Category: dragonflies

Not driving today – 19 September 2020

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Just a walk or two, but no alpacas, viaducts nor waterfalls.

We walked down round the Broadwood outdoor gym trail then back past the BMX track where I got told off for photographing the kids who were competing, without permission. Quite right too, but I’d never thought about it before. I’d always been covered by school permissions when I was photographing anyone in school. I should have known better and should probably have deleted the shots I took. None of them got past the first cull anyway.

Walked back past the shops and bought two curries for dinner tonight. As it turned out, they weren’t all that good. Maybe it was just going to be that kind of day.

Walked round St Mo’s later to try to get some photos and found a patient dragonfly that sat for me. There was very little else, although it was a lovely day.

Tomorrow we may go further afield.

Saying goodbye over the internet – 28 August 2020

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Strange days.

The day started with a webinar with the man from Falkirk. For once he didn’t have a lot to say for himself and the topics discussed by the man from Puma were way above my head. All about inheritance tax and the avoidance thereof. I don’t think that will bother us.

After lunch we said goodbye to an good friend, not a very old friend, we’d only known her for a few years, but she meant a lot to both of us and opened our eyes to a whole new world, literally. Who would have thought when we met her and Jaime that we’d be watching a live feed of her funeral in a nearly empty church in Trinidad from our own home, 4000 miles distant. Strange days.

After the service we went out for a walk round St Mo’s. Twice round the pond in the sunshine. Took some photos of the lazy dragonflies checking each other out. PoD was two competing males.

Tomorrow is an early rise for a drive to St Andrews to see Annette’s caravan.

A Sunny Spell – 24 August 2020

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Neither of us expected such a sunny day today, but we took it gladly.

Scamp was out this morning for coffee with her sister and her cousin. While they were out I completed my thumbnail sketch for my architectural painting and then worked on the light pencil sketch. None of the chunky sketch work of the Palomino Blackwing pencil, this was all done with a 0.7mm mechanical pencil. The groundwork is now almost finished, I just have to convince myself that the perspective at the front of the building is true. Once that’s done I can go on to the ink work. Phoned John and had a chat with him about the joys of retirement. Managed to finalise a date for them to come over for dinner. The last date was rather spoiled by a lockdown some time in March.

When Scamp returned with two plants from Isobel, we had lunch. After that we did a bit of gardening. Heavy duty pruning for me, using the loppers to get stuck into the big climbing rose at the back door. It’s now chopped down to head height and a bit straggly in places, but we’ll leave that until later in the year before we do the final tidying up, all being well. Scamp was finding places for the new plants to go.

Later in the warm afternoon we went for a walk round St Mo’s pond. Found two relaxed dragonflies and got a few shots. It turned out they were Common Darters, one male and one female. Just for future references, the male is smaller and red, the female is yellow ochre with red stripes down her back. They didn’t get PoD though. That went to a Harvestman which is not a spider although it looks like one. It’s in the order Opiliones and joins the spiders in the Arachnid group. It’s amazing what you learn. If you look closely you’ll notice that it only has seven legs. It appears it sacrificed one, probably to save its life.

Dinner was chicken curry made from a Holy Cow mix and half the left over chicken from last night. It was hot, but tasty. Excellent flatbread, even if I say so myself with the additional secret ingredient of two dollops of coconut yogurt.

Tomorrow I’m intending meeting Val for coffee. Tried to phone Colin but it went to voicemail and Val hasn’t managed to get a reply from Fred.

Happy Birthday JIC – 16 August 2020

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I’m glad you got more sunshine than we did for your birthday.

This Sunday started dull, as so many other days have started recently. We had high hopes around midday when there was a fair glimmer of sunshine, but it didn’t last.

After lunch I made some bread. Unusually for me I made the dough by hand. Usually I bung everything into the mixer bowl and get the ‘Chef’ to do the hard work, all I do is adjust the water or flour proportions until it looks right. Today I did all the work and I really enjoyed it. Next on the food theme was a couple of burgers. I mixed 250g of steak mince with half an onion blitzed in the mini food processor, a small handful of breadcrumbs and half an egg to bind the lot together. Split the resulting mixture into two and made patties out of them. One went in the fridge to firm up, the other went in the freezer for a rainy day.

Hazy sent me a message to say that Amazon had reduced the price of all the books in the Slough House series by Mick Herron. I’d read and enjoyed the first four books, so here was a chance to get the last two for a quid each. Thank you very much Hazy! Two more books in the Kindle ready to read.

We finally gave up hope of a sunny afternoon around 3pm and went for a walk round St Mo’s pond with our rain coats on, just incase the wet stuff descended on us. It didn’t which made the walk a little more pleasant.

My friendly dragonfly posed for me on the boardwalk at St Mo’s. He didn’t make PoD because I guess everyone is fed up with so many macros of dragonflies and damselflies. Instead I chose a still life type shot of a little yellow leaf hanging on a grass stem. Very zen.

Dinner was new potatoes and roasted tomatoes with our choice of protein. Mine being beef burger, Scamp’s being salmon. Both were deemed fine. Washed down with the remains of yesterday’s white wine.

Spoke to JIC later on his birthday and promised him that the card is in the post and a small prezzy will be winging its way to him when I get myself in gear.

That’s about it for now. Scamp is booked for coffee tomorrow with Gems and I might start to watch a painting video I got yesterday.

A hot day after a fiery night – 12 August 2020

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Wild night last night with thunder and lightning around 3am.

As well as the Donner and Blitzen, torrential rain fell for most of the night I’m led to believe. “I didn’t see that, I only heard, but just to be sociable I took their word” (Today’s lyrical poetry comes from Ned Washington & Oliver Wallace). I heard the thunder and saw the lightning but was only vaguely aware of the rain thumping down. That rain though, did a lot of damage all over Central Scotland and even worse in the north east. Train derailed outside Stonehaven with three dead. The weather has not been blamed, but it hasn’t been completely ruled out.

Once the clouds had cleared here it was a lovely sunny day. Humidity was still a bit high, but nothing as bad as yesterday. I met Val up at Costa only to find that there were no seats. All the Yummy Mummies were there with their screaming weans. We decided to walk down to the other Costa, but it was just as bad, but like a dungeon because they thing using the lights will spoil the ambience. Ambience? It’s a coffee shop in Cumbersheugh. Nowhere in Cumbersheugh has ambience. Saving on electricity more like! Walked back towards the first Costa, but actually thinking about going to Calders new restaurant instead. The coffee can only be better than Costa. Surprisingly, there were plenty of seats. Most of the mummies and their weans had disappeared. Val solved the problem of the biz in the coffee shops. “Eat Out to Help Out” applies Mondays to Wednesdays and you get 50% off a meal. We found a seat and ordered £5 for two coffees and two toasted tea cakes. Bargain. Talked about everything from miniature computers to old cameras. Nearly everything we talked about was tech based, as usual. Walked back down the mall then Val said he was going for a walk to waste some time because his wife had girlfriends in and he wanted some peace and quiet. I said we’d meet up later, hopefully all four of us this time.

Back home and after lunch I took myself out to get some photos in St Mo’s. PoD was a picture of a spider I’d taken in the garden in the morning. Liked the pink/red background. Nearly PoD was a shot of a dragonfly resting in St Mo’s. I’d watched it return again and again to this perch, but simply couldn’t get the TZ90 to see it. Finally gave up and used the nuclear option (4K video Post Focus). When I got home I isolated the frame from the video that was as sharp as I was going to get, and here it is! Is this the future of photography?

We watched a couple of slide shows from Hvar last year at this time. It’s amazing the things you forget and then remember when you get the stimulus of a picture or a short video. Hvar is a lovely place. We’d love to go back there some time.

Tomorrow I may have to go and see what damage Ben has done to Shona’s bathroom door. I don’t know what else I can do to reinforce the door. Possibly a manacle round his ankle and fixed to a bolt in the living room floor would do the trick. Other than that, no plans.

A new member of the club – 11 August 2020

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My pal John joined the retirees club today, so I went to see how he was settling in.

Actually he’s settling in quite well and seems perfectly happy with the prospect of all those workless days stretching out before him. We tackled about old times, friends and colleagues we’ve known. “Some are bad and some are good, some have done the best they could. Some have tried to ease my troubled mind” Lyrics are like a form of modern poetry for the masses. That one was from Tom Paxton.

After an hour or so of walking down memory lane I took my leave and drove home, stopping on the way to see if Currys in Hamilton had the Sony camera I’ve been looking for. They had Canon cameras, lots of them, but little else. Of course, none of them had batteries in them. Either that or the batteries hadn’t been charged this year. Looked at a couple of tablets too, but wasn’t impressed. I was even less impressed with the traffic jam of people trying to get out the retail park. Roadworks. That bane of everyone’s life these days, and this in a 28º heat. Thankfully the air-con took most of the sting out of that. Had a quick look in Hobbycraft at the fort to see if there were any bargains – there weren’t, despite plenty of posters saying there were. Final stop was the ice cream shop in Muirhead for a litre tub of Scottish Tablet ice cream – That’s your fault Hazy for sending the WhatsApp message!!

After dropping off the ice cream, I went for a walk round St Mo’s because I’d nothing in the bag, photo wise today. Got a photo of my dragonfly model from yesterday, still posing for me, but PoD went to a mountaineering snail I saw. Not a lot else was moving in today’s overpowering heat. Humidity was high and the wind was very light, so I left a bit earlier than I’d intended and went home.

Dinner was Chicken Kebabs on a bed of Cauliflower Couscous. Sounds strange, but it tasted great – so did the tablet ice cream.

I enjoyed seeing Teflon John make a grovelling apology to all the pupils whose last week of the holidays he had completely destroyed with his decision to make the posh kids look smarter and the poor kids look stupid.  It didn’t work John.  They stood up to you and you had to back down.  Just shows that people-power does work sometimes.

Tomorrow I’m intending to meet Val for coffee and a wee chat about what’s new in the world of computers! Ah, normal service is being resumed at last.

A Dull Day – 10 August 2020

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Grey sky, low cloud, thunderstorms anticipated. It didn’t look like a fun day and it lived up to that prediction.

Grabbed a shot of two crane flies on the Red Juke. Unfortunately the red colour of the car predominated and wouldn’t be calmed down with software, so the only solution was to turn it into a monochrome image which suited the graphic style of the shot. That was about all that was happening in the morning.

After lunch we waited around for a while hoping the sun would make an appearance and that the clouds would lift. Neither of those things occurred. Finally went out for a walk myself to St Mo’s. Found a very obliging dragonfly, a Common Darter. Maybe even the same one I photographed the other day. It certainly had the same demeanour. It seemed quite happy to be photographed close up. I’d brought the 30mm macro on a Panasonic camera and it needs to be really close to the subject to get the real macro effect. That mean the dragonfly’s head was about 30mm from the front element. It didn’t flinch. I reckon it knew there was nothing in that metal and glass thing that could hurt it and anyway, these creatures live their entire flying lives in a couple of weeks. The are running on fast-forward all the time. It would be off before I could have done anything aggressive, not that I would have. A Terrible Beauty indeed. The front view was a ‘given’ for the PoD. I also got a decent side view as an ‘almost PoD’.

There were a tribe of teenagers wandering home with their half empty bottles of MD (aka Mad Dog) after making the most of the last few days of their extended summer holidays. Some would have been affected by the crazy decision of the SQA to mark down the grades of some of them because they come from an historically poorly performing school. I don’t think John Swinney has actually apologised for the decision, but Nick the Chick has and I applaud her for it. Swinney should really resign now, before he is booted out.  “Robust and Rigorous” were his catchphrases back in his days as an architect of the poorly thought out Curriculum for Excrement. There was nothing Robust or Rigorous about changing the grades teachers had given pupils on the grounds of the school’s previous record.  ‘Teflon John’. Nothing sticks, until it does.

Picked some of our own peas tonight and used them in a Pea & Prawn Risotto. It was quite good, but would have been better if more of the peas were ripe. Hopefully we’ll get them later in the month.

Thunder, Lightning, Rain and Hail forecast for tomorrow. Just another typical Scottish summer’s day.

Up early for a change – 9 August 2020

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I woke early, before 7am and couldn’t get back to sleep. I hate it when that happens.

Eventually gave up sat reading for a while. About half way through “Flowers For Algernon”. Really old book I remember from Larky library around the mid ‘60s. It’s quite dated now, but an interesting concept, none the less. Finally gave up completely and got up to make breakfast.

So, we were up fairly early for a change. It was a beautiful day. Not quite as hot as yesterday which was good. We did a bit of gardening. Actually, Scamp did a bit of gardening and I started fixing up the solar cell for Scamp’s new LED light string. Finally, after a few false starts, we go a good place for the solar panel. Just a little one about 75mm by 50mm, but enough to power the lights. Many years ago, probably about 30 years ago, we all visited an Eco centre in Wales and I bought some shards of solar cells, hoping to build a small solar pane. It never got made. The cells were too fragile and most got cracked on the way home. Amazing to think you can buy a solar panel which charges a NiMH battery which in turn powers a line of fifty LEDs all for around £4. Back then, you could only have Red, Yellow and Green LEDs. Bit massive things by today’s standard which drained a battery in about fifteen minutes. Not everything was better in “the olden days”.

With the lights strung up and tested and all Scamp’s potting up done, we adjourned for lunch. After lunch and a rest to let all that fatty goodness be digested, we went out for a walk round Broadwood Stadium avoiding kids on bikes trying to make the most of their last days of freedom before schools restart in the middle of the week. I’m sure there were teacher out there too, making the most of the last days of sunshine before they return to the grind. Oh, how I enjoy looking back at those last days of freedom from the standpoint of one who doesn’t need to do that ever again.

When we got back without having taken any meaningful photos, I grabbed a camera and went for a walk in St Mo’s while Scamp went to laze in the afternoon sunshine. I came home empty handed again. I’d seen yesterday’s big blue dragonflies, but they weren’t posing for me. They had far more important things on their minds, cavorting around the wee pond at St Mo’s.

Dinner was Sea Bream with Long Stem Broccoli and Potatoes. It is one of Scamp’s specialities and it tasted as good as usual. The starter was Bruschetta made with Italian crust bread I’d bought in Perth yesterday. Delicious too.

Watched the second British GP and enjoyed an interesting ending. Thankful really that we didn’t have to sit through the whole boring race. Nothing happened that couldn’t have been predicted by anyone who follows motorsport, with the possible exception of the fall of Vettel. It looks like he really has lost the plot. “Toys out of the pram” is the phrase that springs to mind.

Spoke to JIC and gave him a fleshed out version of yesterday’s announcement that our love affair with the Red Juke is sadly coming to an end and another Nissan has now taken its place, albeit a Nissan with one less cylinder in its engine.

PoD today went to a focus stacked image of one of Scamp’s favourite roses, the beautiful Troika. Focus stacking done in-camera and very neat it was too.

Tomorrow we may have to sign a contract to give some money to Mr Nissan for the chance to use one of his Blue Micras for a few years. Other than that and the chance of thunderstorms, hopefully another sunny day.

Here be dragons – 7 August 2020

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There wasn’t much to say about today other than it was a good day for dragonflies.

Scamp went shopping in the afternoon, in the huff because the rain came on this morning, just after we spoke to Hazy on the phone and heard about the predicted temperature down south. 35ºc is just too hot. We were all agreed on that. Maybe it was the thought of 35ºc down south and rain here that made her go off on a shopping expedition to Tesco. I stayed home and did nothing. I’m quite good at that now.

Later in the afternoon I went for a walk in St Mo’s and got today’s PoD which is an ultra close-up of a Common Darter dragonfly. Beautiful beast and quite deadly to other insects. This one was quite unconcerned and waited for me to finish my thirty odd shots of it before it flew away and I went home to make the dinner.

Actually I was desperate to see how the combination of an excellent lens and a clever camera had managed to combine 11 photos of the dragonfly into one much more detailed one. It was almost perfect and all done in about ten seconds. It might be quite an old camera now, but it can certainly beat a lot of more modern ones at this stuff.

When I got home the residual heat in the air had dried the grass and Scamp wasted no time in getting the lawn mower out and giving it a short trim. Meanwhile I sat in the garden with a cafe freddo (espresso over ice) and watched the bloke next door building something. He’s always building something. This one looked like a hexagonal pyramid, but we think it’s a gazebo to hold his jacuzzi. Last week he had a cloth gazebo to cover it, today it’s a metal framed one. Like Scamp says, it doesn’t intrude in us and I suppose it gives him something to sail his boats in.

Dinner was a hybrid. We got a sourdough pizza dough last week and today we used that pre-kneaded and already part risen dough to make the base of a pizza. It worked, kind of. The pizza was ok, but a bit tough, as a lot of sourdough breads are, but it was quite doughy in the middle. I think mine are better and Scamp agrees.

Phoned the nice man in Stirling this morning and hopefully we’re off there tomorrow for a test drive and to ask a few questions. Let’s see what the Micra has to offer.

Just one of those unpredictable days – 26 July 2020

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Rain and grey skies to begin the day. Brighter with blue skies to end it.

It’s Scotland, what do you expect. We sat watching the rain for most of the morning, then after lunch things started to improve and we guessed we could risk a short walk.

Before that, there were chilli plants to bring out into the sun and sweet peas to cut before they became too leggy. Also there was a fair wind blowing at times and Scamp was worried that the topmost growth would be broken, so better to cut it back a bit, rather than risk damage.

Since the sun was still shining, we walked over to St Mo’s and then went twice round the pond, because the breeze wasn’t too cool and the sun on our faces felt good, well, it did feel good to me, anyway. We even saw a dragonfly, the first for ages, weeks even. At first it was a bit skittish but then I think it realised we weren’t a danger to it and it settled on the boardwalk to allow me to photograph it. I’d only brought the 30mm macro lens which requires you to be fairly close to the subject to get a decent photo, but this little insect wasn’t bothered in the slightest, just as long as I didn’t make any quick movements, which I didn’t. Today’s PoD is testament to my patience and it’s relaxed approach to humans.

Back home it was almost dinner time and I’d a steak to cook. Scamp was having salmon as usual. The steak was just ok. It was a bit thinner than I’d expected and I think I over cooked it a bit. It was half price though, so I shouldn’t complain.

Painted Hazy’s little Joan of Art paint tin as a watercolour sketch. I painted it on a wee pad of watercolour paper I found. So much nicer to paint on than the sketch book which is better for drawing on.

The news today is that people returning from all of mainland Spain and its islands must self-isolate for 14days on return.  It looks like it’s not all over yet.  Personally I blame Bumbling Boris for bragging that it will all be over before Christmas.  I seem to remember that phrase from somewhere.  It was wrong then too.

It looks like the weather tomorrow will be wet, very wet at times. June may be visiting us. Let’s hope it’s not wet all day. I want some more dragonfly pictures.