Category: Dancing

Bananas (no Pyjamas) – 5 February 2018

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It was Monday and we all know how restricting that is. Today I had a plan.

Didn’t get much done this morning, but after lunch I locked myself in my room with a bunch of bananas, a sketch book and pencil and a paint box. I reckoned that was the only way I was going to get a sketch done today. It took a long while and a few wasted sheets before I was settled on, but not altogether happy with, a little painting. It could have been a lot better, but it was complete and it was in on time. All the time I was earwigging the Gems practise. We all have to make sacrifices for our art!

Bananas today

With a painting in the bag, I went looking for a PoD. The light was dying as I walked over to St Mo’s, but I got a shot of Mr Grey hiding in the shallows beneath the trees. If it was to work, I had to have a close-up of his eye because he was well hidden in the bushes and only his eye would give me the shot I wanted. I got the shot and he flew off, fed up, no doubt with my clumsy stalking technique.

Back home, I had about an hour before I made the dinner. Got the photos downloaded, then the sketch photographed and transferred too. Worked on both photos and uploaded them to FB, Instagram and Flickr. Then it was time for dinner. Spaghetti with roast peppers in tomato sauce. Then we drove in to Glasgow with CITRAC displaying a yellow warning for snow and ice during the night and the early morning hours. Hopefully that won’t bother us.

Salsa with the first class (Advanced 1) wasn’t all that demanding, but the new move in the second class (Advanced 5) was a test, not only of our abilities, but also of Jamie Gal’s memory. It may or may not be called ‘Corfu’. Jamie said he’d post the move on FB, but so far nothing has appeared. It was actually quite an interesting move. We may try it out ourselves tomorrow just to see if we can work out between us what it was all about.

For once I got parked easily back at the house. That doesn’t happen often.

I sacrificed the gym and swim for a chance to get a sketch done today. Tomorrow I intend to pay back. Gym and Swim then sketch with photography taking a back seat. That’s the plan any way!

Parking and Dancing – 4 February 2018

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It was a really lazy sort of day.

Lay in bed and read, trying to finish my latest book “I’ll keep you safe” by Peter May. A good tale, well told. I like his books about, or set in Lewis and Harris. Absolutely hate his Paris series, although this one did start out in Paris. Most of the book is set in the Hebrides, so that’s ok. Couldn’t quite finish it, so left the final pages to tomorrow.

Got out for a walk in the afternoon and the weather was quite pleasant with no wind, blue sky and a surprisingly mild feel, I fed some bread to the ducks, swans and gulls on the pond. They still haven’t received the memo about not eating carbohydrate, so they gobbled it down. Walked into the woods with two cameras, neither of which was switched on, and neither of which was in my hand, that’s why the deer, two of them walked right in front of me. I tried to get the Teazer out of my pocket, but I knew it was a pointless attempt. Both fled, one went one way the other went in the opposite direction. Oh well, maybe next time. I did get some photos of trees and moss and stuff, but they were just place markers to give me a PoD to upload to Flickr. PoD was the stem with the green bud, by the way.

Drove in to Glasgow to go dancing at the dungeon that is Arta. I must have driven round for about twenty minutes before I found a parking place. Everywhere, and I do mean Everywhere was full. I was past the point of giving up and going home when a space magically appeared, and a real painted-on-the-road parking bay too. Thank you whoever you were. Dancing was good. Music was reasonable considering it wasn’t Grant who was DJ. It was Shannon and thankfully not DJ Daniel.

Home to Crazy Water Fish (Cod in tomato and capers sauce) with potatoes. Quite, quite delicious.

My old Lamy pen

Today’s 28 Drawings Later sketch was my old Lamy fountain pen. Much loved and much battered, then repaired with Tensol Cement, Superglue and finally Sellotape. Still working and still great for sketching. I’m still amazed at the response to yesterday’s pic of an orange. It was good, as my good friend Marcus Waring would say, “There were issues”.

Tomorrow is a normal Monday with all that entails. Gems and Dancing. Hopefully we won’t have as much problem parking as we had today. I usually go to the gym on a Monday, but to make sure my graphical and photographic commitments are covered, I may leave the gym until Tuesday. We’ll see. Temperature drop forecast, so I have to factor that in to the equation too. Life is so complicated some times!

Semi-Supermoon – 29 January 2018

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Well, the day started out well with bright sunshine, but it soon deteriorated into the norm. Grey skies. Later in the afternoon it cleared up nicely.

For weeks now I’ve been meaning to put the Christmas decorations up into the loft. Today I did it. Unfortunately, I made two discoveries.

  1. There’s a leak in the roof. I think it must have been a gradual process and occurred a week or so ago when all the snow was lying on it for some days. Need to get it looked at.
  2. There’s a bloody big spider in a beer bin I’ve got in the loft. It was easily as big as my hand. No, it was definitely bigger. In fact it was walking about in the loft with the beer bin on its head as a hat. Nah, it was big, but not enormous. I let it be.

Right, one problem solve and another created. We’ll need to get someone to look at the roof, specifically the ridge tiles, because that’s where the water I coming in, probably at the joints. With all the wild weather we’ve been having, I bet the roofers will be busy just now.

Went for a walk down the Luggie today to take my mind of giant spiders and leaking roofs. Got a couple of nice pictures of the moonrise above the pines. The bit thing just now is the Blue Blood Supermoon due to be seen across America on Wednesday night. A Blue moon is when there are two full moons in a month
A Blood moon is something to do with an lunar eclipse when the moon is at its nearest point.
So what I saw wasn’t a supermoon, it was a semi-supermoon! Still looked good.

Salsa tonight was a house full in both classes. Monkey has been re-worked again and emasculated even more until it’s no fun to dance at all. The new one from last week has been forgotten by the looks of things and we reprised La Cuadra but Jamie couldn’t remember the ending. A tiring night and not a very successful one. Maybe it was just me.

Tomorrow I think we may go in to Glasgow for a wander.

Dancin’, Dancin’, Dancin’ – 24 January 2018

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Today we went in to Glasgow and learned more waltz steps in half an hour than we ever learned in all the Hamilton classes years ago. We’ve done Box Steps, Whisks and even Wings today.  I’m not saying we are perfect in our stepping, but the basics are there.  The jive class? Not so successful, but I managed to keep in time most of the time and you can’t expect much more than that from me, the Two Left Feet man. I think that’s what it is. I’m having problems getting my feet to move properly. Salsa is such a lazy dance for the leader. The footwork is very simple and most of the time, repetitive. In salsa it’s the hands that do most of the work. The feet just mark time and help you get out of the follower’s way. We’ll stick at the new stuff and hopefully with a bit more practise at home I’ll be able to coax these feet into doing what my head tells them to. I’ve got two weeks to get my act together because there is no class next week unfortunately.

After a coffee and a discussion on our thoughts of the class, then a walk round CassArt we went home to rest for a couple of hours before we were out again for salsa. Three dance types in one day. We had to drive through terrible traffic tonight which meant I was in an equally terrible mood, mainly because I’d noticed yesterday that Rangers were playing at home against Aberdeen. That meant the motorway would become a car park. I’d told Scamp that we really needed to leave early for tonight’s class, but we still left at our usual time and joined the car park near the Royal Infirmary. From there it was just a case of switching lanes to the fastest one and then switching back when it slowed down too. We did get to the west end about 15 minutes later than a normal night, but both of us were in a foul mood, each blaming the other. Salsa sorted that out and we came out with smiles on our faces.  We always do.

Today’s photos were taken walking back from the earlier dancing. PoD was the shot of the badminton murial (yes, I know it’s a mural, but I like to think of it as a ‘Murial’ – My blog, my rules!)

Tomorrow we’ll aim to be calmer. Scamp is going to get tuition on the machines of torture in the gym and I’m hoping to cover another piece of corrugated cardboard in paint (maybe oil paint this time). That’s after we retrieve our shiny new green and brown bins which should be getting emptied for the first time tomorrow.  Such excitement!

Snow Begone – 22 January 2018

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Well, the thaw started last night and seemed to have continued its good work through the night.

Green grass was revealed in the garden, front and back as the temperature rose. It continued to rise throughout the day and even now as I’m writing this the outdoor thermometer is showing 6.1ºc. That said, it was a bit of a dull day, overcast with grey cloud. We shouldn’t complain, though, because that’s what was keeping the temperature up.

We dusted the last of the snow off both cars and then I drove us to the dump to toss the old microwave into the skip. It joined at least eight others in the ‘Small Electrical Items’ skip. Had they all been hit by some electronic lurgi at the same time or had everyone got new microwaves for Christmas? I don’t suppose we’ll ever know.

After lunch I did consider going to the gym and the steam room for half an hour as I had a crick in my back that just wouldn’t go away. However, it seemed a shame to waste a silent Monday as Gems had been cancelled today because the paths, although thawing, were still quite slippery. It gave me a chance to just sit and finish today’s ‘mild’ Sudoku. After that I set to, to copy a painting I’ve got sitting on my cork board wallpaper on the iMac. Instructions for making a cork board are down here. I wasn’t all that happy with the first attempt, but then chopped a piece of corrugated card from the microwave box and painted a much better one. Well, it looked good at the time, but it may look different in the harsh light of another day.

Salsa tonight was good and we were back to Gorila again, then Jamie G changed the ending and, in my opinion totally destroyed it. He took out the lovely tricky twisty bit and put in a bland enchufé as a finish. He even gave it a ridiculous name ‘Monkey’. Possibly because he’d made a monkey out of it. His other new one is called ‘The New One’. Nothing new there. We did one more new move called Enchufé Clap which is just silly. Enchufé then clap in the air, clap behind your back, clap below your left knee, clap behind your right knee. Hmmm.

PoD was a grab shot in the dull afternoon and is possibly the worst PoD this year.

Hopefully we’ll get out somewhere interesting tomorrow and get some photos took!

Make A Corkboard

The idea of a cork board as a wallpaper came to me some time ago and it’s an easy one to implement. I downloaded a cork board image from the net and tiled it up to cover the iMac’s enormous screen. That it the base.

Now whenever I see an interesting picture or sketch I use Cmd + Shift + 4 to create a clipping tool to grab the image or part of the image as a .PNG file and save it to the desktop. To add the image to the cork board I just open the cork board image in my photo editor, (I use Pixelmator, although Photoshop does the same thing) and drag the picture into the cork board image in the photo editor, then resize it and position it. It’s on a new layer, so it floats above the cork board image.

I now save two versions of the background file. The first file is in the native format of the photo editor. This will ensure that all the different layers are saved and it’s this one I’ll reload the next time I’m going to add another idea clip. The next file to be saved is a .JPG file that will be the actual wallpaper. Make sure you remember where each one is saved, because they are not interchangeable. Finally, I just right click on the background and select Change Desktop Background. That’s how it works on a Mac, but YMMV depending on your OS.

Ur ye dancin’? Naw! – 17 January 2018

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When we woke today, everything was white. Deeper and deeper snow.

Thankfully, it didn’t last. By the time we were leaving to drive in to Glasgow, the snow was rapidly disappearing. In fact as we drove along the motorway, it was rain not snow that was slapping the windscreen. We parked and walked down to Blackfriars pub where today’s ballroom and jive dance classes were to be … or not to be as it turned out. The barman told us that the class had been cancelled because of bad weather. Bummer. However, we were in a pub and it seemed a shame not to have a drink, so that’s what we did. Scamp had a G&T and I had a Heineken 00, which must be the best low/no alcohol beer I’ve tasted. Certainly better than Becks Blue and the bog awful St Peter’s. We wandered round the Toon a bit after that. Scamp got the makings of Paella for dinner and I got some paint. This is where CassArt wins. I got a 250ml tub of standard W&N Titanium White:
CassArt £5.50
Millers £10.50
Same tub, same paint, ridiculously different price. Where Millers wins is when you want one black pen, or one pencil or one of anything really, except white acrylic paint. CassArt do good deals on bulk lots, they also, obviously, also do good deals on white acrylic paint.

We went for a coffee before we came home and Scamp had an interesting conversation with a wee baby with great big eyes who was sitting having his lunch next to us. He seemed more interested in Scamp than in his pot of dinner! We, that is Scamp and I, decided that we wouldn’t go out to Salsa tonight. There were two classes on, a beginner’s and a class just starting level 3. Neither of them would give us much chance to dance and more snow was forecast, so it made sense to stay in. Walking back to the car, the sky lightened enough to give me a chance of a PoD and that’s what you see above. It’s a reflection of chimney pots in the big mirrored building in Queen Street.

The snow hasn’t come, in fact with the temperature rising slightly, I think the thaw is continuing.

Scamp has a hospital appointment tomorrow and I think we may be looking for a new microwave as the one we have at present won’t switch off, which is a bit of a nuisance to say the least. That forms our plans for tomorrow.

Went out early got some photos – 15 January 2018

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It was grey and dark when we woke and didn’t improve much for a few hours.

After the dull start, the sun broke through and I decided to go out and get some photos. Just because it’s a Monday, a Gemsday, doesn’t mean I have to follow the usual pattern and do things in order. The sun was out and so was I. The mosaic above shows that the sun did actually shine for a while. The weather forecasters were going crazy telling us there would be snow for hours tonight with compromised travel arrangements tomorrow morning. I didn’t care. The sun was out and so was I. It wasn’t really cold either. Not exactly shorts and tee shirt weather, but decidedly not cold.

When I got home, the house was sparkling as it usually is on a Gemsday. Not that it’s ever dirty, but it gets that extra little burnish on a Gemsday. I’d started a painting this morning before I went out, when the sun was still hiding, so while the singers were assembling downstairs I put another layer of paint on it. Strangely I’d messed around with this method a few months ago and hadn’t really settled down to finish any of the paintings. Maybe I should dig them out from where they’re hiding and finish them off. Anyway, once I’d reached a point where the paint needed to dry, I left it on the easel and headed for the gym.

I did 15 mins on the recumbent bike and then 10 reps on three of the machines then a final 10 minutes on the walking treadmill. That was enough. Got changed and went for a swim then a soak in the steam room before heading home.

Salsa tonight was centred on the twisty, turny Gorila (one ‘L’) from last week. It’s not getting any easier, especially when we try to dance it. I think I managed it twice out of the six or seven attempts tonight. Maybe we’ll practise tomorrow.

Couldn’t get parked tonight. Everywhere was full in the carparks. When I came in and reported that, Scamp said airily “Oh, there are spaced further down the road.” Did she offer to go and park the Juke? Don’t be silly.  I went back out in the sleet and parked it on a different street, something I don’t like doing. Hopefully it will still be there in the morning.  Not in a good mood now.

PoD was the moss macro top left.

Dentist tomorrow. 🙁

Persona Non Grata – 10 January 2018

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Finally we did as we had promised and went to the gym, although one of us was left out in the cold.

I was thinking when I was reading in bed that we are, or at least I am, getting into a rut with every day following the same sort of routine:

  • Read for a while
  • shower
  • coffee at 11
  • lunch at 12
  • afternoon go out and find PoD
  • process PoD
  • dinner
  • repeat

We really need to break this routine. We went to the gym today just after 12noon. That broke the routine. Tried to log in at the gym and got an error message, probably because I haven’t been for ages. I could still use all the machines, but couldn’t remember the weights I should be using on some of them. Of course, none of the data was recorded but that doesn’t matter because there doesn’t seem to be any way for us to access it. Today was just a place marker to say we’d started again, so neither of us did all that much. We did have a swim afterwards and that was good. On the way out I checked at the desk to see how to get my card restarted and it was as I’d expected, I hadn’t logged in at (or in fact been to) the gym since 24th June last year and my membership had lapsed. I was soon reinstated. Scamp was not so lucky. She had been absent for longer and was now persona non grata. Her gym membership was revoked and her card confiscated then she was escorted off the premises. Well, it wasn’t as bad as that, she needs a new card which she can pick up when we return, hopefully next week.

When we came home I built up the easel and got out my acrylics and began work on a new painting. Not exactly new, it’s seen some previous iterations and is all lumps and bumps which adds to its tactile quality (snigger.) That’s when I came up with today’s PoD, entitled Happy as Larry. Slapping paint on a board always makes me happy and if a painting results from it, that’s a bonus!

Salsa tonight had far too many men so I’m doorman as I write this, making sure the new beginners are welcomed in and directed to fill in the application forms. Unfortunately I don’t get to take in any money. That would have been nice. I also had to put on my big heavy winter jacket because it’s bloody freezing here!

Tomorrow? Maybe Perth or if tonight’s fog persists, Cotton House for lunch instead.

Pants! – 8 January 2018

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Not so much pants, as trunks, or the lack of them. Everything will become clear.

Drove to Tesco in the morning to get the makings for some soup. I’d never made just ordinary vegetable soup and I fancied a go under the strict tutelage of Chef Scamp. After we got all the veg that Tesco had, I drove back and got started chopping and dicing and washing veg. Then I basically bunged it all in a pot, poured in some water and set it to boil. After it boiled I turned it down to a simmer and left it for an hour. An hour in which I had my lunch and took my PoD of a failed leaf cutting sitting on the window ledge. Then I prepared myself for the onslaught of Gems.

It’s a Monday and Mondays mean Gems. Today they returned after their Christmas break and would be in good voice (for good read Loud). I had other plans, I was going to the gym.

Drove to the gym, found a vacant locker and started to unpack my gym bag, only to find that I’d forgotten to pack my swimming trunks. Now I had two options. One was skinny dipping, but I’m a bit old for that and the other was to return home, pick up the trunks and head back to the gym. Such a waste of time. The third option was to leave it until tomorrow and go for a walk instead. I chose option three and walked along the Luggie Water for a while and got some photos of the ice on the river and also some icicles on one of the railway bridges, so all was not lost. When I finish this, I’m going to put my swimming trunks in the gym bag for tomorrow.

Salsa was fun tonight. It took me all my time remembering what name went with what move, but I was not alone by the baffled looks on some of the faces around me. Tonight’s move was Gorila (one L) and it was a twisty turny one that I must look up on YouTube.

Tomorrow the Gym with all the correct equipment? Perhaps.

Dancin’ – 7 January 2018

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It was a late start today. I hadn’t meant to sleep so long, but there are no alarms on weekends.

I spent the morning parcelling up the calendars for Dorothy and my friend Peter. I also took some time writing notes for the parcels. It was only after I’d written the address on the last envelope that I checked and found that the post office was closed on a Sunday. Oh well, they wouldn’t be uplifted until tomorrow anyway. I’ll post them tomorrow with a bit of luck.

After lunch which traditionally is a fried breakfast on a Sunday I almost managed to get Scamp to come out a walk with me, but she’d been outside and knew just how cold it was, so she decided she’d rather do some ironing than face the great outdoors. I needed a PoD and I don’t do ironing very well, so I got dressed for the arctic and drove down to Auchinstarry then walked halfway along the canal which was frozen right across and took some photos from the only seat on the path for miles. Walked back, across the plantation and from there back to the car. Not quite my 10,000 steps, but at least I was out in the fresh air. Cold fresh air to be precise. I don’t think the temperature got above zero all day.

Just had time to dump the photos in the Mac and tweak some before it was time for the big event of the day, Dancin’. Drove in to Glasgow and got parked less than 100m from Arta. Inside it was fairly busy even if it was quite early. I don’t know what they had done to the floor, but it was lethally slippy. Almost took a tumble a few times and wished I’d worn my trainers instead of my shoes with the no-grip soles. Still, it was a good night with lots of firm handshakes (only one ‘funny’ one) and lots of ’mwah’ kisses, everyone coming with a ‘Happy New Year’. That’s what I like most about the salsa community. Its friendliness.

Home to the remains of last week’s steak stew dinner reheated and none the worse for it. Also the last G ’n’ T until Friday. An extra cold one as Scamp had left the tonic in her car in today’s sub-zero temperatures. The abstemiousness starts here. Oh by the way, when I was walking back into the house after retrieving the tonic, my watch vibrated to signal that I’d completed today’s 10,000 steps. Must have been all that sliding across the dance floor!