Category: Dancing

A dull day – 26 June 2021

Posted on by Zogman

A white sky is never a good start to a day.

The white sky didn’t disappear as we hoped it would. It just hung there all day. Eventually we agreed we’d had enough. We needed carrots for tonight’s dinner and there was but a teaspoon of gin left in the Hortus bottle. The obvious solution to this dilemma was to go to Lidl in Kilsyth for necessary supplies.

We got both the necessities as well as many other things like bread and maybe tomorrow’s dinner for me. What we really needed was a walk, somewhere nice, as I’d predicted yesterday. To fulfil the prophecy we drove to Colzium and did the energy sapping walk up the avenue of trees and rhododendrons to the Big House and that’s where I found today’s PoD which is of a single rhododendron flower with a ring of pistils around it. Almost a macro, but taken with the now superb Samyang 18mm lens that’s really an ultra-wide angle, but does a good impersonation of a macro lens.

We walked on round the old driveway almost to the Tak Ma Doon road. Scamp decided we should take the path through the woods after that because “It’s not too steep”. I knew better, but I said nothing, because I know better. Less than five minutes later she realised her mistake. This is a really steep track, but it was a good day and we here having a bit of exercise on the walk. Crossed the burn at the bridge at the top of the climb and it was all downhill after that.

We got a cone each from an ice cream van on the way to the car. The bloke in the van regaled with the cost of to small businesses of our present no-cash society. I hadn’t realised just how much it costs to use these touch machines. Maybe it’s time we started going to the bank and getting some real money rather than taking the easy way out. The ice cream was good.

Back home I made carrot and lentil curry for dinner and it was just as good as it usually is, not quite as good as Scamp’s, of course, but it’s hard to improve on perfection.

Another practise of the Foxtrot again tonight and after that a sampling of the new bottle of gin.

Tomorrow we have nothing planned, but a walk is always an option.

One Italian, One Indian – 25 June 2021

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Those were our choices for lunch.

Felt a bit better when I woke up this morning. So much better, in fact, that I got up to make breakfast. Well, it was my turn. By the time I was in the shower, yesterday’s tiredness and aches were gone and it was business as usual.

Scamp started making use of the Swiss roll tin we bought yesterday and had the sponge baked and rolled in double quick time. I’ve never seen this process before and hadn’t realised that you roll it up with the paper still attached. Then it’s put in the fridge to cool and when it’s removed, it sort of retains the shape and doesn’t crack.

Scamp offered to drive to Mango and I gratefully accepted. It’s good to be a passenger sometimes. It also gives me the chance to listen to any unusual noises from a car I’m not driving. The noises I was hearing sounded like a wheel bearing on its way out. We’ll need to get that looked at soon.

Our booking at Mango was for 12.30pm and by. the time we arrived, just in time, the restaurant was already about two thirds full. That’s always a good sign. Scamp ordered a starter of Juliette, which was deep fried pieces of pizza dough. An interesting taste, but maybe a little too heavy for a starter. Her main was Risotto Pollo. My order was Palak Vegetable Pakora with a main of Lagan Ki Boti which was Lamb in Ginger and Garlic. All were very good. Different takes on traditional Italian and Indian staples. We just had time for a dessert. Scamp’s was Tiramisu, of course. I had Turkish Delight Cheesecake. The cheesecake was the only thing that let them down. Far, far, too heavy and thick, although the topping which looked and tasted like Fry’s Turkish delight was lovely. Our bill came to £88 which was a bit steep for a three course lunch, but got a laugh and an apology from the head waiter who got it changed, quickly to the £36 it should have been.

Back home I transplanted the sole chilli plant from last year into a bigger pot with fresh compost and I also repotted two basil cuttings I’d taken last year. All three were looking a bit sickly, but hopefully they should perk up now they are in fresh soil.

Meanwhile, Scamp was making the coffee cream for the Swiss roll and also the ganache. Until about five years ago, I couldn’t have told you what a ‘ganache’ was, but with the proliferation of cooking and baking shows on TV I now know it’s the shiny soft coating on cakes and fancies. I didn’t actually see the coffee cream going into the roll, or it being re-rolled without the paper that stops it sticking together, but I did see the ganache being poured over it and it running and glistening just like it does on GBBO. It was decorated with melted white chocolate buttons as a drizzle on top and looked very professional!

With my overseeing of the baking process finished 😉, I took the Sony with only a wide angle lens and went to find something interesting in St Mo’s. The ‘something interesting’ turned out to be a low level view of a daisy on the St Mo’s school football park with a glowering sky overhead. It made a nice change to only be carrying a camera and a lens. I think my back felt the benefit. That photo got PoD.

A quick dance practise tonight, just to make sure we’re up to date with the Tango and the latest Foxtrot routines. We were! Then we found we’d forgotten the Waltz. This is what happens when you don’t get a chance to dance properly with people on a dance floor. Hopefully, soon, someone will bang the Bumbler and the Nippy Sweetie’s heads together and we’ll get a chance to dance!

Tomorrow we may go somewhere nice. Not sure where, but anywhere away from Cumbersheugh will be good.

Dad’s Day – 20 June 2021

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A lovely day for Father’s Day.

A fairly relaxed start to the day, waiting for the Zoom call at 1pm. Unfortunately I got a message from Hazy, who had organised the Zoom call, to say she wasn’t feeling well and would speak to me later in the week. That was a pity, but some things cannot be avoided.

I was having lamb neck fillet for dinner and it needed a bit of preparation. Crushed Rosemary, Pepper Corns, a Garlic Clove, some Thyme, a pinch of Salt and a drop or two of Olive Oil in a mortar and pestle. Then rubbed the mixture into the meat which was left to marinade in the fridge. With the messy stuff done I could concentrate on typing up more of the blogs from the last few days. Then I needed a walk, so I took the Sony and the macro lens for a walk in St Mo’s.

There wasn’t much sun in the afternoon and as a result not a lot of insect activity. I focused (no pun intended) on some tiny wee flies sitting on grass flowers and also on some umbellifers like wild carrot. The one that became PoD was the wee fly on the grass stem, mainly because it was Scamp’s favourite.

Back home Scamp was tidying up after her flowers! The massive flower heads of the peony roses in her latest bunch of cut flowers were casting all over the floor. Such beautiful flowers leaving such a beautiful carpet of white everywhere. They really should be more careful!

Soon it was time to start the dinner. Scamp was having Trout as her main and we were both sharing potatoes and cabbage. I used my fancy grill pan because the lamb had to be browned first on the hob and then cooked in the oven. Both meals turned out fine.

Dancing tonight started with a Rumba One then a jive version of the same thing. Next was the Foxtrot with its complicated (for me) step routines. We just don’t have enough space to complete the dance. Not enough length and not enough width in the living room. However, I think if we practise the new part of the routine we might be able to fit it in to the space we have available. A quick reprise of the Cha-Cha finished off the torture lesson for tonight.

Spoke to JIC later and complimented him on his strawberries. We might get two berries form our hanging baskets this year. Not a lot else happening down south, it seems.

Watched a F1 GP from Paul Ricard circuit in France that started with a mistake by Verstappen and ended with a tactical error by Mercedes. Between those events it was a pretty dull race, but an exciting finish by Verstappen was worth waiting for.

Tomorrow we’re getting our next four-weekly visit from the lady who offers us the chance to stick a cotton bud down our throat and up our nose. Oh what fun!

A dull Saturday – 12 June 2021

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Not a day for doing much or going anywhere, although it did brighten up later.

Scamp did a bit of tidying up in the garden and moved some plants around to give them more sun and also to put them in places where they could be seen better. I deadheaded some of the aquilegia plants to, hopefully force them to produce more flowers. Scamp also cut the grass at the front and edged it I am now reminded!

We had the other half of yesterday’s quiche for lunch. I think I prefer it cold, while Scamp definitely prefers it hot. After lunch I took the camera for a walk in St Mo’s. Snapped a few damselflies, but because I hadn’t lifted the macro lens, none of them were acceptably in focus. I walked out behind St Mo’s school and disturbed a big dragonfly. It flew around for a while before almost crashing into me. It seemed to perch in a tree, but when I looked I couldn’t find it. PoD turned out to be a little fragile looking damselfly that seemed to be playing hide and seek with me hiding behind a stem. Every time I moved, it moved too. I took some photos of it and left it to its game.

When I cropped the damselfly photo in Lightroom later, it was really a small image. However, this new Lightroom has the ability to enlarge a photo to four times it original size without losing definition. That’s what I did. The process is called ‘Enhance’ and that’s what it does. It takes a fair bit of processing power to do it and the PoD took almost 30 seconds. The wait was worth it, because the quality is quite amazing.

We walked over to Condorrat tonight to pick up a Golden Bowl dinner we’d ordered. Two Chicken Chop Suey and two Fried Rice. Just as good as it always is. It’s great that some things don’t change in this world.

After dinner, Scamp and I watered the garden, just the front garden and just with watering cans. If the warm dry weather continues we may hose back and front gardens tomorrow night. We had a quick practise later for tomorrow’s class. The routines are a bit rough, but we have most of the steps in the right place.

No plans for tomorrow. We’ll see what the weather brings us.

 

A busy day – 7 June 2021

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Scamp was off to meet her sister. I was head gardener for a while.

Lots of things I could have been doing, but I chose to put my free time to good use and scrubbed out the bird bath then refilled it. My chilli plants have been desperate for more space and some real compost, not the floor sweepings B&Q seem to think they can foist off as ‘peat free’. What is this sudden panic to make everything peat free? Crofters up north have been digging it up, drying it out and burning it in their fireplaces for centuries. Suddenly they are virtually criminals because apparently that peat has been storing carbon and saving the planet. It seems strange to me that all these activists use the same terms like “locking away the carbon”. It’s as if this new jargon explains everything, when in actual fact it’s more like The King’s New Clothes. Everyone seems afraid to ask them what that means in Topsy and Tim language. How does it lock it away? Where does the peat put the carbon? I think it’s all smoke and mirrors, but probably not peat smoke. Anyway, I used some general purpose compost which may or may not have peat in it and the chillies are probably better off in it than in the B&Q floor sweepings. Rant over. After that I soaked the plants in the bird bath, muddying the water and undoing all the good work I’d done there.

Before I started the gardening I’d made a pizza dough and left it to prove in the warm living room. When Scamp came home I’d just finished rolling and stretching some of the dough to a rough circle and put it into the proving oven (the grill that had been preheated for about five minutes) to puff up. It was just a simple tomato base with extra chopped up fresh tomatoes and some grated mozzarella on top. Baked for about fifteen minutes at gas 6 – that was just a reminder for me. It was very successful.

Next Scamp wanted to wash her car, but couldn’t reach the roof, so I did that and then gave it all a bit of a soapy wash while Scamp scrubbed off the sticky sugary stuff that drips from the trees in late spring. Then I set up the hose for her to wash it all off and started on my car. It made sense to just get it all done at the same time. Thank you Bobby Flavell for the use of your outside tap again.

With the cars sparkling in the sun, Scamp decided to water the garden. Easier to use our own water for that, so I fixed up the hose and let her get on with it while I went for a walk in St Mo’s. Not a lot of movement, but one little Common Blue damselfly sat and watched me while I carefully dragged my camera out of the bag and took its picture a few times.

After dinner the Amazon man dropped off a parcel I’d ordered last night. It was a Samyang Lens Station. Basically the 18mm lens I use on the Sony camera is crap at focusing. However, Samyang will sell you a piece of kit that connects your lens through the computer to their website where you can download a new firmware file that will improve the focusing. It’s a neat scam and it certainly works! Thankfully, so did the lens afterwards, because I’d read horror stories on websites to the effect that the software could wreck your lens. Maybe it could, but it only improved mine. I’ll do a field test tomorrow just to make sure.

Finally wrote to my brother. The last email I sent him was in March! So much going on? Not really, just bad time management on my part. Must get better organised.

The last thing to do on a busy day was to have a quick dance practise just to make sure that the muscle memory was working properly. It was, after a false start!

No plans for tomorrow. We’re waiting to see what the weather will be like.

Wall to Wall sunshine – 6 June 2021

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Long may it last, even if we do have to water the garden!

After lunch we went for a walk round St Mo’s pond and stood watching the damselflies. I managed to capture one or two of them, or it could be that I caught the same one once or twice. Who knows with damselflies, they all look the same, don’t they? Well maybe not, because occasionally you can spot slight differences in their wing structure, some also have defects that mark them as different from the rest, just like humans, I suspect. Anyway, I was using the Sony camera and the Sigma macro lens and I did manage to get a PoD.

From St Mo’s we went down to Broadwood Stadium to extend our walk and take in the exercise machines path, then back across the dam through the houses and the underpass before climbing the long steep hill to St Mo’s school and then home. Not a bad walk. Later I wanted to see if any dragonflies had appeared, so I went for a short walk over to the pond, but there was no sign of life and it was getting late in the afternoon, so I headed home, because tonight was a dance class and I didn’t want to be in a rush to get dinner made and get a quick practise in. I needn’t have worried, Scamp was on the ball and had my burger cooking while her scallops were waiting their turn to go in the other pan.

Dance class tonight started with Mambo Marina which is a fairly old sequence dance that we learned months ago, but of course I’d forgotten bits of it. A quick reprise from Scamp and I was good to go. The Foxtrot was going to be next and it was nowhere near as easy as the MM. Lots of little tricky bits to it and we couldn’t agree on the correct footwork, but Jane and Stewart soon ironed out our problems and it was plain sailing after that. Last part of tonight’s lesson was the Cha-Cha. It is such an energy sapping dance. Most of the moves are fine, but it’s that little cha-cha step that has to be done right to keep in the tempo of the dance, that’s the problem. However, we managed to get it completed without too much trouble. We sat in the garden to cool down after that with a couple of beers. It really was a beautiful night.

Spoke to JIC later and got the low down on house hunting in and around Cambridge, Simonne’s run today and how JIC’s ankle injury is doing. Gave him some sage advice from his gran on how to prevent birds from eating all his veg. Black thread was her secret weapon. I imagine it works equally well with English sparrows as it did with Scottish ones! I hope so anyway.

Watched a Crash – Bang, Baku GP. Not driver errors this time, but tyre failures. More like Wacky Races than a GP!

Tomorrow morning Scamp is off to have coffee with June. I’m hoping to finish my epistle to Alex.

Hooray for rain – 5 June 2021

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Out looking for compost and a pot.

Such exciting lives we lead sometimes. What could be a more satisfying thing to do on a Saturday afternoon that taking a trip to the garden centre for a bag of ericaceous compost and a chance to compare the size, shape and price of different plant pots. In the end we did buy the compost, but passed on the pots, judging them no better than the one we’d bought earlier in the week. For once we were totally focused on the task in hand and didn’t really look at the plants on sale, we just bought the compost and went home.

It was a was a warm day and I just knew Scamp would want to get the new rhododendron planted in its slightly acidic compost. I, on the other hand wanted to have a look for some damsels or even some dragons. It was warm enough to wear a pair of shorts instead of jeans and that’s what I did. I walked over to St Mo’s, but there were no damsels or dragons to be seen. I took some photos of hawthorn blossom before I found what would be PoD. It was a little black fly crawling about on a tree trunk. I’m guessing it’s a Wasp Fly of some description, but I was struck by its strange eyes. The compound eye seems to have a simple eye in the middle of it. Since it’s on Flickr, someone will probably be able to ID it for me. Anyway, it got PoD.

Came back and Scamp was putting the final touches to the planting and was trying to water the rhododendron in, but something was blocking the watering can. She cleaned the rose from the watering can but that didn’t help, then she found that something was stuck in the spout. After prodding it with a garden cane, out popped a snail, complete with shell. How it managed to climb into the watering can and get stuck in the spout we’ll never know. I thought it was only Incy Wincy Spider who did things like that!

After dinner we watched a Baku F1 GP qualifying session with more than its fair share of crashes. Everyone seemed to want to throw their million pound race cars into the barriers today … and that was just the qualifying! What will the actual race be like, tomorrow?

Since we had missed last week’s dance practise, we though we should do a walk through of what we’ve learned so far, and we have learned quite a lot. Tonight we walked through two different waltz routines, a rumba, a tango and a cha-cha. We sort of walked through the first part of the foxtrot too, but couldn’t remember or agree on the first five or six steps. Hopefully it will all become clear tomorrow.

My weather app on my phone has been promising rain today for most of the week. It was apparently going to start at 4pm. They got it wrong by almost an hour. Just after 4.45 the first raindrops hit the window. It turned to hail for a time and then went back to rain again. It didn’t last all that long, but it did mean we didn’t have to water the garden, so the snail will be relieved.

Tomorrow seems like a better day and if the weather app is as accurate as it was today we may get out for a walk.

A lazy day – 30 May 2021

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A day to enjoy the sunshine.

Today we didn’t go anywhere, we gave the car a rest day, we didn’t even have a dance class. What we did do was a bit of planting and rearranging in the garden. We also did a fair bit of sitting around, occasionally moving the seats to catch some more rays.

In the afternoon I took the Sony with the macro lens for a walk in St Mo’s and found a red damselfly fresh out of its exoskeleton, hanging on to a reed while unfurling its wings and pumping the blood into them before trying them out for the first time. It must have enjoyed the attention I was giving it, because its first flight ended with it hanging on to my arm. Then it flew back to its perch to dry out those delicate wings. I said my goodbyes and walked home, pretty sure I had a PoD. I did, although I hadn’t managed to get as close as I’d wanted. Maybe there will be other chances tomorrow.

We decided that, as it was a holiday weekend, we’d pass on the dance class tonight. We’re still not sure if the class went ahead without their star pupils, but I’m sure we’ll find out next week.

Spoke to JIC and found out about Vixen’s dentist’s visit to repair a damaged canine. A canine with a damaged canine? How strange. I wonder what she thought when she came out of the anaesthetic.

Sketch tonight was A Pack of Playing Cards. I chose UNO because it’s the only game Scamp can trounce me at. I must have won maybe one or two games in all the games we’ve played which must number about fifty now. I just don’t seem to be able to break that jinx!

Tomorrow we’re hoping for similar glorious weather to today’s offering. We’ve seen the promises, but we’ve had promises before that didn’t live up to the hype. Maybe it will this time!

Dreary, wet and Foxtrot – 23 May 2021

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Another of those drizzly wet days.

There was little point in going far today. The forecast had been for rain in the morning and it appeared almost exactly on time. It gave me a chance to start today’s sketch which was A Treasure Chest. The sketch was done early, but the painting took a bit longer. Overall, I’m fairly happy with the result.

The rest of the morning was spent fixing all the little niggling bits and pieces that surround any big app. Moving bits of code and plugins that do all the heavy lifting in Lightroom and have to be slotted into their correct place by hand. I think most of it is done now. The actual program seems to run a lot faster than the old V6.14 I was using. It should do, this is Lightroom V10 I’m using now!

We did manage to get out for a walk in the late afternoon with only a light shower to dampen our waterproofs. Blustery wind and cold too. This doesn’t feel like May. I was watching an interview with a bird watcher the other day and he was saying that up until recently the seasons were predictable and stayed in their patterns. Now all that seems to have changed and the seasons appear to be more chaotic. He said it’s almost certainly down to Global Warming. He might be right.

Scamp made a lovely dinner tonight with grilled chicken that had been marinaded in ground cumin, ground coriander, chopped coriander and garlic. It was absolutely beautiful. Served with potatoes and roast veg.

PoD came from the walk to St Mo’s in the afternoon. It’s the unfurling crozier of a fern. I was impressed with the quality of it. Nothing to do with me, just a great camera and an excellent lens.

Dancing tonight centred around a Foxtrot. I think we did quite well with it, although Scamp reminded me that we’ve only been doing the easy part so far.

Spoke to JIC later and caught up with how things are down south. It seems that the weather we’ve been having has been pretty much universal. Rain and more rain.

Tomorrow we’re booked to meet Isobel for coffee at Costa.

Driving and meeting old friends – 22 May 2021

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We couldn’t decide what to do today. We did think about going up the east coast to Kirkcaldy, but then thought better of it because today was a Saturday it would be busy. Instead we waited for the postman.

The postman brought a big parcel for Scamp. She already knew it was coming so it was not a big surprise. Inside was a long green box with a recipe and ingredients to make a cake. JIC gave me the present of a bread making subscription for Christmas. It’s been great, encouraging me to bake breads I’d never have tried otherwise. Scamp’s green box contained a similar thing, but for cakes instead. I did think, after I bought it, that it was a bit cheeky, sending a brilliant baker like Scamp a baking kit, but I’m hoping that, like me she’ll discover interesting cakes to bake. Ones she’d never have considered without that little push. Also, hopefully, I get to taste the results!

With the parcel opened and the on-line signing up done we set off for Bishopbriggs to get another USB drive to back up my photos on. It’s part of my complicated back up regime for ‘easy’ retrieval. It always amazes me that every time I go to buy an external drive I can get twice the storage space for the same price I paid for the last one. It’s something akin to Moore’s Law (Google it).

It was at the retail park that we bumped into Mhairi and Robert who used to go to Salsa with us. We spent a good twenty minutes discussing the effect of the pandemic on small businesses like theirs, some good and some bad. Good to speak to folk we hadn’t seen for a long time, years, in fact.

On the way back we stopped at Lidl in Kirkintilloch, hoping to get a bottle of Hortus Gin. Unfortunately they only had the flavoured varieties and I wanted the plain and simple one. What amazed us when we arrived was the queue to get in to the drive-through at McDonalds. Who, in their right mind, would queue to get a hamburger that’s never seen any ham? Maybe the clue is in that phrase “in their right mind”. How many of them have actually tasted real meat? We drove on to Kilsyth where there were ample supplies of Hortus and no Mickey Ds. Obviously much more sophisticated tastes in Kilsyth

Back home we went for a walk in St Mo’s and just managed a glimpse of the new cygnets. They were off with mum and dad to get some food over in the reeds at the far side of the pond. I’m guessing it was their equivalent of a walk to the shops. I hadn’t really managed a decent shot today, so I bolted on the macro lens and photographed the Strawberries and Cream Aquilegia that sits at the front door. Beautiful flower. Instant PoD.

We had a practise of the Cha Cha tonight. Who knew it was so exhausting? Then to cool down we did a couple of Rumbas. Things fell apart and tempers frayed when we tried the waltz with its Stewart’s clumsy addition of a spin where there shouldn’t be one. We agreed to continue on to the Catherine Waltz. Then to save bloodshed we put the living room back into a living room again rather than a dance floor and a war zone!

Yesterday’s sketch has appeared and its title is Spice Jars. I don’t know where it could have been hiding 😉. Today’s prompt was Dice, so today’s sketch is titled Lucky Sixes!

Tomorrow looks wet. Some baking may be done by one or both of us.