Category: Cars

Fort Apache, Glasgow – 8 December 2021

Posted on by Zogman

Today Scamp wanted to go to The Fort today.

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

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

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

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

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

 

A lovely autumn day – 2 November 2021

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It was a cold day, but a clear one with blue sky and sunshine. A great surprise and a day we wouldn’t waste.

Scamp suggested three places we might go today. Either Culross, Dunfermline or Kirkcaldy. I had a few things to do on the computer first, but after that we could go. We decided that we were a bit late to go to Kirkcaldy, and I settled on Dunfermline, with the possibility of visiting Culross on the way back. Scamp agreed.

On the way there, we again met a cavalcade coming in the opposite direction. Fewer this time, but still with that ’do not get in our way’ attitude. Our drive went well until we were on the outskirts of Dunfermline and got stopped at a set of temporary traffic lights. Temperamental traffic lights with their own sequence of operations:

Red, Amber, All Off, Green. At this point, I started to move forward, but couldn’t see the road ahead for a traffic sign in front of me. Luckily Scamp could see and told me to stop because there was traffic coming towards us on the single open lane. The lights were still on Green for us, but still the traffic flowed past us coming in the other direction. Finally the lights changed to Red, Green, Amber and Red again, but the traffic coming the other way just kept coming. Eventually there was lull in the flow and a works lorry came out of our line and drove part way down the road before cutting in to the closed lane. I was right behind him and then everyone else followed me. We got through unscathed. It was a most bizarre situation and could have been really dangerous. I’ve saved the dash cam footage just in case some jobsworth decides I had run a red light. Maybe it’s a special light sequence for COP26, who knows.

We got parked easily at Pittencrief Park in Dunfermline and went for a walk in the autumn sunshine. We walked down to see the peacocks. There was only one male strutting around, but the colours in his tail feathers was incredible, sparkling in the sunshine. Three or four peahens came out to see us too. Their plumage is much duller than the show-offy peacocks, but I did get one shot I liked, this one

We walked round the formal gardens of the park and I got a few shots, but when I got them home they were disappointing, just not as crisp as usual, Scamp said that and I think she’s right. Mostly they were shot at around f16 which isn’t recommended. I must have twiddled the dial accidentally when the camera was in my pocket. That’s the only thing I can think of.

We had coffee in the posh new extension to the park pavilion. Coffee wasn’t all that posh. Mine was meant to be a cappuccino, but it looked like Scamp’s latte with some chocolate sprinkled on top. No foam and not much coffee either. However, the scones were lovely and fresh.
I did hear an interesting conversation there. An American bloke said to one of the servers “What is Coronation Chicken.” Her reply was “It chicken with a Coronation Sauce.” Well, that cleared it up nicely! He chose a chicken salad instead. I would have too.

We decided to take the longer, but safer route home via Culross. It was lovely just sitting watching the water and the light changing on the far shore. I took some shots from the start of the pier, and it was there I found the settings error. Fixed it and everything settled down after that. PoD was a shot taken there with some daisy-like flowers on the pier wall. I think now they were Chamomile.  Sorry Hazy, I hope that Culro$$ word doesn’t give you nightmares!

Drove home and decided I had enough time to wash both cars before the rain came on. As it turned out I had plenty of time, because the rain held off all afternoon. They look a lot better now, although I think I might take Scamp’s wee red car through the carwash next time.

No plans for tomorrow.

Another early one – 28 October 2021

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Taking the wee red car to get its yearly checkup. Always a case for heart in the mouth.

Drove down to the garage and waited. It was supposed to open at 9am, and although one of the mechanics appeared, it was still locked up. Eventually we left the car key with him and just at that moment someone arrived with the key to the garage, so we headed off home for breakfast, stopping at Tesco on the way for milk and bread. Unfortunately it was still before 10am so the other essential (alcoholic beverages) weren’t available.

A while after breakfast I eventually decided that it was dry enough to risk a walk in St Mo’s to get some photos. If the day brightened up later I’d get some more, but that looked unlikely to say the least. I did get some photos, but none of them were really contenders for the PoD.

Came home and we had lunch. Finished today’s Sudoku and started investigating the possibility of getting my phone to get itself an upgrade. I’d put a dodgy piece of software in it about a year ago that would prevent Samsung doing upgrades every second day. Now that software had disappeared, but its effect was still there. Eventually after consulting with the inter web I found that it hadn’t really gone. It was just hiding deep in the settings. When I too the plunge and switched it off the updates screen lit up. BUT I needed the phone because that was the number I’d given the garage, but once I got the word that the car was ready to pick up, I’d start the installation.

Hazy phoned not long after and she and Scamp had a long discussion about dresses for weddings. You will notice that the ‘wedding’ word is in the plural and it’s no surprise then to discover that the ‘dress’ word is also in its plural form. After the fashionistas had completed their discussion I managed to get involved in the conversation too. We talked for a while about family stuff, just catching up, really. Then my phone rang. The car had passed and been serviced, so was ready to collect. We talked to Hazy for a while longer then said our “cheerios”. Drove to the garage, paid our dues and drove home.

When I was driving back, the sky was definitely clearing from the west. By the time I got home blue sky was visible. I waited for Scamp to return then took my camera for its second walk today in St Mo’s. It was quite warm with beautiful light and I did manage to get a PoD. It was just a little weed that had been washed for days by the torrential rain and all its neighbours had been washed clean at the same time. They really sparkled in the late afternoon sun.

Dinner was Bubble ’n’ Squeak, a long time favourite of mine, but something I haven’t had for years. I even learned to make it myself a long time ago. I may have to relearn it.

The prompt for today asked for ‘Crispy’. I gave them a Crispy Cake. Made with Corn Flakes or Rice Krispies, it fits the bill for me. One of the few cakes Hazy can eat. It mush have been your phone call that put it in my head.

Tomorrow I go to see the health centre vampires who will want to take some of my blood. It’s almost Halloween, so it’s quite fitting.

Life in the twilight zone – 26 October 2021

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Not the scary one, just the one where the sun never seems to rise.

Scamp was out early to go to the Post Office in Eastfield which is where she’d been told there was a parcel waiting for her, the one she’d missed yesterday. When she got there the woman in the PO said she didn’t have it or couldn’t find it, but would have another look and would phone her to update her. We didn’t hold out much hope for that happening. We’ve not had a great deal of success with Parcelforce.

Scamp was going out to lunch with the witches later, and I was off the leash. Yesterday I’d a couple of things in mind for today. I was intending to fix a grip on the cooker top and maybe get round to taking up my walking trousers, because they are way too long. If time and weather permitted I thought I might go up to the Carron reservoir to get some photos and some fresh air. One look out the window in the morning put paid to that last idea. Time might have permitted, but the weather certainly wouldn’t. It really looked like the sun had forgotten to rise. The other ideas would be the fallbacks.

When Scamp had left for lunch with Jeanette, I drove down to Wardpark to book Scamp’s car in for MOT. I drove rather than phoned because the sky might have brightened up and I might manage to get some photos, but it didn’t and I didn’t. I just drove home again and started cutting up my walking trousers. It sounds a bit drastic, but it really wasn’t. I had a plan and it involved sewing and cutting and pressing and it worked. The trousers are now a good 40mm shorter than they were and don’t get caught in the heels of my boots. By the time I’d done that and cleared up the back bedroom a bit, because that’s where I draw at night in October and also where I photograph the drawings to go in the blog and on Flickr. Even I get fed up with tripping over cables, although Scamp won’t believe that. I was just finishing and making a late lunch when Scamp reappeared. I hadn’t noticed the time, but two and a half hours had passed since she left.

When I got back from the garage, there was a note to say that a parcel weIt was in the bin store. I wasn’t sure if it was for me or her, but was pretty sure this was the missing one. It was for me, and it was a bottle of the hand wash that I’d been raving about after we left Bombay Cottage last week, or was that the week before? Anyway, here was the very bottle and it was just the same perfume. That was a brilliant surprise! Thank you, Scamp. I’m still not all that clear on the details of the travels of this parcel, but all’s well that ends well.

PoD turned out to be a detail from a vase of flowers that I sat on the worktop in the kitchen, catching what light was available at the time. It needed 20 seconds of exposure to get the shot, but it was worth it.

Sketch prompt was ‘Connect’. Have you ever stopped to count all the different cables and connectors you have? I don’t have the time to do it, but there must be close on a hundred different pieces of wire and plastic that connect something to something else in the house. Then there are all the duplicates and triplicates and … ! These are some of mine.

No plans for tomorrow because the weather fairies are predicting that tomorrow will be episode two of Life In The Twilight Zone

 

Shopping, Jagging, Boosting – 18 October 2021

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Don’t mistake Jagging for Jogging. Oh no, don’t do that!

We had to be up early today because the lady was coming with the swabs and the iPad that held the questions we have to answer on the Covid survey. She’s been before, in fact I think she was the first Ipsos MORI Market Researcher we met, more than a year ago. We both felt sorry for her having to stand outside in the rain asking all the questions and then trying to security seal the sample bags with sticky tape that wasn’t sticky any more in the rain.

With the survey done for another month, Scamp drove us to Tesco to get the messages. Mostly the usual sensible stuff that we use a lot and we managed to fill the Wee Red Car’s boot with bag after bag of useful sensible stuff. It was raining, of course, and showed no sign of letting up any time soon. When we were driving out of the estate I saw this car sitting under a tree with half the tree’s leaves covering it and decided that if it was still there when we came back I’d go out and photograph it. It was and I did. The photo didn’t need much post processing, it was just one of those ‘found things’ that make you smile. As I was finishing off removing the car’s number plate (on the computer) I noticed it was a Kia and thought wouldn’t it have been nice if it had been a Nissan Leaf!

With the photo done and posted fairly early in the afternoon, I started to make some soup. Today it would be Tomato and Red Pepper soup. I chopped and roasted the tomatoes and peppers then sweated the onion and garlic before adding everything to the pot, pouring in some stock and letting it bubble for half an hour or so. That gave me time to correspond a while with Alex about where and when we’d meet on Wednesday.

It was soon time to blitz the soup and make tonight’s dinner which was Pasta Carbonara and it was fairly good. It didn’t go with the soup, but neither of us paid that any mind.

I’d already agreed with our neighbour, Bobby, that I’d give him a lift to The Link in the town centre for our Covid booster, but when I went for him he said he’d drive because he has his own off-road parking place and parking in our parking area is at a premium after about 5pm. I accepted and then was driven in luxury in his big silver Mercedes. I’d already been warned by my pal, Fred, that there were long queues for the booster jag. He had a 45minute wait in the big converted games hall. He was lucky. We were just over an hour from start to finish, but we both walked away fully boosted and flu jag done at the same time. Ready to face the winter.

The rain was still beating down when we drove home. We rose at about 8am and it was raining. Bobby and I got back just after 8pm and it was still raining. We have had buckets out in the back garden to catch rainwater. They have been filled to the brim for about a week. The birdbath in the garden has been overflowing for weeks. Where is all the rain coming from, and more importantly, where is it all going?Tonight’s sketch is ‘Moon’. I thought about it long and hard and eventually came up with a rehash of last year’s Wolf. Added a crescent moon for the wolf to howl at and that’s what I’m posting here!

We have no plans for tomorrow, because more rain is predicted!

Choosing Shoes – 4 October 2021

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“Bright shoes, white shoes, Dandy-dance-by-night shoes, Perhaps-a-little-tight shoes, Like some? So would I.”

Today we were driving to Rutherglen to get Scamp a new pair of dance shoes, or maybe a couple of pairs or maybe …

I had sent the directions to the Blue car last night and today, when we switched on the ignition it appeared to be there. However it was the directions to our house, from our house. That’s the thing about Nissan electronics. It’s actually Renault electronics and they are probably the worst in the world. So we found a place to park, put the postcode of the shop in manually and it grudgingly gave us directions. After that it got us right to the door of the shop, but there was nowhere to park, so I dropped Scamp off and went to park the car. Then see what the lady in the shop had found to show the dancer. Half an hour later we came out with two pink bags containing three pairs of shoes, all ladies shoes, all dance shoes and all with enough sparkles to light up a Christmas tree. She also had a big beaming smile.

We drove home because I just knew she would want to try them out, all three pairs, one at a time. I was thinking more about lunch. Yesterday’s shepherd’s pie leftovers reheated in the microwave fitted the bill. Then as Scamp went to start the ironing, I took my camera and drove to Fannyside Moor via Tesco where I got the essentials like milk and bread, also Boots where I picked up my meds.

The clouds were low when I got to Fannyside and a strong wind was tearing at them and driving them across the landscape. The afternoon sun was shining through the gaps in the clouds and lighting up areas of the fields and hills. My target for today was an old fencepost covered in Cladonia lichen which I’d photographed before. I took a few shots of it in flat lighting, but had to wait about half an hour before some glancing light added a bit to drama and form to the proceedings and that gave me my PoD.

On the way home my phone pinged a message from Alex confirming that Chatelherault on Wednesday would be a good choice, however his suggestion of meeting at around 10.30am was a little early for me, so I might have to discuss this with him.

Inktober prompt for today was ‘Knot’. A few thing had run through my head, but nothing had stayed for long. Then I had an idea of a piece of string tied round a finger as a reminder of ‘something’, yes, that would do. As it happened it was trickier to draw that I though it should be, but it’s done and in its place now.

Tomorrow we are intending to drive to Falkirk to see Andrew. A very clever man who wears the brightest of shirts and even gaudier socks. He works magic with graphs and numbers. I suppose he is a sort of magician.

The poem was by Frida Wolfe and I’m sure at least a couple of my readers will remember it.

Out for a test drive – 26 September 2021

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Testing the red car and no coffee in a coffee shop. Strange times.

We decided we’d take the red car out for a longer run than it’s had for while. Enough to allow the alternator to generate some electrical power and store it in the battery. I suggested we drive to Robroyston and have a cup of coffee then come home. The drive was fine and the wee red car performed perfectly. The coffee shop, Costa, not so good.

There was a reasonable queue in the shop, but when I got to the front one of the baristas told me there was filter coffee and soft drinks, but no coffee, no lattes and no cappuccinos. If there was no coffee, what were they making the filter coffee with? Maybe instant coffee? Or perhaps gravy browning? To be honest, in Costa it’s difficult to tell the difference. I said “No thanks” and we left. Most of the queue left too. I’m guessing there were no HGV drivers available for the coffee delivery.

Instead we went to Lidl and bought enough to make tonight’s dinner and some other things too and drove home to get our caffeine fix. Again the wee red car behaved perfectly with a few squeaks from the brakes and maybe a noisy wheel bearing, but essentially it was working just as it should do. Now we just have to find a petrol station that’s open, without a mile long queue, and one with petrol in the pumps. That might be a bigger challenge!

After lunch and after watching Andrew Marr savaging Grant Shapps the transport minister and listening to Keir Starmer mumbling about what he’d have done if he’d been prime minister (fat chance of that), after all that, I booted up and went for a walk in St Mo’s. Sitting on an old log I found four dragonflies. I joined their group and took their photographs, individually and in pairs and trios. Never quite managed the full group photo. Well, you know how it is with group shots. There’s always somebody who blinks or looks the other way and there’s always the joker who pulls a funny face. It’s just the same with dragonflies, except with wings. One of the dragonfly photos got PoD.

Dinner tonight was Haggis Neeps and Tatties. No, it wasn’t Burns Night, it was just a great idea from Scamp that really hit the spot. It was buying the turnip from Lidl that settled the case for H,N&T. Very enjoyable and even better, there may be enough haggis left for tomorrow’s lunch.

After dinner and after watching another fascinating GP which Hamilton won <Insert boo here> and Verstappen drove a spectacular second place after starting last <Insert Hooray here> we did a bit of online investigating. Scamp found that the owner of the garage we used to take our car to for MOT and servicing has now gone into partnership in a new place. We may go and do a drive by tomorrow, just in case the wee red car need some TLC.

Spoke to Jamie in the evening and found that life was just ticking over as normal down there. Told him I was testing Dashline and Lastpass, his and Hazy’s password managers at present. I’ve Dashline working on the MBP and Lastpass on the iMac. Not much to pick and choose between them, but I’m just a week in to the test.

Tomorrow we might do that drive by, or we might go for a walk or maybe we’ll do both. Who knows? You might, tomorrow.

 

Recharging – 25 September 2021

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Getting the wee red car back on the road.

Up with the bonnet and then … I found my socket set was all imperial sizes and the bolts holding the terminals to the battery were metric. My 7/16” socket was too tight and the 1/2” socket was too slack. I needed something like a 15/32” socket, or more realistically, an 11mm one. I did have a set of cheap metric sockets at one time, about a year ago, I think, but I reckon I must have thrown them out in a clear out last year. Oh well, I was going to Halfords anyway to get a battery charger. I’d add a socket set to the list.

Drove up to the retail park in my car, in heavy traffic all heading north or east. This was September weekend in Scotland a school holiday and what used to be a bank holiday too, so maybe that explained the rush into the wilds of the countryside. I wouldn’t have rushed, because it was another of those drizzly Scottish days. I got the battery charger and the cheap socket set that I won’t throw out this time and returned to remove a battery that’s only about a year old. Tried to remember which terminal you remove first and found that Mr Google had the answer. Dragged the battery up to the back bedroom and meanwhile Scamp had unboxed the charger which we plugged in and set it to work for a couple of hours, after which it merrily told us the battery was charged and being ‘maintained’ whatever that means. The instructions weren’t that explicit about that part of the charging procedure. Two hours seemed a very short time to charge a totally flat battery, but I took it out and after checking with Mr Google again connected the positive, then the negative terminal. Immediately the warning lights came on in the car which I remembered from last year when I replaced a totally dead battery. Locked the battery in place and tentatively locked the car with the fob then unlocked it again. Key in the socket turned and so did the starter motor and the engine burst into life again! Hooray! The Wee Red Car will live to fight another day. I left it to rest after the open heart surgery, but we’ll go for a run tomorrow just to give it a bit more energy.

A Piece ’n’ Egg, actually two eggs was a late lunch and then, while Scamp did a bit of baking, I took the Big Dog and the macro lens out for a walk in St Mo’s. Found a Black Darter dragonfly on the boardwalk which was very skittish to start with, but after a bit of patient crawling around the boardwalk, I managed to get a couple of shots of it. I saw one last year and was reading about it in last year’s blog post. It would have made PoD, but it was pipped to the post by a couple of mating Shield Bugs. The larger of the two (the female) was calling the shots and decided it wanted to head off while the poor male was dragged along behind. It’s a tough life and probably quite painful being a male shield bug!

Scamp had cabbage and potatoes for dinner while I had mince ’n’ tatties with some of the cabbage. Not beetroot, Jamie! We had a baked corn on the cob each from the Campbell Garden down south. Both were still perfectly fresh. Scamp’s baking had included a rhubarb and apple tart from the Campbell Garden in Scotland. Beautifully crisp pastry. One of the best she’s made.

We struggled through the first Strictly of the year, but I’ll admit I wasn’t all that interested in most of it. Did enjoy the gay couple’s tango. Brilliantly done. We used to do a routine with Jamie Gal’ where the leader became the follower and vice versa. It’s very, very confusing for both parties, but the two men were faultless tonight.

Maybe we’ll take the Wee Red Car out for a run tomorrow to give its battery another charge.

Out early again – 30 August 2021

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It’s becoming a habit, this up and out early.

The reason for today’s early rise was to take the Blue Micra to Stirling for its first service. I’ve not been too impressed with their service in the past, but was willing to give them another chance, better the devil you know … We were there early and sat for five minutes or so before we went in to hand over the keys. Once we’d signed the car over to their safe keeping we were told it would be ready “mid afternoon”. Hmm, obviously they hadn’t read the email they sent us telling us it would be ready by 12.30pm which is hardly mid afternoon. To give the young service assistant his due, he consulted with one of the more senior assistants and came back to say they could indeed have the car ready for 12.30pm. I handed over the keys and we left to find a bus to take us to Stirling itself, the dealership being on the outskirts of the city of Stirling.

Basically, we’d missed the bus and there wasn’t another one for 30 minutes. Mr Google said it would take us 20 minutes to walk into the city centre. This is beginning to sound a bit silly. Stirling is legally a City, but in reality it’s a big town with ideas above its station. From now on in today’s blog, it’s a town, with a town centre. Right? Good, let’s get on.

Mr Google was right on the money. Twenty minutes later we were walking into the town centre. We were going to got to Nero for a morning coffee, except the shop was experiencing a bit of a coffee rush and was queued out the door, so we went to a wee independent we’d been to before. It sold decent coffee and probably had cakes too.

While Scamp secured us a seat, I ordered two coffees and the slice of cake that Scamp had pointed to and watched the bloke at the counter note them down on his pad using a kind of shorthand. However when I chose an Eiffel Tower (two layers of sponge with cream in the middle and the whole thing covered with strawberry jelly and desiccated coconut) I noticed he spelled Eiffel with an “A” maybe it wasn’t an A at all, maybe it was a little drawing of an Eiffel Tower. Whatever, the coffee was weak, but the ET was excellent and he’d given me something to think about that would stay with me all day!

We walked round the Thistle Centre which used to be a thriving arcade with no empty shop fronts. Now there seemed to me more boarded up ex-shops than those open for business. It’s a terrible sight that’s becoming more and more common these days.

The garage phoned at about 11.30 to say that the car was ready to collect. We walked back the same way we’d come and picked up the keys, collected the paperwork and paid for an hour’s work, and drove home.

After lunch Scamp cleaned the downstairs toilet and I did the upstairs bathroom. With that done I felt I’d contributed something and went for a walk while she did the ironing. I’m not good at ironing. I put more creases in than I take out. I walked down and round the boardwalk at Broadwood for a change. I saw two ladies seemingly feeding the ducks from the boardwalk and commented on it, but was told they were feeding the fish. Sure enough the little fish were gathering to feed on the fish food they were throwing down to them. Now that’s something I’ve never seen in Cumbersheugh before. I walked round the loch a bit and included them in a photo of the loch.

No plans for tomorrow. It will be a surprise!

 

The man who worked in the garden – 28 May 2021

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We couldn’t decide whether to trust the weather or not. NOT won.

It wasn’t a terrible day, but it wasn’t looking like it would stay dry all day, so we chose to work in the garden instead. Lots of things needed fixing, moving, cutting and filling, so there were plenty of jobs to fill our time. I started by strimming the back grass. There wasn’t much grass to strim, but just like a bad haircut, it’s the little areas with the long strands that make the place look untidy. I’d done most of the grass and weeds when the plastic cable on the strimmer broke. When I thought I’d reassemble the cutter again the drum flew off and the plastic strands became tangled into a birds nest. Ten minutes and a bit of swearing later it was working again … properly!

Scamp meantime was rearranging the flower pots. Because of tree roots in the back garden, many of the pots sit at odd angles and today it was the pieris that was causing problems. I thought it might benefit from some bark underneath it as a cushion and levelling agent. The problem was that the pieris itself is really heavy and fairly bushy, so it takes two people to manoeuvre it into place again after it’s been moved. I think it looks better now that it’s on an even keel, but I’m not sure Scamp agrees. Only time will tell once it’s settled in its place. I dug out some compost from our compost bin and used it to cover the sprouting potatoes in their bags, after I’d filtered it for slugs which were promptly despatched to the brown compost bin to go to the council recycling facility. Scamp was also adding a load of trimmings and rubbish into the same brown bin for recycling. All in all an hour and a bit’s work made the whole back garden look so much better and gave us an appetite for lunch.

After lunch we went for a walk round St Mo’s, but again, no damselflies, although the cygnets were out with mum and dad. Last night after posting the blog I was reading last year’s blog and found that a year ago yesterday I’d photographed the first damselfly of the year. So, rather than being a bit behind this year, we are actually ahead of last year’s hatch. The walk brought today’s PoD which is a snail sheltering under a leaf. I wondered, as I was taking the shot, if that snail knew more than me and perhaps rain was on the way.

Dinner tonight was Frittata. Fry up a couple of leeks with any veg or meat you fancy in an oven proof pan. Beat up eight eggs and half a cup of milk and pour over the leeks/veg/meat mixture. Cook for about 5 minutes then bake in the oven at 180c for 15 mins(ish). Done. Serves four or serves two for two days. Sorry Hazy, obviously not for you!

Today’s prompt was for “Your Car, Any Car, A Matchbox Car …”. I chose Scamp’s Wee Red Car. I took some photos of it today and tonight I attempted to draw the car from those reference photos. Trying to get realistic curves in perspective is much harder than drawing an extension cable, even a four gang, switched, three pin UK one. Believe me. However, it’s done!

So, although the majority of Scotland is now in Level 2 or below, Glasgow has to remain in Level 3 until next week at least. I feel sorry for all the restaurant owners and publicans who can’t open their doors because a fairly small section of the community can’t obey the rules. Another case of ‘one bad apple’, or so it seems.

Tomorrow we may go on the road again, somewhere, whatever the weather. That will mean filling the Blue car’s tank again. That will be the fourth time in five months! I’m not sure we can afford this luxury!