Category: Dancing

Dancin’ again – 4 November 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Out at our usual Saturday morning time for our usual Saturday morning class in our usual Saturday morning destination.

Sometimes our lives are so predictable.

We drove over to Brookfield to find the hall still full of tiny dancers, although at least one of them was riding a three wheeled scooter across the floor, instead of dancing. They were 15 minutes late in leaving the dance floor and there were hundreds of the small creatures. I don’t think Jane was impressed with the lack of consideration of the parents or the dance teachers, the weans were just being posh weans. I think words will be said at the next committee meeting.

Once the posh brats had left the building … with their weans in tow, we got down to dancing. Real dancing. We started with a nearly forgotten Mambo Marina. I thought it was only me, but I was wrong. There were quite a few puzzled faces. Once that was ironed out, we danced a gradually improving version of it for two tracks. Then it was into the Cha-Cha we’ve been learning for a month or so and it was working quite well. Both Stewart and Jane gave pointers throughout the dance, but of course I ignored them and concentrated on getting round the floor without tramping on Scamp’s toes while trying to fit the correct module into the correct space. Not always easy, especially when the teacher says you can do them in any order, but queries your choice of order!

Next was Ria Bachata, the bachata that was never a bachata with music that was never bachata music. Other than that, it was fine and we managed the ‘tricky steps’. Step tap, step tap, 1,2,3 together. Then 1,2,3 together on the other foot. Simples. Done to a bachata beat with bachata timing it works, but with a fast track with no audible bachata beat it’s just a recipe for disaster. Since this is a bit of fun that nobody is expected to remember, that’s probably the desired result.

Next was a Mayfair Quickstep to allow our brains to cool down followed by a Catherine Waltz, parts of which I remembered and parts of which returned to my consciousness as we danced it. Eventually, it worked and we managed a fairly decent flow of waltz steps. Usually by this time I’ve reached the “My brain is full” stage, but today I was ready for the next one which was a fairly easy Midnight Jive. So much crammed into an hour and a half or an hour and a quarter if you take into account the ‘brat time’ at the start. Still, I enjoyed it. A strange thing for me to say on a Saturday night.

We drove home, had a cup of coffee and headed back out again to have lunch at Mango in Longcroft. It does Italian and Indian, but we both had Indian today. Food was good, but the chopped up naan bread was a disappointment. I much prefer the big slab of scorched dough we get in Hamilton. This was daintily set out in a bowl, but was almost warm and dry. We’re used to naan dripping with ghee. This wasn’t at all like that. Curry was good, and so was the pakora starter, but next time no naan.

I needed a photo and drove down to the canal at Haggs. Unfortunately the sun had disappeared by the time we got to the canal and I inadvertently set the ISO to 40,000 which is a tad higher than the 1,600 I’d meant to set. Some of the photos looked like I’d dusted them with sand when I took them! Still, a slow shutter shot of water breaking over the Forth & Canal lock gates saved the day and got PoD.

When we got home I found that Jamie and Sim had sent videos of the transformation of their house into a gigantic Christmas parcel, complete with Halloween scary mummy!  Fascinating to see the 16th century method of hand crafting a roof, but I’m sure they will feel so much warmer and more secure with the 21st century  tech replacing it.

Later  we watched another contestant reaching his limit on Strictly. He might have a nice smile, but I feel he has, as we used to say at school, “plateaued”. I may be wrong, but the two armchair judges here say his time is up.

Tomorrow is Sunday and I’m hoping for a lazy day.

 

What a fun day! – 1 November 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Yes, sarcasm again.

Today was dull, wet and occasionally windy. A good day to spend almost all the morning planning what I was going to do with the iMac and almost all of the afternoon finding the plan didn’t work. Macs big selling point has always been that they are really easy to work with and forgiving. Not mine. It simply refused to boot and came up with a friendly message telling me that it had restarted because of a problem and that I should press a key, any key to get it to do it again. If it wasn’t for the fact that it’s made of aluminium, I think I’d have set it on fire. However, it wasn’t as if I was going anywhere with rain lashing the windows, so I had a plate of Scamp’s excellent Potato and Leek soup.

I did wander out into the garden for the few minutes it was dry in the afternoon and grabbed a few shots of leaves and the flowers that are still growing in the garden. When the rain restarted, (just like the computer) I came back in and rejoined the fight against technology. I reread my notes on how to boot an iMac using an SSD and then watched the video by Andrew Tsai again to find where I’d made my mistake. Found it and dealt with it with just enough time to drive up to the British Legion for tonight’s dance class which would include Tango and Quickstep with the possibility of a Waltz thrown in. We actually did quite well in the tango thanks in no small part to Scamp’s lesson in the late afternoon. So well, in fact that Kirsty, who runs the class, praised us in front of the whole class on the way we synchronised our kicks and flicks! Embarrassing, but in a good way. We managed the simple steps of the quickstep and also added in the optional fancy steps. We didn’t really get a chance to dance the waltz, but we did a couple of rounds of the floor when the rest of the folk were putting their jackets on.

Back home I followed most of Mr Tsai’s instructions to the letter and surprisingly it worked. It took about two hours to go from a black screen to a colourful screen showing Elgol in all its glory and most of the software back in place. Thank goodness. I was really starting to believe it was a goner this time.

PoD was one of the five photos I took today and it’s a leaf from a Gooseberry. Bush. No sketches, because Inktober is over for another year.

Tomorrow more rain is forecast but we may go for a drive somewhere in Paisley and with a bit of luck there will be tea and teabread!

Dancin’ – 28 October 2023

Posted on by Zogman

Actually a very interesting and useful dance class for a change!

It was a pleasant drive to Brookfield today. Light traffic on the motorway and a blue sky with fluffy white clouds overhead. A marked difference to the dark grey clouds hanging over the Campsie Fells when we left the house.

There is a children’s dance class in the hall before us now. Normally they aren’t a problem, but lately they have been taking longer and longer to pack up which eats into our class time. They were even later this morning and we only had a one hour time slot due to The Committee needing to set up the hall for their Halloween party tonight. I don’t think our teachers were very pleased and we got the impression that words would be said to the organising Committee.

The teachers made good use of the limited time we had for the class but the Sally Ann Cha-Cha that was the warm-up was a shambles. Nobody seemed to know where they were going and no two couples were in time with each other. Thankfully, things got better after that. We started with the Tango which got tangled with Kirsty’s tango in our heads and it took a few tracks before we were entirely happy with it. But we did manage to master the Prom Turn to Rock Turn with a bit of help from Jane. It had baffled us a fortnight ago.

Next up was Joy’s Waltz which we sort of know, but are not fully cognisant with. We sorted out a few problem steps in it too with help from Stewart.

Last dance of the morning was the Quickstep and Scamp devised a neat shortened version of the routine that would allow us to dance it without stopping. Clever teacher, Scamp! And with that our hour was up and the class was over.

We drove home through equally light traffic. I don’t know what happened today to give us a record time of just over 30mins for the run home.

We both had a fairly lazy hour after lunch, reading and basking in the sunshine while I chased an errant bluebottle round the house but didn’t catch and release it until much later in the afternoon. I think it found its way in while Scamp was in the garden, potting up a Yew tree she’d asked Jamie to bring up. She was also increasing her numbers of pelargoniums and geraniums by taking cuttings of both.

Dinner was to be Fish Risotto and we didn’t have any smoked fish in the freezer, so I booted up and went for a walk over St Mo’s, then down the path behind the school that would take me to the shops. That’s where I found todays PoD. It’s a bit weird looking, which is ok for Halloween, I suppose, but it’s actually the seed pods of a clump of Flag Irises that grow in a boggy area beside the path I liked the colours and the shapes of the seed pods and the seeds themselves. I may go back tomorrow and collect some seeds to sow. Don’t know if they will grow or not. We’ll find out some day, hopefully.

Prompt for today was “Sparkle”. I don’t have a very sparkling personality, but I did think up today’s sketch which was a pink ice cream sundae with sparklers sticking out of it. A splash of paint and a cherry on the top made it look quite festive, I thought!

The dinner worked very well and the bluebottle was released into a cold Saturday evening.

Tomorrow we’ve to have heavy rain all day, but an hour extra in our bed. Don’t know if I will take that walk over to St Mo’s to collect some seed. We’ll see.

 

Climbing Higher – 26 October 2023

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Today the climbers were off to Ben Lomond hoping to bag a Munro.

While the mountaineers were driving to Rowandennan to start the climb, we were happy to have and extra hour or two’s snooze.

The first thing we chose to do was have a quick practise of the Tango which I thought I had down pat. That’s all I’ll say at this time.

Afterwards we dragged ourselves out into the real world, and drove over to Tesco for the inevitable shopping. We did add a couple of extra things just for the visitors and just for fun.

In the afternoon I went for a walk in St Mo’s hoping the sun might shine through the clouds. It did, but only on the distant Campsie Fells, but not on Cumbersheugh. A mist had come down just after midday, but then a breeze made it disappear, leaving water droplets on some of the weeds. One weed in particular had a spiderweb with wee beads of water. That became PoD on a dull Scottish day.

The climbers returned after their trip to the peak of Ben Lomond. Munro bagged! Simonne had some beautiful photos taken from just below the peak but the photos from the actual Trig point were covered by mist and rain. It’s Scotland. It’s like that. They just had time for a quick shower before heading off to dinner with Andrew, Cat and the kids.

Dinner was Monday served on Wednesday, ie Pasta. Actually Penne pasta and a very nice sauce with three types of tomatoes: baby tomatoes, blitzed plum tomatoes and passata. Don’t know what I did right but we both enjoyed it and I doubt if I’ll be able to make it like that again.

While they were off eating again, we drove to midweek dance class with Kirsty and a chance for me to prove that I didn’t have it down pat after all. Despite all Scamp’s encouragement, I just couldn’t confidently get it right every time. Finally I asked the teacher to lead me through it and it worked. That doesn’t mean she is better than Scamp, just she explained it differently and probably hauled me round with more confidence. After that we got the entire Tango to work almost every time.

Today’s prompt was “Dangerous”. I could have drawn almost anything to fulfil today’s prompt of ‘Dangerous’. In the end I settled for a lion. A pretty dangerous beast by all accounts.
With that said, according to the BBC, it is only the 10th most dangerous creature in the world. The Mosquito is the biggest killer with Humans in second place. Makes you think!

We drove home through driving rain again and when Jamie and Simonne returned we sat and talked for an hour with a wee drink to mark what was really the end of a great week. Unfortunately Jamie was driving tomorrow, so he had to abstain from the drinking.

Tomorrow will probably be another early rise, but a sad one.

Windy & Wet – 19 October 2023

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Windy and Wet sort of sums up the day.

Today we woke to rain on the back window and a blustery, gusty wind at the front. It wasn’t going to be a nice day, that was for sure.

I think we lay too long this morning because everything seemed to happen in a rush after that and before we knew it, it was time to get dressed to go out to the tea dance at Glenburn. I wasn’t looking forward to the drive over the Kingston Bridge and then onto the M77 before navigating the labyrinth of streets that take us around the north of Paisley to the community centre where the dance is held. I needn’t have worried, because the roads were fairly clear for once, a combination of warnings on the TV and radio about high winds and torrential rain, and the fact that the schools were on October holiday. So we arrived in plenty of time to a nearly empty dance hall.

People did trickle in during the first quarter of an hour, but the floor did look a bit empty, compared to what it usually looks like. We danced Waltz Nioli to two waltz tracks and made a reasonable fist of it. Then a sequence dance, any one, they’re all mostly the same. Next up was a Cha-Cha which we finished, but that’s about all we could say about it. We tried to do the Tango we’d learned last night at Kirsty’s class, but I’d forgotten the steps right at the end. I don’t know if that would have improved it at all, but later, when we got home we did have a look at the video of the steps Kirsty had demonstrated and we’d danced through a couple of times. Suddenly it all fell into place. More practise needed for next Wednesday. It would have been rather a dull tea dance if it wasn’t for David and Carol injecting a bit of humour into the proceedings. I enjoy their company and sense of humour.

Drove back home by the usual M77, M73, M80 after we’d navigated the labyrinth again. Even the motorways were a lot less congested than usual.

Back home I decided I needed a walk in the park to clear my head and to get a couple of photos. Actually I got seven, but very few of them were worthwhile, which strengthens my argument for taking a break from “one photo a day” for a while. PoD went to a low viewpoint photo of some of the leaves that had been shaken from the trees by a combination of wind and rain.

Today’s sketch was finished just after midnight last night. A ten minute sketch that took about fifteen minutes if the truth be told. The prompt was ‘Plump’. This one was a bit of a struggle. I couldn’t think of anything that would fit the prompt, but then I remembered Tweedledum and Tweedledee from Alice in Wonderland and the brilliant Matt Lucas characters. Fifteen minute sketch and done!

Lots of things to do tomorrow, mainly preparing for the visitors to arrive. Hope the weather is kind to them.

Windy – 18 October 2023

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It was a breezy old day today.

We have been bombarded with warnings of extreme weather from Storm Babet from now until the weekend. We seem to be on the edge of it with a yellow warning in place for heavy rain in the next few days. The wind did get up later in the day, but earlier it seemed quite normal.

We spoke to Hazy in the morning and heard about Neil’s chest infection which has kept him off work today and given Hazy the opportunity to get her nurse’s uniform on. We discussed the progress of Nelly the split rock’s new split that seems to be progressing really well.

After we said “Cheerio”, Scamp and I drove to Tesco and bought a few odds and ends to feed our visitors who are hoping to arrive on Saturday after a long drive..

After lunch, we turned the sofa in the back room into a bed, stripped it and put on fresh sheets. We also completed the transformation of the back bedroom from a dumping ground into something that people would want to sleep in. Still some hoovering (Dysoning) and a bit of dusting to do, but the transformation is nearly complete. I even washed the window so the chilli plants could look out!

With that done, I felt it was time to go out for a walk in the wild outdoors and took the A7 out for a walk in St Mo’s. While I was out, Scamp started the prep for tonight’s Smoked Fish Curry. It’s a really old recipe from a book bought in Woolworth’s! That will give you and idea just how old it is, and it was originally for Egg Curry, but it works really well with smoked fish too.

There wasn’t much to see in St Mo’s but I did get a little cameo of an aspen leaf pierced by a reed spike and that was PoD sorted. Inktober prompt for today was Saddle. Instead of the obvious horses saddle, I drew my bike saddle. I’d completed a fairly rough pencil sketch last night, but wasn’t sure how to finish it. I tried using black ink from a brush pen, but that just didn’t look right, so I redrew it in pencil and then drew over it with a couple of ink pens. That left it as a line drawing to which I added some texture and shading … badly. Still, it fitted the brief and it’s up on Flickr now.

Dancing tonight was busy, busy, busy with six couples vying for a space on the dance floor to show off their Tango skills. It was a short dance, but with enough interesting moves to make our feet do a bit of thinking. I really like Kirsty’s style. She dances the man’s part, then the woman’s part, then to finish she enlists one of the good lady dancers to be her partner for the couple dance. What was a complicated set of moves, suddenly becomes a lot easier.

I think we may be going out into the wild weather tomorrow to go to a tea dance at Glenburn. Let’s hope we don’t get blown or washed away!

Back in the old regime – 14 October 2023

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Driving to Brookfield today for the first class in ages.

Ah, but what a pleasant drive it was. No 40mph stretches of the motorway and no restricted lanes. What a delight that was, but how long will it last before the next phase starts? It doesn’t matter, because at least we had a stressless drive for once.

Not stressless in Brookfield. We started with the Charnwood Cha-Cha which Scamp was at pains to tell me that we’d done it before. I did remember bits of it and eventually it began to flow as it should.

Next was a new dance that was called the Ria Bachata. It was familiar up to a point. The steps were bachata steps, but the speed of the music was far too fast. It was more like a cha-cha bachata. I wasn’t impressed, but apparently we’ll be dancing it at the next ball in November, so we better start practising.

Next up today was the Tango which we learned years ago on Zoom during lockdown. This version was different, much more precise than our simple tango. Also there was a new step to master before the final “X Line” splits! Neither of us can remember its name, but I think we’ll be leaving it out of our tango version.

Finally there was the Foxtrot which I was quite confident at dancing until I came to the Continuous Hover Cross. Despite Stewart demonstrating it with Scamp and Jane dancing it with me, it felt different again from what we learned a couple of years ago. Maybe I just need to go back to those old videos and try to find our version of it. I remember it took me a long time to master it and I don’t want to go through that again.

That may be the last lesson for some time as it seems unlikely that we’ll be going to the next class and the class the week after that has been cancelled because the hall committee are putting up decorations for Halloween.

We drove home and quite a while after lunch I went out to get some photos. Nothing really seemed to be working, but then I saw a man out walking two dogs and managed to frame him between two trees and Bingo! I hd a picture of the day. On the way back from my photo walk I dropped in at Golden Bowl and brought back a Chicken Chop Suey with Fried Rice for Scamp and a Special Chow Mein for me. Both of us agreed that was a good move.

Prompt for the day was Castle. I thought of drawing a real castle, but realistically, the Rook from a chess set would fit the bill as its alternative name is Castle. I drew it while half watching Strictly and that accounts for the poor symmetry of the castle.

Tomorrow it looks like it will be cold as it’s just above 0ºc just now. We might go out for a walk in Colzium to see the colours of the Acers.

Eureka! – 13 October 2023

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It worked.

<Technospeak>
I did what I should have done in the first place and read (actually listened to) the instructions on YouTube. The writer of the instructions was Andrew Tsai, a very clever bloke who was the first person I’d heard of who explained how to replace the internal mechanical hard disk in a computer with a solid state drive, an SSD for short. I listened to his instructions this morning and found my mistake. I’d gone for the quick and dirty approach when I should have taken the slow path. That’s what I did. I formatted the old scrambled SSD and then installed the new OS from a specially set up memory stick. That took an hour and a half. I knew I didn’t have time to do the next bit, because it was going to take a lot longer.
<\Technospeak>

By then I’d done Wordle and failed to find the Spelling Bee Pangram while waiting for the ping from the computer to tell me that it had finished the first install. We had a piece ’n’ jam each and got dressed to dance. Then we drove up to the town centre to one of the new churches that used to be a carpet shop next to B&Q, but today was the venue for a Tea Dance. We got there about fifteen minutes after the opening time and by then the room was about three quarters full. Also the car park outside was completely full with minibuses. My heart sank even further than it had yesterday. We WERE going to be the youngest folk in the hall.

There was a band, two guitars, a keyboard and drums and there was a singer. Scamp knew the keyboard player whose name was Alathea and went over to speak to her at the interval. Actually the musicians were really quite good, the singer, not so much. I thought we’d have to leave after half an hour, but eventually found Scamp’s method of tuning out sounds I don’t want to hear, and concentrated on listening to the band. One of the guys who dances at the Wednesday class arrived and we all sat and blethered for a while. We had our tea and a cake and Scamp and I did dance for a couple of tracks, but with a carpeted floor, anything other than a shamble across the floor was out of the question. After that, Jim left and so did we a few minutes later. We did learn that it was a once a year tea dance and the organisers were giving up after this one. I can’t say I blame them. Too many empty tables showing a lack of interest from our age group.

We drove home and I started on the second part of the marathon installation. This time it ran like clockwork and about an hour and a half later I had a working computer again running macOS Monterey. It looks no different to macOS Big Sur which it replaces, but I’m hoping I’ll be able to upgrade Lightroom now!

With only a couple of niggles to fix, I took a walk in St Mo’s to see if I could find anything worth photographing. I didn’t find anything inspiring, so I walked down to the shops and got some mozzarella to top the pizzas I was making for dinner. I took the long way home and risked a photo of the underpass that takes you through to Blackwood. Always something dodgy lying around there, but quite an interesting perspective. That got PoD.

“Rise” was the uninspiring prompt for the day. I ended up drawing a hot air balloon, or a giant light bulb, maybe. That must have been the poorest prompt so far this Inktober.

Tomorrow we’re intending to go to the dance class again, but hopefully the roadworks will now be clear … perhaps!

 

Oh what a beautiful morning – 11 October 2023

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And the makings of a beautiful day.

Scamp was out in the morning to have coffee with June. While she was out I found a subject for today’s Inktober prompt – “Wander”. I started work on it right away, drawing on a Seagate A4 sketchbook. I usually draw ideas to begin with in a cheap sketchbook, but have been caught out many times by working up a good sketch in them, then when I put a watercolour wash on them the paper soaks up the water, buckles and the sketch becomes a disaster area. Now I’ve learned to draw on decent quality paper that will hold the watercolour without falling apart. Yes, the paper is more expensive, but it saves a lot of swearing!

Lunch, when Scamp came in was, soup. Quite delicious soup. Then with the sun still shining I walked over to St Mo’s and found myself surrounded by dragonflies. Yesterday’s unseasonably warm weather coupled with today’s sunshine must have released a hatch of the insects. Mainly they were Common Darters with a few Black Darters too. I grabbed a few shots with the 85mm lens which performed really well, even if it didn’t allow me to get as close as a macro lens would. I also found a big clump of mushrooms that had appeared overnight. Again I think it was the weather than had encouraged them to sprout. This time it was the combination of warm weather and lots of rain, two things fungi thrive on. The mushrooms got PoD.

Back home Scamp was talking to her sister in Skye on the phone, but I didn’t hear much of the conversation because I was trying to scan in today’s sketch and post process the photos from the afternoon. We were going out to Kirsty’s dance class tonight, so I knew I had to get everything done as early as possible.

A photo of a tree beside the Luggie got ‘Explore’ on Flickr. I was quite impressed. It was almost OOC (Out Of Camera, meaning it had minimal processing). Second one in about a month!

Dinner tonight was a rather excellent fish ’n’ chips with beetroot. Not the best beetroot, but the fish made up for it. A lovely slice of cod!

There were only two couples for class tonight, but it was very useful. Plenty of room for dancing and also lots of tips from Kirsty about the little dance nuances I frequently forget. Lessons learned. She even got the chance to give us a quick and very short Quickstep routine to work on. Next week it’s Tango. Must remember a rose to hold in my clenched teeth!

Came home and opened the fridge door and the internal light went off. Oh No! Has the fridge been listening to us discussing replacing it? However, it was just the bulb that had blown. We’ll have to go out and source one tomorrow.

No other plans tomorrow. We’ll see what transpires.

 

A Wet Day – 4 October 2023

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We knew it was going to be a wet day, but there was no respite today.

It was a dreich day and no mistake. It started during the night and continued all day. There’s not a lot more I can say about the weather, so I won’t.

Spoke to Hazy in the morning and we caught up with all that’s happening down south. Oh yes, and she was phoning us on her new iPhone 15. Not that I’m jealous or anything, but it does look good. Wish you health to use it Hazy and a new one when it’s done! We discussed Nelly, the Pleiospilos Nelii or Split Rock she gave in June. It’s changing its shape and Hazy thought it was going to flower, but on closer inspection it looks like it’s getting ready to split and push out two new leaves. I look forward to seeing that happen.

After we said “Cheerio”, Scamp and I had lunch. Scamp had a cheese sandwich and I had the remains of the lamb shank I cooked on Sunday. After carefully warming it in the microwave, I added some gravy granules to thicken the juices that had appeared in the bowl and made a decent lunch out of it. A toasted slice of rosemary and green olive sourdough finished off lunch. Rosemary and green olive sourdough? What would my mum have made of that? I’m sure she would have tried it, but would she have liked it? I think she would have. I don’t think my dad would have thought!

With Nelly still on my mind, I set up a tripod in the back bedroom and photographed that strange wee succulent. If you look carefully at the photo you can just see the spotted pale green leaves beginning its push up towards the light. That was PoD sorted.

I spent what was left of the afternoon sketching out my take on Dodge, today’s prompt. Yes it’s another cartoon, but it’s just for fun anyway. I never said I was an artist and maybe this proves it.

We drove up to the dance class in intermittent rain. I think this was our last full attempt at the Waltz Naioli. I’m feeling much more confident about it now and I think we could dance it in public now. It was a struggle at the start, but Kirsty is a very patient teacher who goes over and over the tricky parts of the routine. She’s nowhere near as patient as Scamp is though, but between them I can see the progress I’ve made. I didn’t want to come off the floor tonight, that’s how much I’ve enjoyed this dance. Thank you ladies!

Alex and I were supposed to be going to Paisley tomorrow, but the weather looks like a watered down version of today. The water being rain. So we’ve decided to meet in Glasgow, have a coffee and go for lunch. I think that sounds really sensible.