Deer – Page 5 – My Photo Blog

The end of summer – 28 March 2017

Posted on March 28, 2017 by Zogman

Like they say, “What a difference a day makes”. Gone were the blue skies, gone was the sun, and with it the warmth. At least it was dry, but the forecast for tomorrow is for wall to wall rain. That being so, I rest my case m’lud. The end of summer.

Up and out early to take the Megane to the garage for new front brake disks and pads and a new trackrod . Spoken like someone who knows exactly what they are. I know what brake disks are and what the pads do. I’ve also got a basic knowledge of what a trackrod does and the fact that it’s got an end, probably a beginning too. What I can say for certain is that, combined, they cost pennies short of £300 which was duly paid around lunchtime when I went to collect the car. A car that will now stop when you tell it to, and one that will go round corners properly.

Earlier, partly to take my mind off the fact that the Megane was under the knife, and partly because we needed ‘messages’, Scamp drove me to Asda at Robroyston with the inevitable coffee at Costa afterwards. It was there we saw a *STAR*. ’Shellsuit Bob’ from River City, no less! Looking much the same as he does on TV. Our lives will not be the same from now on, knowing that ’Shellsuit Bob’ is a real person. We watched River City tonight knowing that we had been sitting within feet of a *STAR*.

After lunch and having picked up the car, the sky lightened a bit and I went out to see what I could see (and photograph) over in St Mo’s. Took my new favourite lens with me, hoping for some macro shots. It’s amazing what you see when you’re looking for close-ups. Most of todays pics were taken with the D7000 and Sigma 105mm combo. Obviously the deer shot was taken with the 300mm end of the Tamron, and it looked quite good.

Hopefully off for beer and pizza with the Auld Guys tomorrow … in the rain.

Deepan’ Crispan’ Deevan’ – 21 March 2017

Posted on March 21, 2017 by Zogman

It’s snow, of course and that’s what we woke to today. Not that deep and not that crisp as the temperature was three above zero and very uneven. In fact it was just a scraping of show, but then, as I was making the breakfast, the snow returned, blown along by Windy Willie’s wild westerly wind. Now, that’s what you call alliteration!

Once we realised that we wouldn’t be snowed in any time soon, we decided to go to Falkirk to retrieve a ring, a substitute wedding ring, that Scamp had handed in last week for repair. Not long after I retired we went to Ayr and Scamp tripped and damaged her hand. I thought her finger was broken, but it was just badly staved. So badly staved that the wedding ring had to be cut off because it was restricting the blood supply to her finger. That was almost three years ago. It took a long time to get the ring repaired, but today we picked it up from the jeweller looking as good as new. Driving home was a challenge with torrential rain, hail and sleet driving straight towards us.

When we got home and had lunch, the wet stuff had stopped and the sun had come out again, so it was boots on and out to St Mo’s. I took the Big Dog with the macro lens and the E-PL5 with a 20mm lens. A nice combo. Just waked into the woods and saw two deer grazing down the path. They were crosswind to me, so didn’t sniff my deodorant I crept down the path walking on the grass, not on the broken twigs, so they didn’t hear me either. It would have been better to have brought the 300mm Tamron, but the macro gives such good quality results that I wasn’t all that worried. The landscape is from the 20mm lens, another good quality lens.

Got home and did a bit of messing around painting the hills with snow on them. Four miniatures in different colour schemes and another four ready for finishing tomorrow.

Tomorrow? Not got a clue. According to the weatherman, the snow will be gone and the weather is set fine. As usual, we’ll see.

Visitors – 14 March 2017

Posted on March 14, 2017 by Zogman

So, what of today then? Jackie was coming down from Skye to stay for a night before going to Embra tomorrow for a meeting, so the painting room/sewing room/back bedroom had to be cleared of extraneous junk, so that would take up most of my morning.

Got stuck in and was doing quite well until Hazy phoned and then I just had to talk to her, so the clearing up was put on the back burner for a short while, but only for a short while, then I decided to hang some of my recent paintings, so that meant some of the older ones had to be removed into storage, ie hidden behind painting board or anything else I could find. After a few hours work with extra time for phone calls and gallery reconstruction, it was done. Well, not so much done as there was now room for anyone to walk into the room, find the sofa bed and possibly, only possibly make it to the window without tripping over some essential piece of tech. That’s when I found that the steam iron had still had some water in its reservoir when I put it down on my PC laptop which was sitting on my printer. Now both had dripping pools of water. Oh dear. The main thing was it was a PC and therefore expendable. If it had been the MBP it would have been a totally different matter and I wouldn’t have been sitting here typing this. With the aid of a few cloths and some kitchen paper the disaster was averted – I think. It still works, but the fan is making some strange noises now. I’ll leave it to dry out properly before I investigate further.

After lunch which was soup from a Tesco recipe, good, but not great, I floated around waiting for decent weather to arrive and entice me out to St Mo’s to grab some photos. I did get a couple of shots of bluetits on the bird feeder, but they were little more than grab shots. There was a blustery wind and fleeting sun splashes with heavy rain showers in between. Finally, I decided to brave it and just go out into the wild weather and do it. As you would expect with such blustery conditions, there wasn’t a lot to photograph. Some ducks and swans on the pond and a couple of deer – too far away to be any use – there was little of interest. I did get a shot of some trees against an interesting sunset sky, but that was it. What I did do was a stupid thing. I ran out of shots on the SD card, so had to delete some of yesterday’s frog pictures. In doing that, I accidentally deleted the bluetit pictures from lunchtime. Unfortunately the D7000 does not have and ‘undo’ function. Thankfully when I got home I found a demo of a data retrieval prog – Diskdrill – that allowed me to retrieve the JPG versions of the shots and save them to disk. You really need the full version of the app, not the demo, to do it properly, but I still managed it. Thankfully because they were high resolution images I got some editing done.

Jackie and June arrived and we had Trinni stewed chicken and Scamp’s Pineapple Snow for pudding with chilli sauce. Delicious again.

A good night after a wild day. No plans for tomorrow.

Bow Tie – 14 January 2017

Posted on January 14, 2017January 15, 2017 by Zogman

Firstly, you will have noticed that there is no photo of the bow tie. That’s because it’s not quite finished yet. It’s a prototype, made from a pillowslip, not something you’d expect to wear to a posh do, but essential as a practise piece. I learned a lot from making it and I made it exactly as if it was made from the finest silk. I stuck closely to the instructions and followed every step. I made mistakes along the way, but hopefully I have learned from them. Tomorrow I hope to iron (yes, along the way I’ve also learned how to iron) the prototype and finish off the sewing. I might even try to tie it. Every day’s a school day.

After the sewing session, we drove to Vecchia Bologna for lunch. The place was mobbed, Scamp said it was the end of an Itison voucher offer. We had to wait a little longer than usual for the food, but when it came, it was as good as ever. Neither of us wanted or particularly needed anything in Stirling, so we just drove home and I went out for a walk through the ice and snow to St Mo’s. Managed to surprise two deer, but the quality was so poor, they didn’t get published. I did, however like the shots from the Oly 5 with the 9mm lens and that’s what you see above.

Tonight, I made some scones and have bread proving as I write this hoping to get it baked later. Baking scones, baking bread, sewing and ironing. Don’t tell me I’m not in touch with my feminine side!

As a bit of serendipity, you should read what I wrote last year on the 14th of January. There should be a link to ‘A Year Ago Today’ at the bottom of the right hand column. Navigate to the 14th from there. Amazing synchronicity!

An Old Friend Returns – 28 December 2016

Posted on December 28, 2016 by Zogman

Today we drove in to Glasgow, but not for shopping. We went down Glasgow Green for a walk. A walk down The Green is usually a Sunday pursuit, but today was dry and open, so we chose to do our Sunday walk on a Wednesday – just for a change.

There were a few folk out walking off the Xmas excesses. Some folk had even taken to the water to do some serious rowing. There were even some like me who were out taking photos. It was a fine day for it with low sun and some clouds to make the sky that bit more interesting. A most enjoyable walk, but the best was yet to come.

We always use to complete our walk with a coffee and a roll ’n’ sausage (for me) and a peppermint tea and toast (Scamp) in the Wintergarden of the People’s Palace. Until, that is, the day when a glass panel fell from the roof of the Wintergarden some time in July. Since then the Wintergarden has been closed. Today it was open again and it was quite full of families too. Even better, they had fresh rolls, fresh bread and fresh sausages. The coffee was real. Not like yesterday’s brown water, this was coffee. Brilliant!

After my Sunday lunch I usually go for a walk round the plants because these are plants you only get to see in a large, enormous glasshouse like this. Today was no exception. It looks like the gardens section of Glasgow Council has taken the opportunity to remodel the gardens while it was closed and the difference is quite dramatic. It take it all back Glasgow Council. You’ve done a great job here.

We needed some milk when we got back, so rather than drive to Tesco, Scamp decided to walk to the local M&S to get some and I came along for the walk. On the way back, I carried on with my walk round St Mo’s while Scamp went home. I managed to get my first decent shots of a couple of deer in a long while. I could see the animals grazing quite contentedly upwind from me through the cover of some pine trees and I was able to get the camera set, focused and ready before I quietly broke cover and got the first few shots. Then they sensed something and their heads came up. I stayed stock still for a few minutes still taking a few more shots before they went back to grazing. My next step broke a twig and that was all the warning they needed. They were off, running and jumping. I hammered off about 10 shots in motor-wind mode before they were lost in the bushes. That was it for photography today. Happy, I went home.

Tomorrow is booked solid for Scamp, so I’m free to do as I please. I may get my hair cut, ‘cos it’s a ‘Pure Afro’ as we say in this house!

Easy Deer and Witches – 16 December 2016

Posted on December 16, 2016December 16, 2016 by Zogman

Busy morning with bread to bake and tidying up to do. Then it was out for coffee with Val and Fred P.

Bread baked and the living room looking less like a bomb site, I headed out to meet Val and Fred. Val needed a standard lens for his DSLR and I had a spare that I wasn’t using, so it made sense to pass it on. Fred has been supplying me with good music all year, so now was time for me to redress the balance with some CDs. That with some coffee and a lot of good humour took up most of the afternoon. Fred showed me some photos he’d taken of an artwork at the dreadfully dull out of town shopping centre that is Glasgow Fort. It’s been built at Easterhouse and in the past, a fort was indeed what that area of Glasgow needed, Fort Apace. I decided that I’d go and see what the Fort now had to offer in the way of photographic opportunities. It turned out it was indeed an interesting and entertaining array of street art. Just what the Fort needed. The other thing it needed was a bookshop to replace the greatly missed Borders that closed its doors almost exactly seven years ago. Waterstones has moved in to fill that space and although it isn’t officially open until tomorrow, it’s looking good and will be an oasis of calm for the guys who are dragged there by their spouses.

When I got home, Scamp’s annual Witches Christmas Party was in full swing, so after a word or two to all the guests, I removed myself to the ‘Painting Room’ for a bit of peace and quiet. Both ‘Peace’ and ‘Quiet’ were achieved with the use of a pair of Panasonic over-ear headphones while playing Dylan’s 1966 Albert Hall Concert at full volume. I also got the crumbs from the Rich Wo(Man’s) Table in the form of Crab Cakes, Lentil Soup and Chicken Pithivier. Not exactly crumbs either as there were copious amounts of all but the crab cakes.

I lived in the little back room working on a ringtone for my brother-in-law (why do Apple make such a simple task so difficult and convoluted?) before it was time for the merry witches to be on their way back to their respective homes.

It only happens once a year and they all enjoy it. I have to admit that I do too, but don’t tell them that.

Tomorrow? We may be heading for the second capital city of Scotland, but I dare not say its name for fear we will once again be forced to postpone.

A bright sunny day – 23 November 2016

Posted on November 23, 2016 by Zogman

It was a very bright morning and a very cold morning too, but I decided to get up early (well before 10am) and get out for a walk in the frosty air. It was quite a good decision. I took the Nikon with the 70 – 300mm lens and the 105mm macro too. Just in case there was a decent chance of getting some landscape shots, I took the Oly EPL5 with a 12-32mm lens. It’s a compact wee camera and lens and can fit easily into my pocket. Suitably dressed in warm clothing I headed over to St Mo’s and got some decent shots of the frozen plants and stuff. Only saw a couple of deer in the distance and didn’t have a chance of capturing them in Ones and Zeros on the card. Came home and had a hot shower to heat myself up and a cup of coffee to warm me internally while I processed the shots and uploaded three of them to Flickr, the three above. That was the end of my photographic endeavours for the day.

After lunch which was a couple of bowls of Scamp’s excellent soup, we drove up to the docs to see what medication we needed for foreign climes. It turned out that we needed a Hep A booster and a Tetanus. Neither were essential, but we decide we’d be better with them as they’re free anyway.

After that it was time to sort the dinner and get ready for Wednesday Salsa. As usual, it was cold in the hall, but after a full beginners class we were helping in and an ‘advanced’ class, we were feeling the heat. The advanced class was nowhere near as demanding as our Monday group, but did give us some well needed exercise.

It looks like another cold night tonight and an equally cold day tomorrow. Coffee with Val tomorrow and maybe a trip into town after that.

Fish – 18 October 2016

Posted on October 18, 2016October 20, 2016 by Zogman

This morning we drove to Linlithgow to get some fish. It was either Linlithgow (which has an actual fishmongers) or Morrisons in Falkirk (which has a good fish counter – no, he doesn’t actually count the little fishes, it’s not that sort of counter). We opted for Linlithgow because it’s quite scenic, if a little twee and I might just find something to photograph. It was a bad move.

I’d forgotten that Linlithgow actually welcomes people to park cars, vans and lorries at the side of the narrow road. It also encourages farmers to drive their massive pumped up tractors and slurry tanks at full legal tilt down the congested main street. Today, just to confuse the unwary and annoy me in particular, they also decided to start roadworks at the three way roundabout at the end of the town with three way traffic lights to raise the blood pressure of all and sundry. This meant a crawl behind a snaking caterpillar (is that mixed metaphors?) of cars, vans and buses through this historic town. We did eventually get to the carpark and the fishmongers and get the fish, but I couldn’t be bothered going to get some photos and end up getting mired in more traffic chaos to get back out of the town. I wanted to get the dinner on by about 5pm and it was already after 1pm. I wasn’t sure we’d get out of the congestion by 5. As it happened, the traffic heading west was easy peasy and we scooted home in double quick time.

When I took the shopping bag with the fish out of the boot there was a decidedly fishy smell coming from it, but hey, there WERE fish in the bag, what do you expect. It wasn’t until we were unloading the shopping bag that we noticed a few of the individual bags were leaking fishy juices into the shopper. Oops, straight into the washing machine with that then.

Since we’d made such good time coming home, I thought I’d take myself off for a walk before dinner and I’d drive down to Auchinstarry for a change. Dumped my camera bag in the boot – fishy smell still there, and off I went. Got to Auchinstarry and while retrieving my camera bag I spied the culprit. The lining of my lightweight rainproof jacket was soaked with fishy goodness. That explained the smell. Hmm, straight into the washing machine with that too when I get back.

Today’s photos:

Young deer hiding in dried reeds. It didn’t run because it knew there was a 3m drop and a 5m wide torrent to cross before I’d be anywhere near.
Two young horsewomen riding through the trees. Incongruously, one of them was smoking a fag (cigarette to any American readers who may be conjuring up very strange images 🙂 )
Bramble leaves soaked with sugar (that’s what makes the colour). I promised myself that I wouldn’t photograph leaves this autumn. That didn’t last long.
Abandoned farmhouse on the Campsie Fells. Lovely warm textures from the glancing sunlight attracted me.
Crows and pigeons rising from their late afternoon feed in the corn field. A bit of fakery in this shot to lighten the corn without lightening the trees too much in the background.

Today’s Inktober is an old house near the railway walk. In real life, it’s gloomier than this sketch shows, but it’s a fair representation of this old and rather sinister looking house. It sits behind a wood and from the path you are looking through the trees at it. I only managed a quick, twenty minute max, sketch before the midgies really got to me and I had to move on.

So, back to the house and dump that waterproof jacket in the washing machine. Thankfully it’s made of nylon, so I’m hoping:

It will still be waterproof
The smell won’t he stuck in the fibres

I’ll find out tomorrow when it’s dry again.

Tonight’s dinner was Simple Fish Stew which came from BBC Good Food. Recipe here.

More sunny spells expected tomorrow. Viva the Jet Stream!

PS To those who didn’t get the photos, but presumably have them now, the WiFi died last night and didn’t come on again until this morning. Virgin Media apologises for the lack of connectivity – Aye Right!

Clingfilm – 11 October 2016

Posted on October 11, 2016October 11, 2016 by Zogman

A strange title, but hopefully all will become clear – like the clingfilm 😉

Lazy start to the day, but that usually happens on a Tuesday after a busy Monday with two hours of dancing and an hour of driving, then preparing the photos, posting them and then blog writing. I’m not moaning about, just explaining why we almost broke our self imposed rule of Up By Ten. The light seemed to be improving in the morning and I grabbed a few shots of the Gazanias in the hanging basket with their covering of raindrops from the showers during the night.

What to do with the rest of the day? We couldn’t decide where to go, because we had decided we’d go out. Dinner was sorted and we needed nothing extra for that. It was finally settled when Scamp said we didn’t have any cling film and that called for a visit to Lakeland. Scamp also wanted to get some flowers to plant in my raised bed for some winter colour. We could achieve both aims with a visit to Lakeland and Dobbies just outside Stirling. What exciting lives we lead when our day revolves around Clingfilm and Pansies!

We came back from Stirling over the Tak ma Doon road. Usually it’s a scenic road with plenty of opportunities for big-sky landscapes. Today heavy clouds had rolled in and everywhere was dull. Oh well, I still had the pics of the Gazanias to fall back on. Just to make sure, I went out to bother the wildlife in St Mo’s when we got back. Just missed Mr Grey, but he saw me and was off like as shot. More snails up trees. It seems that they favour Ash trees. Disturbed a couple of deer and this time I got a shot I liked. One young doe ran when she saw me, then turned and watched to make sure I wasn’t following, giving me the chance I needed to take the shot. I don’t know what kind of fly was on the tree in the other shot. It looked a bit like a mosquito, but on closer examination, the head looks more like a Jenny Long Legs (Crane Fly). Don’t know.

Today’s Inktober (Number 11) is of Monday’s Daily Sudoku which was completed yesterday (Monday) and was lying on the coffee table in front of me, so, like the hand yesterday, it wasn’t going to go anywhere. Fred P can do quick portraits or caricatures of people sitting near him in Costa and they always look like the subject. I just can’t draw fast enough to grab a likeness. It’s all about confidence I think. Anyway, I’m happy enough with today’s quick sketch. Made some more fruit scones tonight. I did think of sketching one of them, but they move off the plate too quickly.

Don’t know what’s happening tomorrow because we’ve got clingfilm now, so possibly no need to go out. Jamie G our Salsa teacher is off on business tomorrow, and we don’t know who will be taking the class. It’s not worth driving for an hour through Glasgow’s Wednesday evening traffic only to find it’s a, how shall I put this, less entertaining teacher. Maybe we’ll stay in and watch a film instead!

The Hottest Day of the Year – 19 July 2016

Posted on July 19, 2016July 19, 2016 by Zogman

Yesterday was hot, but today, oh today was even hotter. Over 33ºc in some places. Heavens, even Scotland had over 25ºc. What is the world coming to?

Scamp had decided that she was going to sit in the garden all day. A sensible decision given that the sun was going mad. We sat in the garden for a while watching movement in the pond. We couldn’t decide whether it was frogs or newts. We settled on ‘Frewts’ as the most likely suspects.

After lunch we went for a walk along past the golf course and had a couple of drinks at the clubhouse. It doesn’t seem as if you have to be a member, just as long as you’ve got money. We had money and I sampled another of these English IPAs which are very nice.

After we got back, Scamp went for more sunbathing in the garden while I went back to the wild woods to try to photograph some butterflies. I managed to get a Small Heath and a Comma. We don’t get Commas in Scotland, but apparently they are moving further north as a result of global warming. I saw a deer, but it was too fast for me and was away into the tall grass before I could get the camera ready. Also saw the pale blue dragonfly that I saw earlier in the week, but again, it wasn’t landing, just cruising, looking for a mate.

Canute and Delia came over for dinner which was an Indian take-away. Very entertaining evening. Just hope I can get to sleep in this really hot night.

Back North tomorrow. Heavy rain forecast!