Category: Dancing

It was a dancing day today – 14 March 2026

Posted on by Zogman

Drove over to Brookfield for the first dance class in ages.

Traffic was quite heavy this morning when we went to Brookfield. First worrying sign was that everyone still had their outdoor jackets on. While I was signing in, Stewart broke the news that the heating was off. Something had gone wrong with the Hive heating system and this in a big hall is not a good thing.

Stewart suggested we start with a House of Bamboo to get us moving. Not my favourite line dance, but at least it warmed us up. Next was a much more complicated ‘Hobie Quickstep’. I remembered the name, but couldn’t remember the actual steps. Scamp remembered part of it, but it was just a blur to me. Also, it went on for ages and I was getting really fed up with it. A new Waltz was next. It might be named Britannia or it might not. It was really just a bit of fluff to keep us on the dance floor and moving. The final dance was Rona’s Rumba, named for an enthusiastic dancer in the class, who passed away a few years ago now. This was one of Jane’s creations because she and Rona were great friends. We finished with two old favourites, Midnight Jive and the mental Fireball. I excused myself to go to the toilet instead of chancing the Midnight Jive because although it gets your heart pumping, it’s a bit of a nothing dance. Fireball is just a fun dance, in fact I wouldn’t even call it a dance. It’s just an attempt to be the person or persons who can shout “Oi !!” and “FIREBALL” the loudest.

With that we were done and returned the hall to the poor bowlers who must have been freezing sitting in an unheated room discussing this year’s competitions. Rather them than me.

The drive home was a nightmare with two lanes being squeezed into two and a crawl for about ten miles before everything started to thin out with no rhyme nor reason for the problem. Sometimes it’s like that and some day I’d like to view the motorway from a helicopter to try to understand the flow of traffic ( or the lack of flow ).

Back home I went for a walk to stretch my legs and got today’s PoD which was a Sycamore seedling pushing its green head out of the leaf litter in St Mo’s. I thought it deserved a photo. Walked home in the rain. By the time I got home the rain was going off! Sometimes life is like that.

For ages, since I got this new iMac I’ve had the feeling that the colour balance wasn’t right. Today I found out why.  I fixed two switches in the “Displays” part of “System Settings” Here they are for when I next need to use them:

Brightness set as suits the display.
Automatically adjust brightness – OFF
True Tone – ON
Colour Profile – Adobe RGB (1998)

Remember that ya Numpty!

No plans for tomorrow, but I might see if Alex is free next week.

 

Still working on the back room – 16 February 2026

Posted on by Zogman

More tidying was the main topic for today, the back room is better, but it needs a lot more work.

I was just waking up, properly when my phone rang. It was the Health Centre to tell me one of the docs wanted to phone me on Wednesday about my latest bloods results. That’s never going to be a good conversation. No details were given, just that the doc would phone me on Wednesday at 9am. I tried to explain to the lady on the line that I don’t do 9am, but she gave me the rubber ear. So Wednesday it will be. I hope it doesn’t take too long, because I have people to see, places to go on Wednesday.

After that joyous start I looked at some of the puzzles and managed a 4 for Wordle which is pretty good these days. ‘Strands’ was tedious and complicated then I solve the Mini Crossword with almost no trouble. That was about it for the morning.

In the afternoon, Scamp encouraged me to go out for a while. I did, but it was under duress, however the weather was not nearly as cold as I thought it would be and when the sun shone for a short while it was almost like Spring. In fact, that was exactly what if felt like. Some trees are beginning to show the buds on their branches and with a bit of luck there will be flowers on the trees too.

I think my favourite Sony 24 -105mm lens is a goner. It makes screeching noises as soon as I gently press the shutter button. T the 16-35mm lens is beginning to sound the same death knell. I think I may have had the camera bag open during one of those torrential rain showers and some rain has found its way into the internals. Looks like I need to break open my piggy bank.

We went to Kirsty’s class tonight, but I just couldn’t get my head round the spin turns and the fishtails. Scamp did her level best to show me how it worked and once, just once it worked. Must try harder.

Watched another of the pot throwing competition and marvelled at the way these people can manipulate clay and produce flowers from it. I once made a slab pot at college and thought I was great!

PoD was a low view along one of the channels in St Mo’s pond. Lovely reflections from the sky.

Tomorrow we may go to Glasgow for a Special lunch.

Happy Anniversary Hazel and Neil

Hope you had a great day.

 

Dancin’ – 7 February 2026

Posted on by Zogman

Out early as usual on a Saturday.

We drove over to Brookfield, a fairly easy drive to light traffic but clouds and occasional rain. What we’ve come to expect these wintry days.

The class started with a quickstep, but not one we already knew. Almost everyone else seemed to be happy with it and although we did bring this fact to the attention of the teachers, we didn’t get much instruction. Luckily I had Scamp to tell me what the teachers were doing and after I’d added in a few steps from Thursday’s Tea Dance, it began to come together, but teachers are there to teach, not to get partners to make up for their shortcomings. I don’t think Stewart believed we’d not done this dance before. For the first time in ages I wasn’t impressed with his teaching.

What I will say in his defence is that he did intersperse some units with a couple of sequence dances, mostly ones we knew. Given that we’d had a tough start to the day, I did actually enjoy most of the class I think Scamp did too.

We drove home with about a million others, all heading in the same direction as us at about 15 mph and in the rain again. It was a stop/start drive, but after half an hour or so the traffic picked up speed and thinned out. No rhyme nor reason to it. I’m sure you’ve all seen this feature of driving in the past. Nobody seems to be able to explain why the roads get snarled up and then just return to normal with nothing to explain it. I wish I could be in a helicopter to watch the changing traffic patterns from above. It would be an interesting thing to investigate.

I chose the M74/M73 again and everything went smoothly back to the house. Lunch was toast and beans. A simple menu that just hit the spot.

Later in the afternoon I went for a walk through St Mo’s and got a few photos, a very few. My favourite and PoD was two magpies discussing world problems in a tree. Magpies, the Darth Vaders of the Avian world.

We’d hoped to have a Chinese dinner, but Golden Bowl in Condorrat was closed until the 13th of the month, so it was Fish ’n’ Chips instead. Lovely fish, but too much chips. We watched the Olympic Snowboarding and Luge while we consumed our dinner, wondering why people put themselves through these dangerous looking games. Good fun to watch, but I can’t see it catching on in Cumbersheugh.

As far as tomorrow goes, we have no plans. Not ever Snowboarding.

Dancin’ – 5 February 2026

Posted on by Zogman

We drove to Glenburn to go dancing.

Drove through the rain and wind and traffic and were making fairly good time until we neared Glenburn where we had to get through three different sets of temporary traffic lights. One set of the ‘temporary’ lights will be there for months. That’s not my idea of temporary.

When we got there, Scamp was the star attraction with all the ladies and both teachers asking questions about what had happened on Monday in Dundee. I had laughingly suggested to her that she should have typed up a description of the day and run off a few copies to hand out to anyone who wanted to read them. Scamp said ‘NO’!

We did get through a fair few dances in our couple of hours. Most of them were sequence dances, but some were ballroom. We left it quite late to get back to Cumbersheugh, and took the M74/M73 route which is longer by the mile, but without as many holdups as the shorter M8/M80 way. I think in the end there’s not much difference between them.

It was raining when we arrived home and I chose an indoor shop for PoD. It’s a shot of a few Cerinthe seedlings sitting on a window ledge.

Hoping for a better day tomorrow. Always hoping!

Scrubbing the floor – 26 January 2026

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We weren’t down on our knees doing the scrubbing. We’ve got a machine to do that for us now!

In the morning we built up the Vax carpet cleaner. It’s a bit of a beast! With a lot of reading of the instructions we managed to get it built up. Then we added some water and a glug or two of the magic carpet cleaning stuff, plugged it in and started it going. It’ quite noisy and it was soaking the carpet, until we realised we could push it forward quite quickly, but had to withdraw it fairly slowly so the muck in the carpet was sucked into the chamber. In the end we were both impressed with the efficiency of this new technology. So far we only have a small bottle, but I imagine we’ll get a larger bottle before the end of the week. We were impressed by the amount of muck that was sucked into the dirty water container!!

After that we walked down to the shops to get something for lunch and also something for dinner. It was cold and a bit windy, but the weather fairies are warning us that it’s going to get even windier before the end of the week.

I took myself out for a walk in St Mo’s later and got a few photos, but even fairly early in the afternoon, the light was fading quickly. For a change I took the small A6500 with me. I usually use a nylon cord to suspend my cameras when I’m walking. I almost made the mistake of letting the A6500 dangle, but realised just in time that there was no cord on the camera today and caught it before it fell. Eejit!

Once round the pond was enough for me today. If there had been more light and it it hadn’t been quite so cold I’d have gone for a second round, but once was enough today.

We drove over to Kirsty’s class at The Link and completed the third part of the three part Tango routine. It was a bit repetitive in places and the constant turns were causing some of the ladies, Scamp included to become dizzy, so I don’t think the full routine will be danced very often.

PoD was a three holly leaves making a break for freedom from a nearby wooden fence.

I think we may be going shopping tomorrow, but as usual at this time of year, it all depends on the weather

Dancin’ – 24 January 2026

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Today was Saturday and every Saturday we go dancing, well, not really every Saturday, but most.

Today I wasn’t really looking forward to driving for three quarters of an hour to get to Brookfield for a dance class that would entail me ‘dancing’ the Samba. It’s not a real dance, just a way of shuffling around the floor to music. That’s not dancing!

Right, I’ve got that out of my system and I can now talk about what we did today. Drove to Brookfield and it was a busy dance floor. Lots of folk willing to have their hip joints dislocated for no good reason. Oops, there I go again. You’d think I didn’t like Samba! I’d rather dance Salsa or Soca or anything other than Samba, but I must cool down now and concentrate on what I did enjoy, and not mention SMA again tonight.

We had a Waltz to manage first and it, at least had some redeeming features. For a start, it’s got ‘real’ music not just heavy beats and no structure, and once you learn the names like “Syncopated Whisk” and a “Double Reverse Turn” it becomes a bit clearer. I just think it makes me sound clever when I say “Oh yes, we were doing a Double Reverse with a Syncopated Whisk”. I don’t know what it means, but other people listening to me might believe I was fully ‘au fait’ with the subtleties of this dance. Don’t be fooled people. I was just “doin’ a wee bit of spinnin’ roon the flair”. Scamp, on the other hand, knew what all these mysterious words meant. Either that or she’s a very convincing liar!

After the statutory hour and a half of gyrating round the floor without bumping into too many people, I was so glad when Stewart called a halt to the proceedings and sent us on our way, probably with his head in his hands and asking himself what he’d been teaching for that hour and a half.

We drove home through fairly heavy traffic with some of the signs on the gantry reducing our speed to 20mph. Do these people really understand what 20mph looks like? How many folk could honestly say they have driven at 20mph on a motorway. Very few I’d imagine I’d think.

Long story short, we went through the Clyde Tunnel and on to meet the M8 on the other side of the Clyde and from there it was an easy drive home through glowering clouds constantly threatening rain that never came. Lunch was half a Ginster’s for me and Toast & Banana for Scamp. Then an hour to work on the answers to Wordle et al.

In the afternoon I went for a walk round St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which was a drooping weed and a lifebuoy with the title “The Titanic Sinks Tonight”. They’re on Flickr if you choose to peruse them. We watched the Great Pottery Throwdown which is actually a lot better than I thought it would be. I can’t remember being shown how to ‘throw pots’ but in my first year at Cumby High I do remember John Swan teaching John M and me how to make slab pots and coil pots too. I’ve actually still got both pots somewhere about the house.

Tomorrow we may go looking for a carpet cleaner. What fun we have!

Dancin’ – 22 January 2026

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Today was Thursday and every second Thursday we go dancing in the afternoon if we can manage it.

We drove through the rain today to get to Glenburn and were surprised to see a lot of empty tables. We knew that David and Carol wouldn’t be there, but hoped that more would be coming, and they were coming. In their dribs and drabs they filed in, paid their entrance fee, had a word with Stewart or Jane and found a spare seat to change their shoes to dance shoes and join in the conversation. I think it’s the camaraderie I like best about dancing, especially dancing in Glenburn. There are no airs and graces, everybody talks to everybody else, plus there is always some Tea Loaf to go round at half time!

Today we hardly missed a dance. Sometimes one of us would get it a bit wrong, but nobody notices or sometimes just pretends not to notice and the dance goes on. Some ballroom dances today but lots of sequence dances. Most people gravitate to one or other, other just dance. The time seemed to pass very quickly today and then it was time for the Tea part of the tea dance. After the tea drinking and the chat, we started again. The second half of the afternoon is usually all sequence and it’s a shorter half than the first half. We’re usually in a rush to get out before the schools come out, because the roads get busy then, with the homeward rush beginning. We just took it easy today and drove the M8/M73 route with is longer in miles travelled, but usually faster than the stop/start on the Kingston Bridge. In the end, there’s very little difference between both routes.

Dinner tonight was a chicken curry, made from an easy recipe that provides all the spices for you, leaving you to supply your own meat, fish or veg. It’s one of our favourite dinners and this one was no exception.

We watched another episode of Landscape Artist of theYear. They, the experts picked the wrong person this week. They need a good talking to these folk. Too busy spouting nonsense and then picking a numpty as this week’s winner. Bah!

Since it was dark by the time we got back from Glenburn, PoD was an inside shoot. It turned out to be three miniatures of whisky on a white ground. “Getting ready for Burns Night on Sunday” the story said!

Tomorrow I think Scamp may be going Fit Stepping in the morning. If it’s dry, I may go over the road for a walk. If it’s wet, I’ll probably start filling a black bag with rubbish to go to the skips.

Sunshine at last! – 19 January 2026

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Hooray for a day of bright sunshine. A bit chilly, but we can live with that, we’re Scottish!

I was out in the morning to get my broken tooth replaced with another more solid one. I had already had the preparation done and this was just the fitting and gluing in place. Also I talked the dentist into repairing a tooth whose cap had come off a month or so ago. She very kindly did both jobs at the same time, well one after the other, obviously!

Drove home with a strange feeling in my mouth. My tongue was a bit upset with this new interloper, but by the time I got home, tongue and tooth were getting along fine. Let’s hope it’s a marriage that will last.

The sun was still shining brightly when I got back, so I took that as a sign that I should get out and get some photos while the big ball was still in the sky. I drove up to Fannyside.

When I was driving there I passed a load of new houses. One of them had a jet of water outside it shooting straight up into the sky. The water must have been more than three storeys high. One poor bloke was in charge of waving traffic through the water. Somebody was going to have the “Looong Monday” John Prine sang about.

I hadn’t been to Fannyside this year, and went for a walk. I found some old rotting fence posts simply covered with Cladonia lichen and took a few shots. I gave myself a limit of the farmhouse at the top of the hill. From there I walked back, past the car and on as far as a stand of trees that create interesting shadows if the sun is in the right place. Then I had to drive back home to have lunch. For once I stuck to my pledge and got back with a fair few photos, certainly enough to get one or two ‘keepers’. On the way home I noticed the gusher had stopped gushing and the road was almost dry again.

Scamp had an appointment for a video appointment with a neurologist who specialises in Essential Tremor treatment. We were only on-line for about fifteen minutes, but in that time he, the neurologist, had agreed with Scamp that she should go to Dundee to have more tests to find if the procedure would work for her. He also explained that more modern techniques were now available. Now we have to wait and see what the outcome of a Dundee visit will be.

Today’s PoD was a stand of trees on a long straight road at Fannyside.

Today’s dance class with Kirsty was a bit of a hit and miss. We danced three different routines, but none of them seemed to gel with either of us. Scamp was feeling dizzy with some of them and I just felt lost. As Scamp said tonight, Kirsty is good at demonstrating, but isn’t great at choreography. I know I left wondering what I’d learned tonight and couldn’t really say I’d learned anything useful. Maybe next week Kirsty.

Tomorrow we’re possibly going shopping.

Busy day – 12 January 2026

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The morning was the relaxing part of the day. The rest was kind of busy.

I had a couple of very belated Christmas cards to write, just a catch-up with people I used to work with and cards that I’d put on the back burner too many times for my conscience. They were a bit of a scribble, but both were different and to totally different people, so both where written as opposed to battered out on a computer keyboard. With that done, I felt a lot better.

We drove to the Town Centre Tesco for Scamp to collect some messages for tomorrow’s dinner with Crawford and Nancy at our house. Another tick in another box. The third thing for today was my annual retinopathy check which seemed to pass without too many questions. Then we were free to drive home on a cold afternoon. The occasional splashes of rain driven by a cold wind that seemed to continually change direction.

Walked over to St Mo’s more for the walk than for any photos, but the rain kindly stayed away for the half hour I was there. I got a couple of shots. PoD went to desiccated hawthorn berries on almost bare branches.

A spot of lunch and then we were getting ready to go to the first weekday dance class of the year. Today’s class was Tango. Slightly different from our Saturday class, but well worth going to. Little things to pick up on, like crossing my foot behind, not in front of the other.

Back home we watched our usual Monday trio of puzzles and games. Then as I was trimming and twiddling with today’s photos I discovered there was a problem with a couple of day’s photos. Two hours the dulling of the first of our automatic lights announced that it was 11pm. Bed time was coming up fast.

That’s when I started writing the blog. The tangled wires and stuff in Lightroom will have to wait until tomorrow to be fixed. It’s a busy life us retired folk lead!

Tomorrow I’m going to be baker of bread. I’ll also be a helper for Scamp when she needs it. Another busy day then Crawford and Nancy are coming for dinner. More high jinks!

 

Dancin’- 8 January 2026

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Today was all about dancing.

We drove through the snowy, sleety rain to get to Glenburn, but all the work was worth it.

The pavements were slippy when we left the house just after midday. The actual roads themselves were ok to drive, but occasionally it was sensible to drop the speed and concentrate just on driving. We made fairly good time considering this was a Thursday in the middle of the day and we weren’t the last to arrive.

We danced at least one of every track Stewart played. The only one I remember missing was a slow Quickstep which sounds like an oxymoron, I know. It would have suited us down to the ground, but I was talking to David and Scamp was talking to his wife at the time, so we didn’t really get a chance to shine. Pity!

As usual, it was a cheerful happy bunch at Glenburn and a nice collection of music to dance to. Ok, some of it needed a nudge from Scamp to get me started, but after that, muscle memory kicked in and we were away.

We, ourselves, were away almost on the chime of 3:00pm from the clock that was running two hours behind. For once I chose the right road home. Over the Kingston bridge an on to Cumbersheugh. We got parked fairly easily, not in the exact place I’d have liked us to be in, but close enough. One look at the sky told me that I wasn’t going out again today. Actually the automatic headlights had come on just about 12:30pm. It was that kind of day.

I was chef for the day and I had already chopped the tomatoes and roasted them last night. Today was just a case of blitzing them in the blitzed ( technical description ) and heating them up to become tonight’s dinner, helped by that delicious bread again. I must get back to making our own bread.

We watched an episode of Grantchester tonight. It’s getting a bit long in the tooth now, but at least there is a story line to follow. Simple, though it is.

I couldn’t think what to do for a PoD. If I’d been on the ball, I’d have had a photo idea in my head. Instead, I found an amiable monkey with its baby and forced them to climb up a Poinsettia tree which is why mummy monkey has a bit of a baleful look on her face. It filled a spot in Day 8 of the 2026 365.

One more thing I found by accident today:
Today, Charlie McKillop retired. I think some of you have met him. He was my apprentice at Siporex and discovering that he had retired made me feel very old!

Tomorrow I believe we may be going shopping for new toys for Scamp!