Category: Close-up

Back to rain and leaden skies – 1 July 2020

Posted on by Zogman

After a wee respite yesterday, the weather reverted to normal.

Yesterday was just a ‘lucky’. Today it rained for most of the day, but there were a few intervals when the sun looked as if it was going to shine on us, but then it disappeared again.

It was my turn to cook from a trio of magazines. We’d both chosen things that sounded interesting and to kick it off, I was going to make Fennel, Leek and Smoked Salmon Fritatta. Unfortunately we didn’t have any leeks or smoked salmon. We did however have a fennel bulb, so that was a start. After lunch we walked down to the shops in the rain to get the missing ingredients. Apart from the rain it was fairly pleasant. When you look out at the drizzle falling you instantly think of the cold and damp. It was damp, but not cold.

Decided I’d better go out and see if I could photograph anything interesting. I wasn’t really expecting to see anything and I wasn’t disappointed. Hardly a beastie was stirring today. I got a PoD which looks like a little stunted tree, but is actually a little stunted Cladonia lichen. That was about it. Stood and watched two guys racing their radio controlled petrol driven dune buggies over the BMX track. Incredible speeds they get up to once they’ve built up a head of torque. Some magnificent jumps too.

The Fritatta worked out well, although the instructions suggested a 15 minute bake in the oven at gas 4 (180ºc) and that was nowhere near enough. It took twice that long. It could, however be our oven that’s at fault. If it says gas 4, we usually use halfway between 4 and 5. I’ve never managed to successfully calibrate the temperature settings. Maybe someday.

Sketch today was a trio of mushrooms that were heading for the compost bin until I retrieved them temporarily to paint them. It took two attempts and the second was by far the best. I used Cotman colours which aren’t quite as strong as the professional range. I’ve run out of quite a few colours in the W&N professional paintbox and hopefully will get it refilled soon. Until then I’ll use the Cotman colours. I also used Cass Art watercolour paper and it made a bit difference again.

Tomorrow we may drive in to Glasgow just to see how the city is faring. Some shops are already open and it looks like John Lewis is reopening on Monday. Things might be slowly returning to something like normal. Did I mention Cass Art opened today. That’s got nothing at all to do with the intended visit to Glasgow. 😉

It didn’t rain today … 29 June 2020

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… for about an hour. The sun shone too for far less time than that. Otherwise it was same old, same old.

It was a dull rainy morning that led on to a dull rainy afternoon, but finally about 10pm I went to the door and it was dry. I’m not sure if it’s still dry. I’m not looking just in case it’s not.

I drove up to Tesco today in the rain, mainly to get my prescription from the chemist, but also to get milk and bread if there was no queue. There was no queue so I grabbed my basket, disinfected it, sanitised my hands and put on my mask. Yes, I know a two layer cloth mask isn’t going to stop the microscopic spores of the virus, but it makes me feel secure and makes folk smile because the mask has cartoon frogs on it. Scamp says it makes folk give you a wide berth, just in case you might be wearing the mask to prevent others from catching your germs. Yes, that might just be true.

Came home with a magazine, a bag of oranges, two grapefruit and a loaf, but no milk. Didn’t notice until we were having lunch and Scamp asked me where I’d put the milk. What milk? Oops.

In between showers I grabbed a few shots of flowers in the garden and it was the remains of a meconopsis that made PoD. Sometimes the remains of a flower once the petals have fallen are more interesting than the flower. I wouldn’t say that about the bright blue of the meconopsis, but it did make an interesting subject. Only one flower still to open on the plant and that will be it until next year DV.

Danced for a bit tonight, reprising a couple of sequence dances and a little bit of jive to end the session. Only half an hour or so, but I was quite pleased at remembering most of the sequence dance steps and all the Seven Deadly Spins in the correct order! Must do that more often. I’m sure Scamp enjoyed it too.

Postman knocked at the door today and left a heavy but small parcel on the step. It turned out to be a bottle of Barra Gin. Scamp had told me she’d ordered one for JIC and Sim and it had arrived last week after a lengthy wait. It turned out she’d ordered one for me too! She is well named. She can be a crafty Scamp when she turns her mind to it.

So, today was an improving picture. Tomorrow we may drive somewhere, just to get The Messages. I may even take my “I’m Away For The Messages” bag with me. Oh yes, and we might get some milk too!

Ok, you can turn the rain off now! – 28 June 2020

Posted on by Zogman

It was raining at 8.30 this morning at 11.40 tonight it’s still raining.

I don’t think the rain has stopped all day. We did expect some heavy rain from the forecast yesterday, but we also expected some dry spells. The heavy rain came, but the dry spells went somewhere else for the day. Because of that, there wasn’t much to report.

Scamp watched a bit of TV and did a bit of tidying around the house. I made a three layer mask prototype.

Scamp spoke to Shona for a while on the phone. We both spoke to JIC later and found out that his new car, his first Brand New Car was ‘nice.’ A nice car.

I sketched a couple of apples for today’s sketch using my 49year old Parker fountain pen. I photographed our yellow nasturtiums for PoD.

Today we should have been sailing away from Southampton on our Med cruise.

Those were the headlines. Tomorrow will be better, surely. I’ll hope I’ll be able to tell you that tomorrow.

Rain – 26 June 2020

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We were warned about thunderstorms, but we must have dodged them. Not so lucky with the rain though!

I don’t know if we dodged the forecast thunderstorms or if I just slept through them, but not so lucky with the rain. Woke about 5am to torrential rain thumping straight down on the trees outside. I think it continued all morning although I didn’t surface again properly until about 9am and it was raining heavily then too, but not as heavy as in the middle of the night. After a while it seemed to get fed up and turned to intermittent displays of precipitation. Finally giving up entirely just after midday.

We had made a few forays into the garden in between shower to prune things (Scamp) and photograph things (me). It was only after lunch, well after lunch that I felt safe enough to venture over to St Mo’s for some serious photography. Unbelievably in just about an hour I took 100 photos. Exactly 100 photos. Most were culled in the first serious look, that left me with 45. The more critical cull followed and now I’m down to 32, with only one PoD which is a Footballer. The nickname for Helophilus pendulus a hoverfly that mimics a wasp for protection from predators.  Funnily enough I found it beside a school football park.  How convenient was that?

Struggled to find a subject to paint today but I wasn’t giving in and going back to the list. Instead, I chose one of Scamp’s garden plants, a Campanula which has pretty blue/violet flowers. I really struggled with the painting and, as you can see by its absence here, I’m still not 100% happy with it. However, it’s done and it covers Lockdown Library No 74.

That was about it for today. We’re still not out of the woods yet. More thunderstorms and more rain forecast for tomorrow. Don’t think we’ll be going far.

Disobeying orders – 24 June 2020

Posted on by Zogman

Well, not really. We were travelling more than 5 miles from home, but not for exercise or leisure, we were going shopping. Honest!

In the morning we did a bit of cutting and cropping of various bushes. Scamp was dead heading anything that didn’t move and I was taking cuttings from a rosemary bush, then giving it a more serious short back and sides. Might have to do my own hair tomorrow if I can find the time, but I’ll use a pair of clippers, not a pair of secateurs.

We drove to The Fort after the gardening was deemed done and walked around shops that were now coming out of the mothball stage they’ve been in since March. There was a lot more activity in them than I’d anticipated. All sorts of shops, too. It seems that Nick the Chick has turned a corner and is actually taking steps to get people back to ‘normal’ and perhaps trying to kick start business into life again. Let’s hope it’s not too little, too late.

However, this was not leisure or exercise although to the casual observer it might have looked like that. No, we got back in the car and drove on to Morrisons and bought such essentials as yoghurt and fish plus a couple of bags of Yorkshire Mixture sweeties. The place was busy but not overcrowded. We did, however, have our masks on, unlike most of the Glaswegians who are made of sterner stuff and don’t need such fripperies.

Back home lunch was two ‘pieces’ on corned beef with a fair dash of brown sauce for me and one ‘piece’ on cheese for Scamp. Then it was out to sit in the sunshine for a while. I chose not to take the lazy route and went for a walk round St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which is a dragonfly emerging from its nymphal stage. They can live for about two years as a nymph in shallow water before emerging and turning into the adult flying insect. They only live out of the water for about two months maximum. It’s a hard life being a dragonfly.

No sketch today. Too warm, couldn’t find anything interesting, just couldn’t be bothered, to be honest. Maybe I’ll do catchup tomorrow. No other plans for tomorrow, but it’s going to be hot we’re told and with the threat of thunderstorms too.

Dull and damp – 22 June 2020

Posted on by Zogman

That just about sums it up for today.

Scamp was feeling a bit a bit queasy in the morning and only had a very light lunch. She didn’t feel like going anywhere, but that wasn’t a problem because the morning weather was dull leaden skies and a fair smattering of showers.

We needed milk and bread, we also needed to get out of the house. A walk in the fresh air would do us the world of good, so we walked to the shops. Not surprisingly the rain had ensured that there weren’t any big queues with the possible exception of Home Bargains which always has at least a few folk queueing. I think people queue up outside it after the doors are shut and locked at 6pm. It just seems to be what you do outside this great retail experience. We weren’t going there. We just nipped into The Food Warehouse, or Iceland as you will know it and got the essentials. That means bread, milk and chocolate biscuits. Walked back home and although we’d been prepared for one of the showers that had bedevilled us all morning, we never saw a single raindrop.

Back home I decided I’d risk a walk to St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which is either a ‘toadlet’ or a ‘froglet’. I’ve yet to find a good way of telling these amphibians apart. Saw quite a few of them making heavy weather of their crossing from one side of the path to the other. Given that the stones they are navigating through, and over, are bigger than them, it must have been an exhausting journey. Most seemed to make it across safely.

Back home, Scamp was feeling a bit better. A gentle bit of retail therapy works wonders and if this Lockdown is teaching us anything, it’s that we need to take our time. Dinner was plain fare. Just spaghetti with a tomato sauce.

Today I made the decision to abandon the list and paint or draw something that interests me for a change. There are only a few days left in the list anyway and about fifty percent of these lists are just copied from the previous year, so I wasn’t missing much. Today I chose a walk we did on the bridlepaths around Baldock with JIC and Sim many years ago. It’s from a photo and dates from 2013. I remember that day well. I painted it in watercolour on watercolour paper that Scamp gave me for Christmas. This the first thing I’ve completed using it and it’s much nicer to paint on than the sketch book I’ve been using.

Don’t know what we’re doing tomorrow. It rather depends on the weather and how Scamp is feeling.

Joiner – 18 June 2020

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Text this morning from Shona looking for a bit more security work in the flat.

It seems that Ben has been playing in the bathroom and splashing water everywhere, so much so that it was dripping through the ceiling of the flat below.  Could I fit a hasp or a bolt to stop him getting in?  Would it be possible to have some form of lock?I went to have a look and it was a fairly easy job to fit a slip bolt.  The other option was to put on a hasp and staple.  That would be more difficult, but would allow a padlock to be fitted to secure the door more effectively.  Drove up to B&Q and walked straight in.  Almost no queue.  Hooray, things must have calmed down.  Got what I wanted and joined the long queue to pay.  It was well policed and the queue went down quickly.  Walked out and saw that there was indeed a queue now.  In the twenty minutes or so I’d been in the store, the queue had grown from 0 to about 300m long.  It pays to shop early, it seems.  Back at the flat, I got the door secured in about fifteen minutes.  Back home in time for lunch.  My only fear now is that with Ben being almost a teenager, he’ll be strong enough to pull the hasp off the door and I’ll be back fitting a lock with big bolts holding it in place!

After lunch, despite parts 2 & 3 of my Amazon delivery arriving,  a black monkey appeared on my shoulder and I couldn’t shake it.  It might have been partly due to Nick the Chick’s latest pronouncements about entering phase 2 of The Release.  It appears that we are still expected to travel no further than 5 miles for leisure and exercise.  She also said that outdoor outdoor markets, playgrounds and sports facilities will reopen on 29th June, along with some visitor attractions such as zoos – although visitors should still not travel more than five miles from their homes to visit them!  Do the people who make the rules even talk to one another?  Does anyone know of a zoo that is within five miles of Cumbersheugh (Carbrain doesn’t count, because it is part of Cumbersheugh).

Scamp suggested a walk and that was probably what what managed to shift the black monkey.  It’s a long time since I’ve had one and I hope it’s a long time before one returns.  Spoke to Lynn D and her husband when we were out and we both bemoaned the missing overseas holidays this year.  We should have been off next week to the Mediterranean on a cruise ship and she should have been jetting off to the Canaries the week after.  Hopefully the weather will stay warm and sunny at home and we’ll get to go to Scotland this year (if we’re allowed to extend that five mile rule).  No photos taken on the walk, but it contributed a great deal to the 10,000 steps I’ve just recorded.

Sat with a beer in the garden when we came back and took a few shots of the flowers.  Favourite was the seeding Geum with it’s chaotic tendrils.  I made it PoD and called it Boris!  I don’t know why.  Second place went to a macro of a Lupin flower.  Both will be accessible on Flickr after I post this. Sketch today was Something Sweet.  I chose some Rowntrees Pastilles.  Much more difficult to draw than I thought.  The light was fading when I was sketching them, so I took a photo and sent it to my tablet, then drew it from the image on that.  Cheating slightly, but it worked for me.

Tomorrow we have no deliveries, so hopefully we can go out somewhere 4.99999miles away.

Brighter Later – 16 June 2020

Posted on by Zogman

A dull start to the day with this week’s white cloud hanging over us.

Spent the morning spending money on Amazon. Nothing specific, but lots of little things that all mounted up, then there’s the inevitable delivery costs for the items that aren’t covered by the free delivery con. Eventually we agreed that it was worthwhile taking on another month or two of Prime. I just have to put a reminder in my calendar to make sure I cancel it when we’re finished spending!

After lunch I took the Oly E-M1 with the new lens and went for a walk in St Mo’s. Lovely warm weather much nicer than it had been in the morning because that white cloud had burned off. The new lens worked much better today with decent light. Still not that fast to focus, but the results are worth the small inconvenience. Lots of damselflies round the wee pond by the boardwalk. One dragonfly that was cruising round and round, either looking for a likely mate or for some tasty morsel for lunch. Saw a fairly large grasshopper sunning itself on the edge of the boardwalk and got a few closeup shots of it. One of those got PoD.

Back home we sat in the garden for a while before Scamp went in to start tonight’s dinner. We’d pulled some rhubarb earlier in the day and she was making a rhubarb pie for pudding. I’d asked for macaroni ’n’ cheese for dinner and that’s what we were having. It was delicious and served with tomato ketchup. Scamp of course had brown sauce. Rhubarb pie was just excellent. Her shortcrust pastry was just perfect.

The Lockdown Library topic for today was Something You Have Made. I’ve made a lot of things, mainly mischief, but one of the things I’m most proud of is my waistcoat. Complete with dummy pockets, lining, button holes and buttons. I made it all. It was a bit of a trial at times with a whole new language to learn. Interfacing, darts and basting, but it was worth the effort. The first ‘rough’ turned out really good and by comparison it’s better than the ‘finished’ sketch. That’s often the way, but I’d used it as an experiment to find out what medium worked best for the yellow check, and it wasn’t fit to be shown. The final painting is ok, but not much better than that.

Tomorrow we have no plans, but we’ve a Tesco delivery scheduled for between 5pm and 6pm. Chance of rain and thunderstorms during the night and again tomorrow afternoon. If the rain doesn’t come we might need to water the garden.

The Fish Supper – 6 June 2020

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Isn’t it funny that sometimes the most basic of food, like a fish supper from a chip shop is the best thing in the whole wide world?

I suppose it’s the old folk’s version of a McDonald’s. It’s comfort food. In these days of reduced choice when we are all having to cook our own food, it’s the basic food we crave. It’s the food that takes us back to our childhood. For me it was a treat on a Saturday night to have a fish supper. Preferably bought at the chip shop and eaten on the hoof on the way home. Just brilliant. Later it was pizza that caught our eyes, but a fish supper is hard to beat. Must have lashings of vinegar and salt and then, if you’re feeling flush, a couple of pickled onions. Or for the really adventurous, a jar of mussels. Unfortunately the latter are now off the menu for me. Such a pity

But I’m getting ahead of myself. The day started earlier when we woke around 9am leaving me a decadent hour in bed to read part of the first chapter of Spook Street by Mick Herron book four in a six part series/serial. Finally dragged myself out of bed and out of Millennium London about 10.30am for coffee and Sudoku in that order.

Scamp wanted to go for a walk today and the day seemed very promising with blue sky and white clouds. Just the occasional sprinkle of rain to hold us in check. Finally we went out to Condorrat to find out when the chip shop opened and if we needed to phone an order first. It turned out that there was no desperate need to phone an order, so with that knowledge, we headed for Broadwood and the ‘exercise path’. In other words, the walk past the exercise machines. It was indeed a beautiful day and no sign of the rain that had been threatening. Took a few photos on the way, but didn’t really rate any of them.

Back home, I got changed into cycling gear and took the Dewdrop out for a test run. It behaved very well. I think there’s a slight issue with the front disk break, it may not be seated perfectly, but it’s nothing to worry about. The virtually new wheel is perfect.

Came home and the sun was still shining, so opened a can of Guinness and sat with Scamp in the garden discussing what needed to be done now that the first flush of flowers is over. Planning over a glass of stout is the best way to do it. Actually putting it into practice is probably another story … for another day.

Got changed and walked over to Condorrat again, this time with cash in our pockets. This must be the first time I’ve used cash in over a month! The fish supper surpassed my expectations. You may think this is just hyperbole, but believe me, food cooked for you outside your own house is a luxury these days.

A close-up picture of a lupin made PoD and I accidentally, on purpose forgot to do the required sketch. I’ll play catch-up tomorrow.

Tomorrow is not to be as good as today, but we’ll take what we get and say ‘thank you’.