry – 19 April 2024

Posted on by Zogman

Quandary: “a state of not being able to decide what to do about a situation in which you are involved”

We were in a quandary today. Should we go out for lunch or go for a walk. Eventually we came up with the elegant solution to do both, but not at the same time. But first Scamp went out to her Fitsteps class and I set about excising some useless parts of my 512GB SSD. It wasn’t a surgical gloves and a scalpel type of excision, just a heart in the mouth, digital one.

One of the nice things about third party software is that it allows you to search the hidden parts of a Mac that Apple don’t like you poking your nose into. The software I was using was Daisy Disk. A clever little program that shows you where all your junk is stored in your computer. It was only recently I discovered that you can search deeper in to the all the Ones and Zeros that hold Apple’s secrets. To do that you have to make a request to Apple, through Daisy Disk. Then you are given a code that will open up restricted areas on the drive. This isn’t the Dark Web, just a little bit of poking around where we shouldn’t be. The problem was that my 512GB SSD was almost full, because it had 150GB of Apple backups stuffed away in a corner, but with a bit of careful digging around, I could get rid of it and free up an additional 30% of space. That space was being used to produce a backup of the operating system that I didn’t know about until recently and didn’t need, as I do my own backups ever week. Apple, like Mickysoft are devious.

When Scamp came home, I had performed the surgery and the drive was looking healthy again. I’d suggested we go to Hamilton for a curry, but neither of us could be bothered driving there, so instead, at Scamp’s suggestion we went to Mango in Haggs. It’s an Indian and Italian restaurant where you can mix and match your starters and main courses between the two culinary areas. As it was, we both stuck to Indian today:

Vegetable Pakora and Vegetable Boona with Rice for Scamp
Chicken Pakora and Chicken Rogan Josh with Rice for me.
We had a plain Naan to share.

Most of the food was fine, but Scamp reckoned that her pakora was made with plain flour, not Garam Flour. And we both agreed that the naan bread tasted more like a flatbread. Foodies!

Instead of driving home, we took a wee single track road that led us down to the Forth & Clyde canal. Where we walked west towards Auchinstarry, but turned when we were at the first lock on the canal and walked back to the car. Lots to see today. A big bunch of yellow Celandine growing in the crotch of a tree and more on the ground. Some white Wood Anemone close by. I also saw and photographed a Dark-Edged Bee-Fly which I’ve never seen before in Scotland. Another sign of Global Warming perhaps? None of these got PoD. That went to a bunch of dandelions growing from the cobbles at the canal lock.

We drove home on a beautiful spring day with sunshine and blue skies, but with a cold wind from the east. I just knew that Scamp would be desperate to get back to get her grass cut. The first cut of the year. My job was to lift the heavy plant pots out of the way so she could strim behind them and then to replace the strimmer cord when it broke, before replacing the pots again.

Not a bad day. I really enjoyed the walk, but I think I’d go back to Hamilton rather than Mango next time, if only for the naan bread!

Tomorrow we may take the bus somewhere interesting.

 

Just a dump – 29 January 2024

Posted on by Zogman

No, not Cumbersheugh this time, just a bit of clearing out.

Things that had outlived their usefulness or that no longer worked. They were going on a one way trip to the council skips.

But first there was shopping to be done. A long rambling walk round the aisles of Tesco collecting some things we don’t really need, but a lot of things we can’t do without. A Monday shop is really a necessity shop. No frills, just food shopping, mainly.

With that done it was time for lunch, then a gathering together of all the bags and buckets of stuff referred to earlier. It never ceases to amaze me the amount of things that we can fit into the boot of the blue car. When we got to the council tip, most of it went straight into “General Household” the cover-all description of the miscellaneous detritus that isn’t wholly metal, wood or rubble. I did have one or two items that went into the “Metal” skip and one that would have gone into “Small Electrical” if that skip had been there. Instead it went into “General …”

Now I reckoned I had an hour or so to go and get some photos. I chose the Forth & Clyde canal between Haggs and Allandale as my destination. After a being stopped at a few roadworks (February is the month for councils to ‘get rid’ of their unused money. If they don’t do that, their grant for the next year will be reduced) where unnecessary work was being done quite slowly. Eventually I reached the canal and got a few shots on the A6500 then headed for home.

Dinner tonight was pasta with mushrooms, bacon and chilli flakes in a tomato sauce, plus one special ingredient, Hazy. Finely chopped up greenery from a single stem of spring onion growing in a pot of water on the kitchen window sill! That just finished the sauce off perfectly.

PoD was a shot looking west from one of the locks on the canal with a nice little reflection of the trees.

We have plans for tomorrow. Hopefully they will be revealed in tomorrow’s blog.

I saw blue sky! – 18 December 2023

Posted on by Zogman

We drove up to Costa today to have coffee with Isobel.

We spent an hour in a cold barn of a place with a really high ceiling that means any hot air collects under the manky glass roof and doesn’t warm those seated below it. Although, I think the air con was blowing cool air around us. We sat in this dismal place for an hour. Isobel eventually put her coat on. An hour was enough in the cooler and we parted to go our separate ways.

Scamp and I were going to Tesco to get a trolley load of messages which tested the suspension of the blue car. It was just a Monday morning shopping expedition with little to differentiate it from any other Monday, except, the sun was breaking through and a big triangular chunk of blue sky was in evidence! Miracles do happen, even in Cumbersheugh.

We drove home and unpacked the bags and then stashed them in cupboards, fridge and freezer until the bags were empty. Scamp was going to have lunch, but I wasn’t going to let the blue sky and sun get away lightly. I changed into boots and drove down to Auchinstarry to get some real outside photos.

A couple of landscapes were first on the list, taken on a walk along the canal towpath, then as I was crossing into the Plantation, the light was just scraping down the side of the Campsie Fells. Just as I took the shot a deer ran across the path and into my field of view, except that the fraction of a second it takes for the shutter to fire allowed the deer to get into the trees. All I saw on the shot was the white of its tail. Never mind, it was the landscape I was photographing this time, not the wildlife.

I crossed the River Kelvin on the bridge and turned right to head back to the car park and found PoD. It’s a snail complete with shell, paddling across the waterlogged path that used to be a mineral railway line taking coal to Glasgow. A nice low angle and a slow moving subject gave me ideal image for the PoD.

Drove home after visiting Lidl in Kilsyth and wishing I’d walked through the wee park where a bloke told me he’d seen a kingfisher about a month ago, but the light was failing by then and I had to leave the kingfisher for another day. I drove home and had a late lunch of a piece ’n’ cold meat.

Dinner tonight was more of yesterday’s Carrot & Lentil Curry. It had matured since yesterday. Not as sweet and with some extra garam masala, it was a bit spicier.

Watched the final part of Portrait Artist of the Year 2023 where the winning artist painted Dr Dame Jane Morris Goodall DBE for the National Portrait Gallery. It was so good to see a portrait that ended up looking like the sitter for a change.

Tomorrow a bloke is coming to service the boiler and I’m hoping to meet Alex for a photo walk.

Parking – 8 August 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Parking was my problem today.

I’d intended to drive to the station, park there and get the train in to Glasgow to book my car in for service and MOT and then go and photograph the teams as they completed the time trial.

There was no room at all in the big carpark beside the station. Usually there are one or two places where you can find a space, but today it was wall to wall cars in the spaces, on the grass, in the flower beds even. There were two spaces with a SUV taking up more than its fair share of one space and that left none for anyone else. I gave up and tried the station itself, but that is always full, even on weekends when nobody is parking to travel to work. It was full, of course.

I decided I’d just have to drive in to Glasgow and park at the garage, book my slot and drive home. I got in an argument with a big black Mercedes taxi who wanted into my lane, and had to manoeuvre around him. Gave him a blast with the horn, but I don’t think he was all that bothered. I was getting hot and bothered. Finally got off the motorway, found the garage and parked. Big fancy reception are as they all are now. Booked a slot for next week and was back on the road again in ten minutes. I just drove home. At least one thing was done.

After tea and toast Scamp suggested the carpark might be less congested now and I might get a space, get the train in to Glasgow and still get to see the time trial. That sounded like a good idea, but my heart sank when I drove into the carpark. Still full. SUV still taking up two spaces. Gave up and drove on down to Auchinstarry when I got my first lucky break. Just as I was coming in to this carpark, someone else was leaving and I got her space!

I walked along the canal and got some photos including the photo of the old steel seat half way along the path to Twechar that became PoD. It was a beautiful afternoon and I managed one more shot of a Marmalade hoverfly on a knapweed flower.

Back at the car I drove down to Lidl in Kilsyth and got some messages and one of their low GI loaves. Then I drove home and sat in the garden with Scamp who had cut the grass while I was out. She with a sparkling water and lime juice and me with a bottle of Joke IPA. Listened to Winter’s Gifts by Ben Arronovitch and relaxed

Dinner was Egg and Lentil Curry which we sometimes change into Fish and Lentil, but today Scamp made it the traditional way with hard boiled eggs. Hard to believe we bought the cookbook from Woolworths so many years ago.

Tomorrow I’m meeting Alex in Glasgow for a walk and a blether.

Out to lunch – 15 May 2023

Posted on by Zogman

We got the text just after 9am. Ben went to school!

That meant we were on track to take Ben’s mum, Shona to lunch. Picked her up just before midday and drove by the backroads to The Stables because it was such a lovely day. Shona was adamant that this was her treat. In fact this was her contribution to our Golden Wedding anniversary. When she told us that, how could we refuse. Scamp and Shona had a Fish Finger Sandwich each. Big chunks of fish in batter in a panini, with a cup of chips each. I had the meat eater’s version which was a slice of fillet steak cooked rare and also served on a panini and also with a cup of chips. Both lunch meals were delicious.

After lunch we went for a walk along the towpath of the Forth & Clyde canal which runs past the front of the restaurant. We walked for about a mile in the general direction of Glasgow before we turned back. Loads to see today. Butterflies all along the path, Peacock, Orange Tip and Cabbage Whites, mainly. Bluebells growing under the trees and a big Aquilegia growing wild in the hedgerow. Loads of people out on bikes making the most of an unexpectedly good day. There was even a canal boat chugging sedately heading for Glasgow, probably. It was the Yarrow Seagull and it got PoD with Scamp and Shona getting in on the photo too.

We dropped Shona off at her house and we drove home via Tesco. Back home, Scamp swithered, whether to cut the front grass or not. Eventually she decide she would and I was enlisted to lift the flower pots out of the way of the mower and replace them when she was finished.

Some of the roses needed a last trim before the flower buds appear and that was my job. I also pruned the Forsythia now that the flowers had gone over and before the leaves come fully out. My final job was to tie back the pink fluffy plant in the back garden. I can never remember its name. I know there are two of them, slightly different from each other but both are planted beside each other. The one I was working with today is really tall and although I’m sure it can stand up for itself, a bamboo stake and a couple of fairly loose cable ties wouldn’t do any harm to give it a little more support in today’s gusty breeze.

Today’s prompt asked for “Artwork you love”. Scamp and I both love the massive Kelpies. The 30m (100ft) high artwork was created by Scottish sculptor Andy Scott. They stand in Helix Park in Falkirk at the eastern end of the Forth & Clyde canal. They are made from steel and each one weighs over 300 tonnes. They were modelled on real Clydesdale horses Duke and Baron.

We’d ordered a pair of slipper shoes for Scamp at a fair discount last Friday. They were supposed to be delivered today, but the postcode was wrong. A mix up at the ordering stage. My fault for not checking properly. However when we got home the parcel was there waiting for us. One of the benefits of having the same postman all the time is that they get to know the names and addresses and don’t rely too much on postcodes.  And while I’m on the subject of shoes.  A big thank you to Scamp for sneakily getting my favourite black and white dance shoes soled and heeled for me.  I’ve been meaning to do it myself, I even bought Evostick glue to do it, but just never got round to doing it.  Sometimes you have to get the expert to do it properly, so thank you again, Scamp.

Tomorrow, unbelievably we’re hoping to go out for lunch again with Crawford & Nancy.

 

More driving, fewer photos – 26 April 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Scamp was off today for lunch with the Witches. I was messing about with computers again.

She got picked up by Jeanette just before midday. That left me with a few hours to myself. Never a good thing. Usually I fritter those hours away doing ‘something on the computer’.

I have a 2TB (1TB=1000GB) external drive that was intended to hold just photos, but over the years, I’ve dumped other stuff in it too. I’ve a few 1TB external drives that could be cleared out to make room for the ’non-photos’ on the bigger drive. That would give me enough space to allow me to expand the photos on the 2TB to the most up to date version of Lightroom. It’s a lot of work, but it will be worth it in the long run. Today was the dummy run to see just how much ‘non-photo’ data was clogging the drive. I struggled with it for a while, but eventually decided I was wasting a good photography day, plus I’d another plan in my head.

Originally I’d thought I might go for a run to Milarrochy Bay on Loch Lomond, to photograph the famous tree that stands in the water, but the weather wasn’t looking great for that. Instead, I thought I’d go looking for Busy Lizzies to replace the ones that the frost got to a couple of nights ago and I drove over to Dobbies in Milngavie, but there were no Busy Lizzies, to be found, not even Lazy Lizzies. So I drove back almost to find somewhere photogenic.

My best guess for a decent spot was at The Stables which is a pub/restaurant on the banks of the Forth & Clyde canal. Parked at the restaurant and went for a walk west along the towpath and grabbed a few photos and watched the double decker Airbus A380 flying serenely overhead before banking into final to Glasgow Airport. I didn’t take any photos of it. Sometimes it’s better just to watch.
I wasn’t totally satisfied with the shots I had and walked east to see if there was any more interesting views. Bumped into a couple about our age on what looked like brand new Raleigh eBikes. The bloke was at pains to say that they weren’t total electric powered bikes, you had to pedal too, but the battery kicks in then and helps you. I could see how that would be a great benefit if you were climbing hills, but they were cycling on a flat tow path. Not much of a challenge. However, I wished them well on their travels and they did offer to pose for a photo, but I passed on that.

When I walked back to get the car, I saw my PoD. The Gipsy Princess was docked on the far side of the canal and it made my photo of the day. As I was taking the shot, I thought “GIPSY Princess? Is that PC?” Maybe not, but I’m not exactly PC either.

On the way home I stopped at Calders garden centre. It used to have a host of plants, but today it was looking a bit tired, even if the shop and the teashop were doing a roaring trade. No Busy Lizzies here either. I drove home.

It was a venison burger with potatoes and broccoli for dinner. Although she had already had lunch in the middle of the day, Scamp helped me to scoff the remainder of the veg.

One thing that annoys me about the Blue car is the overspeed warning beeps it screams when it feels justified in complaining that you are going too fast, even when the road signs don’t warrant it. In the two and a half years I’ve had the car, it’s been one of the biggest annoyances in it. Today I found out how to silence it. It’s not easy to find, but it is there, hidden under two layers of menu in the Settings part of the display. Silence is golden!

Tomorrow I’m intending to meet up with Alex to visit the Burrell Collection in Glasgow. Rain is predicted.

Another bright but cold morning – 21 April 2023

Posted on by Zogman

We had hoped to go out somewhere this Friday morning, but I’d ordered a bottle of rum that was arriving some time today, but before 10pm. Amazon can be so exact with its timings these days!

To accommodate Mr Bezos, and because it was still quite cool outside, We waited until about 11.30 when thankfully Mr B sent an email to say that the delivery would be between 3.45 and 6.45pm. That is a lot more helpful than ‘before 10pm’. So, we’d about four hours to make the most of. We settled on a walk along the canal to Twechar and back. Then maybe a visit to Lidl in Kilsyth. Done!

Off we went. It had been a dry week with hardly a hint of rain, so no boots needed, walking shoes or trainers would suffice. We parked at Auchinstarry quarry where the ambitious ones were intent on scaling the heights of the practise face of the old quarry. The more confident, or just less cautious, climbers attempt the heights of the more difficult (so I’m told) face of the arc of the main quarry where a wrong footing will catapult you into the cold deep waters of the quarry itself. Untold wrecks are allegedly submerged there and many are the tales told about what they contain.

We weren’t going climbing. Too old and sensible for that, besides the clanging of the carabiners would drive us crazy. We were walking anti-clockwise from Auchinstarry, around the old mineral railway line to Twechar then back along the canal footpath back to Auchinstarry. A distance of about 3.25 miles, mainly on the flat, but with a couple of hills. I think we only met a couple of folk on the way to Twechar along the old railway. On the way back on the footpath beside the canal we did have to give way to a few bikes. It was on the way back we realised that the cool east wind that had been on our backs on the outward leg was now in our faces. Also, there is very little to shelter us from the wind on the canal path, while the lower mineral line still has a lot of bushes that act as wind breaks. The upshot is that we should have gone clockwise today. Never mind, we saw a heron steely eyed stalking along the far bank of the canal and further on, Mrs Mallard out with the chicks. PoD was a photo of a house that sits on the far bank of the canal and provides some lovely reflections in the canal itself. It was taken with the new toy, the Sony Vario-Tessar T* FE 16-35mm F4 ZA OSS.
It took us an hour and a half to complete today’s walk and that included time ‘wasted’ taking photos and a wee rest spot on the way back from Twechar. Thankfully the cough I’ve had for the past week or so seems to have gone (fingers crossed and touch wood) and I felt fine, during and after our walk.

We drove down to Lidl for something for lunch and a few odds and ends. After lunch Scamp went out to plant some Antirrhinums and I found that the basil I’d planted earlier in the week had started sprouting. Dinner tonight was a tub of Chilli that Scamp found in the freezer. While not the strongest tasting meal we’ve had, it filled a space.

My Dark Matter rum did indeed come as promised, just after 5pm and because it was alcohol, I had to give the guy my year of birth! Maybe it’s because I look so young. There you are, I finished this blog with a funny!

I believe there are plans to go shopping tomorrow. That will be fine, because the sunny days have apparently gone for a week or so.

A dull day, a dull head – 17 April 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Woke after a good night’s sleep, but the cough is still there. Thankfully it left the sore throat somewhere during the night and it’s now lost.

We didn’t really have any plans for today other than to go looking for a terracotta strawberry planter, and some strawberries to put in it for Scamp, and a little pot of Lithops (Living Stones) for me. Also, both of us wanted a rosemary bush to replace the one that died during the winter. That meant a visit to Torwood for most if not all of those things.

We did find some of the above, but not all. However, we found other things that we couldn’t have done without. A tray of Antirrhinum aka Snapdragons or as my mum used to call them Map-maps. Much easier names to remember than Antirrhinum. We had lunch in the cafe at Torwood. A quiche and a tipsy cake to share with a coffee and a peppermint tea. Then we were gone.

I’d brought a camera, of course and we stopped at Haggs so that I could get some shots with the new ultra-wide lens. The sky was clearing, but not nearly quick enough, but I got some moody ultra-wide, ultra low level (nearly in the water) shots of the canal. A couple walking along the tow path probably though I was going in for a swim, but thankfully that didn’t happen.

A collapsible pop up rubbish bin for the garden was on our list but we didn’t find it in Torwood, instead, Scamp spotted one in B&Q. Also at B&Q we found a tray of Busy Lizzies for Scamp’s Wanderella planter. Our final purchase was six square blue carpet tiles to replace the dark green ones that I’ve been promising to replace for years. The first dull day, that will be my chance to take out the green and bring in the blue.

Back home and after we’d unpacked everything, it was time to do some basic gardening. For me it was potting up two Teasel plants and chopping up the old rosemary bush. We did get a tiny little rosemary bush at Torwood, but it will be a long while before it grows to big enough to donate some leaves to a lamb casserole. Meanwhile, Scamp was potting things and planting other things and generally being a powerhouse of gardening prowess. Just watching her made me tired and I had to sit down – that’s my excuse!

PoD was that low shot along the Forth & Clyde canal.

Dinner tonight was made by the gardening powerhouse herself and it was Mac ’n’ Cheese! Of course it was delicious.

Tomorrow is supposed to be bright and sunny, so say the weather fairies if you believe them. We’ll see how it turns out.

 

Ice Cold with Alex – 8 February 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Alex and I were meeting up to drive to The Kelpies today

It was a bit cold when I left the house to pick up Alex from the train station. By the time we got to Helix Park where the Kelpies live, it was ‘Baltic’. The wind was getting up and the temperature was going down. To start with it was fine, we even got in free because the car park is unsupervised between September and March, or thereabouts. We took some photos of the unicorn at the entrance to the car park. It’s made from woven strips of willow, we think on an armature of either copper tubes or maybe just cleverly jointed willow. I imagine it looked good through Alex’s new glass, a 70-350mm APSC lens. It wouldn’t work on my Full Frame camera or I’d have taken some shots. It’s also too expensive and too niche for me.

The main subject of the day was to be the kelpies themselves, so we walked down the long avenue to have a look at them. Alex wanted to photograph them from a hill above the car park and I wanted much the same viewpoint, but looking through some ornamental grass, rather than over it. Once I’d taken them I wasn’t impressed with the results. We walked on the meet the beasts.

I’ve been to the kelpies many times now because they are one of Scamp’s favourite sculptures and mine too, I must admit, but I wanted to try some different views. With that in mind, while Alex was photographing the 1/10th scale maquettes outside the cafe, I wandered along beside the canal under the motorway flyover and got some different perspectives on the monster horses. One I haven’t worked on yet on the computer was taken with Baron the ‘head up’ Kelpie rearing over the motorway. Different because you don’t see his body, just from the neck up.

I took a few more, but after we met up again, we went for coffee and a sandwich. The heat when we entered the cafe was a delight. You don’t realise how cold you are until you come in to the warm. Fed and watered, we left to face that wind that seemed to be getting stronger. I took a few shots of the maquettes with the wee 1/10th scale man beside them, helping to give a sense of scale. After a fair bit of work, that became PoD. A few photos later we agreed to call it a day. Windchill was getting to my face and fingers and to Alex to I imaging because he was the one who suggested we head for home.

A total of 93 photos taken with 8 of those rejected. Alex had taken 99. We had both taken a lot of ‘doublers’, but you’ve got to do that sometimes to cover all bases.

I dropped him back at the station and then realised when I got home that his woolly bonnet was in the foot well of the car. A good day, even if it was very cold.

Today’s prompt was ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’. I started out intending to sketch the moon reflecting on a river, because Moon River was the most famous song in the film, but a doodle of Audrey Hepburn quickly took shape instead. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow, but not the Moon River flow in this case!

Tomorrow we’re hoping to go the a tea dance, but first I think we might need some practise time.